Elementary Arabic Morphology 1

The Division of The Verb Into Declinable and Indeclinable 2

  1. What do you understand about a indeclinable verb?

  2. Which verbs are indeclinable?

  3. What are the verbs in the preterite tense static on?

  4. What are imperative verbs static on?

  5. Indeclinable verbs are verbs where the end of it does not change due to its placement in a sentence.

  6. The preterite and imperative tenses are static.

  7. The preterite tense verbs are static on:

• Fath; for example: شَرِبَ (he drank)

• Dumm, if it is connected to a wāw; for example: شَرِبُوا (they drank)

• Sakūn, if it is connected to a nūn, nā or tā'; for example: شَرِبنَ شَرِبنا شَرِبتُ (we drank, she drank, I drank)

  1. The imperative tense verbs are static on:

• Sakūn, if it is connected to a feminine nūn; for example: اِضرِبنَ (hit, speaking to a group of women) or if the last letter is not a weak letter and is not connected to anything; for example: اِسمَع (listen)

• The subtraction of the last root letter if it is weak; for example: اِسعَ ارتَقِ ادنُ (rise, walk, come close)

• The subtraction of the nūn if it is connected to a dual alif, plural wāw or yā' feminine pronoun; for example: اِسمَعَا اسمَعُوا اسمَعی (listen you single female, listen you all, listen you two)

• Fath; if it is connected to a nūn of emphasis; for example: اِسمَعَنّ (listen!)