Noun In Arabic

Noun In Arabic Written by Firas Al-Hamdani 2008

‫( السم‬Noun) in Arabic is independent of other words in indicating its meaning. AL-Ansari (1984:18/1) defines Arabic noun as a word indicating a meaning in itself. It is the name of a person, a place, a thing or an idea, e.g.

‫( أحمَد‬Ahmed), ‫( بغداد‬Baghdad), َ‫ ( طعام‬food ) ,‫علْم‬ ِ (science) , َ‫( بيت‬a house) (Al-Baghdadi,1988:36). Arabic noun does not have any tense and it accepts the definite article (‫ )ال‬as in ‫( الرجل‬the man) and the nunation (pronouncing final ‫ ن‬without writing it) for the indefiniteness as in: ,ٍ‫ رجلً رجل‬and ٌ‫( رجل‬a man). A-Zamkshari (1993:23) states that the acceptance of the ‫ كسرة‬kasrah (

ِ‫ )ــ‬under its last letter , the nunation (ً‫)ــ‬,(ٌ‫ )ــ‬or (ٍ‫ )ــ‬with its final letter ,‫النداء‬ (vocation) ,and ‫( الضافة‬the liability to be constructed to another noun) are considered as good signs of identifying Arabic nouns, e.g. ِ‫( إلى البيت‬to the house), ‫( طالب‬a pupil) , ُ‫( يا ولد‬O boy!), ِ‫( صَفْحَ ُة الكِتاب‬the page of the book). Arabic nouns have three grammatical cases (nominative, accusative and genitive), two genders (masculine and feminine) and two states of definiteness ‫( معرفة‬Definite) or ‫ ( نكرة‬Indefinite) .Definite nouns include besides those with (‫ )أل‬prefix , proper nouns ,pronouns, demonstratives, relative pronouns ,vocatives and nouns in the construct state, e.g.

‫( الفرس‬the horse), ‫( أحمد‬Ahmed), ِ‫ب الرّجُل‬ َ ‫( كتا‬the book of the man) , ُ‫( يا رَجل‬O man!) , ‫( الذي‬who), َ‫( ُأ ْولَئك‬those) and ‫( َ هو‬he). (AL-Ghalâyny,1944:109/2)

The cases of singular nouns are indicated by suffixing ‫ ضمة‬Dhamma /u/ for nominative, ‫ فتحة‬fataha /a/ for accusative and ‫ كسرة‬Khasra /i/ for genitive

.This rule excludes words that end with the vowel letters ‫ و‬,(‫ ا‬or ‫ )ي‬where an estimated ‫ضمْة‬ َ , ‫ كَسرة‬or ‫ فتحة‬are used as in ‫( عصا‬stick),‫ سُمو‬and ‫راعي‬ (shepherd) .The feminine singular is often marked by final (‫ت‬/‫ة‬/‫ )ـة‬which is usually reduced into (-ah) before a pause. The suffix (‫ )ان‬marks the nominative of ‫( المثنى‬the dual forms) whereas the suffix (‫ )ين‬indicates their accusative and genitive cases. It is worth noting here that not all Arabic nouns have the case property. Nouns, like all other words in Arabic, are divided into

‫( مُعرَب‬muarab) declinable and ‫( مَبني‬mabni) indeclinable. The majority of Arabic nouns are muarab and liable to grammatical changes. The rest of Arabic nouns are mabni and remain unchanged irrespective of the action of the other words upon them. (For further details see AL-Miry,2006:11) Plural nouns can be regular or irregular. Regular plural of the masculine nouns is formed by adding to the singular noun form the suffixes (

‫ )ون‬for the nominative, as in ‫( فلحون‬farmers) and (‫ )ين‬for the accusative and genitive as in ‫( فلحين‬farmers). However, the regular plural of feminine noun is obtained by adding the suffix (‫ )ات‬to the singular for the three of the grammatical cases ‫( طبيبات‬doctors). The final (‫ى‬/‫ )ا‬of the singular feminine

(‫ )الممدود‬is to be changed to (‫ي‬/‫ )و‬respectively before adding the plural suffix (‫ )ات‬when they are not originally parts of the noun, e.g. ‫سجى صحراء‬, become ‫سجيات‬,‫صحراوات‬. Irregular plurals of the masculine and the feminine are arbitrary and do not follow any standard rule, e.g. ‫( رجل‬a man) becomes

‫( رجال‬men) , ‫( شمس‬a sun) becomes ‫(شموس‬suns) , ‫( إمرَأة‬a woman) becomes ‫(نساء‬women) . (473 ‫ص‬/1 ‫)أصول النحو ج‬ Finally it should be noted that the Arabic term ‫( اسم‬noun) covers a wide range of Arabic words it includes besides nouns, pronouns,

demonstratives, adjectives and noun-prepositions. (Abboud et al,1997:67 as cited in Karin,2005:55)