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ARABIC ONLINE

اللّغة
العربيّة

<

• Welcome!

• Viewing Arabic
Texts

• Introduction

• Alphabet

• Pronunciation
•
Words
•
Vowels
•
Reading
out

• Accent and Stress

• Rules of Pause

• Writing of Letter 'alif

• Roots

• Root
Extraction

• Nouns

• Irregular
Nouns

• Declension

• Noun Gender

• Feminine Markers

• Singular Nouns

• Dual
Nouns

• Plural Nouns
EDITED

• Masculine Plural
Nouns
EDITED

• Feminine Plural
Nouns

• Irregular Plural
Nouns
• Articles

• Case Inflection

• Case Endings

• The Six
Nouns

• Noonation

• Adjectives

• Genitive Construction

• Am/Is/Are
Sentences

•
Verbs

• Irregular
Verbs

•
Verb
Forms

• Perfective Verbs

• Perfective
Conjugation

•
Irregular
Perfective Conjugation

• Imperfective
Verbs

• Imperfective Conjugation

•
Irregular Imperfective Conjugation

• Moods

• Subjunctive Mood

• Jussive
Mood

• Mood
Signs

• Energetic Mood

• Imperative
Mood

• Passive
Voice

• Passive Perfective
Verbs

• Passive
Imperfective Verbs

• Passive
of Irregular Verbs

• Subject
Pronouns

• Object
Pronouns

• Demonstratives

• Relative Pronouns

• Sentences

• To
Have

• Incomplete
Verbs

• Frozen
Verbs

• Verb-Like Particles

• Negation

• Present
Negative

•
Past
Negative

•
Future
Negative

•
Negation+Exclusion Style

• Interrogation

• Yes/No Questions

•
Interrogative
Pronouns

• Polite
Request

• Introductory Particles

•
Infinitival/Indefinite maa

• Prepositions

• Conjunctions

• Adverbs

• Inactive
Particles

• Ablative
Particles

• Vocative
Particles

• Exclamatory
Style

• Praise
& Disparagement

•
Derived Nouns

•
Verbal Nouns

• Active Participles

• Passive
Participles

• Participle-like
Adjectives

• Comparatives

• Place-nouns

• Time-nouns

• Tool-nouns

• Attributives

• Diminutives

• Vocabulary

•
Dialects

• Survival Phrases

• History & Culture

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Nouns

Number of
Nouns

Plural Nouns
(continued)

Irregular Plural Nouns

As we have seen, turning a
singular noun into a regular plural noun is done by adding a suffix while
the main stem of the noun is preserved.

Irregular plurals work in another
way. Here, there are no added suffixes but rather the radicals
(root-letters) of the singular noun are taken and applied into a different
pattern or structure to form the plural. Thus, the stem of the singular
noun is not preserved in this kind of plural.

This is why it is called the
broken Plural (the Arabic name is literally the "breaking plural"
جَمْعُ التَّكْسِيْرِ). This name refers
to the fact that this kind of plural involves "breaking" the stem of the
singular noun.

Examples of irregular
plurals:

Irregular Plural

Singular

rijaal(un)

رِجَاْلٌ

rajul(un)

رَجُلٌ

men (masc.)

a man (masc.)

tujjaar(un)

تُجَّاْرٌ

taajir(un)

تَاْجِرٌ

merchants (masc.)

a
merchant (masc.)

huroob(un)

حُرُوْبٌ

harb(un)

حَرْبٌ

wars (fem.)

a war (fem.)

'ashjaar(un)

أَشْجَاْرٌ

shajara(tun)

شَجَرَةٌ

trees
(fem.)

a
tree (fem.)

'ayyaam(un)

أَيَّاْمٌ

yawm(un)

يَوْمٌ

days (fem.)

a day (masc.)

haqaa'iq(u)

حَقَاْئِقُ

haqeeqa(tun)

حَقِيْقَةٌ

facts
(fem.)

a
fact (fem.)

Irregular plurals are in fact a
kind of collective nouns. They are semantically plural, but
grammatically they are singular. For example, when you use
huroob(un) = "wars" in a
sentence you won't say "these are wars" but "this is wars."

