اسْمٌ-Noun

Note: one of the most difficult parts of learning classical Arabic is Nahw (basically Grammar eg. using the proper pronouns etc, applies mainly to sentence construction, using the correct word and sentence ) and Sarf (knowing the correct system of creating new words, applies to word construction).

Note: There are four skills required to learn any language namely:

1) Listening with comprehension and 2) reading with comprehension (involves Data input)

 3) Speaking properly and 4) writing properly ( involves Data output)

A noun is the name of a person, place (China, Mosque), thing (yoyo, book, chair, car ), idea (Islam, education, hadith, sports, theory, science, drinking, tolerance, to eat, to cry, sleeping, i love eating, i love ice cream), adjective (descriptions like lovely, blue), adverb (all the Lee’s except Bruce and love eg nicely, quickly, lovingly) and more

Nouns are words that 1) start with ال or 2) end with dammatani or 3) the first part of a compound and will end with a single dammah and not have ال

Nouns have 4 properties: 1) Status (Raff, Nasb or Jarr) 2) Number (Singular, Dual or Plural) 3) Gender (Masculine or Feminine) 4) Type (Common/indefinite or Proper/Definite)

1) Status (There are three forms of status)

a) Raf (R) مَرْفُوْعٌ / رَفْعلٌ – Raf ending does many things including being the ‘doer’

b) Nasb (N) مَنْصُوْبٌ / نَصْبٌ – Nasb ending does many things including being the ‘done to (and other details of an action)’

c) Jarr (J) مَجْرُوْرٌ / جَرٌّ – Jarr ending for a noun following the word ‘of’

When analysing a noun, first look for combination endings, thereafter sound endings

Light vs Heavy

The normal state of a noun is heavy, like the above chart.

A noun is made light by removing the double accent (tanween) from the singular and broken plurals and removing the extra ن at the end of the pair/dual and plurals.

Note: A noun with ال is not considered light

Below chart shows the nouns in light form

There are only four reasons for a noun to be light:

a) When it is possessive (مُضَافٌ)

b) The مُضَافٌ of the one being called

c)

d)

Flexibility

There are three categories of flexibility (The way the noun shows it’s status):

a) Fully flexible – Most nouns are fully flexible i.e they are able to show their status by means of their endings eg. Raf (مُسْلِمٌ), nasb (مُسْلِمًا) or Jarr (مُسْلِمٍ)

and they can be heavy (مُسْلِمٌ) or light (مُسْلِمُ)

b) Non flexible (only have one form) – Some nouns are unable to show their status by means of their endings eg. Raf (مُوْسَى), nasb (مُوْسَى) or Jarr (مُوْسَى), thus they look the same in all statuses for example:

* words ending in alif like مُوْسَى and دُنْيَا and so on

* Singular and plural relative pronouns like الَّذِيْ and الَّذِيْنَ and الَّتِيْ and so on, note: the dual are partly flexible

* Singular and plural pointing words like أُوْلَآئِكَ and تِلْكَ and هَذَا and so on, note the dual are partly flexible

c) Partly flexible (cannot be heavy and cannot take a kasrah) – these nouns have two forms, one for Raff and one for nasb and Jarr for example:

*Proper names of places (except names spelled with 3 letters) , whether Arab or not

*Non-Arab proper names (except names spelled with 3 letters)

based on hadith there are four Arab Prophets namely مُحِمَّدٌ and صَالِحٌ and هُوْدٌ and شُعَيْبٌ, the rest are non-Arabs

2) Number

Numbers in Arabic consist of singular (Muslim chart), dual (Muslim chart) and  plural (Muslim chart)

* Plurals are of 5 kinds, namely:

a) Normal masculine plural (Muslim chart)

b) Normal feminine plural (Muslim chart)

c) Human broken plural – represent intelligent beings such as عُلَمَآءُ and رُسُلٌ and مَلَآئِكَةُ – treated as ‘she’ (Singular, Feminine) or what they really are ‘they’

(Broken plurals have sound endings, they can only be identified through vocabulary, otherwise they look singular)

d) Non-human broken plural – represent non intelligent beings such as كُتُبٌ and مَسَاجِدُ and كِلَابٌ – All non human plurals, broken or not, are treated as a ‘she’

(Broken plurals have sound endings, they can only be identified through vocabulary, otherwise they look singular)

e) Plural by meaning eg. people (نَاسٌ), generation (قَرْنٌ), nation (قَوْمٌ)

3) Gender

Masculine – Masculine is the default gender

Feminine – Real Feminine such as أُمٌّ and بَقَرَةٌ

Fake feminine such as:

* ة / ى / (in some cases) آء

* Non-human broken plurals

* Proper names of places

* Body parts in pairs

* Because the Arabs said so

4) Type (Common vs Proper)

Common – is the default type

Proper (7 kinds)

a) Words with ال

b) Proper nouns

c) The one being called

d) Pronouns

e) Pointer words

f) Relative pronouns

g) The word before, if the word after “of ” in a compound is definite (proper)

الْاِسْمُ إِمَّا مُعْرَبٌ وَإِمَّا مَبْنِيٌّ