Plurality in Arabic

[Mr. Z]

I'm learning Arabic, but I am still at a basic level. However, I am very interested in how Arabic forms plural nouns. I checked some singular and plural nouns and it seems that Arabic changes the vowels to create the plural form, but it is different in each noun. So, can anybody tell me more about the plural form in Arabic? My teacher won't tell me anything.

[linguoboy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_plu ... _in_Arabic

The so-called "sound plurals" are very straightforward and regular, your teacher will probably introduce them shortly.

[Mr. Z]

Thanks. But my teacher already told me there is a long time until plurals. We are still at the basics, and we are focusing more on vocabulary and writing.

[linguoboy]

Thanks. But my teacher already told me there is a long time until plurals. We are still at the basics, and we are focusing more on vocabulary and writing.

In that case, the sound plurals are -īn for masculine nouns as -āt for feminine ones. (If a feminine noun ends in -ah--as most of them do--this is dropped before adding -āt, e.g. madīna "town" > madīnāt "towns".

There's also a dual ending, but it belongs to the formal written language.

[masako]

Thanks. But my teacher already told me there is a long time until plurals. We are still at the basics, and we are focusing more on vocabulary and writing.

That is unusual. Most Arabic studies will include the plurals of nouns as they are taught so that the student becomes familiar with the plurality patterns.

Anyhow:

http://www.languageguide.org/arabic/grammar/plural.jsp

http://www.learnarabiconline.com/arabic-plurals.shtml

http://arabic.speak7.com/arabic_feminine_plural.htm

http://www.learnarabicfree.info/begin/plural.php

[Silk]

Thanks. But my teacher already told me there is a long time until plurals. We are still at the basics, and we are focusing more on vocabulary and writing.

In that case, the sound plurals are -īn for masculine nouns as -āt for feminine ones. (If a feminine noun ends in -ah--as most of them do--this is dropped before adding -āt, e.g. madīna "town" > madīnāt "towns".

There's also a dual ending, but it belongs to the formal written language.

It's actually mudun, not madīnāt.
But you're right that it works for some words, like luğa "language" > luğāt "languages"

As a rule, when I learn a new noun, I learn its plural as well. It is possible to make educated guesses sometimes, but you can't rely on it.

[Shm Jay]

If you were an Arabic speaker and heard a noun you had never known before, how would you know what its correct plural was?

[Aurora Rossa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_plu ... _in_Arabic

The so-called "sound plurals" are very straightforward and regular, your teacher will probably introduce them shortly.

Someone needs to fix those plurals, then. We should take them to a linguistic repair shop.

[linguoboy]

If you were an Arabic speaker and heard a noun you had never known before, how would you know what its correct plural was?

Same way you would know in any language with multiple plural formants, like German or Welsh. There are patterns based on gender, semantic associations, phonetic shape, etc. and then there are exceptions to this patterns which you simply memorise.

[Xephyr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_plu ... _in_Arabic

The so-called "sound plurals" are very straightforward and regular, your teacher will probably introduce them shortly.

Someone needs to fix those plurals, then. We should take them to a linguistic repair shop.

TomHChappelle, don't hack Eddy's account.

[Aurora Rossa]

TomHChappelle, don't hack Eddy's account.

It's actually me.

[Silk]

If you were an Arabic speaker and heard a noun you had never known before, how would you know what its correct plural was?

Same way you would know in any language with multiple plural formants, like German or Welsh. There are patterns based on gender, semantic associations, phonetic shape, etc. and then there are exceptions to this patterns which you simply memorise.

I`m not a native Arabic speaker, but I agree with this.

[Ser]

like luğa [...] luğāt

You'd need to use <ġ> for غ, <ğ> is used for the ج.[/romanization pedant]

[masako]

like luğa [...] luğāt

You'd need to use <ġ> for غ, <ğ> is used for the ج.[/romanization pedant]

or <gh> or <ḡ> or <g>...

and <ğ> is valid in ISO 233-2...

You could even use <3'> if you so desire.

[/arabic pedant]

[Khvaragh]

If you were an Arabic speaker and heard a noun you had never known before, how would you know what its correct plural was?

Despite how difficult they seem at first, Arabic broken plurals can actually be quite simple once you learn the basic patterns. There are around 20 or so relatively common ones, and some rarer ones with either specific meanings, or extremely archaic. When I don't know the plural of a noun, I guess based on the form of the noun, and the most common patterns. i.e., I usually guess 'aCCa:C or CuCCu:C for masculine, -a:t for feminine. -a, the usual singular feminine ending (for animates, usually) is common in Egyptian, even unexpectedly, i.e. /ragul/ "man" > /riga:la/, where the classical form is /ridZ)a:l/, so it maintains the classical form, but innovates the -a (note that /ridZ)a:la:t/ means "important men," so perhaps it might be a deformation of this instead). Active and passive particles often have CaCa:CiC, i.e. /mawd_?\u?\/ "topic" > /mawa:d_?\i?\/ (along with the more colloquial /mawd_?\a?\a:t/), but when they refer to people, they take sound plurals, or occasionally CuCaCa:? for specific professions or types of people, i.e. /?\a:lim/ and /?\ali:m/ "scholar, scientist" > /?\ulama:?/; this form is much stronger than many other plurals, and often refers to specific groups; i.e. while /?\ulama:?/ can mean "scientists," it's usually used to refer to Islamic scholars collectively. The verbal nouns typically pluralize with -a:t. (/ixtiba:r/ "test, study" > /ixtiba:ra:t/) It's just a matter of getting used to it.

Thanks. But my teacher already told me there is a long time until plurals. We are still at the basics, and we are focusing more on vocabulary and writing.

