Lesson 58 – الدَّرْسُ الثَّامِنُ وَالْخَمْسُونَ
The nominal sentence - الجُمْلَةُ الاِسْمِيَّةُ
Types of subject – أَنْوَاعُ المُبْتَدَأ
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- In the previous part of this lesson we learnt the Arabic nominal sentence, and we understood that it consists of two essential parts which are the subject (المُبْتَدأ /al mubtada’/) and the predicate (الخَبَر /al khabar/).
- The main part of the nominal sentence – the /mubtada’/ (subject), can be divided into many types because it is a noun, and we have already learnt that the noun is divided into many types. You will notice from the following examples that most types of nouns can be used as the subject – e.g. pronouns, animals, humans, inanimate (non-living) objects etc:
| Picture | Type of the subject | English | Arabic example |
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| A name of a person | Ahmed is kind | /aħmadu ŧayyibun/ |
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| A noun referring to somebody (non specific) | The man is generous | /ar raĵulu karīmun/ |
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| A name of something | The sun is shining | /ash shamsu sāŧiξatun/ |
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| A name of an animal | The horse is strong | /al ħiŝânu qawiyyun/ |
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| Original noun | The justice is beloved | /al ξadlu maħbūbun/
|
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| Original noun | The injustice is disliked | /ađh đhulmu makrūhun/ |
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| Pronoun | You are a student | /anta ŧâlibun/ |
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| Pronoun | I am a teacher | /anā mudarrisun/ |
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| Demonstrative | Those are doctors | /hā’ulā’i aŧibbā’u/ |
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| Questioning noun | Who is this? | /man hādhā/ |
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| Questioning noun | What is this? | /mā hādhā/ |
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| Questioning noun | Where are you? | /ayna antum/ |
- You may notice, that the above mentioned sentences are all nominal sentences, because each of them consists of a subject (المُبْتَدأ /al mubtada’/), and a predicate (الخَبَر /al khabar/).
- The subject in these sentences is in various types:
-In the first sentence it is a name of a person (أحمد).
-In the following three sentences it is a substantive (evident) noun (الرَّجُلُ – الشَمْسُ - الحِصَانُ), all these nouns are declinable in a nominative case, signed with /đammah/ on the last letter because this is the original declension of the subject, as we see later in this lesson.
- In sentences 5 and 6 the subject is an original noun (مَصْدَر /maŝdar/). You may know that the /maŝdar/ is a normal noun that is derived from a verb. In the case of these sentences, the words (العَدْلُ - الظُّلْمُ) are two nouns derived from the verbs (عَدَلَ - ظَلَمَ).
- In the sentences 7 and 8, the subject is a pronoun (أَنْتَ - أَنَا). We learnt in earlier lessons that all pronouns are indeclinable, so there is no sign of the declension of the subject (đammah) on the last letter of the above mentioned pronouns. An indeclinable noun never changes irrespective of its grammatical case.
- In the sentence number 9 the subject is a demonstrative noun (هَؤُلاءِ). This is also an indeclinable noun, as we studied in earlier lessons, it is always signed with /kasrah/ on its last letter, so the original sign of the declension of the subject does not appear on its last letter.
- Finally, in the sentences 10, 11, and 12 the subject is a questioning (interrogative) noun (مَنْ - مَا - أَيْنَ). As we learnt in earlier lessons all questioning nouns are indeclinable, so they cannot be signed with the original sign of the subject (đammah) on their last letters, because the indeclinable noun never changes in the different cases (positions in the sentence).