Lesson 2: Notes
Classes of Nouns - ((اقسام الاسم)) (Structures)
To be honest this type of classification of nouns is obscure to me as I have learnt them according to different criteria. However, I have looked at these and derived a level of understanding that I can share with you.
The classification “types - ((اقسام))” of nouns ((الاسم)) in this section refers to their structural/shape or formation origins. The three spoken of are Jaamid ((جامد)), Masdar ((مصدر)) and Mushtaqqun ((مشتق)).
Al-Ism ul-Jaamidu ((الاسم الجامد))
Warning! The term Jaamid ((جامد)) here is applied to Nouns ((الاسم)), but there are also verbs ((فعل)) that are Jaamid ((جامد)) also - they will be discussed later on inshaAllah.
In terms of meaning Jaamid ((جامد)) means frozen. Usually from names of things, places and people that are unrelated to a function or that have become popular through colloquialisms – Sama’ee. (lit. as heard)
A bit of background … Arabic is a language that is extensively patterned … there are patterns in other languages too, but Arabic seems to be largely that way although there are still exceptions.
By pattern I mean this …
English example:
Happen
Happen – ing
Happen – ed
In many languages tenses of certain verbs ((فعل))can be worked out from the additional prefixes or suffixes of those words. But in Arabic the level of connectivity in this way extends to nouns ((الاسم)) that share associated functions.
For example … In English a “writer ((كاتب))” is known and a “book ((كتاب))” is known and a “desk ((منضدة/مكتب))” is known and a “library ((مكتبة))” is known … but if you were to see the word “book” and “desk” and “library” and “writer” there is no connection between these items physically – we would have to know the meaning of each item in order to make the rational connection between these words. But in Arabic in many cases there is no need to know the meaning of each expression – so long as the – base meaning is known it is quite possible to work out the specific meaning by deriving it from its appearance on the page.
In Arabic a writer is a kaatib, a book is a kitaab, a desk is a maktab and a library or bookshop is a maktabah. Notice how each of these words share the letters … K T B … these are called the root letters.
So it appears Section 1.3 in the course book is grouping nouns by their structural reference.
We can give them numbers - some nouns are structurally independent, symbolised by zero 0, others are structural starting points = 1 and the last category is the structural derivatives = 2.
Independent Nouns Type 0 – i.e. the Jaamid ones … will have no patterned words stemming from them nor will they stem from other words to follow a pattern. The course book calls this type the Primary Noun, but I think independent is more descriptive here.
Source Noun Type 1 – i.e. Masdar ((مصدر)) – Masdar ((مصدر)) comes from the meaning of heart – The notes calls this the Root Noun … but there is proper grammatical term for the Masdar ((مصدر)) and that is the Verbal Noun. As suggested this type of noun is a patterned starting point … it is the root of the pattern. I want to avoid the word “root” for masdar ((مصدر)), because we will refer to root to mean the 3 root letters of most Arabic terms. So instead let’s call it source …
Derived Noun Type 2 – is a noun formed from a masdar ((مصدر)). And these will split in to further groups, but we will learn about them later inshaAllah.