Lesson 25 – الدَّرْسُ الْخَامِسُ وَالْعِشْرُونَ
The Declinable and the non-Declinable – الْمُعْرَبُ وَالْمَبْنِيُّ
Introduction - مُقَدِّمَةٌ
- This is lesson twenty five of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
- In this lesson we will learn the difference between the Arabic declinable and the Arabic non-declinable words, In-Shaa’-Allaah (God willing).
- We will study how the vowel endings in the declinable nouns are changeable according to the grammatical case and according to the position in the sentence. I.e. you can see a noun like /kitābun/ كِتَاب signed with /đammah/ on its end in a certain situation كِتَابٌ, and signed with /fatħah/ in another situation كِتَابًا, and signed with /kasrah/ in a third situation كِتَابٍ. This change in the ending of the word (according to its position in the sentence) means that the word is declinable. Consider the declension of the noun /kitābun/ in the following examples (please read from right to left):
| Explanation | Declension | Sentence | ||
| Case | Sign | English | Arabic | |
| The word /kitābun/ is a predicate, so it is in the nominative case signed with đammah on its end | Nominative | đammah | This is a book. | |
| The word /kitāban/ is a direct object, so it is in the accusative case signed with fatħah on its end | Accusative | Fatħah | I took a book. | |
| The word /al kitābi/ is Muđâf ilaihi, so it is in the genitive case signed with kasrah on its end | Genitive | Kasrah | The color of the book is beautiful. | |
- We will also learn the indeclinable words, i.e. the words which do not change according to their position in the sentence. The indeclinable words have constant endings whatever their position in the sentence is. Consider the ending of the demonstrative noun /dhālika/ ذَلِكَ in the following three sentences:
| Explanation | Indeclension | Sentence | ||
| Place of (case) | Sign | English | Arabic | |
| Although the word /dhālika/ is a subject in the nominative case, but it is signed with fatħah as a constant ending. | Nominative |
Fatħah (always indeclinable on the fatħah) | That’s right. | |
| The word /dhālika/ is a direct object in the accusative case; it is signed with fatħah as a constant ending. | Accusative | I know that. | ||
| Although the word /dhālika/ is a Maĵrur noun in the genitive case, but it is signed with fatħah as a fixed ending. | Genitive | I doubt about that. | ||
- We will also learn the types of indeclinable words (verbs, nouns, and articles) and the different signs of indeclensoin for each.
