You may be thinking why there is a complete separate post dedicated to plurals but this topic is in fact a key cog in producing grammatically accurate sentences (and if not understood correctly can cost you those key marks in an exam…)
There are different types of plurals in Arabic. Those different types need to be treated in different ways by the words around them. By now you are no stranger to GNCD. Yes, when words join together they generally have to conform to grammar rules revolving around gender, number, case and definiteness. This is what I mean by treatment. Depending on the type of plural the word is it will be treated differently by the words around it.
So what are the different types?
The standard rule for plurals are that if they are sound then they are treated as plural however if they are broken plurals then they are treated as singular, feminine. As always there are exceptions to the rule as we will come to see.
What are sound plurals?
The chart above lists 6 different types of plurals. The first two type are called sound plurals because the singular forms of the words are changed to the plural form the sequence of the root letters stay intact. So for example, the singular of teachers is مٌعَلِّمٌ the root letters being ع ل م. The plural form is مٌعَلِّمُوْنَ and as you can see the sequence of the root letters ع ل م does not get changed when the singular form is changed into the plural form. The same is the case for female teachers: مُعَلِّمَةٌ – مُعَلِّملتٌ where the root letters ع ل م are not broken with anything coming in between them to break the sequence.
Words which come into contact with this type of plural treat them as they are masculine plural or feminine plural as they are usually used for intelligent beings: humans, angels, jinns. However there are some non-intelligent objects which also take the sound feminine plural ending and this is where we deviate from the standard rule slightly as now these types of non intelligent sound feminine plurals are treated as singular feminine – like the broken plurals.
What are broken plurals?
Broken plurals are where the original sequence of the root letters of a word are broken. For example, the singular of men is الرَّجُلُ where the root letters are ر ج ل. The plural form is الرِّجال and as you can see here the sequence has been broken here with an alif placed in between ج and ل; for this reason these plural form is called a broken plural.
There are intelligent broken plurals and non intelligent broken plurals.
Non-intelligent broken plurals are treated as singular feminine as per the standard. However, intelligent plurals have more options. For example books الرجال can be treated as singular feminine because it is a broken plural however it can also be treated as a masculine plural because it is intelligent.
As promised here are the answers for from the questions under the noun sentence post and the verb sentence post:
Try the following:
The house is big: البَيْتُ كَبِيْرٌ
The school is far: المَدْرَسَةُ بَعِيْدَةٌ
The books are small: الكُتُبُ صَغِيْرَةٌ – you’ll probably understand this better after this post, notice that the خَبر is singular, feminine because the مبتدأ is a non intelligent broken plural
Zayd went home: ذَهَبَ زَيْدٌ المَنْزِلَ
Ayesha played football: لَعِبَتْ عَاعِشَةُ كُرَةَ القَدَمِ
Halima ran to the mosque: رَكضَتْ حَلِيْمَةُ الى المَسْجِدِ
Habib cooked the chicken: طَبَخَ حَبِيْبٌ الدَّجَاجَةَ
The men went to the school: ذَهَبَ الرِّجالُ الى المَدْرَسَةِ or ذَهَبَتْ الرِّجالُ الى المَدْرَسَةِ – This will make more sense after this post, notice how the verb can be masculine or feminine because the subject is an intelligent broken plural
As always feel free to ask any questions.
Ma’salaam
Logicalwayfarer 