________________________________________

Origins

It appears that the irregular
plural structures were derived from verbal noun structures because of the
obvious similarity.  A verbal noun in English is a gerund (like in "I
love eating much"). For example, they used "warring" to say "wars"
and "trading" to say "traders." The sentence "this is warring" meant to
them "these are wars" and "that is trading" meant "those are traders."
This is the origin of the irregular plurals.

However, unlike verbal nouns, the
irregular plurals are always feminine.

We showed in the previous sections
how the grammatical feminine gender markers had an original
augmentative/diminutive function. This relationship between the
grammatical feminine gender and the meaning of augmentation/diminution in
Arabic makes it no surprise that the irregular plurals are
feminine.

What is now a "feminine gender" of
the irregular plural nouns was initially a mere indication of plenitude.
For example, "this is much warring
(neut.)" became this is "this is
wars (neut.)" and eventually "this is wars
(fem.)" when the feminine connotation
emerged.

Some irregular plural structures
have obvious "feminine markers" attached, while most of them do not. Some
structures have other kinds of augmentative/diminutive suffixes like the
-aan
suffix which is now standardly a "dual" marker in Arabic.

Initially, Semitic peoples used
the two regular plural suffixes (the masculine & feminine plural
suffixes) to pluralize all nouns whether they were referring to persons,
animals, or objects. However, Semites slowly started to develop a tendency
toward using the broken plural instead of the regular suffixes. This
phenomenon had not yet been very extensive when Akkadians (ancient
Mesopotamian Semites) started to write their language. There were few
irregular plural nouns in the Akkadian language, which is the oldest known
Semitic language. Even Hebrew, which was still spoken until the first
century CE, shows minimal presence of this phenomenon in comparison to
Arabic.

It appears that Arabs and other
South Semitic peoples enjoyed this kind of pluralization so much that they
kept doing it until, by the time of Muhammad and Classical Arabic, the use
of the masculine plural suffix -oona/-eena became
restricted to participles
referring to male humans.

However, there were few remnants
in Classical Arabic of nouns referring to masculine objects which were
pluralized by suffixing the masculine plural ending to them. Such words
that were used in the Koran (the Muslim holy book) included:

"aalamoon(a)
عَاْلَمُوْنَ =
"worlds" (sing. "aalam(un) عَاْلَمٌ = "a
world")

sinoon(a) سِنُوْنَ = "years" (sing.
sana(tun)
سَنَةٌ = "a
year")

These plurals are called in Arabic
grammar the "annexed masculine plurals" because they go against the rule
of keeping the masculine plural declension for only participles referring
to male humans. There is a list of all of the words that matter of this
type in this
page.

The usage of the irregular plural
has been growing even more since the time of the Koran and more words
today are irregularly pluralized. For example, adjectives referring to
male humans were generally regularly pluralized in Classical Arabic, today
however, they are commonly irregularly pluralized.

________________________________________

It is important to know that nouns
can be irregularly pluralized by more than one way, that is by using more
than one structure or pattern. Moreover, many nouns can be regularly and
irregularly pluralized in the same time.

For example:

Plural

Singular

شُهُوْرٌ

أَشْهُرٌ

شَهْرٌ

shuhoor(un)

'ashhur(un)

shahr(un)

months
(fem.)

months
(fem.)

a month
(masc.)

قَتَلَةٌ

قَاْتِلُوْنَ

قَاْتِلٌ

qatala(tun)

qaatiloon(a)

qaatil(un)

killers
(masc.)

killing
(masc.)

a
killing/killer (masc.)

Irregular plural nouns are always
feminine, unless they refer to male humans where they can be
masculine.

When irregular plurals refer to
humans, they can be treated grammatically as plural nouns instead of
singular. For example, one would say "these are the writers" instead of
"this is the writers;" the latter is purer but less common, especially in
modern Arabic. However, the declension of an irregular plural noun will
not change even if it is treated as a plural — it will always have the
endings of a singular noun.

When an irregular plural noun is
treated as a plural (when it refers to humans), the gender of the noun
will match the gender of its singular. For example, one would say
"those men know what is best for them" instead of "that men knows what is
best for her." The latter is purer but less common in Standard
Arabic.

Since that nouns referring to
female humans are usually pluralized through the feminine regular plural,
irregular plurals referring to humans usually refer to male
humans.

Irregular Plural
Structures

The possible structures for
irregular plural nouns are many. However, not all the structures are
equally important. Some of the structures are used much more often than
the others.

