Elementary Arabic Morphology 2

Indeclinable Nouns and Verbs

  1. What is indeclinable?

  2. What nouns are indeclinable?

  3. What are they indeclinable on?

  4. What verbs are indeclinable?

  5. What are preterite tense verbs indeclinable on?

  6. What are imperative verbs indeclinable on?

  7. What are aorist tense verbs indeclinable on?

  8. Is there another nūn other than the nūn of emphasis and the feminine nūn?

  9. Is the nūn of protection only added to verbs?

  10. Indeclinable words are words that do not change due to the different places of a sentence it is put in. for example: أینَ الکتابُ (where is the book?), أینَ ذَهبتَ (Where did you go?), and من أینَ جئتَ (Where did you come from?)

  11. Indeclinable nouns are: pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, conjuncts, conditional nouns, interrogative words, adverbial nouns of time or place.

  12. Indeclinable nouns are indeclinable on:

• Sakūn, for example: مَن (who)

• Dummah, for example: حَیثُ (how)

• Fathah, for example: أینَ (where)

• Kasrah, for example: أمسِ (yesterday)

  1. The preterite tense, imperative tense, and aorist tense verbs that are connected to the feminine nūn and the nūn of emphasis are indeclinable.

  2. The preterite tense verb is indeclinable on:

• Fathah, for example: شَرِبَ (he drank)

• Dummah, if it is connected to the plural wāw, for example: شَرِبُوا (they drank)

• Sakūn, if it is connected to a nominative voweled pronoun, for example: شربتُم (we drank)

  1. The imperative verbs are indeclinable on:

• Sakūn, for example: اِشرِب (drink)

• Erasing the nūn, if it is connected to the plural wāw, dual alif, or the feminine second person pronoun, for example: اِشربا (drink, addressed to three or more people).

• Erasing the weak letter, if it is a defective verb, for example: اِرمِ (throw).

  1. The aorist tense verbs are indeclinable on:

• Sakūn, if it is connected to the feminine nūn, for example: یَضرِبنَ (she is hitting)

• Fathah, if it is connected to the nūn of emphasis, for example: یَضرِبَنَّ (he is hitting!)

  1. Yes, there is another nūn called the nūn of protection. This nūn separates the verb from the first person yā'. For example: ضَرَبَني (he hit me).

  2. No, the nūn of protection is attached to some prepositions as well. For example: مِنِّي (from me).