Subject and Predicate

Arabic has two types of sentences: sentences that start with a noun, and sentences that start with a verb.

Sentences that start with nouns are called equational or nominal sentences. They start with a definite noun, a noun phrase or a pronoun, followed by a predicate which provides information about this noun.

Examples:

Predicate	Subject
جَميلٌ	الطَّقْسُ	The weather is beautiful.
مَوْجودٌ	الرَّئيسُ	The president is present.

The first noun of a nominal sentence is called the "starting noun" and functions as the subject. The starting noun must have a predicate in order to form a complete sentence. Both the subject and the predicate of a nominal sentence must be in the nominative case.

One difference between an Arabic nominal sentence and an English sentence is that Arabic does not use the equivalent of the verb "to be" like English does. Thus, a sentence such as "The man is American" would be translated as:

الرَّجُلُ أمْريكيٌّ
Literally, it says "The man American", without the word "is".

Other examples are as follows:

The officer is here. الضَّبِطُ هُنا

The weather is beautiful. الطَّقْسُ جَميلٌ

She is smart. هِيَ ذَكِيَةٌ

Mohammed is tall. مُحَمَّدٌ طَويلٌ

The starting noun may be a proper noun, a definite noun, an independent pronoun such as هُمْ , أنا , هِيَ , هُوَ , or a demonstrative pronoun such as هّذا \ هَذِهِ .

The predicate may be an adjective, a noun, or an adverb, which may be followed by modifiers:

Predicate	Subject
رَئيسٌ	هُوَ	He is president.
الرَّئيسُ	طَويلٌ	The president is tall.
الرَّئيسُ	هُناكَ	The president is there.
الْمُوَظَّفُ	نائمٌ في مَكْتَبِهِ	The employee is asleep in his office.
ألْبِنْتُ	جَميلَةٌ وَلَطيفَةٌ	The girl is pretty and nice.

The predicate of a nominal sentence can also be a prepositional phrase:

الرَّئيسُ في الْبَيْتِ الأبْيَضِ
The president is in the White House.

كِتابي في الْبَيْتِ
My book is in the house.

Other nominal sentences have antecedent pronouns in the predicate:

ألْمُديرُ سَيّارَتُهُ حَمْراءُ
The director, his car is red.

هَذِهِ الْمَرْأةُ كَلامُها كَثيرٌ
This woman, she speaks too much.

هُمْ أفْكارُهُمْ غَريبَةٌ
Those people, their ideas are strange.