This original notice was written for the guide. It models the compact Modern Standard Arabic (formal/public) used on a library door or institutional webpage. Unlike an email, a notice has no named sender or individual recipient. It therefore favors headings, nominal phrases, impersonal directives, and passives that present rules as properties of the institution.
That impersonal style is useful, but it is not grammatically empty. Every directive still has a verbal noun, passive subject, understood human audience, or explicit object. The page traces those roles so that forms such as يرجى، يسمح، يمنع، تعاد do not become a memorized list of bureaucratic vocabulary.
Compare the broader choices described in Administrative Style and Active, Passive, and Impersonal Style. This notice deliberately alternates among those voices according to function.
The complete notice
ساعات عمل المكتبة وقواعد الاستخدام
المكتبة مفتوحة من الأحد إلى الخميس، من الساعة الثامنة صباحا حتى السادسة مساء.
آخر موعد للدخول: الساعة الخامسة وخمس وأربعون دقيقة مساء.
يرجى إبراز بطاقة العضوية عند الدخول.
يسمح باستخدام الحواسيب المحمولة في قاعة القراءة.
يمنع تناول الطعام والشراب داخل القاعة.
لا تتركوا الحقائب في الممرات.
تعاد الكتب إلى مكتب الاستعارة قبل المغادرة.
في حال الطوارئ، يستخدم المخرج الشرقي.
شكرا لتعاونكم.
Faithful translation
Library Opening Hours and Rules of Use
The library is open Sunday through Thursday, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Last admission: 5:45 p.m.
Please show your membership card upon entry.
Laptop computers may be used in the reading room.
Eating and drinking are prohibited inside the room.
Do not leave bags in the corridors.
Books are to be returned to the circulation desk before departure.
In an emergency, the eastern exit is to be used.
Thank you for your cooperation.
The heading: a nominal frame for the whole text
ساعات عمل المكتبة وقواعد الاستخدام.
sāʿātu ʿamali l-maktabati wa-qawāʿidu l-istikhdām.
Library opening hours and rules of use.
The heading contains no finite verb. Two coordinated noun phrases label the notice: ساعات عمل المكتبة and قواعد الاستخدام. In the first nested iḍāfa, the final المكتبة makes the chain definite. In the second, الاستخدام does the same. Compact nominal style is natural in headings (formal/public) because the missing relation—“this notice gives”—is obvious from the setting.
English can stack nouns in library opening hours. Arabic instead makes the relationships explicit through iḍāfa boundaries. Reading ساعاتُ عملِ المكتبةِ as one undifferentiated noun string makes it harder to predict which word can take an adjective or article.
Opening times as nominal clauses
المكتبة مفتوحة من الأحد إلى الخميس، من الساعة الثامنة صباحا حتى السادسة مساء.
al-maktabatu maftūḥatun mina l-ʾaḥadi ʾilā l-khamīsi, mina s-sāʿati th-thāminati ṣabāḥan ḥattā s-sādisati masāʾ.
The library is open Sunday through Thursday, from eight in the morning until six in the evening.
This present nominal clause has no overt equivalent of English is. Feminine مفتوحة agrees with المكتبة. The two من...إلى/حتى frames set a range in days and a range in clock time. الثامنة and السادسة are feminine ordinal hour labels because the understood head is الساعة.
The second mention omits repeated الساعة before السادسة. This is coordination-based ellipsis: the reader recovers “until [the hour] six” from the parallel phrase. Public notices exploit predictable ellipsis to remain compact.
آخر موعد للدخول: الساعة الخامسة وخمس وأربعون دقيقة مساء.
ʾākhiru mawʿidin li-d-dukhūl: as-sāʿatu l-khāmisatu wa-khamsun wa-ʾarbaʿūna daqīqatan masāʾ.
Last admission: five forty-five in the evening.
The colon connects a label to its value without a finite verb. الخامسة names the hour, while خمس وأربعون دقيقة counts minutes. In 45, the ones component shows gender polarity with feminine دقيقة, and the counted noun after 21–99 is singular accusative. The notice could also say السادسة إلا ربعًا, but 5:45 avoids ambiguity about whether the doors close at six or admission stops earlier.
