Lesson 25 – الدَّرْسُ الْخَامِسُ وَالْعِشْرُونَ

The Declinable and the non-Declinable – الْمُعْرَبُ وَالْمَبْنِيُّ  

Articles - الْحُرُوفُ

  • We are still in lesson twenty five of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • All Arabic articles In Arabic are indeclinable without any exception.
  • We cannot study all the Arabic articles in one lesson; rather we will learn each type of article in its own grammatical topic and lesson. Here we will gain a general idea about how they are indeclinable.
  • There is no rule for the vowel ending on which the article is indeclinable (some of them are indeclinable on fatħah, others on sukūn, others on long vowel, etc.) Therefore you have to memorize the vowel ending of each new article you learn. The following table contains some examples of each type of article and their sign of indeclension:

Category

Sign of indeclension

Meaning

Article

Preposition

حَرْفُ جَرٍّ

Sukūn

From

مِنْ

Sukūn

About

عَنْ

Sukūn of long vowel

To

إلَى

Sukūn of long vowel

On

عَلَى

Sukūn of long vowel

In

فِي

Kasrah

With

بِـ

Kasrah

For

لِـ

Coordinating articles

حَرْفُ عَطْفٍ

Fatħah

And

وَ

Sukun

Or

أَوْ

Sukun

Rather, but

بَلْ

Sukun

But

لَكِنْ

Annular article (sisters of /inna/)

حَرْفٌ نَاسِخٌ

Fatħah

Indeed

إنَّ

Fatħah

If only! (Would that!)

لَيتَ

Fatħah

But

لَكِنَّ

Fatħah

I hope (it is hoped)

لَعَلَّ

Interrogative Article

حَرْفُ اسْتِفْهَامٍ

Sukun

Is…?

هَلْ؟

Fatħah

Is…?

أَ؟

Conditional article

حَرْفُ شَرْطٍ

Sukūn

If

لَوْ

Sukūn

If

إنْ

Accusative article

حَرْفُ نَصْبٍ

Sukūn

To

أَنْ

Sukūn

Will not

لَنْ

Jussive article

حَرْفُ جَزْمٍ

Sukūn

Did not

لَمْ

Answering article

حَرْفُ جَوَابٍ

Sukūn

Yes

نَعَمْ

Negating article

حرْفُ نَفْيٍ

Sukūn of long vowel

No

لا

  • N.B.: Exceptionally, the vowel ending of some articles may change when followed by a sukūn on the first letter of the following word as in the following examples:

Note

Example

English

Arabic

The vowel ending of /minn/ is changed from sukūn into fatħah, because the following sound is sukūn

From home

مِنَ الْبَيْتِ

The vowel ending of /ξann/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn

About the moon

عَنِ الْقَمَرِ

The vowel ending of /Aw/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn

The night or the day

اللَّيلُ أَوِالنَّهارُ

The vowel ending of /hal/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn

Is the square far?

هَلِ الْمَيْدَانُ بَعِيدٌ؟

  • In the above mentioned examples the articles are indeclinable with virtual signs which were found on the single article before the structure and the vowel ending is changed (for phonetic reasons).