# indefinite noun



## DerDrache

http://www.madinaharabic.com/Index.htm

(I'm only linking as this relates to my query)

I've recently begun studying arabic. It was originally my impression that the indefinite noun form was merely implied, though this site however says that a "n" sound (represented by the double vowel mark) makes that distinction. To elaborate, the site says that book=kitabu. However, "a book"=kitabuun.

Other sources don't have that terminal "u"...they just say that "kitab"=book.

Would someone mind explaining this for me? I'd guess that the site I linked to is teaching a particular dialect, while I'd otherwise be learning the normal "modern standard" pronunciation. Anyone know what dialect it is, and perhaps for which other major dialects it holds true for?

EDIT: Heh, actually...this isn't really about Indefinite v. Definite...just about the indefinite.


----------



## Anatoli

I asked a similar question regarding case endings. -u and -un are nominative case endings in MSA. I also noticed that they are not always used even when teaching the standard Arabic:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=173710

http://www.answers.com/topic/arabic-grammar


> Normally, nouns take the ending _-u(n)_ in the nominative, _-i(n)_ in the genitive and _-a(n)_ in the accusative. However, with important exceptions, case is not shown in standard orthography, and it is optional whether or not to articulate a case ending when speaking or reading aloud. Technically, every noun has such an ending, although at the end of a sentence, no inflection is pronounced, even in formal speech, because of the rules of 'pause'.


http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=10x0lbgr5fxph?tname=i-r-b&sbid=lc03b


> Iʿrāb
> The  *i'rāb* (إﻋﺮﺍﺏ) are the nominal desinences of Classical Arabic. They are written in fully vocalized Arabic texts, notably the Qur'an, but they are not pronounced in any surviving dialect of Arabic. The desinences are _-u_, _-a_, _-i_ for Nominative, Accusative and Genitive case, respectively, with additional nunation (_-un_, _-an_, _-in_) in the indefinite state, written with the *tanwin*   ً ٍ ٌ. The term is cognate to the word _Arab_ itself.


I think it's a typo there, should be *declension*, not *desinence.*


----------



## DerDrache

Shukran

So, basically...as far as practical use of the language goes, I can ignore such endings? That's to say...kitab will always be pronounced as such, and I won't need to change that to indicate "a book"?

ALSO, does that hold true for adjective agreement? Like, laban haar = hot milk, not laban haaru?


----------



## Anatoli

My understanding is you don't need to use them in a spoken language because when you speak casually, you use a dialect, no dialect has this endings, except for expressions with accusative endings, tab`an, shukran, etc. If you want to be formal, then these endings are used but you need to know the grammar because it depends on the case - nominative, genitive or accusative.

It doesn't matter if you have adjectives or not.

Let's wait for native speakers, they may have different opinion.


----------



## Whodunit

DerDrache said:
			
		

> Shukran
> 
> So, basically...as far as practical use of the language goes, I can ignore such endings? That's to say...kitab will always be pronounced as such, and I won't need to change that to indicate "a book"?
> 
> ALSO, does that hold true for adjective agreement? Like, laban haar = hot milk, not laban haaru?


 
You are completely right, DerDrache. 

You would either have to say "labanun 7aarrun" or "laban 7aar". Here's another example:

I wish that the man brings a cup of tea.

traditional:
arghib*u* an ar-rajul*u* ya7Dur*a* finjaan*a* 'sh-shaay*i*.

how you'd hear it:
arghib an ar-rajul ya2a7Dur finjaan ash-shaay.

.أرغب أن ألّرجل يأحضر فنجان الّشاي

Hope it helps. 

PS: Natives, please correct my transliteration of the verbs.


----------



## cherine

I agree with Anatoli's explanation (seems you're make progress Anatoli   )
I'll only add a simple thing :


			
				DerDrache said:
			
		

> So, basically...as far as practical use of the language goes, I can ignore such endings? That's to say...kitab will always be pronounced as such, and I won't need to change that to indicate "a book"?


Yes. The endings are mainly to indicate a word's function in a sentence, and -sometimes- to facilitate the pronounciation, it helps work as the French "liaison", it's makes speaking easier, specially with words ending with consonants : the endings (or declinations) giving the words a final vowel, thus facilitating the "liaison" between words. And this maybe explains why we generally drop the ending at the end of sentences, to mark the pauses.



> ALSO, does that hold true for adjective agreement? Like, laban haar = hot milk, not laban haaru?


It's a rule that the adjective "agrees" with the الموصوف (the word being qualified/described). Si if you say laban, you say haar; if you say labanun, you'd say haarun.
But I'd like to say that we usually translate "hot", in this context, as saakhin ساخن not 7aar حار which we mostly use with weather.


----------



## DerDrache

Thanks for all the great responses. On question about vocab...Haar is reserved for weather, what about "barid" (cold)? Is that just for weather?


