The Arabic Language

ʾakalūnī l-barāġīṯ 
construction, 
which is repeated here in (15):
(15) 
ʾakalū-nī 
l-barāġīṯ
 
eat.PERF.3mp-1s ART-flea.PL
A construction in Arabic that has drawn the attention of general syntacticians is 
that of the construct state (also called ‘annexation’; Arabic 
ʾiḍāfa
, see Chapter 7, 
p. 111). Its basic structure is that of (16):

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100
The Arabic Language
(16) 
kitāb-u 
l-walad-i
book-NOM 
ART-boy-GEN
‘the boy’s book’
The number of nouns in the second position may be expanded virtually indefi-
nitely. The structure of the construct state is interesting for a couple of reasons. 
Its (in)determination depends on the status of the last noun, as we can see when 
comparing (16) with (17):
(17) 
kitāb-u 
walad-in
book-NOM 
boy-GEN.INDET
‘a boy’s book’
Another feature of the construct state is its participation in constructions with a 
verbal noun (
maṣdar
)
 
in which the annexed nouns function as subject or object. If 
there is only one noun, it may have the role of subject or object, as in (18):
(18) 
ḍarb-u 
zayd-in
hitting-NOM Zayd-GEN
‘Zayd’s hitting’ or ‘Zayd’s being hit’
But if there are two nouns, the first is annexed and functions as subject, whereas 
the second is in the accusative and functions as object, as in (19):
(19) 
ḍarb-u 
zayd-in 
ʿamr-an
hitting-NOM
 
Zayd-GEN 
ʿAmr-ACC
‘Zayd’s hitting ʿAmr; the hitting of ʿAmr by Zayd’
An even more interesting construction of the 
maṣdar
seems to have been possible 
in Classical Arabic, in which the object after a 
maṣdar
receives a genitive case 
ending and is followed by the subject in the nominative. Reckendorff (1921: 174) 
mentions this as an exceedingly rare construction and refers to Nöldeke (1897: 
74–5), who has the following example (20):
(20) 
ġadāt-a 
nikāḥ-i-hā 
maṭar-un
 
morning-ACC marrying-GEN-3fs Maṭar-NOM
‘on the morning that Maṭar married her’
In this construction, if it was actually used, the verbal character of the 
maṣdar 
has been put to the logical conclusion, so that the verbal noun with its subject 
constitutes a verbal sentence. 
Finally, it should be mentioned that the first noun in the construct state may 
also be an adjective. In traditional grammars of Arabic this is called ‘improper 
annexation’, for example, 
ḥasan al-wajhi 
‘handsome of face’, 
šadīd al-ḥarārati 
‘very 

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The Structure of Arabic 
101
warm’ (lit., ‘intense of warmth’), 
kaṯīr al-baqari 
‘with many cows’ (lit., ‘numerous 
of cattle’). 
Negation is also mentioned by Comrie as a trait that distinguishes Arabic from 
many other languages. Classical Arabic is special in that it has tensed negations: 
lam 
is used for past negation (
lam yaḍrib 
‘he didn’t hit’), 
lan 
for future negation 
(
lan yaḍriba 
‘he won’t hit’); in addition there is a default negation 
lā
, usually with 
present connotation (
lā yaḍribu 
‘he doesn’t hit’), a tenseless negation 
mā 
(
mā 
ḍaraba
/
mā yaḍribu
‘he didn’t/doesn’t hit’), and a nominal negational verb