يرجى and يسمح: impersonal permission and request
يرجى إبراز بطاقة العضوية عند الدخول.
yurjā ʾibrāzu biṭāqati l-ʿuḍwiyyati ʿinda d-dukhūl.
Please show your membership card upon entry. (Literally, showing the card is requested.)
Passive يرجى is an institutional request formula (formal/public). The verbal noun إبراز names the requested action and heads the iḍāfa إبراز بطاقة العضوية. No pronoun identifies who requests it, while the physical context identifies visitors as the expected actors.
This differs from personal أرجو أن تبرز... “I ask that you show...,” which names a speaker and marks the addressee on a finite verb. The impersonal packaging is appropriate because a standing rule outlives any one staff member.
يسمح باستخدام الحواسيب المحمولة في قاعة القراءة.
yusmaḥu bi-stikhdāmi l-ḥawāsībi l-maḥmūlati fī qāʿati l-qirāʾa(h).
Laptop computers may be used in the reading room. (Literally, use is permitted.)
The internal passive يسمح suppresses the permitting authority. بـ introduces the permitted activity as a verbal noun. الحواسيب is a non-human broken plural, so its adjective is feminine singular: المحمولة, not plural المحمولون or المحمولات in the neutral MSA rule.
Permission applies only inside قاعة القراءة. The locative phrase is not decorative: it limits the rule's scope. Public writing becomes misleading when such limits are omitted.
يمنع and لا: two kinds of prohibition
يمنع تناول الطعام والشراب داخل القاعة.
yumnaʿu tanāwulu ṭ-ṭaʿāmi wa-sh-sharābi dākhila l-qāʿa(h).
Eating and drinking are prohibited inside the room.
Passive يمنع presents the ban as an institutional rule. The coordinated foods are not its direct objects. Rather, verbal noun تناول is the passive subject and governs its own iḍāfa complement الطعام والشراب. The grammar thus packages an action as the thing prohibited.
لا تتركوا الحقائب في الممرات.
lā tatrukū l-ḥaqāʾiba fī l-mamarrāt.
Do not leave bags in the corridors.
Here the notice addresses its human readers directly. Prohibitive لا governs the jussive, so masculine/mixed plural تتركون loses its mood nūn and becomes تتركوا. This shift to direct address is marked: the institution chooses a shorter, more urgent form for a behavior that blocks movement or creates a hazard.
Both sentences are formal, but their interpersonal stance differs. يمنع تناول... foregrounds the standing rule; لا تتركوا... foregrounds what visitors must not do now.
Passive instructions and non-human plurals
تعاد الكتب إلى مكتب الاستعارة قبل المغادرة.
tuʿādu l-kutubu ʾilā maktabi l-istiʿārati qabla l-mughādara(h).
Books are to be returned to the circulation desk before departure.
The internal passive تعاد makes الكتب the نائب الفاعل, the nominative participant corresponding to what English calls the passive subject. The verb precedes a non-human plural and appears feminine singular. The same feminine-singular agreement also matches the general non-human plural rule beyond verb-first order.
The phrase مكتب الاستعارة is an iḍāfa naming the circulation/loans desk. قبل المغادرة uses a verbal noun and leaves the visitor generic; the rule applies to every reader without a repeated “before you leave.”
في حال الطوارئ، يستخدم المخرج الشرقي.
fī ḥāli ṭ-ṭawāriʾ, yustakhdamu l-makhraju sh-sharqiyy.
In an emergency, the eastern exit is to be used.
Unvocalized يستخدم could represent active yastakhdimu “he uses” or passive yustakhdamu “is used.” Context and vocalization resolve the homography. Here nominative المخرج الشرقي is the passive subject. The initial prepositional phrase narrows the instruction to emergencies; without it, the line would wrongly sound like a general route rule.
