Partially declinable nouns

This is a group of nouns that we haven’t touched upon as much. If you remember back in previous posts I’ve mentioned rules such as feminine names do not take التَّنْوِيْن or الكَسْرَة and here’s why:

Nouns change their endings through diacritics or letters to show which case they are in. Nouns can be fully declinable, partially declinable or indeclinable.

A noun is partially declinable (does not take التَّنْوِيْن or الكَسْرَة) when it has been affected by two weak causes or one strong causes. Causes? Yes causes. There are 9 causes in Arabic which can render a noun as partially inflected; meaning it shows its رفع case through dhamma and the نصب and جرّ case through fatha – as outlined in the chart. The causes are split into weak and strong. Where the causes are weak, they need to combine with another weak cause. Where the cause is strong, it is sufficient to render the noun partially declinable – غَيْرُ مُىْصَرِف. The following chart is a full breakdown of the causes of partial inflection.

Note: If the partially inflected noun has an ال attached to it then in this case it can take a kasra.