Elementary Arabic Morphology 2

Proper and Generic Nouns

83. What is a proper noun?

84. What is a generic noun?

85. How many types of generic nouns are there?

86. List the derived generic nouns.

87. What is a noun of place?

88. What is a noun of time?

89. How is a noun of place/time formed from a triliteral verb?

90. How is a noun of place/time formed from a verb with more than three letters?

91. What is an instrumental noun?

92. How is an instrumental noun formed?

93. A proper noun is a noun that denotes a specific person, animal or place. For example: إبراهیم (Abraham), بارود (bārūd, the name of a horse) and دمشق (Damascus).

94. A generic noun is a noun that denotes, in an unspecific way, all people, animals or things that fall under one species. For example: رَجُلٌ (man), کَلبٌ (dog) and مدینةٌ (city).

95. There are two types of generic nouns: derived and apolistic.

96. The derived generic nouns are: nouns of place/time and instrumental nouns.

97. A noun of place is a form that indicates the place that an action took place. For example: مَطبَخ (kitchen).

98. A noun of time is a form that indicates the time that an action took place. For example: مَغرِب (evening).

99. A time/place noun is formed from a triliteral verb in the following forms:

100. مَفعَل for verbs whose second root letter has a dummah in the aorist tense, for example یَطبُخُ (he is cooking) becomes مَطبَخ (kitchen), for verbs whose second root letter has a fathah in the aorist tense, for example: یَذبَحُ (he is slaughtering) becomes مَذبَح (slaughterhouse) and for verbs whose third root letter is a weak letter, for example: یَرمي (he is shooting) becomes مَرمیَ (gun range).

101. مَفعِل for verbs whose second root letter has a kasrah in the aorist tense, for example: یَضرِبُ (he is hitting) becomes مَضرِب (camp site).

102. The time/place nouns are formed from verbs that have more than three letters by using their passive aorist tense form and substituting the aorist letter with a mīm with a dummah. For example: یُستَشفیَ (a cure was sought) becomes مُستَسفیَ (hospital).

103. An instrumental noun is a form that indicates the thing that the action was performed with. For example: مِبرَد (file).

104. Instrumental nouns are taken from transitive triliteral verbs. There are three forms that they have:

105. مِفعَل: for example: مِبرَد (file)

106. مِفعَلَة: for example: مِکنَسَة (broom)

107. مِفعال: for example: مِفتاح (key)