# كم سنك؟



## garet122

hello,

كم سنك؟ how old are you

Is it pronounced Kam sinn*ou*ka or Kam sinn*a*ka

If it is Kam sinn*ou*ka could you explain me why. Normally after كم the tamiss is mansub


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## Crimson-Sky

It's كم سنُّك ؟ (kam sin-u-ka)
When the interrogative word _kam_ has the meaning of 'how much [is]', it is followed by a definite noun in the nominative case.
How old are you ? ( How much is your age ? )


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## akhooha

garet122 said:


> ... Normally after كم the tamiss is mansub


I am intrigued.  I will have to admit I've never heard the term "tamiss".
What is a "tamiss"??


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## Crimson-Sky

He/she meant "al-tamyiiz" (التمييز).


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## akhooha

Crimson-Sky said:


> It's كم سنُّك ؟ (kam sin-u-ka)
> When the interrogative word _kam_ has the meaning of 'how much [is]', it is followed by a definite noun in the nominative case.
> How old are you ? ( How much is your age ? )



I could be misinterpreting both sources, but Hans Wehr  as well as Wright's Arabic grammar indicate that when kam is used in the interrogative sense, the noun following must be singular and in accusative case. Examples:
كم ولدًا ـ كم رجلًا ـ


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## garet122

Thats exactly what I thought before seeing kam sinn*u*ka in my textbook.

According to my textbook, the word following كم is mansub (accusative). 
For example:  كم قلما عندك؟


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## akhooha

Actually, now that I think about it, the noun following kam is  manSu:b if the noun is indefinite.
If the noun is definite, then the nominative is used:
كم الساعاةُ ؟ .
سنك is considered definite by virtue of the pronoun suffix كَ , hence سنُّك


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## Eternal student

When kam is the predicate (your age (subject) is how much? (predicate)) then, unsurprisingly, it has no effect on the case of the subject, which is marfuu3 as expected. It is only when kam modifies a noun which acts as subject or object of a larger sentence (how many boys are here/ate chips/did you see?) that it has an effect on that noun, namely requiring it to be indefinite manSuub.

Also relevant: when bi-kam acts as the predicate meaning how much in terms of price, the subject is, again, marfuu3 as expected (bi-kam hadha l-qamiiSu). But prepositions, including bi, can also attach to the modifying kam. In this case, the noun following kam is indefinite majruur: bi-kam qalamin ji'ta?


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## akhooha

I'm puzzled --- what you seem to be saying is that only if the subject  noun after kam is the subject noun of a "larger sentence" that it will  be in manSuub.  From what you're saying, "how many students?" would be كم طالبٌ؟ (which is incorrect), and (only because it's part of a "larger sentence") "How many students in the university?" would be كم طالبًا في الجامعة؟ .  In fact, in both cases, (small sentence and"larger sentence") the correct form is كم طالبًا .
The reason you say كم الساعةُ and كم السعرُ as well as كم عمرُك and كم سنُّك is that those subject nouns are definite; the first two are definite due to the ال prefix (the hour, the price), and the second two by the pronoun suffix ك  (your age, your  years).  They are all definite and they are all marfuu3 due to their  definite nature.  On the other hand,  cases like "students", and  "pencils", which are all INdefinite will be in manSuub form because of  their indefiniteness: كم طالبًا and كم قلمًا (and whether or not they part of a "larger sentence").


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## Eternal student

You misunderstand what I am saying (I will explain more in a minute). Also, what  you are saying works fine as a rule of thumb, but as an analysis of  what's going on here it makes no sense. طالبًا in كم طالبًا is not  somehow indefinite independently of كم. It is rendered indefinite by كم, because كم is an inherently indefinite quantifier (like 'which'). Most nouns in Arabic or any other language are not inherently definite or indefinite - they are rendered such by specific elements in the sentence (determiners/quantifiers) or by the context. Even tanwiin in Arabic doesn't always mean that a noun is indefinite, if that noun is a proper name, as I'm sure you know.

