A practical foundation for I'raab and Tarki

What I'm putting forth here is a method to first and foremost understand the i'rab/tarkib process. Thereafter it should help you to actually do it in practice. It goes without saying that large parts of the i'rab/tarkib process involves memorization, but I have too often seen students being able to rattle off i'rab/tarkib from memory in a sort of mechanical way without often understanding what it is that they are doing and saying. The following as you will see attempts to give you the big picture within which i'rab/trakib occurs and has to be made sense of, insha Allah. The i'rab/tarkib method that I propose basically follows the logic of the attached table entitled "Fann al-I'rab (The Art of I'rab). If you look at the table then you'll see that the expression to be analysed as per i'rab/tarkib () comprises two broad categories: the word ( )and the sentence/clause (.) These two categories can be said to form the units of i'rab/takib. The Word Moreover, the word can either be (a) mu'rab (declinable) and applies to nouns and verbs or (b) mabniyy (indeclinable) which applies to nouns, verbs and particles. Particles, thus, can only be mabniyy. (A) The Mu'rab Mu'rab nouns comprise 6 categories: (1) fully-declinable singular and broken plural [declension: dammah for raf', fathah for nasb & kasrah for jarr] (2) semi-declinable singular and broken plural [declension: dammah for raf', fathah for nasb & fathah also for jarr] (3) feminine sound plural [declension: dammah for raf', kasrah for nasb & kasrah for jarr] (4) dual [declension: alif for raf', ya' for nasb and ya' also for jarr] (5) sound masculine plural [waw for raf', ya' for nasb & ya' also for jarr] (6) five/six nouns [declension: waw for raf', alif for nasb & ya' for jarr] Mu'rab verbs comprise 3 categories: (1) sound ending mudari' stripped of the nun of tawkid and the nun of niswah [declension: dammah for raf', fathah for nasb & sukun for jazm] (2) weak ending mudari' stripped of the nun of tawkid and the nun of niswah [declension: (implied) dammah for raf', (explicit or implied) fathah for nasb & dropping of weak letter for jazm] (3) five verb forms [declension: nun for raf', dropping of nun for nasb & also for jazm]

Thus the total number of mu'rab categories (i.e. for nouns and verbs) is 9. From an i'rab/tarkib perspective, it is only these 9 categories that will be marfu', mansub, majrur (in the case of the mu'rab noun categories) and majzum (in the case of the mu'rab verb categories). To show that is marfu', mansub, majrur or majzum, the mu'rab word (which will be a real example from one of the 9 categories) will have to display a sign at its ending that shows that it referred to as 'alamat al-raf', 'alamah al-nasb, 'alamah al-jarr, and 'alamah al-jazm. These 'alamaat (signs) are either (a) asliyyah (primary/original): dammah for raf', fathah for nasb, kasrah for jarr and sukun for jazm, or (b) far'iyyah (secondary/derivative) i.e. substitute signs whenever the primary signs are not applicable. These secondary signs you should be able to infer from the 9 declensions provided in square brackets above. Furthermore, a sign of declension can either be explicit which is its normal state or implicit/implied due to something that prevents it from becoming explicit such that when that something is removed or lifted the sign will become explicit. In the case where the dammah as a sign of declension for example is explicit we say dammah thahirah and in the case where it is implied we say dammah muqaddarah. Moreover, a word can only be said to be marfu', mansub, majrur, or majzum if it occurs in a place of raf', nasb, jarr or jazm i.e. a place that causes the word to be in such a state. The places of raf' are: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) The places of nasb are: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

