Applied Grammar: Nahw and Sarf
Applied grammar is the largest scoring block: nahw (sentence syntax and case endings) and sarf (morphology - roots, patterns, verb forms). Questions ask you to identify the mubtadaʾ and khabar, supply the correct ending, derive ism fāʿil, ism mafʿūl or maṣdar from a root, and convert between tenses.
Nahw: the three case zones
- Marfūʿ (ḍamma): fāʿil, nāʾib fāʿil, mubtadaʾ, khabar, the ism of كَانَ and the khabar of إِنَّ.
- Manṣūb (fatḥa): mafʿūl bih, khabar كَانَ, ism إِنَّ, mafʿūl muṭlaq, ẓarf, ḥāl.
- Majrūr (kasra): any noun after a ḥarf jarr (فِي، مِنْ، إِلَى، عَلَى، بِ، لِ) and the muḍāf ilayh.
Sarf: work outward from the root
Fit the triliteral root to a pattern. From ك-ت-ب: كَتَبَ (verb), كَاتِب (ism fāʿil), مَكْتُوب (ism mafʿūl), كِتَاب (maṣdar/noun), مَكْتَب (ism makān), plural كُتُب.
Worked example
Give the iʿrāb of «كَتَبَ الطَّالِبُ الدَّرْسَ».
- كَتَبَ: fiʿl māḍī, mabnī ʿalā al-fatḥ.
- الطَّالِبُ: fāʿil, marfūʿ, sign of iʿrāb ḍamma.
- الدَّرْسَ: mafʿūl bih, manṣūb, sign fatḥa. Reasoning: the verb opens the sentence, so the first noun after it is the doer (fāʿil) unless a preposition intervenes; the next noun is what the action fell upon. The sentence is fiʿliyya, so no mubtadaʾ is required.
Traps
- Making the muḍāf ilayh marfūʿ; it is always majrūr, as in بَابُ الْبَيْتِ.
- Forgetting that إِنَّ and its sisters reverse the كَانَ pattern.
- Treating أَب، أَخ، فَم as ordinary nouns - they belong to the five nouns with long-vowel endings.
- Dropping a shadda or hamza and thereby writing a different word.