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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Arabic Syntax: علم النحو العربی (edited) Process of Reflection - إعراب أسماء و أفعال Recall from the discussion of the 4 types of فعل in the previous section, that the ماضي (the past tense verb) is مبني in its entirety i.e. no governing agent will ever enter upon it and alter its ending. Skipping مضارع and leaving it for last, let’s take a look at the remaining two verbs: أمر and نهي .

The 20% of Verbs that are معرب Recall that أمر , which is the command verb, like all verbs, will have an active as well as a passive. Each table will have 14 conjugations. (Refer to the صرف book) However, when contemplating the reality of Amr, we see something unique not found in the other types of verbs, namely, the fact that literally speaking commands have to be directed to someone being addressed. By literal definition, أمر must be second person and in the active voice, such as Sit! Drink!

Read! Etc... Does that mean you can’t use an أمر verb in the passive voice or in other than the second person? Well you can, but it won’t be a literal أمر , it would be a figurative way of speaking. Take for instance second person passive with the verb ‘to help’ i.e. You must get helped, or third person active, He must help, or third person passive, He must get helped. Now contrast these three with just Help!

You will see a sharp difference in literal and figurative application of the term ‘command’ upon the various conjugations of the أمر tables. For this reason, the scholars of Sarf tend to break down the table of 14 into two smaller tables, the first being just the middle six conjugations of the second person, and the other being the remaining 8, a combination of the third person 6 plus numbers 13 and 14.

When they did this, to keep things level, they also broke down the passive table into two similar tables, although the above reasoning does not apply to the passive table. Now, instead of two big tables of 14 and 14, we have four small tables: أمر حاضر معروف ** ** (second person active command) e.g. إضرِب , Hit! أمر حاضر مجهول (second person passive command) e.g**.** لِتُضرَب , You must get hit. أمر غاﺋﺐ و متكلّم (third & first person active command) e.g.

لِيَضرِب , He must hit أمر غاﺋﺐ و متكلّم مجهول (third & first person passive command) e.g. لَِيُضرَب , He must get hit.