al-Barauma fi al-Nahw
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- al-Barauma fi al-Nahw
al-Barauma fi al-Nahw (The Bud in Arabic Grammar) is an introductory primer on Arabic grammar composed by the contemporary scholar Hazem Khanfar in 1437 AH / 2016 CE.
Composition and Purpose
The work was completed on 1 Jumada al-Ula 1437 AH / 10 February 2016 CE as the third installment in Khanfar's series Silsilat Mutun al-Kutub wa-Mukhtasaratiha (Series of Scientific Primers and Abridgments). It is a direct abridgment of the author's own larger grammatical primer, al-Unshuta fi al-Nahw (The Loop in Arabic Grammar), which contained broader explanations and a wider selection of examples.
Designed specifically for beginners, the text is about half the length of al-Unshuta and roughly comparable in size to Ibn Ajurrum's al-Ajurrumiyya. Khanfar explained the title by comparing scientific disciplines to flowers and characterizing this primer as a flower bud before blooming, marking the beginning of a student's pursuit of grammatical studies.
Contents and Structure
The book is structured into concise sections presenting foundational grammatical definitions, operational rules, and illustrative examples. It addresses the following topics:
- Parts of speech and inflection: The tripartite division of speech into nouns, verbs, and particles; the definitions and categories of inflection (i'rab) and indeclinability (bina'); and the subjunctive (nawasib) and jussive (jawazim) particles governing the imperfect verb.
- Genitives and noun types: Nouns governed by prepositions (huruf al-jarr); annexation (al-idafa); and the distinction between indefinite nouns (nakira) and the seven categories of definite nouns (ma'rifa).
- Nominative and verbal sentence elements: The agent (al-fa'il), the direct object (al-maf'ul bihi), the pro-agent (na'ib al-fa'il), the subject and predicate (al-mubtada' wa-al-khabar), as well as cancellers of the nominal sentence (Kana, Inna, Zanna, and their respective sisters).
- Accusatives, followers, and other operators: The absolute object (al-maf'ul al-mutlaq), the causal object (al-maf'ul li-ajlih), adverbs of time and place (al-maf'ul fih), the comitative object (al-maf'ul ma'ah), the four followers (adjective, emphasis, apposition, and conjunction), the circumstantial accusative (al-hal), the specification (al-tamyiz), the vocative (al-nida'), and exception (al-istithna'), where the text concludes.
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