When we talk about a number of things, e.g. five cars or seven friends, we need to use the appropriate form of the number and the appropriate noun to follow. The noun that follows numbers is called specification (التمييز). It is an indefinite noun that follows a number to specify what the number refers to. It has fixed voweling that depends on the number that precedes it.
When we talk about one thing, we use the singular form of the noun. We have to make sure it is the right gender, and we can use the adjective (واحد/واحدة) after it for emphasis.
لي صديق وصديقة.
لي صديق واحد وصديقة واحدة.
“I have a male friend and a female friend.”
When we talk about two things, we use the dual form of the noun. We have to make sure it is the right gender, and we can use the adjective (اثنان/اثنتان) after it for emphasis when it is nominative, or adjective (اثنين/اثنتين) after it for emphasis when it is accusative or genitive.
لي صديقان اثنان وصديقتان اثنتان.
“I have two male friends and two female friends.”
تكلمت مع صديقين اثنين وصديقتين اثنتين.
“I talked to two male friends and two female friends.”
قرأت كتابين وقصتين.
“I read two books and two stories.”
When we talk about three to ten things, we use the plural form of the noun in the genitive case. We have to make sure that the gender of the noun is the opposite of the gender of the noun that follows.
لي ثلاث صديقات وأربعة أصدقاء.
“I have three female friends and four male friends.”
قرأت ثلاثة كتب وخمس قصص.
“I read three books and five stories.”
The rules on numbers and specifications are sometimes not consistent with other rules that we know, and they represent a case of their own. They must be learned as they are! We have touched upon them in this posting, and more rules will follow soon.
4 Comments
Aziza
I believe you are doing a good job here, مبروك.
However, I believe you have made a mistake about the case in names of items counted after numbers 3 to ten. These are in genitive and not accusative. تمييز comes only after numbers from 11 to 99.
Regards
True, Fayruz, Shukran!
It has been fixed now.
Aziza
Marhaba Aziza
Tamyeez follows only the numbers 11 to 99 ( tamyeez takes always tanween fatha). Numbers 1 to 10 are followed by indefinite idaafa usually marked by tanween kasra. This has not been reflected at the begining of your posting.
Anyway all these rules could be quite confusing for a beginner learner of Arabic especially as they are not at all used in spoken Arabic dialects as far as I know.
Do native speakers use all the time these rules when using Modern Standard Arabic? It will be interesting to find out what happen in number and noun agreement in spontaneous Fusha if there is any!
Salaam
Ahlan Fayrouz,
Number 11 to 99 and their specifications are dealt with in the next post.
We do not usually write voweling, but tanween al-fath in particular must be written because it involves writing an additional letter.
Ideally, rules for numbers and specifications must be observed, and they are observed most of the time, but in colloquial dialects, rules are usually simplified, and more generalizations are made.
Salam,
Aziza