So when كم  acts as a quantifer, it selects a noun that is singular, indefinite,  manSuub and carries tanwiin (as long as it isn't mamnuu3 min aS-Sarf). Slightly odd behaviour by the standards of other quantifiers in Arabic, but there you go. Note that when
كم modifies a noun (phrase) in this way, the noun phrase consisting of
كم, the noun and any adjectives etc. is just a noun phrase, not a whole sentence. ('How many students' and 'how many students in the university' are noun phrases (parts of a larger sentence) not sentences). This noun phrase can function as a subject or an object of a sentence, but needs something else to combine with to make a whole sentence.
But this is not the only function of كم. It can also, among other things, act as an  adverbial predicate (like 'here' or 'now'). Because it is a question  word, it almost always occurs initially in the sentence. A sentence  consists of a subject and a predicate. Crosslinguistically, subjects are  almost always definite, unless they occur in existential contexts  ('there is a such and such...'). As you know, subjects in Arabic are  generally marfuu3. This is why the noun in a sentence containing  adverbial-predicate كم as opposed to quantifier كم is (usually?) definite and always marfuu3.

By the way, I don't think the subject of a sentence introduced by adverbial-predicate كم always absolutely has to be definite. For example, I think كم مِثْقَالُ ذَرَّةٍ or similar examples are probably ok.


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## garet122

What do you mean by subject or object of a larger sentence?


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## Eternal student

I'm sorry this was confusing. I was trying to express in non-technical terms the distinction between kam + a noun constituting a whole (nominal) sentence, consisting of a subject (the noun) and a predicate (kam) on the one hand, and kam + noun constituting a noun phrase only. A noun phrase is not a sentence, but it can act as the subject or object etc. of a sentence. I didn't really need to put the word 'larger' in there. I didn't intend it to mean that what I am talking about only applies to long sentences or something like that. When kam + noun = sentence, the noun will be marfuu3. When kam + noun = noun phrase only, the noun will be indefinite singular manSuub.


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## akhooha

Your differentiation between "noun phrase" and "sentence" as an explanation why سنّ is marfuu3 in كم سنُّك and why طالب is manSuub in كم طالبًا appears to me to be illogical.  Using the same analysis you applied to كم سنُّك (i.e. that سنّ is "unsurprisingly" marfuu3 because it is the subject of a sentence: 





> When kam is the predicate (your age (subject) is how much? (predicate))  then, unsurprisingly, it has no effect on the case of the subject, which  is marfuu3 as expected.


) you can also describe طالب as the subject of a sentence:
When kam is the predicate (student(s) (subject) is/are how much? (predicate)

Using your own analysis, both سنّ and طالب are subjects, and both [كم سنُّك؟] and [كم طالبًا؟] are sentences. Yet,(surprisingly or unsurprisingly) one subject is marfuu3 and the other is manSuub.  Why is that? Since both words are subjects, and both subjects find themselves in a sentence, what is that mandates one is marfuu3 and the other manSuub? The only differentiating factor is one of definiteness.
سنّ is definite by its pronoun suffix كَ


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## garet122

that is exactly what I thought.


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## Eternal student

Hmmm, it seems you don't know what a sentence is. Wikipedia has a decent explanation. The distinction between a sentence and a noun phrase is absolutely crucial for understanding the syntax of Arabic or any other language. Without it you can't properly articulate the difference between al-baytu kabiirun (sentence) and al-baytu l-kabiiru (not a sentence). To be clear, only a sentence can have a subject, a noun phrase can't have a subject.

Let's forget about i3raab for a minute. Does it make any sense, in English or in any other language to ask 'how much is a student'? I'm not sure it does, because student is not a gradable notion. But let's grant that it does, for the sake of argument. In that case you would translate it kam Taalibun, because here we are dealing with a whole sentence of which kam is the predicate and Taalib is the subject. Unsurprisingly, Taalib is therefore marfuu3. When kam combines with an indefinite manSuub noun, the result is always only a noun phrase, not a sentence. So kam Taaliban could never mean 'how much is a student', only 'how many students'.

