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Lesson 17 - The Adjective Clause (نعت ومنعوت) | The Relative Pronoun (الاسم الموصول) | The Diptote


Today in sha’a Allah we are going to learn about many things, firstly about THE ADJECTIVE CLAUSE in the Arabic language.


What is an adjective clause?


An Adjective Clause is an expression formed by two or more words to describe a pronoun.


The Adjective Clause


In Arabic the adjective (a word describing the noun – e.g. red book, large house etc) is either called النعت (An Na’at) or الصفة (AS Sifah), and the noun it qualifies is called المنعوت (Al Man’oot) or الموصوف (Al mawSoof).


Basically, the na’at describes a word and al man’oot is the word described. The clause thus formed is called either النعت و المنعوت (An na’at wa al man’oot) or الْمُرَكَّبُ الْوَصْفِيُّ (al murakkabu-l- waSfiyy ), or simply the Adjective Clause.


For example, in English, we can say ‘ the tall boy’ , where the word ‘tall’ would be the na’at and ‘ the boy’ would be man’oot.



There are certain rules which must be followed regarding the adjective clause, or rather in formaton of such:


1. In the English language, when we want to describe a noun we say for example, “Good boy” or “Lazy student” etc. – i.e., the adjective (description) comes before the noun. However in Arabic the word being used for the description (adjective) comes after the noun, e.g. وَلَدٌ جَيِّدٌ or طَالِبٌ كَسْلانُ if translated linguistically means “Boy good” or “student lazy” but literally it means “Good boy” or “Lazy student”.


2. The adjective always follows the noun which it is describing in gender. The adjective of a masculine noun is masculine and that of a feminine noun is feminine .e.g.: we say وَلَدٌ صَغِيرٌ meaning “A young boy” and بِنْتٌ صَغِيرَةٌ meaning “A young girl”.


3. Both the adjective and the noun are either definite or indefinite. Therefore if the noun is definite, then the adjective which is describing the noun will also be definite e.g. الْمَكْتَبُ الْقَدِيمُ meaning “The old table” and when the noun is indefinite the adjective will also be indefinite e.g. كِتَابٌ جَدِيدٌ meaning “A new book”.


4. The adjective also has the same case as the noun i.e., if the noun is in the nominative case, the adjective will also be in the nominative case e.g., الدَّرْسُ الصَّعْبُ meaning “The difficult lesson”, if the noun is in the accusative case then the adjective will also be in the accusative case and if the noun is in the genitive case then the adjective will also be in the genitive case e.g.ذَهَبَ أَحْمَدُ إلى صَدِيقٍ مَرِيضٍ Ahmad went to an ill friend.


5. The adjectives that express feelings normally end with ــَانُ (-aan) and bear no Tanwīn nor do they take a kasrah when majroor on their ending letters EXAMPLE PICTURE 2



Examples:


a. America is a big country

أَمْرِيكَا بَلَدٌ كَبِيرٌ.


agreement in gender, both masculine, indefinite, marfoo’, singular


b. This is the new fan

هَـٰذِهِ الْمِرْوَحَةُ الْجَدِيدَةُ.


agreement in gender, both feminine , definite, marfoo’, singular


c. Ahmad entered into a big building

دَخَلَ أَحْمَدُ فِي مَنْزِلٍ كَبِيرٍ.


agreement in gender, both masculine, indefinite, majroor, singular


d. A sparrow is a beautiful bird

العُصْفُورُ طَيْرٌ جَمِيلٌ.


agreement in gender, both masculine, indefinite, marfoo’, singular


e. This is a crowded road

هَذَا طَرِيقٌ مُزْدَحِمٌ.


agreement in gender, both masculine, indefinite, marfoo’, singular


f. The clean room

الْغُرْفَةُ النَّظِيفَةُ.


agreement in gender, both feminine, definite, marfoo’, singular



The Relative Pronoun الاسم الموصول


 

الَّذِي 

– is an ISM from الأَسْمَاءُ الْمَوْصُولَةُ ( relative pronouns ).

It means ‘WHO’, when it referrs to humans and Allah, and it means ‘WHICH’ when referring to animals or objects.


It is used to refer to:


1. masculine مُذَكَّرٌ

2. singular مُفْرَدٌ


For example, we can say:


الرَّجُلُ الَّذِي خَرَجَ مِن الْمَسْجِدِ طَالِبٌ


The man WHO went out from the masjid is a student.


After الَّذي we need something to describe, we can not just say ‘ The man who.’, الاسْمُ الْمَوْصُولُ needs a sentence to complete the meaning which is called صِلَةُ الْمَوْصُولِ ( Silatu Al mawSool ).


So basically it is built by for example putting it after a singular masculine noun, and then after ‘alladhee’ we need some addition ( Silatu Al mawSool ) to give us more information.



In sha’a Allah by looking these examples it will be easier to understand.


NOTE: There is also the dual for masculine and feminine, the singular for the feminine and the plural for both genders, in sha’a Allah we will do this an another time.

The Diptote المَمْنُوعُ مِن الصَّرْفِ


We mentioned in some of the previous lessons about words which do not take the tanween and the kasrah. Exactly those words are called الأَسْمَاءُ المَمْنُوعَةُ مِنْ الصَّرْفِ ( Al asmaau-l- mamnoo’atu min as sarfi ).


Some of those words we mentioned, are personal names like female names such as MARYAMU مَرْيَمُ, ZAYNABU زَيْنَبُ, ‘AAISHATU عَائِشَةُ etc.


One more we are going to mention are names such as IBRAHEEMU اِبْرَاهِيمُ, ISMA’EELU اِسْمَاعِيلُ, ISHAAQU اِسْحَاقُ etc.


Today we are going to learn some words which are on the pattern فَعْلَان ( fa’laan ) are also from the words that do not take the tanween nor kasrah and therefore are from الأَسْمَاءُ المَمْنُوعَةُ مِنْ الصَّرْفِ .


What is meant with a word being on the pattern of فَعْلَان is that the first letter of the word coincides with the form of the first letter of the pattern, just as we did when we learnt about the verb and the pattern of فَعَلَ ( fa’ala ).

PICTURE 1



In Madinah Book 1, Lesson 9 you will find these words.

For example, if we say PICTURE 2:



Here we have an example with using these words, and as we can see, no tanween.

But, we also mentioned that these words do not take a kasrah. What do they take then, for example when there is a harf jarr before ?

Then these words in the state of majroor take a fathah instead. Same is for mansoob.

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