----------



## cherine

Dear Whodunit, we've posting in the same time 
I'm sorry to say that your transliteration of this time needs many corrections  I hope you won't be upset with that.



			
				Whodunit said:
			
		

> I wish that the man brings a cup of tea.
> traditional:
> arghib*u* an ar-rajul*u* ya7Dur*a* finjaan*a* 'sh-shaay*i*.
> how you'd hear it:
> arghib an ar-rajul ya2a7Dur finjaan ash-shaay.
> .أرغب أن ألّرجل يأحضر فنجان الّشاي


1- I wish is = أود awaddu , while arghabu أرغب is I want. 
2- using the verb arghabu is followed by an then a *verb* not a noun. أرغب أن يُحضر الرجل فنجان الشاي 
3- may I ask why you put a hamza on the "al" ?! الرجل not ألرجل 
4- and another hamza (I definitly have an obsession with hamza  ) يأحضر ?!! why this one ? the correct is يحضر 

To sum it up, your sentence should go like this :
أرغب أن يُحْضِرَ الرجلُ فنجانَ الشايِ arghabu/uriidu an yu7dira 'r-rajulu finjana 'sh-shaayi
To Say it without much interest in declinations, you just drop the letters in blue.

* To complicate things a little bit  : 
a cup of tea, being indefinite, is translated as: فنجان شاي or فنجانًا من الشاي


----------



## cherine

DerDrache said:
			
		

> Thanks for all the great responses. On question about vocab...Haar is reserved for weather, what about "barid" (cold)? Is that just for weather?


No, baarid بارد can be used in any context.
And a little correction of my own generalisation : Haar is not *only* for weather; it can also used in other contexts, the one I have on my mind now is blood : damm Haar دم حار (like the creature of blood temperature's variating... I don't remember the English word for it, but we study it in science) versus دم بارد


----------



## Anatoli

Thanks Cherine, Whodunit.

Could you clarify on accusative ending. I read that it's usually written with alif, so even if you don't use tanwiin diacritic marks, the spelling is different from other cases. Will this affect pronunciation in dialects and spoken Arabic? Do you pronounce kitaab-*an* or just kitaab but write an alif at the end to mark the accusative indefinite? I am asking about the spoken dialects, not MSA, this time. Let me know if it doesn't make sense what I am asking, my vocab is too small to make up a full sentence example. (in English it would be "I am reading a book." a book being a direct object (accusative case))

This is what I mean:
nominative and genitive without vowels: كتاب

accusative: كتابا

Will the second example be always pronounced kitaab-an, even in dialects?


----------



## Whodunit

cherine said:
			
		

> Dear Whodunit, we've posting in the same time
> I'm sorry to say that your transliteration of this time needs many corrections  I hope you won't be upset with that.


 
No, I won't. I love corrections, that's why I'm here. 

By the way, I'm not the only one who makes mistakes tonight. 



> 1- I wish is = أود awaddu , while arghabu أرغب is I want.


 
Okay, I shouldn't trust too much in my dictionary, which gives the following translations for "wish": raghiba, ibtaghaa, tamannaa



> 2- using the verb arghabu is followed by an then a *verb* not a noun. أرغب أن يُحضر الرجل فنجان الشاي


 
Oh, how embarrassing! Don't let my teacher see it. 



> 3- may I ask why you put a hamza on the "al" ?! الرجل not ألرجل


 
Because you force me to use hamzas wherever possible. 



> 4- and another hamza (I definitly have an obsession with hamza  ) يأحضر ?!! why this one ? the correct is يحضر


 
No, it's me who has an obsession with hamza. Why? Because the word is أحضر and I hate this kind of verbs.



> * To complicate things a little bit  :
> a cup of tea, being indefinite, is translated as: فنجان شاي or فنجانًا من الشاي


 
Oh darn, yet another stupid mistake! That's not complicated at all, that's actually easy.

I better go to bed ...


----------



## cherine

Anatoli said:
			
		

> Thanks Cherine, Whodunit.
> This is what I mean:
> nominative and genitive without vowels: كتاب
> accusative: كتابا
> Will the second example be always pronounced kitaab-an, even in dialects?


You're welcome Anatoli 
First, you seem to forget that in colloquial Arabic we don't pronounce the grammatical endings  So we'd almost never say kitaaban/kitaabun/kitaabin in a dialect (unless there's an exception I don't know of)
As for MSA, there are two ways to pronounce words in such form (notice that the writting doesn't change) :
1- we don't pronounce the ending, so we write كتابا kitaaban and say كتاب kitaab;
2- we pronounce it kitaabaa كتابَا , and this is a phonetical thing called التخفيف "alleviating".


----------



## Whodunit

cherine said:
			
		

> You're welcome Anatoli
> First, you seem to forget that in colloquial Arabic we don't pronounce the grammatical endings  So we'd almost never say kitaaban/kitaabun/kitaabin in a dialect (unless there's an exception I don't know of)


 
I guess an exception is the adverbs. Wouldn't you still say "yaoma" to mean "one day (as in: One day I went to the doctor ...)", or "mar7aba" instead of "mar7ab"?


