Lesson 56 – الدَّرْسُ السَّادِسُ وَالْخَمْسُونَ
The sound masculine plural - جَمْعُ المُذَكَّرِ السَّالِمِ
Declension of the masculine sound plural –إِعْرَاب جَمْع المُذَكَّر السَّالِم
- We are still in lesson fifty six of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
- The Arabic sound masculine plural is a declinable noun, ending with /Wāw/ and /Nūn/ (ون /ūn/) or /Yā’/ and /Nān/ (ين /īn/), depending on its grammatical case. We will learn in this part when to add (Wāw and Nūn), and when to add (/Yā’/ and /Nūn/) to the end of Arabic the sound plural.
- We studied earlier the declension, and we learnt that each Arabic word has a grammatical position or a grammatical case. According to that grammatical case the declinable word is ended with certain sign (vowel case ending), e.g.:
| Muhammad wrote the lesson |
- The word (مُحَمَّدٌ) in this sentence is the subject (الفاعل). The subject used to be nominative, signed with /đammah/ on its ending (last letter).
- The word ( الدَّرْسَ), is the direct object ( مفعول به), and this type has to be accusative, ended with /fatħah/. And so on.
- The following table summarizes the grammatical cases and the original signs for the singular noun (this is for revision purposes):
| Jussive | Genitive | Accusative | nominative | Grammatical case |
| Sign’s figure | ||||
| /Sukūn/ | /Kasrah/ | /Fatħah/ | /Đammah/ | Sign’s name |
- These were the signs of the declension of the singular. But the sound masculine plural has different signs, e.g.:
| Trainers like players |
- You may notice in this sentence that the subject is the word ( الْمُدَرِّبُونَ), it is in the nominative case, but it is not signed with the /đammah/, its grammatical sign is not on the final letter, it is the semifinal (penultimate) letter, so it has the /Wāw/ (و /ū/) as a sign of the nominative case.
- And also the word (اللاَّعِبِينَ) it is a direct object, which is in the nominative case, but you may notice that it is not ended with /fatħah/, it is signed with the /Yā’/ (the penultimate letter).
- So we can summarize the declension signs of sound masculine plural as shown in the following table:
| Genitive | Accusative | Nominative | Grammatical case |
| Sign’s figure | |||
| Sign’s name |
- From this table above you notice that the sound masculine plural is signed with /Wāw/ in the penultimate letter if it is in the nominative case, and is signed with /Yā’/ if it is in the accusative or genitive case, the following table shows us some examples of this rule:
| Grammar | Example | Singular | ||
| Sign | Case | English | Arabic | |
| /Wāw/ | Nominative | These are teachers | /hā’ulā’I mudarrisūna/ |
/al mudarrisu/ |
| /Yā’/ | Accusative | I respect teachers | /aħtarimu-l- mudarrisīna/ | |
| /Yā’/ | Genitive | These are the clothes of the teachers | هَذِهِ مَلابِسُ المُدَرِّسِينَ /hādhihī malābisu-l-mudarrisīna/ | |
| /Wāw/ | Nominative | The trustworthy are beloved by the people | الصَّادِقُونَ يُحِبُّهم النَّاسُ /aŝ-ŝâdiqūna yuħibbuhum an-nāsu/ |
/aŝ-ŝâdiqu/ |
| /Yā’/ | Accusative | I love trustworthy people | /anā uħibbu aŝ-ŝâdiqīna/ | |
| /Yā’/ | Genitive | This man is of the trustworthy people | هَذَا الرَّجُلُ مِنَ الصَّادِقِينَ /hādhā ar-raĵulu min aŝ-ŝâdiqīna/ | |
| /Wāw/ | Nominative | The researchers reached a result | وَصَلَ البَاحِثُونَ إلى نَتِيجَةٍ /waŝala al bāħiθūna ilā natīĵatin/ |
/al bāħithu/ |
| /Yā’/ | Accusative | The government gave the researchers a big prize | أَعْطَتْ الحُكُومَةُ البَاحِثِينَ جَائِزَةً كَبِيرَةً /aξŧat al ħukūmatu al bāħithīna ĵā’izatan kabīratan/ | |
| /Yā’/ | Genitive | The life of the researchers is full of work | حَيَاةُ البَاحِثِينَ كُلُّها عَمَلٌ /ħayātu al bāħithīna kulluhā ξamalun/ | |
| /Wāw/ | Nominative | The players are clever | /al laa’ibuuna maahiruuna/ |
/al lāξibu/ |
| /Yā’/ | Accusative | I saw the clever players | شَاهَدْتُ اللاَّعِبِينَ المَاهِرِينَ /shaahadtu al laa’ibiina al maahiriina/ | |
| /Yā’/ | Genitive | I played with the clever players | لَعِبْتُ مَعَ اللاعِبِينَ المَاهِرِينَ /laξibtu maξa al lāξibīna al māhirīna/ | |