Lesson 78 – الدَّرْسُ الثَّامِنُ والسَّبْعونَ

The followers (1) The adjective - التَّــوَابِع(١) النَّعْتُ

Introduction - مُقَدِّمَةٌ

  • This is lesson seventy eight of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • We learnt in lesson 9 of this course the Arabic adjective structure. We understood that it consists of two parts; the first part is the described noun, while the second part (noun, sentence, or a quasi sentence) is the descriptive (adjective). The second part follows the first part in the gender, number, definition (or indefinition) and declension case. Consider the following examples (for revision purpose):

English

Arabic

The hardworking student attended

حَضَرَ الطَّالِبُ الْمُجْتَهِدُ

I saw a hardworking student

رَأيْتُ طالِبًا مُجْتَهِدًا

I passed by a (female) hardworking student

مرَرْتُ بِطَالِبَةٍ مُجْتَهِدَةٍ

  • You may notice from the above mentioned examples that the adjective follows the described noun in gender (masculine or feminine), number (singular, dual, or plural), definition (or indefinition), and in the declension case (nominative, genitive, or accusative). Therefore the adjective is considered in the Arabic grammar as a follower (تابِع).
  • The followers (التَّوَابِعُ) in Arabic grammar are the nouns that follow their preceding nouns in many things (especially the declension).
  •  The Arabic word (توَابِع) is derived from the root (تَبِعَ) which means to follow, and (توَابِع) is the broken plural of the noun (تابِع) which is the active participle (اسْم الفاعِل) of that verb, so it means (followers).
  • There are four types of followers in Arabic language as follows:
  • The adjective.
  • The confirmative.
  • The substitute.
  • The attracted noun (the coordinated noun).
  • In this lesson we will learn the first type, which is the adjective, while the other three followers will be covered in the following three lesson, In-Shaa’-Allaah (God willing).
  • We learnt in lesson 9, some issues about the adjective structure. Therefore we will not repeat these issues in this lesson, rather we will study more topics that we didn’t cover in that lesson, as follows:

-          The definition of the adjective, and its conditions.

-          The three forms of the adjective (i.e. it can be a single noun, a sentence, or a quasi sentence).

  • The difference between the real adjective and the occasional adjective.