Sentences in Arabic

•  Sentences in Arabic. The closest equivalent in Arabic grammar to the Western notion of a 'sentence' is  جملة, a syntactically complete string of words that expresses a semantically complete message. In a sentence, there is always one head word that relays or determines the sentential functions resulting in markers in the form of case endings. According to the Western analysis of Arabic sentence structure , there are two

types of sentence: nominal and verbal. The Arab Grammarians differ and suggest three types.

      (a)  الجملة الفعلية The verbal sentence is the basic sentence. Its order is (object)<--- subject <--- verb. In this type of sentence, a verb is marked by the gender of its subject.

      (b)  الجملة الاسمية The Nominal Sentence is where the subject takes an initial position for emphatic purposes, followed by the verb,  (object)<---  verb <--- subject. Consequently, the verb is marked by the number and gender of its subject.

      (c)  جملة المبتدأ والخبر The Equational Sentence is made of a subject and a predicate without any expressed verb. The verb "to be" is understood,  predicate<--- subject. Both the subject and the predicate have to be in the nominative case.

A Hundred and One Rules !

                                                Mohammed Jiyad