Verbal sentence

A verbal sentence must also have at least two components – the verb itself and the subject. If the verb is passive, then it must have an ergative subject in place of the subject

Optionally, a verb may have up to three direct objects depending on its level of transitivity. In the example below, the verb is passive, which means that what would have been the first direct object has taken the place of the subject. And since the verb is transitive to two objects, the second direct object is still visible.

In addition to potentially three direct objects, a verb may also have adverbs, each of which will form its own group in parsing the sentence. There are four types of adverbs in the language and a verb may have more than one of each (although this is rare).

And finally, a verb may have any number of adverbial and prepositional phrases linking to it. This will be discussed later in detail.

The Difference Between Hidden and Omitted

Words in Arabic sentences may be hidden as well as omitted. These two concepts seem identical prima facia, but they are wildly different. Hidden implies that the word is completely present in the sentence but it is simply not visible in script and pronunciation. As a result, it must absolutely be mentioned when parsing the sentence. An example of this is subjects of verbs; when a verb’s subject is not mentioned as an explicit noun or pronoun following the verb, the verb will be assumed to carry the subject within itself.

Omitted, on the other hand, implies that the word is no longer part of the sentence. For example, the verb “to hit” may or may not take a direct object – we can say “he hit” or “he hit his brother”. In the former case, the object of “hit” has been omitted. One of the rhetorical purposes of omitting the object in this case is to keep the verb general. If we say that the direct object is hidden as opposed to omitted, that implies that the object is still present and the rhetorical benefit has not been achieved.

Only the predicate of a nominal sentence can be an entire sentence on its own. Other major portions of a sentence must either be single words or phrases. But most phrases have the potential of being comprised of embedded sentences, as seen in the example above. Part of mastering sentence parsing has to do with developing a keen understanding of these different phrases and how they work.

Verbal Sentences

متعلقات

prepositional links

مفاعيل

adverbs

مفعول بهم

direct objects

[نائب] فاعل

[ergative] subject

فعل

verb

Optional

Multiple Allowed

Optional

Multiple Allowed

Optional

Multiple

Verb-Subject Agreement

ou will like this. This is easy. The typical Arabic sentences begins with a verb. In Arabic such a sentence is known as جملة فِعليّة verbal sentence.” The subject, if included in the sentence, normally comes after the verb. Here are two examples.

You will notice that in both sentences the verb agrees with the subject in number and gender. In both sentences, if we wished, the subjects could be left out. No other changes would be made in these sentences if we did so. By the way, I hope I do not have to explain the case endings for the words in the two sentences. Also, what case do you think the last word of each sentence should take?

Now look at the two sentences below.

The subject of each sentence is now plural. Notice that the verbs are still singular but they agree with the subjects in gender. IN A SENTENCE WHICH BEGINS WITH A VERB FOLLOWED BY A PLURAL SUBJECT, THE VERB WILL ALWAYS BE SINGULAR AND WILL AGREE WITH THE SUBJECT ONLY IN GENDER. If we were to drop the subjects from these two sentences, then the verbs would indicate the number as well as the gender. That is, the verbs would become plural. Our two sentences would then be:

So far, so good. Now look at the following three sentences.

In each sentence the subject is made up of more than one individual. Each individual is mentioned in the sentence. Sentences 1 and 2 show that the verb will agree in gender with the subject which comes immediately after it.

In sentence 3 we have a situation which occurs sometimes in Arabic. Here, the subjects (or subject as the case may be) are separated from the verb by one or more words. When this happens, if the subject is feminine, the verb can be feminine singular. Alternatively, the verb can be made masculine singular even when the subject is feminine. In sentence 3, the normal agreement would be feminine singular, since سميرة is the first subject. However, since سميرة is separated from the verb by one or more words, the verb can be made masculine singular. Sentence 4 illustrates this point. Note that the option of using either a feminine singular verb or a masculine singular verb does not depend on the presence of more than one subject in the sentence. For example, you could easily see the following:

• We have already studied the Nominal Sentence الـجــُــمــلــة الاســمــيـــة . Today, we are going to study the second type of the Arabic Sentences which is the Verbal Sentence الــجــمــلــة الــفــعــلــيـــة .
• Simply speaking, the verbal sentence in the Arabic language is the sentence that starts with a verb فـِــعـــْـــل . It consists of a verb followed by the subject or doer فــاعــِـــل of the verb followed by the object مـَـــفــعـــُـــول بـــِــه .

• The sentence in the picture above is a verbal one. It starts with the past verb كـــَـــتـــَــــبَ (wrote). Now, who wrote? Muhammad is the subject or doer فــاعــِـــل of the action. He (Muhammad) is the one or the person who wrote. So, Muhammad wrote, but wrote what? He (Muhammad) wrote the lesson الــدَّرسَ . Hence, the lesson is the object الــمــَــفـــعــــُـــول  . It is the thing that received the action. The action (writing) happened to the lesson.

• A verbal sentence can be in the present tense زمــن الــمــُــضـــارع if its verb is in the present tense.

                             Ex. – يــشــربُ مــُــحــَــمــّــــدٌ الــمــَــاءَ

                                   = Muhammad drinks (is drinking) (the) water.

• A verbal sentence can be in the imperative mood صــيــغــة الأمــر if it starts with an imperative verb فـعــل أمــر

                        Ex. – اِقـــْـــرَأ (أنــتَ) الــكــِـــتـــَــــابَ  =  Read (you) the book.

• A verbal sentence can be in the passive voice صــيــغـــة الـمــبــنــى لـلــمــَــجــهـــُـــول if its verb is a passive verb فــعــل مـَــبــنــى لـلــمــجــهـــول

                         Ex. – كــُـــتــِـــبَ الــدَّرسُ = The lesson was written.

• A verbal sentence can have more than one object depending on the type of the verb.

                         Ex. – أعــطــى الـمــُــعــَـــلــِّــــمُ عــَــلـِــيــّــاً جــَــائــِــزةً

                                 = The teacher gave Ali a present.

• A verbal sentence can have no object at all if its verb is intransitive.

                         Ex. – نـــَـــامَ الـــطـــِـــفـــْـــــلُ  = The baby slept.

• A verbal sentence can contain other components such as الـحـــَــال / الـتــمــيــيــز / الـمــفــعـــول لأجــلــه / الـمــفــعـــول الــمـُــطــلــــق etc.