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)