Preamble

Part-of-speech (POS) tagging is the process of marking up words in a text with their corresponding part of speech based on their definition and context. For Arabic, POS tagging is more complex than English because of its rich morphology. In Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) grammar, part-of-speech hierarchy is based on classical Arabic grammar where words are classified into three primary categories. Particle (حرف, Hurf), Verb (فعل, Fi‘l), Noun (اسم, Ism). The set of nominals include nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs. The particles include prepositions, conjunctions and interrogatives, as well as many others. This system forms the core structure of Arabic grammar and anything else, is but a detailed subdivision of these main classes. These three categories are:

A noun in Arabic refers to a word that describes a person, place, thing, or idea. It can also include an adjective, a pronoun and other subcategories. Nouns are independent and don’t typically change in tense.

Characteristics of nouns:

1. Noun (اسم, Ism)

Subcategories:

2. Verbs (فعل, Fi‘l)

Verbs in Arabic denote actions or states of being and are inflected for tense (past, present, and future), person, gender, and number.

• Action Verbs (فعل العمل)

These are verbs that express physical or mental actions. They indicate something that the subject is doing or has done.

Examples:

Stative Verbs (فعل الحالة)

Stative verbs express a state or condition of being, rather than an action. They indicate situations or states in which the subject exists, such as possession, emotions, or characteristics.

Examples:

These verbs typically answer the question “What is the subject like?” or “In what state is the subject?”

Characteristics of verbs:

Subcategories:

3. Particles (حروف, Huruf)

Particles are words that don’t fit into the noun or verb categories. They usually serve as connectors or modifiers, having no independent meaning but influencing the meaning of the sentence. Particles are not inflected and can be short, functional words.

Subcategories:

Hierarchy and Interactions

The three main categories (nouns, verbs, and particles) form the foundation of the Arabic part-of-speech hierarchy. Each of these categories is further subdivided into more specific classes that govern their interactions. The hierarchical relationships between them can be summarized as:

Nouns can interact with:

Verbs can interact with:

Particles interact with:

Examples of the Hierarchy in Use:

Noun-Adjective Agreement:

Verb-Noun Agreement:

Particle-Noun & Particle-Verb Relations:

He did not write (لم يكتب): The negative particle “لم” negates the verb “يكتب” (he writes), turning it into a past-tense negation.tique erat amet turpis pede congue eget per mollis suscipit enim cursus arcu a senectus commodo sociis Magna interdum litora faucibus praesent leo ullamcorper erat nam congue odio sapien dignissim.

In the house ( في البيت): The preposition “في” (in) is a particle, and it governs the noun “البيت” (the house), which is in the genitive case.