----------



## cherine

LOL Whodunit, thanks for the late night laugh (actually it's almost fajr time here)


			
				Whodunit said:
			
		

> By the way, I'm not the only one who makes mistakes tonight.


Of course you're not  ain't we all humans ?
If/when you spot a mistake of mine, please let me know.



> Okay, I shouldn't trust too much in my dictionary, which gives the following translations for "wish": raghiba, ibtaghaa, tamannaa


The translations given by the dictionnary are correct, but you're enough versed into languages to know that the choice of a word depends on context. Wish can be translated in a way as to make it mean "desire", or another way to make "want". So, it's up to us to choose among the given meanings the one that's more appropriate for our context 



> Oh, how embarrassing! Don't let my teacher see it.


LOL



> Because you force me to use hamzas wherever possible.


LOL again. Don't make me feel شريرة  I don't mean to scare you with my obsessions 



> No, it's me who has an obsession with hamza. Why? Because the word is أحضر and I hate this kind of verbs.


Simply remember that the verbs starting with أ (for huwa/hiya) in the past tense lose it in the present with those same pronouns, and keep it with "ana".



> I better go to bed ...


OH! and me too


----------



## cherine

Whodunit said:
			
		

> I guess an exception is the adverbs. Wouldn't you still say "yaoma" to mean "one day (as in: One day I went to the doctor ...)", or "mar7aba" instead of "mar7ab"?


Yes, ra2aytuhu yawma رأيته يوما 
asma3uhu dawma أسمعه دوما

And if you get the chance to watch those Arabic cartoons we spoke of (those in MSA) you'll always say the characters say mar7aba, and not mar7aban. And mar7ab sounds colloquial. It is colloquial in Egypt  we don't say mar7aban nor mar7aba in colloquial Egyptian.


----------



## Whodunit

Ok, this will be my last chatty contribution to this thread. 



			
				cherine said:
			
		

> LOL Whodunit, thanks for the late night laugh (actually it's almost fajr time here)


 
I still have some hours till fajr begins.



> Of course you're not  ain't we all humans ?
> If/when you spot a mistake of mine, please let me know.


 
Is the "if/when" question for me? I guess you know either is correct, depends on what you want to say.

By the way, I wouldn't even dare correct your English! 



> The translations given by the dictionary are correct, but you're enough versed into languages to know that the choice of a word depends on context. Wish can be translated in a way as to make it mean "desire", or another way to make "want". So, it's up to us to choose among the given meanings the one that's more appropriate for our context


 
So my attempt with raghiba was not all too wrong, right?



> LOL again. Don't make me feel شريرة  I don't mean to scare you with my obsessions


 
You, you don't.  But what does the word شرير really mean? I found several meanings, but do you mean it the sense of "guilty"?

(I'm going to open a new thread if it's too hard to translate in a single post.)



> Simply remember that the verbs starting with أ (for huwa/hiya) in the past tense lose it in the present with those same pronouns, and keep it with "ana".


 
Oh ok, I haven't known that before. Shukran djaziilan.


----------



## Anatoli

Not sure I understood the last bit, Cherine. So, in accusative forms do you pronounce it as "kitaab" or "kitaabaa" or both is possible (apart from formal "kitaaban")?

When you write, do you usually كتابا or it depends if it is formal or informal writing (I mean in situations where you would use accusative case)?


----------



## Whodunit

Anatoli said:
			
		

> Not sure I understood the last bit, Cherine. So, in accusative forms do you pronounce it as "kitaab" or "kitaabaa" or both is possible (apart from formal "kitaaban")?


 
You understood it correctly. 



> When you write, do you usually كتابا or it depends if it is formal or informal writing (I mean in situations where you would use accusative case)?


 
The alef has to be there. If the word is indetermined in the accusative, you have to add an alef, both to the noun and to the adjective (رأيت رجلا كبيرا), unless the last letter is a taa2 marbuta (ة). It doesn't matter if you write informally or formally considering this grammatical "exception" (since you usually don't "write" endings).


----------



## Anatoli

Thanks all, I learned something today.


----------



## cherine

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Ok, this will be my last chatty contribution to this thread.


Let's hope so, otherwise Elroy or Jana will come delete all those posts  (mine included of course  )



> Is the "if/when" question for me? I guess you know either is correct, depends on what you want to say.
> By the way, I wouldn't even dare correct your English!


Please ! Of course you can. I'm not _that_ good, especially when I'm writting with eyes half-opened 



> So my attempt with raghiba was not all too wrong, right?


Right. It's just a matter of "better choice" 



> what does the word شرير really mean? I found several meanings, but do you mean it the sense of "guilty"?


No, it means wiked or evil (French : vilaine, maligne...)
Guilty is مذنب mudhnib(a)

Now, تصبح على خير


----------

