Solving Tarkeeb

Tarkeeb, in the English language, could be best translated as “Sentence Parsing”; though, to explain the concept of it to an English speaker may prove difficult , as neither does English nor – to the best of our knowledge – any other language have such a component as “Tarkeeb”. That is, the critical analysis of speech and text; breaking it down sentence by sentence, and analysing those sentences, analysing each and every word in the sentence, tracing them back to their root forms, understanding each and every word individually, its role in the sentence, why it was inserted, what effect it has on the word(s) before it and the word(s) after it, and thereafter joining that sentence together, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle, after having dissected and fully understood it.

English does have what they refer to as “Sentence Parsing”, but this can never be compared with “Tarkeeb” in Arabic.Also, “sentence parsing”, as a subject taught formally in schools died out a long time ago. And again, that is besides the fact that Tarkeeb is incomparably more advanced and sophisticated as compared to “Sentence Parsing” in English. Nevertheless, English speakers who had studied sentence parsing should then at least have a vague idea of what Tarkeeb is about.

Tarkeeb does not teach one Nahw and Sarf; no, such is not the case. Rather,Tarkeeb is for the one who has already studied both Nahw and Sarf at least to an intermediate level, wherafter he may begin studying Tarkeeb in order to “master” the Nahw and Sarf which he has learnt.To give another example in an attempt at elucidating this concept, we may say that Nahw and Sarf are the “building blocks” of the house whereas Tarkeeb is the actual building work. You take the building blocks (i.e. the Nahw and Sarf) which you have studied and –through Tarkeeb–use them to “build” a house (i.e. a sentence). Also, through it the person would know how the “house” (i.e.speech or text) was “built”, and why it was built in the manner it was, and this is essential to a person intending to become any sort of reliable builder.