The Verbal Noun ( المصدر ) – infinitive
The verbal noun or noun of action may also be used as (أسم) Like (نصر) ‘help’ (literally helping) or (ضرب)a blow’ (literally striking), or (عبادة)‘prayer’ (literally praying).
The Arabic definite article (ال)
(ال) ‘al) corresponds to the English definite article ‘the’. The Arabic indefinite article Tanwin is dropped when the definite article ‘al’ is prefixed to a noun;
Examples:
(بيت) (baitun) ‘a house’ becomes (البيت) al baitu ‘the house’.
(جمل) (jamalun) ‘a camel’ to (الجمل) (aljamalu) ‘the ‘camel’.
Arabic has 28 alphabets or letters; of these, 14 are called the Sun Letters (الحروف الشمسية) and the other 14 are called the Moon Letters (الحروف القمرية) In the moon letters the lam ( ال) of al is pronounced like (القمر) al-qamaru’). While in the sun letters the lam of al is assimilated to the first letter of the noun like (الشمس) ) ash-shamsu). The
assimilation is indicated by () on the first litter of the noun. A table showing the moon letters and the sun
letters is given below.
