Mubtada and Khabr

March 3, 2007 on 7:12 am | In Arabic, Arabic Grammar
| By Ilm Seeker

In Arabic, default kind of sentence is called a nominal sentence. It looks something like this:

It has two parts--the mubtada (the subject -- eg. Ahmad), and the khabr (the predicate--information about the mubtada -- eg. rich, big, a Muslim).

What are the rules of grammar as they apply to the mubtada and the khabr? There are three:

Match: The khabr must match the mubtada in number (eg. singular, plural) and in gender.
Definite: The mubtada cannot be indefinite--it must be definite.
Dumma: The mubtada must take dumma (single dumma, too, because it's definite) -- and, when dissecting complex sentences of any type, this is how you locate the mubtada!

Related Posts:

Like this post? Get instant ilm-ification via our RSS feed or through email!

3 Comments »

Over my head~
But MashaAllah, thanks for sharing the knowledge.

Comment by MuslimahWarrior — March 3, 2007 #
the mubtada can be indefinit in some limited cases
please list them or this will not be complete
for example
mubtada can be nakirah(indefinit)if there was a dameer(pronoun)in the khabar that refres to it
and what else….?

Comment by Tasneem Ghandour — March 4, 2007 #
Please visit http://sheepoo.wordpress.com to see some more on the subject of Classical Arabic Grammar.

Thankx…

Comment by sheepoo — March 6, 2007 #