Prepositions and prepositional clauses in Arabic
A preposition puts words, usually and/or objects in a relationship and indicates a certain relationship. They are short words related to a noun or pronoun. We deliver prepositions and prepositional clauses in Arabic!
Related Topic
Before you learn the Arabic nouns for the most important prepositions, learn how to build prepositional sentences in Arabic and how to determine the case of the parts of the sentence, you can also have a look at the chapter on sentence structure in Arabic.
Prepositions
There are different categories of prepositions: local, causal, concessive and others. In the following, a few western ones are listed for the listed categories.
Place prepositions
Place prepositions or local prepositions are prepositions that indicate the spatial relationship of words.
over | فوق |
under | تحت |
on | على |
at | عند, في |
in front of | أمام |
behind | وراء |
next to | جنب, بجانب |
in | في |
outside of | خارجح |
around | حول |
between | بين |
near | قريب من, بالقرب |
to (this place e.g.), towards | إلى (هذا المكان في سبيل المثال) |
Example: He is staying in front of me. هو واقف أمامي
Temporal prepositions
The temporal prepositons reflect the temporal relationship of words.
on (this day e. g.) | في (هذا اليوم في سبيل المثال) |
to (this day e.g.) | إلى (هذا اليوم في سبيل المثال) |
before | قبل |
after | بعد |
from | ابتداءاً من |
beyond | على هذا الجانب |
from … to … | …من … إلى |
since | منذ |
Example: Before leaving the house, he had breakfast. قبل أن خرجَ من البيت فَطَرَ
Causal prepositions
With this category of prepositions things can be related according to reason, purpose and cause.
because of | بسبب |
Example: He is happy because of this success. هو سعيد بسببِ نجاحِهِ
Concessive prepositions
Contrary to causal prepositions, concessive pronouns introduce the opposite reason of a concessive clause. This indicates a counter reason, a restriction or a grant.
despite, although | على الرغم |
Example sentence: Although she likes him, she doesn’t want to marry him. على الرغ من أنه تحبه لا تتجوزه
Prepositional Sentences
Prepositional clauses must always have a definite subject and predicate. There are three ways of formulating this:
1. Variant: with a preposition
2. Varaint: with هناك
3. Variant: with يوجد \ توجد
Examples:
- تحت الطاولةِ قلمٌ
- هناك قلمٌ تحت الطاولة
- يوجد قلم تحت الطاولة
Those were the prepositions and prepositional clauses in Arabic. If you liked the article then you are welcome to read the article about the so-called nisba form in Arabic here.