For a more plausible example of an indefinite noun phrase functioning as the subject of a sentence in which kam is the predicate, see my كم مِثْقَالُ ذَرَّةٍ example.


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## akhooha

> Hmmm, it seems you don't know what a sentence is. Wikipedia has a decent explanation


 Perhaps you should read that "decent explanation":
"A sentence is a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that are grammatically linked. A sentence can include words grouped meaningfully to express a statement, question, exclamation, request, command or suggestion." (Wikipedia)
A says: "There are a lot of students here today."
B says: "Oh? How many students?"
B has just uttered two sentences.
You seem to be focusing on my sloppiness in copying and pasting your sentence formulation by my not having changed "much" to "many".  In any case,كَم (as you know) can be translated either as "how much" or "how many".
I do, however, thank you for your irrelevant excursion into a distinction between "noun phrase" and "sentence" as further thought has resulted in my reaching a conclusion different  from the one I'd earlier proposed. The reason why some words are marfuu3 and some are manSuub after kam has nothing to do definiteness or indefiniteness; neither does it have anything to do with one's concept of a "noun phrase" or a "sentence". 
It has to do with countability.
In the following examples in which the nouns are manSuub, the nouns are countable:
كَم طالبًا
كم قلمًا
كم كتابًا
كم رجلًا
In the following examples in which the nouns are marfuu3: the nouns are uncountable:
كم سنُّك
كم الساعةُ
كم السعرُ
كم الثمنُ 
N.B. Your example of كم مِثْقَالُ ذَرَّةٍ ,while it may very well represent your own theoretical construct, is incorrect. It should be كَم مِثقالًا مِن الذُرَّة


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## Eternal student

Oh dear. Perhaps I did you a disservice by directing you  to that wikipedia article, as it only seems to have confused you  further. The relevant parts here are "A simple complete sentence  consists of a single clause" and "A clause typically contains at least a subject noun phrase and a finite verb".  For Arabic you have to replace "finite verb" with "finite verb and/or  nominal predicate". It is true that in your example, "how many students"  counts as a sentence, but that is only because the predicate "are here"  has undergone ellipsis because it is recoverable from the context. If,  completely out of the blue, I ask "how many chickens", then that is not a  sentence.

A couple of other points:

1) I don't know what  distinction you were intending to make with the terms countable and  uncountable, but you are not using these terms correctly. All the  examples of uncountable nouns you have given are in fact countable  nouns. Examples of actual uncountable (mass) nouns are 'air', 'water', 'sand'  etc. There is no barrier whatsoever to quantifier kam combining with a  genuinely mass noun like 'rice' or 'bread': kam khubzan  'how much bread'. However, when kam is an adverbial predicate you are  unlikely to get a mass noun as the subject, for the same reason that you  are unlikely to get a word like 'student' as the subject: mass nouns,  like students but unlike prices, ages etc., are not gradable.

2)  The meaning I intended for my example كم مِثْقَالُ ذَرَّةٍ is something  like "how much is the weight of an atom", in a context where, for example, someone says that such and such is not worth the weight of an atom, and you ask "but how much is the weight of an atom?" I'm not sure how natural this is, but I don't think it is strictly incorrect. On the other hand كَم مِثقالًا مِن الذُرَّة looks like gibberish to me. What do you intend it to mean? I don't see how you can translate it as anything other than something like 'how much weight/how many weights from the atom'.


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## akhooha

> كَم مِثقالًا مِن الذُرَّة looks like gibberish to me


To clear up your confusion:
مثقال (mithqāl) = a unit of weight (4.68 g) (a countable unit)
ذُرَّة  (dhurra) = sorghum or millet

So, [how many mithqāl of millet?] = كَم مِثقالًا مِن الذُرَّة 

Mithqāl, however, can also mean "weight" (which is uncountable)
and
ذَرَّة  (dharra) = atom
So, if you meant [what is the weight of an atom?], then you would be correct in saying كم مثقالُ ذَرَّةٍ . 
In "how many mithqaal of millet", mithqaal is manSuub because a "mithqaal" is a countable unit.
In "what is the weight of an atom" mithqaal is marfuu3 because "weight" is uncountable.