(11) (12) (13) The places of jarr are: (1) (2) (3) The places of jazm are: (1) (2) (B) The Mabniyy Mabniyy nouns comprise several categories (I've listed 16 categories on the chart some of which occur more commonly and frequently than others) but they are almost all closed classes, that is to say, classes that are composed of limited and fixed sets of items. For example, there only so many personal pronouns (dama'ir) or so many indicative pronouns (asma' isharah) in Arabic. In other words, these classes cannot be extended and expanded beyond the number of items normally listed for them. This is contrary to open classes where the number of items belonging to each class is not fixed and can therefore be increased indefinitely. With respect to the mu'rab categories they all constitute open classes with the exception of the five/six nouns. Moreover, mabniyy nouns (as is the case with all mabniyy words) considered mabniyy because of their (fairly) fixed and unchanging endings, and therefore do not have declensions as is the case with mu'rab words. Their endings could either be fixed in the form of a constant sukun, fathah, kasrah or dammah. Even though mabniyy nouns lack any sort of declension, it does not not prevent them from being able to occupy places and positions of declension. In fact, they always do and have to occupy such places (with the possible exception of one or two insignificant categories). In other words, there is generally speaking no noun (mu'rab or mabniyy) when used in a sentence except that it will have to occupy one of the places of declension listed for mu'rab nouns listed above. Whilst their endings do not change when occupying these places, and hence cannot be said to be marfu', mansub or majrur, we say instead that they are mabniyy (fixed) on such and such a sign in the mahall (place) of raf', nasb, or jarr as the fa'il, maf'ul bihi or masbuq biharf jarr, for example (we would, for example, analyse the taa' of as follows: ) Mabniyy verbs comprise three categories: (a) past verb ()

(b) imperative/verb of command () (c) present/future verb with one of the two nuns suffixed to it: the nun of tawkid and the nun of niswah () : Furthermore, these categories are all open classes as there is (potentially) no end to the number of items that can belong to each of these classes. In other words, you do not have a fixed set of madi, mudari' or amr verbs, like what you have for dama'ir, asma' isharah, asma' mawsulah, etc. In fact, new verbs are continuously being coined and added to these classes resulting in their continuous expansion. While it is true that these categories are open classes, their patterns and structural forms are fairly fixed with respect to number such that one cannot create new patterns and structural forms and add them to the existing ones. Some patterns, though, occur in Arabic usage more commonly and frequently than others, and these are the ones that get popularised in many an Arabic instructor teaching Arabic to non-native speakers, unless a particular course aims at comprehensiveness. These latter courses are often grammar heavy, and the focus is on explicit grammar teaching rather than communication and language skills development or a combination of the two. Once the verbal patterns and forms have been learnt and their usage in relation to the various pronominal suffixes has been mastered, it becomes easy to know how and with what vowel-markings (or other signs) their endings are fixed. So would be fixed with a fathah at its ending, and with a sukun, and so also and . Other parsers and analysts might give a slightly different analysis for based on different considerations and criteria but an analysis which is nevertheless valid once one understands the reasoning and logic involved. Of the mabniyy verbal categories, the past verb and verb of command do not occupy places of declension such that it can be said of them that they occur in a mahall (place) of raf', nasb or jazm for whatever reason with the exception of the past verb when it occurs in the position of the condition (shart) of a jazm-producing shart instrument, its complement (jawab shart), the position of that which is governed by the nasb-producing particle , and the position of whatever is a tabi' to one of the aforementioned. As for the present/future verb with one of the two nuns suffixed to it, it must of necessity occupy a place of declension (that is specific to verbs, and specific to the present/future verb to be more exact since it is only the latter verb type that is subject to declension which is at this stage common knowledge). Finally in the section of the mabniyy, particles as should be clear by now are all mabniyy (whether on a sukun, fathah, kasrah or dammah), and as such we do not have to qualified the term particles with mabniyy as we've done in the sections dealing with mabniyy nouns and mabniyy verbs. In addition, particles are never said to occupy places of declension at all. In their case, as well as the past verb and verb of command above, we say ( there exists no place for it in terms of declension). It is generally held that the number of particles in Arabic is

