Posts tagged with "case marking"

ذو

Posted by aziza 7 Comments
Jul 15 2011

ذو is a very interesting word in Arabic. It means ‘the owner of’, ‘one who has’ or ‘one with’. It is one of the ‘five nouns’ that are marked in Arabic by long vowels rather than short vowels, so the three cases of ذو are (ذو) nominative, (ذا) accusative and (ذي) genitive. Consider the following examples:

الطالب ذو الشعر الأسود مصري.

‘The student with black hair is Egyptian.’

أعرف الطالب ذا الشعر الأسود.

‘I know the student with black hair.’

تكلمت مع الطالب ذي الشعر الأسود.

‘I spoke with the student with black hair.’

It is usually used after definite nouns or to refer to known referents, and it acts as a first word of idafa. ذو is singular masculine, and its feminine form is ذات. Consider the different forms of ذو below:

sing dual plural
masculine ذو / ذا / ذي ذوا / ذوي / ذوي ذوو / ذوي / ذوي
feminine ذات ذاتا / ذاتي ذوات

 

Here are some examples on the use of some of these expressions:

جميع أصدقائي هم من ذوي الأخلاق الحميدة.

‘All my friends have high morals.’

زوجته ذات حسب.

‘His wife has good family.’

مطلوب بائعات ذوات خبرة.

‘Sales assistants with experience are required.’

الطلاب ذوو الدرجات العالية يلتحقون بالجامعة.

‘Students with high grades join university.’

Josef has kindly provided us with a link to a story in which you can see the use of ذو

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Arabic grammar terminology – case marking

Posted by aziza 1 Comment
Aug 21 2010

In this post, I present a brief table with some terms related to the case marking system; the Arabic and English terms are presented along with a brief explanation of the use of the cases.

The first table deals with the cases for nouns and adjectives.

With nouns serving as subjects of verbal sentences or subjects or predicates of nominal sentences and ending in ضمة

حالَة الرفع /مَرفُوع

 The Nominative Case
With nouns serving as objects of verbal sentences and ending in فتحة

حالة النَّصْب / مَنْصُوب

 The Accusative Case for nouns
For nouns found after prepositions and nouns that occur after the first term in idafa and ending in كسرة

حالة الجَرّ/ مجرور

 Genitive (with nouns).

The second table presents the same information for the cases of present tense verbs.

With present verbs preceded by nothing, or by لا and ending in ضمة

حالَة الرفع /مَرفُوع

 The Imperfect
With present verbs preceded by لم and ending in سكون

حالَة الجزم/مَجْزُومٌ

 The Jussive Case
With present verbs preceded by أن لن ل حتى and ending in فتحة

حالة النَّصْب / مَنْصُوب

The subjunctive case for verbs

almanqoos 1

Posted by aziza No Comments
Aug 12 2010

In the previous post, I introduced (الاسم المنقوص) which is a noun that ends in (ي) preceded by a letter with kasra (ـِ). It is special in its form, as the final (ي) is deleted when the noun is indefinite. The case marking (الإعراب) of this category of nouns is special as well.

The final letter in the definite noun (ي) makes it difficult for short vowels – o and i – to appear, therefore in the nominative and genitive case, the final vowel cannot appear on the noun, e.g.

جاء القاضي.

“The judge came.”

تكلمتُ مع القاضي.

“I spoke with the judge.”
In the accusative case, however, it is possible for the short vowel – a – to appear at the end of the word, e.g.

رأيتُ القاضيَ.

“I saw the judge.”

When the noun is indefinite,  in the nominative and genitive case, the final vowels associated with the case mark cannot appear, instead the word always ends in tanween al-kasr (ـٍ), e.g.

جاء قاضٍ.

“A judge came.”

تكلمتُ مع قاضٍ.

“I spoke with a judge.”

In the accusative case, however, it is possible for tanween al-fateh (اً) to appear at the end of the noun, e.g.

رأيتُ قاضياً.

“I saw a judge.”
That’s all you need to know to be able to vowel (الاسم المنقوص)!

Tricky Dual (both)

Posted by aziza No Comments
May 23 2010

Dual can be very tricky at times. The word (كِلا) in Arabic means ‘both’ in English. It is used mainly as part of an idaafa construction, either with a definite noun (كِلا الطالبان) ‘both students’ or a pronoun, e.g. (كِلاهما) ‘both of them’. Many people erroneously use (كِلا) with both masculine and feminine, without realizing that there is a feminine of the word which is (كِلتا); therefore, many people make mistakes in expressions like (كِلا اللغتين) ‘both languages’ and (كِلا الدولتين) ‘both countries’, when it should be (كِلتا اللغتين) and (كِلتا الدولتين).

In addition, when we mark the cases on these words, the final vowel is changes according to the case. i.e. we use (كِلا) and (كِلتا) in the (مرفوع) nominative case. When they are used in the (منصوب) accusative and (مجرور) genitive cases, the final vowel changes to (ي), e.g.

جاء كِلا الرجلان.

‘Both men came.”

زرت كِلتي الدولتين.

‘I visited both states.’

تكلمنا مع كِليهما.

‘We talked to both of them.’

Fronted Predicate

Posted by aziza 4 Comments
May 11 2010

In Arabic, nominal sentences typically begin with a subject (مبتدأ), which can be a noun or a pronoun, e.g.

الولد طويل.

‘The boy is tall.’

هي طالبة.

‘She is a student.’

A noun that occurs as a subject is often definite, e.g. a proper noun like (محمد) or (نادية), a noun that begins with ال, e.g. (الولد) or (الطالبة), or a noun that has a possessive ending, e.g. (كتابي) or (صديقتي).

In some cases, when the subject is indefinite, it appears after the predicate. The predicate in this case is often made up of a prepositional phrase or the expression (هناك), i.e. ‘there is’. In this case, the predicate occurs at the beginning of the sentence (خبر مقدم) and the subject appears after it (مبتدأ مؤخر), e.g.

هناك أماكن جميلة في العالم العربي.

‘There are beautiful places in the Arab world.’

في الكتاب الجديد قصص جميلة.

‘In the new book, there are lovely stories.’

This is important with regard to the case marking of these sentences, as many students often miss the fact that these sentences are nominal sentences with fronted predicates. The subject that comes at a later position in the sentence must be marked nominative, e.g.

في الكتاب الجديد قصصٌ جميلةٌ.

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