Introduction To Nahw Part 1 - Grammatical States

Examine the following three sentences:

Zaid prostrated to the idols.
Amr hit Zaid.
I passed by Zaid.

What is the role of Zaid in each of these three sentences? Is it the same or is it different in each instance?

In the first case, Zaid is used as the subject of the verb 'prostrate'. Zaid is the one doing the action. Compare that to the second instance, where Zaid is the object of the verb. Here, Zaid is the one upon whom the action is being done. Number 3 is a bit more complex. Recall from the The 3 Parts of Speech lesson that the word 'by' (بِ) is a preposition which acts on another word. In our example, the preposition 'by' acts on Zaid, which makes Zaid the object of the preposition.

Let's focus more on the first and second sentences. How do we know that Zaid is the subject in the first sentence but the object in the second? Why isn't it the other way around? That's because in English, sequence determines the subject and object. The subject always comes before the verb and the object comes after. If we change the order around and say 'Zaid hit Amr', it completely alters who did the hitting and who was hit.

Arabic, however, does not have this restriction, and the subject, verb, and object can appear in any order. Since the sequence does not determine the roles of Zaid and Amr in the sentence, we need some other mechanism by which we can identify the subject and object. This is achieved through The Method of Reflection.

The Method of Reflection

In Arabic, the role a word plays in a sentence is often reflected at the end of the word. There are a few different methods of reflection, but the most common one involves using the Arabic vowels, Dammah (ضمّة), Fathah (فتحة), and Kasrah (كسرة) to indicate the states of Raf' (رفع), Nasb (نصب), and Jarr (جرّ) respectively.

When a word is the subject of a verb, we say that the word is مَرْفُوْع, which means it is in the state of رَفْع. When a word is the object of a verb, we say that the word is مَنْصُوْب, which means it is in the state of نَصْب. Finally, when a word is the object of a preposition, we say that the word is مَجْرُوْر, which means it is in the state of جَرّ.

Let's take our 3 English examples above and translate them into Arabic to see this method of reflection in action.

English	Arabic	Role of the word Zaid	Grammatical State	Method of Reflection
Zaid prostrated to the idols	سَجَدَ زَيْدٌ لِلْأَصْنَامِ	Subject of a verb	رفع	ُ
Amr hit Zaid	ضَرَبَ عَمَرٌ زَيْدًا	Object of a verb	نصب	َ
I passed by Zaid	مَرَرْتُ بِزَيْدٍ	Object of a preposition	جرّ	ِ

You may be wondering why we stated the method of reflection as Fathah and Kasrah in the last two examples instead of Kasratain and Dammatain. While technically correct, we tend to just stick with Dammah, Fathah, Kasrah because whether or not a word ends in a tanween, is determined by whether or not the word is definite by having the 'Al' prefix. The vowel category the word ends in (Dammah/Fathah/Kasrah) is determined by the grammatical state.

Summary

Words can be used in different ways in a sentence. A word can be the subject of a verb in one sentence, and the object of a verb in another.
English differentiates between the subjects and objects of a sentence through sequence. But Arabic has its own mechanism for differentiating between the subject and object.
There are 3 grammatical states in Arabic, رَفْع (Raf'),نَصْب (Nasb), and جَرّ (Jarr). Arabic words have different methods to reflect which grammatical state they are in. The most common method is for a word to end in Dammah/Fathah/Kasrah to reflect Raf'/Nasb/Jarr respectively.
The subject of a verb will be مَرْفُوْع, the object of a verb مَنْصُوْب, and the object of a preposition مَجْرُوْر.

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