80. Of these 80 particles, 19 particles are said to share their form with nouns, and 3 with verbs an aspect that makes their analysis quite tricky. While some particles possess one and only one function, others have quite diverse usages and functions which only adds to their already existing elusiveness and trickiness. A case in point is the particle/noun word which, both as a particle and as a noun, has diverse usages and functions. This state of affairs has caused some scholars to write works entirely devoted to particles. As a side note, there is also a class of nouns (and verbs) that displays the same elusive nature and tricky character of particles, and are often discussed and treated as a whole under the generic term of adat (instrument) or adawat (instruments). It is precisely this topic of adawat to which the first section of Ibn Hisham's famous Mughni al-Labib 'an Kutub al-A'arib is dedicate which he calls al-mufradat under which he treats the particles and those nouns which have a similar meaning and function. I'm purposely elaborating this point here because of the importance that it holds for i'rab/tarkib. In fact, Ibn Hisham's above-mentioned magnum opus is an entire book devoted to the topic of i'rab/tarkib as is clear from the title. If the first section of the al-Mughni is devoted to particles and other words that possess particle-like traits, then the section is devoted to sentences and pseudo-sentences/sentence-like expressions (i.e. prepositional phrases), and it is to this topic that we now turn. The Sentence/Clause The minimum composition of a sentence/clause is a verb and its agent/deputy agent or a subject and its predicate. These are also your two major sentence-types: verbal and nominal. Other sentences/clauses are basically variations upon these two. It is your analysis of individual words that enables you to arrive at and identify sentences and clauses. Whenever you have a verb there is always going to be a verbal sentence/clause involved once you have identified its agent or deputy agent, etc. Likewise, whenever you identify a noun as the subject it is always going to result into a nominal sentence/clause once you find its predicate. Of course, and and their sisters yield an ism and a khabar which in origin are a subject and predicate, except that in the first instance it has been operated on by an incomplete verb ( ) and in the second instance by a particle. Once you have identified a sentence/clause, its analysis follows. Its analysis as is clear from the chart is based on whether or not it has a place with respect to declension. What this means is that a sentence/clause either occupies the position of declension of an individual word (noun or verb), in which case it is said to have a place with respect to declension, or it does not occupy the position of declension of an individual word (noun or verb), in which it is said not to have a place with respect to declension. The primary state of the sentence/clause is not to have a place with respect to declension , but only gains such a place by virtue of it occupying the place of declension of an individual word, and there are 7 such places of declension which give rise to seven types of sentence/clause as listed in

the table. The following are the 7 places of declension which a sentence/clause can occupy giving it the status of a sentence that has a place of declension. From these 7 places of declension you can infer the 7 sentence/clause types as per the table: (1) the khabar (2) the hal (3) the maf'ul (bihi) (4) the mudaf ilayh (5) the place after the fa' or itha al-fuja'iyyah as the jawab of a shart jazim (6) the tabi'ah (follower) of a individual word that itself has a place in declension (7) the tabi'ah (follower) of a sentence/clause that has a place in declension As is obvious, all of these places belong originally to individual words but by virtue of sentences/clauses occupying these places they acquire the declension value that these places hold. In this regard, they are almost like mabniyy words which merely occupy these places without undergoing the requisite changes that these places are meant to produce at the endings of words. Even though the primary state of the sentence/clause is not to occupy places of declension, scholars have nevertheless gone on to categorise the various types of sentence/clause that do not hold places of declension, and have come up with a list of 7, as indicated in the table: It is important during i'rab/tarkib to mention the sentence-type which occupies or does not occupy (1) the initial sentence/clause or the sentence/clause that ensues after the resumption of speech (2) the parenthetic sentence/clause (i.e. the sentence/clause that occurs between parentheses) (3) the elaborative/elucidative sentence/clause (4) the complement to an oath sentence/clause (5) the sentence/clause occurring as a complement to a non-jazim shart or to a jazim shart but is not accompanied by the the the fa' or itha al-fuja'iyyah (6) the relative sentence/clause (7) the sentence/clause that is a tabi'ah (follower) of that which itself has no place in declension.