Glossary

The noun in rafʿ that comes after its verb and by which the act is done. It is never deleted; if it is unnamed, the verb is built for the passive and the object stands in its place.

A noun in naṣb, indefinite and derived, which states the state its owner was in when the act took place. It answers “how?”.

A particle that lowers the noun after it into jarr and carries the sense of its verb across to that noun. The best known are min, ilā, ʿan, ʿalā, fī, bi-, li-, kāf.

The joining of two nouns so that the second lowers the first's tanwīn and is itself in jarr. It carries the sense of “of”, of “from”, or of “in”.

The change that comes over the end of a word because of the governor entering upon it, whether the change is uttered or only intended. Its four states are rafʿ, naṣb, jarr and jazm.

The fourth state of iʿrāb, and one that belongs to verbs alone: the muḍāriʿ has its final vowel cut off — or, in the five verbs, its nūn dropped — after one of the jawāzim, such as lam, lammā, the lām of command, or lā of prohibition.

A sentence that begins with a verb: the verb, then its fāʿil in rafʿ, then its object in naṣb if it has one. It reports an event, and renews it in the telling.

A sentence that begins with a noun: a mubtadaʾ and its khabar, both in rafʿ. It states a fact rather than an event, and it is the sentence the Arabs use for what is settled.

What is predicated of the mubtadaʾ and completes the sense with it. It is in rafʿ, and it may be a single word, a whole sentence, or a ẓarf.

A maṣdar in naṣb from the same root as its verb, brought to confirm the act, to specify its kind, or to number it.

The noun in naṣb upon which the act of the doer falls. Its sign is the fatḥa in the singular, the yāʾ in the dual and the sound masculine plural.

The noun in rafʿ with which a sentence begins, free of any expressed governor — it is raised by the act of beginning (al-ibtidāʾ) itself.

The object that stands in the fāʿil's place once the verb is built for the passive: the doer is deleted, the object is raised, and the vowels of the verb change.

A noun in naṣb, indefinite, that lifts an ambiguity in what precedes it — in a measure, a weight, a number, or in a sentence as a whole. It answers “in what respect?”.

A verb with one, two or three letters added to its root — and “an increase in the building is an increase in the meaning”: causation, intensity, mutuality, reflexivity, or seeking.

The verb of the present and the future, which must begin with one of the four letters gathered in the mnemonic anaytu (hamza, nūn, yāʾ, tāʾ). It is marfūʿ until a nāṣib or a jāzim enters upon it — alone among verbs, it is muʿrab.

A verb whose every letter is a root letter, nothing added. The bare triliteral runs through six bābs and no more, fixed by the vowel of the ʿayn in the past and in the present.

A verb with a weak letter among its roots. It is of four kinds: mithāl (weak first), ajwaf (weak middle), nāqiṣ (weak last), and lafīf (two weak letters).

The change that comes over a wāw, a yāʾ or an alif in a word — by substitution, by vowelling, or by deletion — so that the word is easier on the tongue. It is a rule, not an irregularity.

The derived noun of the thing the act is performed with. Its established patterns are three: mifʿal, mifʿāl and mifʿala.

The derived noun of the one who does the act: on the pattern fāʿil from the bare triliteral, and from the augmented verb on the pattern of its muḍāriʿ with a mīm in place of the prefix and a kasra before the last letter.

The derived noun of the thing the act falls upon: on the pattern mafʿūl from the bare triliteral, and from the augmented verb on the pattern of its muḍāriʿ with a fatḥa before the last letter.

The noun of the act itself, free of any time: “writing”, as against “he wrote” and “he writes”. The Baṣrans hold it to be the origin from which the verb and every derived noun come.

The three letters fāʾ, ʿayn and lām, set against the three root letters of a word so that its pattern can be read off. Whatever in the word does not answer to f-ʿ-l is an addition — and every addition carries a meaning.

A derived noun like the ism al-fāʿil in form but not in sense: it states a quality that is settled in its owner and does not pass away — as against the participle, which reports an act.

The shape a root is cast in — the arrangement of its letters and vowels. Two words on one wazn share a meaning-type, which is why the pattern, not the dictionary, is what a student of Ṣarf memorises.

That speech should match the situation it is spoken in, while remaining faṣīḥ. It is predicated of the speech and of the speaker — never of a single word.

A property of the word and of the sentence: clear of harshness between its letters, of oddity, and of what breaks the rules of the language. It is the condition of eloquence, not eloquence itself.

To carry a large meaning in few words — either by deleting what the context supplies (ījāz ḥadhf) or by choosing words that hold more than they say (ījāz qiṣar). Its opposites are iṭnāb, which expands to a purpose, and musāwāt, which matches word to meaning exactly.

The science of the structures of Arabic and what each does in its situation: statement and its counterpart, fronting and delay, deletion, restriction, joining and separating, brevity and expansion.

A simile with one of its two sides taken away and its particle with it, so that the word is used of what it does not literally name — with a qarīna, a sign in the speech, preventing the literal reading.

Two words that resemble each other in their letters and differ in meaning. Complete (tāmm) when they match in every letter and vowel; incomplete (nāqiṣ) when they differ in one.

Khabar is speech that can be called true or false; inshāʾ is speech that cannot — the command, the prohibition, the question, the wish, the oath. Every sentence is one or the other.

To say a thing by naming something that always accompanies it, while the literal sense may also stand. Unlike metaphor, kināya does not forbid the literal reading — it simply is not what was meant.

A word used of other than its literal sense on a relation that is NOT likeness — the part for the whole, the whole for the part, the cause for the effect, the place for its people — with a qarīna preventing the literal reading.

Confining one thing to another: this quality to this subject, or this subject to this quality — by negation and exception, by innamā, by fronting what should have followed, or by ʿaṭf.

To state that one thing shares a quality with another, by means of a particle such as ka- or ka-anna. Its pillars are four: the likened, the likened-to, the shared quality, and the particle.

Bringing a thing and its opposite together in one speech — a figure of badīʿ, which adorns speech that is already sound and clear.