Sentences
Join two or more words so that together they give a complete meaning, and you have a مُرَكَّب تَامّ (murakkab tamm) — a complete construct. The speaker can stop there, and the listener is not left waiting.
That is what is normally called a جُمْلَة (jumla), or in English simply a sentence. You will also meet كَلَام (kalam) used for it — the same thing, viewed as speech that conveys a complete benefit.
Every Arabic sentence is one of two
The division is made on how the sentence opens, and there is no third option.
| Begins with | ||
|---|---|---|
| جُمْلَة اِسْمِيَّة | Nominal sentence (JI) | an ism — الْبَيْتُ نَظِيفٌ, “the house is clean” |
| جُمْلَة فِعْلِيَّة | Verbal sentence (JF) | a verb — جَلَسَ زَيْدٌ, “Zayd sat” |
Read the first word. That single question settles which kind of sentence you are looking at, and everything that follows depends on the answer.
Two pages below take each in turn. A third, going further, maps the other ways the books classify a sentence and the clauses that sit inside one.
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