صديقي يقلم الساق.

It is made of:

• صديق = friend
• ـي = my

So صديقي means my friend.

The ending ـي is a attached possessive pronoun. In Arabic, possession is often shown by attaching a suffix directly to the noun rather than using a separate word like my.

Because a noun with a possessive suffix is already definite.

So:

• صديق = a friend / friend
• صديقي = my friend

You do not say الصديقي for my friend. The possessive ending already makes it definite.

It is the imperfect form, which usually covers the present and sometimes the future depending on context.

Here it most naturally means a present or habitual action.

The dictionary form is:

• قَلَّمَ = he trimmed / pruned
• يُقَلِّمُ = he trims / is trimming

So يقلم here is really يُقَلِّمُ when fully vocalized.

In the imperfect, Arabic verbs take prefixes that show the subject.

Here يـ marks third person masculine singular, so it means he.

That is why Arabic does not need a separate word for he in this sentence. The verb itself already tells you that.

• يُقَلِّمُ = he trims

Because Arabic verbs usually include the subject information inside the verb.

So in this sentence, يقلم already means he trims. Since صديقي is present, it tells you exactly who he is.

Arabic often avoids separate subject pronouns unless there is special emphasis or contrast.

Arabic allows more than one normal word order.

This sentence is:

• صديقي يقلم الساق = subject + verb + object

Arabic can also use:

• يقلم صديقي الساق

Both are possible. Starting with صديقي gives a more topic-like or subject-focused feel, something like my friend is trimming the stem.

So this word order is normal; it is just one of the common patterns Arabic uses.

Here the ل of ال is not pronounced normally, because س is a sun letter.

So:

• written: الساق
• pronounced: as-sāq or as-sāqa in full case pronunciation

The س is doubled in pronunciation.

This is a very common rule in Arabic:

• with sun letters, the l sound of ال assimilates
• with moon letters, it does not

A careful fully vocalized version would be:

صَدِيقِي يُقَلِّمُ السَّاقَ

A few useful notes:

• يُقَلِّمُ has a shadda on ل
• السَّاقَ has fatḥa at the end because it is the direct object
• صديقي is the subject, but its case ending is not clearly visible because of the attached ـي

In normal printed Arabic, these short vowels and the shadda are often omitted, so learners have to infer them from grammar and vocabulary.

Because it is a definite noun here: the ساق.

The direct object of a verb can be definite or indefinite in Arabic, just as in English.

So Arabic allows both patterns in general:

• a definite object
• an indefinite object

In this sentence, the writer chose the definite form الساق.

No. ساق can have more than one meaning depending on context.

Common meanings include:

• leg
• stem
• stalk
• sometimes trunk or a lower supporting part of something

So the exact meaning depends on the context around the sentence. This is very common in Arabic vocabulary: one word may cover several related meanings.

Because ordinary Arabic writing often leaves out most diacritics, including:

• short vowels
• shadda

So يقلم in unvocalized text can stand for يُقَلِّمُ.

Learners often need to recover the full form from context. That is normal and gets easier with practice.