8.7 Verbal sentence and word orderA verbal sentence contains a verb, and has the following basic word
order:
verb + subject + object or complementThe subject is normally in the nominative case. The direct object, which
may occur only with transitive verbs, is in the accusative case.
َخ َر َج َطـاِلـ ٌب h
̆arag ̆a (verb) t
̇a ̄libun (subject).A student went out.َأ َك َل َكْل ٌب ُخ ْب ًزا^
akala (verb) kalbun (subject) h
̆ubzan (object).A dog ate bread.Remember: If the subject or object is a personal pronoun, it is usually
left out, because the verb is conjugated for the person, gender and
number of the subject and pronominal object (see chapter 15).
8.8 AdjectivesAn adjective normally follows the noun it qualifies and agrees with it in
gender, number and case, except when the noun refers to non-humans,
i.e. animals and things.
When the adjective functions as predicate in a nominal sentence
(predicative construction), it is always indefinite, even when the subject
is definite:
َأْلـ َم ْت َح ُف َج ِمي ٌل^
al-math
̇afu g ̆amı- lun. The museum (is) beautiful/nice.
َأْل َب ْي ُت َوا ِس ٌع^
al-baytu wa ̄si
un. The house (is) large.When the adjective functions as a modifier of a noun (attributive
construction), it also agrees with the head noun in terms of definiteness.
In other words, if the head noun is definite, the adjective also takes the
definite article, whereas if the head noun is indefinite, the adjective is
also indefinite.
Definite
article,
nominal
and verbal
sentences,
adjectives33