عِلْمُ الصَّرْف (Arabic Morphology) - Lesson: 2

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

In Arabic language we have 29 letters and 3 short vowels; kasrah ( ِ ), fathah ( َ ), dhammah ( ُ ).

Arabic words are mostly formed from 3 base letters which are enjoined together to form a meaning. Its also called "Trilateral Words" or "ثلاثی". Words formed by these 3 base letters are either noun or verb. 

ف، ع، ل are known as "model base letters" and it means "to do". You can use it to take a designated pattern and reflects its base meaning in a unique way. For eg.

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The position of model base letters are known as ف position, ع position and ل position. In the above example, in نَصَرَ we have ن at ف position, ص at ع position and ر at ل position. We have created a new word ناصر (means helper or one who helped) from it by adding ا (alif) after ن keeping the order of model base letters intact.

In English language, take the word "teacher". Adding the suffix "er" to the verb teach produces the word "teacher". This pattern describes a person who enacts the meaning of the verb (i.e., one who teaches).

Its also possible that sometimes either model base letter may fall off keeping the base meaning intact. For eg.

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The order of model base letters are important otherwise it will change its meaning. For eg.

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In the above example, exchanging the letters at ع and ل position completely changes the meaning of the word.

عِلْمُ الصَّرْف (Arabic Morphology) - Lesson: 1

بسم اللّہ الرحمن الرحیم

صَرْف : صَرْف or Arabic morphology is the branch of linguistics and one of the major components of grammar that studies word structures and identification (types) of word. It also tells about conjugation of verbs.

There are considered to be 4 different grammarians according to different sources who first wrote about Arabic morphology:

1. Hazrat Ali R.A
2. Hazrat Ma’az Bin Muslim Harvi R.A
3. Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa R.A
4. Hazrat Abu Usman Bakr Maazni R.A

The image below presents the map of Arabic language and we will study this map in detail today. In Arabic morphology, only Noun and Verb will be discussed in detail, because in Morphology we study about identification of words and conjugation of verbs. Rest about joining different words to create a complete sentence either by using حَرْف (particle) is part of نَحْو (Nahw - Arabic Grammar) which we will study in Nahw category.

- لَفَظ Articulation: Anything which a person speak or comes out of the mouth. In otherwords, words that are produced by the tongue is called articulation. It is of 2 types:

1. مَوْضُوْع (Meaningful): Words which gives or are clear in meaning, like کِتَابٌ (a book).
2. مُھْمَل (Meaningless): Words which cannot give any meaning, like بیبسی (Pepsi) which is just a brand name (without any meaning of itself) but was unknown before it’s advent.

- مَوْضُوْع is of two types:

1. مُفْرَد (Single): One word or a single meaningful word. For e.g. بَیْتٌ (a house), حَامِدٌ (Hamid, name of a person)
2. مُرَکَّب (Compound): When more than one words are put together to give meaningful phrase. e.g. بَیْتُ اللّہ (house of Allah), رَسُوْلُ اللّہ (prophet of Allah)

- مُفْرَد is divided into three types:

1. اِسْم (Noun): It gives meaning on its own and is not connected to any of three tenses; present, past, future. For eg. قَلَمٌ (a pen), فَرَسٌ (a horse), بَیْتٌ (a house).
2. فِعْل (Verb): It gives meaning on its own and is also connected to any of three tenses. For eg. سَمِعَ (he heard), نَصَرَ (he helped), کَتَبَ (He wrote).
3. حَرْف (Particle): It cannot give meaning on its own. In otherwords, its dependent on other words either اِسْم or فِعْل to be meaningful. For eg. لِ (for), وَ (by), بِ (with). To make it meaningful we can use them like کَتَبْتُ بِالْقَلَمِ (wrote with pen), وَاللَّہ (by Allah), رَجُلِ (for male)

- مُرَکَّبْ is divided into two types:

1. مُفِیْد (Beneficial): Give complete meaning or sentence. In otherwords, it gives you complete information. For eg. اَلْمَسْجِدُ کَبِیْرٌ (the masjid is big), ھَذَا کِتَابٌ (this is a book), نَصَرَ عَمْرٌو (Amr helped).
2. غَیْر مُفِیْد (Non-beneficial): Incomplete meaning or sentence. In otherwords, it gives you incomplete information. For eg. کِتَابُ زَیْدٌ (Zayd’s book), بَیْتُ الرَّجُلِ (house of a man), ھَذَا الْکِتَابُ (this book).