In that case, the sound plurals are -īn for masculine nouns as -āt for feminine ones. (If a feminine noun ends in -ah--as most of them do--this is dropped before adding -āt, e.g. madīna "town" > madīnāt "towns".

There's also a dual ending, but it belongs to the formal written language.

-i:n(a) is the plural form for the accusative/genitive (some times classed together as "oblique" for when the accusative and genitive inflections are identical), and the animate masculine plural in many colloquial dialects. The masculine animate nominative plural is -u:na. And yes, /madi:na/'s plural is /mudun/, like /kutub/, the plural of /kita:b/ "book," another very common form.

[Mecislau]

A few questions for the Arabic speakers here, out of curiosity...

1) How well have the regional Arabics kept up the system of broken plurals seen in Classical Arabic/MSA? Have they generally survived intact, or has some regularization or levelling been taking place?

2) Do any nouns (in MSA or in regional forms) combine both broken plurals with normal plural endings, particularly as a step towards regularization? This happened in Hebrew, for instance, where you still see some survivals of broken plurals in things like sefer "book" > sfarim "books", where the original broken plural has been augmented by the usual masculine plural ending -im.

[Khvaragh]

A few questions for the Arabic speakers here, out of curiosity...

1) How well have the regional Arabics kept up the system of broken plurals seen in Classical Arabic/MSA? Have they generally survived intact, or has some regularization or levelling been taking place?

2) Do any nouns (in MSA or in regional forms) combine both broken plurals with normal plural endings, particularly as a step towards regularization? This happened in Hebrew, for instance, where you still see some survivals of broken plurals in things like sefer "book" > sfarim "books", where the original broken plural has been augmented by the usual masculine plural ending -im.

(Note I'm mostly talking about Egyptian here, since it's the dialect I'm most familiar with)
1)
For the most part, yes, though the more archaic forms are generally absent, unless they're loanwords from MSA. Sometimes it's hard to tell which are loanwords and which aren't if there aren't specific morphophonemic cue, i.e. a reflex of /D/ realized as [z] in Egyptian instead of [d] - [zamb] "sin/fault" from classical /Danb/, (and there are doublets in some cases: I've heard [kazb/ as well as /kadb/ as the reflex for classical /kaDa:b/ both meaning "liar," with no difference in meaning, though since the latter is more common, one might say that there's an underlying socio-linguistic discourse issue going on.)
There are some odd divergences, like /sana/>/sani:n/ "year" instead of classical /sanawa:t/. Some of the distinction between the tripartite division of singular vs. plural vs. collective/generic for non-human nouns has been lost; for example, I've heard /awra:?/ "papers (generic)" for cases which should be represented by /wara?/</waraq/; /laX\ma/ is always meat in general (in classical, it's piece of meat, as opposed to /laX\am~laX\m/ which is meat plural), and if you want to specify, you say /X\it:at @l:aX\ma~X\it:at laX\ma/ literally "a piece of meat."
Forms with multiple possible plurals are usually generalized to 'aCCa:C; /baX\T/ > /baX\s/ "research" > /abX\a:s/, where /buX\u:s/ and others are possible. The plurals of all the active and passive participles have generalized to -i:n, but this has to do with a shift in syntactic usage, since they are commonly used as an additional tense, which is kind of a non-temporal or continuous one (the b- prefix is a present imperfect and not non-temporal IMO; the same thing has happened with the participles in Neo-Aramaic btw). When the participles are used as nouns, they retain their usage plurals.
The form 'aCCa:C is very ancient it seems, and is one of the most common patterns in Arabic. It also occurs in Ge`ez as a common broken plural (I have no idea about the other Ethiopic langs since I haven't looked at them in any real detail). Both this and CuCCu:C have been extended for use in some very common loanwords: /bank/ "bank" > /bunu:k/, /film/ "movie, film" > /afla:m/. More recent loanwords (relatively speaking) usually pluralize with -a:t though (they are typically treated as masculine in the singular though); /tilifo:n/ "telephone" > /tilifo:na:t/.

So basically, yes, the broken plurals have survived, but have been USUALLY generalized to the most common patterns.

2) Short Answer? Yes.
Longer one? This is true of all forms of Arabic, as far as I know, back into its inception, those I can't recall if I've seen compound plurals using the most common broken plurals with regular plurals; usually it's archaic or lesser used ones, but I'm sure there are common ones. I've already pointed out the example of /rajul/ > /rija:la:t/ and Eg. /riga:lah/, both of which compound a broken plural with a regular ending (I would argue that -a is a regular plural ending, but it's usually only used for modifiers of non-human plural nouns). There's also a compound plural with some feminine nouns /laX\D_?\a/ "moment" > /laX\aD\a:t/, /kalma~kilma/ (also /kalima/) "word" > /kalima:t/, /sana/ "year" > /sanawa:t/, /um:/ "mother" > /um:aha:t/, /bint/ "daughter" > /bina:t/, /sama:?/ "sky" > /samawa:t/, though this is IMO less compounded plurals than the result of either changes in stress patterns (which may have produced some of the Hebrew segolates), the reduction of doubled feminine markers, or the result of Qur'anic standardization in roots with irregular or lost codas (much like the alif maqsura, which is likely to be an attempt to render an original /aj~a:j/ coda which was reduced to /a:/ in the Meccan dialect). I tend to think the ending -a:? on plurals like the aforementioned /?\ulama:?/ is either something like a compound plural, where -a:? is a regional variant of -a:t or another feminine marker, or possibly borrowed/copied from Syriac (keep in mind that hamza did not exist in the earliest forms of Arabic), where a final alif marks the emphatic, definite form of the noun (which may have itself evolved from a post-fixed /ha:/ "behold/there/attention drawer."

[Ser]

and <ğ> is valid in ISO 233-2...

Nope, it isn't.