Lesson 90 – الدَّرْسُ التِّسْعُونَ
Introduction to Morphology - مُقَدِّمةٌ لِعِلْمِ الصَّرْفِ
Subject of Morphology – مَوْضُوعُ عِلْمِ الصَّرْفِ
- We are still in lesson ninty of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
- Aŝ-ŝarf الصَّرف is an Arabic original noun which means changing, modifying, or transforming. Therefore the Arabic morphology الصَّرْف is the linguistic science which studies the changes of the Arabic word when transforming it from a derivative to another. To understand the difference between the morphology الصَّرْف and the syntax النَّحْو let’s study the following example:
We watched the teacher in the school |
- If we study the above mentioned sentence morphologically we notice the following:
- The morphological analysis of the verb (شَاهَدْنا) is that it is consists of two words: (شَاهَد) and(نا) and (شَاهَد) is a verb of the stem (فاعَل) which is derived from the root (شَهِدَ) and augmented with (alif) in the second position, while (نا) is a pronoun which is not studied in the morphology (because it is not derived).
- (مُدَرِّس) is an active participle derived from the augmented stem (دَرَّسَ) which means to teach. And this stem is augmented with double consonant in the middle, and derived from the root (دَرَسَ) which means to study.
- (مَدْرَسَة) is a feminine noun of place on the pattern (مَفْعَلَة), derived from the non-augmented verb (دَرَسَ) to study
- The morphology studies each word separately, i.e. isolated from the context. Therefore the subject of the morphology is the single words, not the structures.
- The morphology does not study the declension or the non-declension of the word, i.e. it does not study the grammatical signs on the last letters of the words.
- When we study the above mentioned example in syntax النَّحْو we learn the following:
a) (شَاهَدْ) is verb in the past. It is indeclinable on sukūn because it is attached to the pronoun (نا) and (نا) is the doer of the verb, it is in place of nominative case, and it is indeclinable on sukūn.
b) (الْمُدَرِّسَ) is a direct object in the accusative case, so it is signed with fatħah on its last letter.
c) (في) is a preposition indeclinable on sukūn, and (الْمَدْرَسَةِ) is a genitive noun signed with kasrah on its last letter.
d) The syntax does not study the single words. Therefore if you find a single word in the syntax lessons there should be something latent or virtual to make a sentence or structure.
e) The syntax النَّحْو studies the signs of the final letters of the words, i.e. it studies the changes which happen because of the position in the sentence or because of the effect of each word towards another.
- There will be some common topics that can be studied in both morphology and syntax. E.g. the morphology studies the changes which happen to a word when expressing different genders and numbers. Morphology studies these changes as types of derivatives or changes of the single words which have other meanings. Consider the following examples:
Example | Translation | Gender/number ending |
An engineer | Singular masculine | |
A female engineer | Singular feminine | |
Two engineers | Dual masculine | |
Two female engineers | Dual feminine | |
Engineers | Plural masculine | |
Female engineers | Plural feminine |
- The above mentioned changes are also studied in the Arabic syntax, but from another aspect; that the endings affect the grammatical signs of the declension cases. Consider the following explanation:
Example | Translation | The sign of accusative case | Reason |
I helped the engineer | Fatħah | Singular masculine | |
I helped the female engineer | Fatħah | Singular feminine | |
I helped the two engineers | Yā’ | Dual masculine | |
I helped the two female engineers | Yā’ | Dual feminine | |
I helped the engineers | Yā’ | Plural masculine | |
I helped the female engineers | Kasrah | Plural feminine |
- There are many grammatical topics which are not studied in the morphology as follows:
- The invariable nouns such as pronouns الضَّمَائِر, demonstrative nouns أَسْمَاءُ الإشَارَة, relative nouns الأسْمَاءُ المَوْصُولَة, and questioning nouns أَسْمَاءُ الاسْتِفْهَامِ.
- The particles (the letters) as (مِنْ، كَمْ، هَلْ، لَوْ), because all letters are not derived or related to certain roots.
- Some Arabic nouns which are not derived from an Arabic root, rather they are foreign words in origin, as the following examples:
Noun | |||||
Type | Proper name of city | Proper foreign name | Proper ancient non-Arabic name | Proper ancient non-Arabic name | Proper ancient non-Arabic name |
Meaning | Washington | George | Isaac | Ismail | Ibrahim |
- Therefore the morphology studies the variable nouns and verbs, because the variable words can be transformed from one form to another.
- To study the Arabic verbal or nominal patterns, our grammarians use certain measure (مِيزَان) consisting of the root of the verb (فَعَلَ). The letters of this root will be used to measure any Arabic noun or verb to study its pattern, by replacing the letters of any word with the letters of (فَعَلَ), and adding to this all the augmented letters or vowels. Consider the following example:
Picture | Word | Meaning | Measure | Type of pattern | Root |
| Library | Feminine noun of place | |||
| School | ||||
| Teacher | Active participle of the verb (دَرَّس) | |||
| Trainer | Active participle of the verb (دَرَّب) |