شكرا لتعاونكم.
shukran li-taʿāwunikum.
Thank you for your cooperation. (Addressing a group.)
The closing finally makes the audience visible through plural ـكم. It retrospectively confirms that the generic directives address visitors collectively. The notice does not need a signature because the location and institutional design identify its source.
Comprehension and production
- Which lines are complete nominal structures without a finite verb?
- In تعاد الكتب, what is the grammatical role of الكتب, and why is the verb feminine singular?
- Which rule directly addresses readers, and what ending was deleted by the prohibitive particle?
- How do the location and emergency phrases limit the scope of two different rules?
For production, draft a four-line notice for a study room. Give opening hours from 9:00 to 5:00, permit water, prohibit food, and tell a group not to leave phones on the tables. Use one nominal clause, one يسمح بـ clause, one يمنع clause, and one direct لا + jussive prohibition.
Common Mistakes
Following يرجى with an ungoverned indicative
❌ يرجى تبرز بطاقة العضوية عند الباب.
Incorrect—the impersonal notice formula normally takes a verbal noun, or a properly formed finite complement.
✅ يرجى إبراز بطاقة الزائر عند البوابة الشمالية.
yurjā ʾibrāzu biṭāqati z-zāʾiri ʿinda l-bawwābati sh-shamāliyya(h).
Please show the visitor card at the northern gate.
Keeping indicative nūn in a plural prohibition
❌ لا تتركون الأكواب على الطاولات.
Incorrect for a prohibition—لا الناهية requires jussive تتركوا, without mood nūn.
✅ لا تتركوا الأكواب الورقية على طاولات القراءة.
lā tatrukū l-ʾakwāba l-waraqiyyata ʿalā ṭāwilāti l-qirāʾa(h).
Do not leave paper cups on the reading tables.
Giving a non-human plural human plural agreement
❌ يعاد الكتب إلى الرفوف بعد استعمالها.
Incorrect—الكتب is a non-human plural and the passive verb here is feminine singular: تعاد.
✅ تعاد المجلات إلى الرف المخصص بعد قراءتها.
tuʿādu l-majallātu ʾilā r-raffi l-mukhaṣṣaṣi baʿda qirāʾatihā.
Magazines are returned to the designated shelf after they are read.
Using a cardinal instead of an hour label
❌ آخر دخول في الساعة خمسة وخمس وأربعون.
Incorrect in formal schedule language—the hour takes the feminine ordinal الخامسة.
✅ ينتهي استقبال الزوار في الساعة الخامسة وخمس وأربعين دقيقة.
yantahī stiqbālu z-zuwwāri fī s-sāʿati l-khāmisati wa-khamsin wa-ʾarbaʿīna daqīqa(h).
Visitor admission ends at five forty-five.
Key Takeaways
- Headings and schedule labels can be nominal because the public setting supplies their relation to the institution.
- يرجى، يسمح، يمنع package requests, permissions, and bans without naming an individual authority.
- Direct prohibitive لا addresses readers and governs the jussive: لا تتركوا, not لا تتركون.
- Passive تعاد الكتب makes the non-human plural the passive subject and uses feminine-singular agreement.
- Time, place, and emergency phrases define a rule's scope; omitting them can change the policy itself.
Related Topics
- Email: A Polite RequestA2 — Analyze a concise professional email through its subject line, title, salutation, أرجو أن request, subjunctive agreement, contingency, and closing.
- Dialogue: At a Hotel DeskA2 — Analyze a formal-MSA hotel check-in through possession, عند, polite requests, attached pronouns, and room numbers.
- Administrative and Bureaucratic StyleB2 — Use administrative formulas, nominalization, and passive voice precisely while editing official Arabic for agency and clarity.
- Nominal versus Verbal StyleC1 — Choose between nominal and verbal Arabic according to topic continuity, agency, tense, density, and the reader's processing needs.
- Prohibitive لا with the JussiveB1 — Form negative commands with لا الناهية across every second-person cell and distinguish formal third-person prohibitions from ordinary negation.