And to clear up your mistaken notion that some of the words I've listed as "uncountable" are really "countable":
As I'm sure you know, many Arabic words have more than one meaning.  Just as mithqaal can mean a countable unit of weight as well as an uncountable notion of weight, so it is with the word saa3a.
saa3a can mean a countable hour or it can mean an uncountable notion of time.
(what is the time?) =  kam as-saa3atu? (marfuu3 because it is uncountable)
(how many hours did you work?) kam saa3atan ishtaghalta? (manSuub because it is countable.
P.S. Likewise, [سنّ] can mean "year" (countable) or "age" (uncountable).  Hence, كم سنُّك because "age" in uncountable.


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## Eternal student

Ok I see what you're saying with the mithqaal business. I didn't notice initially that you had changed this venerable old Quranic expression into something about millet. By the way, as far as I'm aware, there is no shadda in dhura.

Do you also maintain that si3r and thaman are uncountable? I won't argue with you concerning the others, but these are clearly not. I wonder if what you really mean is that the subject in a sentence containing adverbial-predicate kam has to be either an individual or a functional noun. An individual noun is something that is (thought of as) inherently unique, such as the sun, the moon, the weather, the time (now). They are not mass (uncountable) nouns, but it does not make sense to pluralize them in their ordinary use. A functional noun is a noun that must always have an implicit or explicit possessor, but each possessor can only have one of these. Examples are mother, father, age, top, price, weight etc. These are also not (usually) mass nouns, and it does make sense to pluralize them in cases where you are talking about multiple possessors. It may well be the case that all subjects in sentences with adverbial-predicate kam need to be either individual or functional nouns and that the noun selected by quantifier kam cannot be individual or functional (must be sortal or relational). This strikes me as plausible, and is an interesting insight if correct. But note that being an individual or functional noun is not sufficient to qualify a noun as a possible subject in a sentence containing adverbial-predicate kam: as I keep saying, it must also be gradable (so weight, age and time are ok, sun, moon, top, mother etc. are not).

Let me also repeat that the mass/count distinction is clearly irrelevant to the question of which nouns can be selected by quantifier kam: kam khubzan 'how much bread' is fine.


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## akhooha

Eternal student said:


> ...
> Let me also repeat that the mass/count distinction is clearly irrelevant to the question of which nouns can be selected by quantifier kam: kam khubzan 'how much bread' is fine.



You might want to take a look at barkoosh's explanation:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2692918&p=13594267#post13594267

HTH


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## Eternal student

Yup, that's a very reasonable way of looking at it. Note that his/her basic point is identical to my original point: when kam is a quantifier that selects the noun following it, that noun will be manSuub. Otherwise the noun following kam will be a subject and therefore marfuu3.


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## akhooha

That's a _very_ creative interpretation of what barkoosh said.
Perhaps you need to read barkoosh's explanation a little more carefully. barkoosh said nothing about a subject.


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## Eternal student

Look at his examples that are expanded with words he takes to be understood/omitted. The noun that is marfuu3 is the subject of yablughu in each case, and this is the reason that it is marfuu3. Or do you think there is another reason?


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## akhooha

كم طالبًا في الجامة؟ ـ
What do you think is the subject of that sentence?


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## Eternal student

Tell me what you think it means and I will happily oblige.


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## dkarjala

Good grief - since we all know English, all we need to say is the following:

"How many ___" = كم + المنصوب

Any other expressions (how much, how much of, etc.) will have arguments whose case is determined by something other than كم.


Eternal student said:


> Let me also repeat that the mass/count distinction is clearly irrelevant to the question of which nouns can be selected by quantifier kam: kam khubzan 'how much bread' is fine.



I would say that using continuous rather than digital entities with كم is marginal at best - I think 'fine' is stretching it. The accusative here, as far as I know, is used to elicit a numeric quantity of a category, whether the noun so used is generally digital or not. Much more common are كم من الماء، كم من الخبز where, of course, the case is determined by the preposition.


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