The Nominal Sentence (Jumla Ismiyya)

Level: beginner. One of the first surprises in Arabic is that you can build a complete sentence with no verb at all. To say “The house is big” you simply put two nouns side by side: البَيْتُ كَبِيرٌ al-baytu kabīrun — literally “the-house big”. This is the nominal sentence, جُمْلَةٌ اسْمِيَّةٌ (jumla ismiyya).

The rule

A nominal sentence is a sentence that begins with a noun (not a verb). It has two parts:

• the mubtadaʾ — المُبْتَدَأُ (al-mubtadaʾ), the “subject” or starting topic. It is normally definite (a name, a pronoun, or a noun with ال (al-), “the”).
• the khabar — الخَبَرُ (al-khabar), the “predicate” — the new information you give about the subject. It is normally indefinite.

In the present tense there is no word for “is / am / are”. The meaning “is” comes from simply placing the khabar after the mubtadaʾ. So الوَلَدُ طَوِيلٌ al-waladu ṭawīlun is “the boy (is) tall”.

Both parts are usually in the nominative case — رَفْعٌ (rafʿ), the case shown by the vowel -u. A definite mubtadaʾ ends in a single -u (البَيْتُ al-baytu); an indefinite khabar ends in tanwīn -un — the doubled vowel mark that signals an indefinite noun (كَبِيرٌ kabīrun).

The parts at a glance

Example sentences

Notice that none of these sentences contains a verb. The “is / are” of the English translation lives entirely in the word order.

Common mistakes

• ❌ البَيْتُ هُوَ كَبِيرٌ (al-baytu huwa kabīrun, as a default) → ✅ البَيْتُ كَبِيرٌ (al-baytu kabīrun). Don’t insert a pronoun as a stand-in for “is”; the plain nominal sentence needs nothing between the two parts.
• ❌ البَيْتُ الكَبِيرُ (al-baytu l-kabīru) as a sentence → ✅ البَيْتُ كَبِيرٌ (al-baytu kabīrun). If you make the khabar definite, you get the phrase “the big house”, not the sentence “the house is big”.
• ❌ البِنْتُ ذَكِيٌّ (al-bintu dhakiyyun) → ✅ البِنْتُ ذَكِيَّةٌ (al-bintu dhakiyyatun). The khabar must agree with the subject in gender, so a feminine subject takes a feminine predicate.
• ❌ البَيْتٌ كَبِيرٌ (al-baytun kabīrun) → ✅ البَيْتُ كَبِيرٌ (al-baytu kabīrun). A definite noun with ال (al-) never takes tanwīn, so the subject ends in a single -u.
• ❌ Using كَانَ (kāna) for a present-tense “is” → ✅ drop it. كَانَ (kāna) means “was”; the present nominal sentence has no verb at all.

A short conversation

— سَامِي (Sāmī): البَيْتُ جَدِيدٌ. — al-baytu jadīdun. — The house is new. — لَيْلَى (Laylā): نَعَمْ، وَالحَدِيقَةُ جَمِيلَةٌ. — naʿam, wa-l-ḥadīqatu jamīlatun. — Yes, and the garden is beautiful. — سَامِي (Sāmī): أَنْتِ مَحْظُوظَةٌ! — anti maḥẓūẓatun! — You are lucky!

Every line is a nominal sentence: a definite subject, then an indefinite predicate, with no word for “is”.

Usage notes

• The subject is usually definite. It can be a noun with ال (al-), a proper name (مُحَمَّدٌ طَبِيبٌ — Muḥammadun ṭabībun — “Muhammad is a doctor”), or a pronoun (أَنْتَ كَرِيمٌ — anta karīmun — “You are generous”).
• Agreement is in gender and number. The khabar follows the mubtadaʾ: masculine takes masculine, feminine takes a feminine ending (often -atun), and dual/plural subjects take dual/plural predicates.
• The pronoun of separation. In more advanced Arabic a pronoun such as هُوَ (huwa) can appear between subject and predicate — مُحَمَّدٌ هُوَ المُعَلِّمُ (Muḥammadun huwa l-muʿallimu) — to mean “Muhammad is the teacher”. That is a special emphatic use, not the everyday pattern you need first.
• Past and future need a verb. The no-verb rule is present-tense only. For the past you use كَانَ (kāna, “was”), which then puts the predicate into the accusative case — a later topic.

Compared with the verbal sentence

A sentence that begins with a verb is a verbal sentence, جُمْلَةٌ فِعْلِيَّةٌ (jumla fiʿliyya): يَكْتُبُ الوَلَدُ (yaktubu l-waladu, “the boy writes”). The quick rule of thumb: start with a noun and you have a nominal sentence; start with a verb and you have a verbal one. See the Arabic grammar section.

Quick recap before the quiz.

Practice

Quiz

Recap cheat-sheet

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