63 Grammar: the nominal sentence

There are two types of sentences in Arabic:

—a nominal sentence         الجملة الاسمية

–-a verbal sentence              الجملة الفعلية

You will learn about verbal sentences later. For now, you will almost exclusively be forming nominal sentences (sometimes also called “equational sentences).

In English, nominal sentences use the verb “to be” to form a sentence.  Consider the sentence “The student is new.”   “The student” is called “the subject,” and “is new” is called the predicate.

Arabic is a bit different.  First, in Arabic, the verb “to be” is implied, rather than articulated.  So for all intents and purposes, you can think of it as not using the verb “to be” at all  in the present tense.

For every Arabic nominal sentence there are two parts:   

i. The mubtada’  (literally, “the beginning part,” and

ii. the “khabar” (literally “report” or “news”). 

You can think of the khabar as what “news” you are learning about the mubtada’.

–it is always one (and only one) word;

–it usually comes in the beginning of the sentence;

— it is usually definite (begins with al-).

–can be one word; it can be a phrase; it can be a sentence;

— it agree in # and gender of the Mubtada;

–it usually comes after the Mubtada‘;

–it is usually indefinite.