Following is a comprehensive
listing of all the structures from a "structural" (morphological) point of
view. The singular endings are removed. Note that many of the following
structures are uncommon.

1) Structures of the Basic Forms
CvCC &
CvCvC

►Without
affixes

Example

Structure

humr

fu"l

فُعْل

Red (plu.
adj.)

"arab

fa"al

فَعَلَ

Arabs

qiwaa

fi"al

فِعَل

Forces

duwal

fu"al

فُعَل

States/countries

rusul

fu"ul

فُعُل

Messengers

►With geminated
(doubled) second radical (root-letter)

Example

Structure

suththaj

fu""al

فُعَّل

Fools

►With -a(t), -aa'<
, or -aa (common ancestor -(a)at )

Example

Structure

fitya(t)

fi"la(t)

فِعْلَة

Young
people

jahala(t)

fa"ala(t)

فَعَلَة

Ignorant (plu.
adj.)

fiyala(t)

fi"ala(t)

فِعَلَة

Elephants

ruzaa(t)

fu"ala(t)

فُعَلَة

Invaders

ru'asaa'<

fu"alaa'<

فُعَلاء

Presidents

qatlaa

fa"laa

فَعْلَىْ

Killed (plu.
adj.)

►With
-aan

Example

Structure

sibyaan

fi"laan

فِعْلان

Boys

buldaan

fu"laan

فُعْلان

Countries

►With
prefix 'a- ('aCvCvC →
'aCCvC)

Example

Structure

'anfus

'af"ul

أَفْعُل

Souls/beings

►With prefix
'a- and suffixes
-a(t) and
-aa'<

Example

Structure

'ajwiba(t)

'af"ila(t)

أَفْعِلَة

Answers

'anbiyaa'<

'af"ilaa'<

أَفْعِلاء

Prophets

2) Structures of the Form
CvCvvC

►Without
affixes

Example

Structure

"abeed

fa"eel

فَعِيْل

Slaves

jibaal

fi"aal

فِعَاْل

Mountains

suhool

fu"ool

فُعُوْل

Plains

►With geminated
second radical

Example

Structure

"ummaal

fu""aal

فُعَّاْل

Workers

►With -aa

Example

Structure

kasaalaa

fa"aalaa

فَعَاْلَىْ

Lazy (plu.
adj.)

►With
-iy /
-iyy

Example

Structure

sahaariy

fa"aaliy

فَعَاْلِيْ

Deserts

sahaaliyy

fa"aaliyy

فَعَاْلِيّ

Lizards

►With
infix -'i- (originally -wi-
or -yi-)

Example

Structure

"ajaa'ib

fa"aa'il

فَعَاْئِل

Wonders

►With
prefix 'a- ('aCvCvvC →
'aCCvvC)

Example

Structure

'atfaal

'af"aal

أَفْعَاْل

Children

3) Structures of the Forms
CaaCiC &
CaaCeeC

►With
prefix 'a-

Example

Structure

'afaa"iy

'afaa"il

أَفَاْعِل

Snakes

'asaaleeb

'afaa"eel

أَفَاْعِيْل

Methods

►With
prefix ma-

Example

Structure

madaaris

mafaa"il

مَفَاْعِل

Schools

mafaateeh

mafaa"eel

مَفَاْعِيْل

Keys

►With
prefix ya-

Example

Structure

yahaamid

yafaa"il

يَفَاْعِل

Plural of
the name yahmad

yanaabee"

yafaa"eel

يَفَاْعِيْل

Springs (of
water)

►With
prefix ta-

Example

Structure

tamaatheel

tafaa"eel

تَفَاْعِيْل

Statues

►With
infix -wa- or
-ya-

Example

Structure

"awaalim

fawaa"il

فَوَاْعِل

Worlds

sayaarif

fayaa"il

فَيَاْعِل

Money
exchangers

tawaaheen

fawaa"eel

فَوَاْعِيْل

Mills

rayaaheen

fayaa"eel

فَيَاْعِيْل

Scents

4) Structures with Four
Radicals

Example

Structure

qanaabil

fa"aalil

فَعَاْلِل

Bombs

baraameel

fa"aaleel

فَعَاْلِيْل

Barrels

Next, we are going to talk about
the structures in terms of their usage.

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