Grammar and Morphology (Nahw and Sarf)
What the domain tests
Nahw checks case and sentence structure; sarf checks root-to-pattern derivation. DHSE questions include i‘rab, correcting errors, filling particles, transforming sentences, and identifying weights such as فاعل، مفعول، مفعّل، استفعال.
Core rules
- Nominal sentence: mubtada' marfu‘, khabar marfu‘; inna and sisters make mubtada' mansub; kana and sisters make khabar mansub.
- Verbal sentence: fi‘l + fa‘il marfu‘ + maf‘ul bihi mansub. The fa‘il may be a pronoun suffix.
- Idafa: first noun takes no tanwin/alif lam and is governed by its role; second noun is majrur. The whole idafa takes the case of the first.
- Adjective follows noun in four features: definiteness, gender, number, case.
- Verbs: madhi, mudari‘, amr; mudari‘ is marfu‘ unless preceded by لم/لن/أن/كي/حتى/لـ, which make it mansub, or لم/لما/لا الناهية/لام الأمر, which make it majzum.
- Sarf: identify the triliteral root, then the wazn. Passive participle of كتب is مكتوب on مفعول; active participle كاتب on فاعل.
Worked example
Sentence: إنّ الطالبينِ المجتهدينِ نجحا. Reasoning: إنّ makes الطالبينِ mansub (ism inna, yā’ because dual). المجتهدينِ is na‘t following it in case. نجحا is khabar inna, a verbal sentence; the alif is fa‘il pronoun for dual. Translation: Indeed the two diligent students passed.
Traps
Treating non-human plural as masculine plural in adjectives; adding alif lam to the first term of idafa; forgetting that كان/إنّ change the case of only one part; confusing مفعول به with مفعول مطلق; and misreading weak/hamzated roots in derived forms.