- All articles In Arabic are indeclinable without any exception.
- We cannot study all the Arabic articles in one lesson; rather we will learn each type of article in its own grammatical topic and lesson. Here we will gain a general idea about how they are indeclinable.
- There is no rule for the vowel ending on which the article is indeclinable (some of them are indeclinable on fatħah, others on sukūn, others on long vowel, etc.) Therefore you have to memorize the vowel ending of each new article you learn. The following table contains some examples of each type of article and their sign of indeclension:
Category |
Sign of indeclension |
Meaning |
Article |
Preposition |
Sukūn |
From |
|
Sukūn |
About |
||
Sukūn of long vowel |
To |
||
Sukūn of long vowel |
On |
||
Sukūn of long vowel |
In |
||
Kasrah |
With |
||
Kasrah |
For |
||
Coordinating articles |
Fatħah |
And |
|
Sukun |
Or |
||
Sukun |
Rather, but |
||
Sukun |
But |
||
Annular article (sisters of /inna/) |
Fatħah |
Indeed |
|
Fatħah |
If only! (Would that!) |
||
Fatħah |
But |
||
Fatħah |
I hope (it is hoped) |
||
Interrogative Article |
Sukun |
Is…? |
|
Fatħah |
Is…? |
||
Conditional article |
Sukūn |
If |
|
Sukūn |
If |
||
Accusative article |
Sukūn |
To |
|
Sukūn |
Will not |
||
Jussive article |
Sukūn |
Did not |
|
Answering article |
Sukūn |
Yes |
|
Negating article |
Sukūn of long vowel |
No |
- N.B.: Exceptionally, the vowel ending of some articles may change when followed by a sukūn on the first letter of the following word as in the following examples:
Note |
Example |
|
English |
Arabic |
|
The vowel ending of /minn/ is changed from sukūn into fatħah, because the following sound is sukūn |
From home |
|
The vowel ending of /ξann/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn |
About the moon |
|
The vowel ending of /Aw/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn |
The night or the day |
|
The vowel ending of /hal/ is changed from sukūn into kasrah, because the following sound is sukūn |
Is the square far? |
- In the above mentioned examples the articles are indeclinable with virtual signs which were found on the single article before the structure and the vowel ending is changed (for phonetic reasons).