# ال + Verbal Nouns



## 6aalib

I am trying to understand when to use ال with verbal nouns.  In Haywood's _"A New Arabic Grammar"_, there are a few examples:

Gold and silver are two metals   =    الذهب والفضة معدنان

I think I understand this idea:  الذهب = gold _in general_


But I do not completely understand this example:  

Liars shall not enter heaven  =  لن يدخل الكذابون الجنة

Why is it not الكذاب  (singular form)?  
If I put that in its place, would the sentence mean the same?


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## Nmie

الكذاب is singular and  الكذابون is plural. When you have a verb before the subject(doer), you can have plural noun, dual noun, or singular noun. There is nothing wrong with it. But if you put  الكذابون first, then you must have the verb that agrees with it (mean the plural form of يدخل).
If you put الكذاب in place of الكذابون it's not going to mean the same. It will mean " The liar shall not enter heaven".
Hope this helps.


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## AndyRoo

6aalib said:


> I think I understand this idea:  الذهب = gold _in general_


Yes, you could say the ال refers to things in general.



6aalib said:


> Liars shall not enter heaven  =  لن يدخل الكذابون الجنة
> 
> Why is it not الكذاب  (singular form)?


Because things in general can be plural too. In English we can say for example *I like dogs *where *dogs *refers to dogs in general.


6aalib said:


> If I put that in its place, would the sentence mean the same?


It would mean *the liar shall not enter heaven. *I think it can have the same general meaning as in English, so does have a similar meaning to the earlier sentence. But you cannot always use the singular in Arabic, e.g. أحب الكلب would mean *I like the dog *and not dogs in general.

BTW the nouns you mention are not verbal nouns (which in English always have the ing ending). They are just regular nouns.


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## 6aalib

Nmie said:


> الكذاب is singular and  الكذابون is plural. When you have a verb before the subject(doer), you can have plural noun, dual noun, or singular noun. There is nothing wrong with it. But if you put  الكذابون first, then you must have the verb that agrees with it (mean the plural form of يدخل).
> If you put الكذاب in place of الكذابون it's not going to mean the same. It will mean " The liar shall not enter heaven".
> Hope this helps.



Shukran for the response. This was not exactly my question but I have typed more below ...


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## 6aalib

AndyRoo said:


> BTW the nouns you mention are not verbal nouns (which in English always have the ing ending). They are just regular nouns.



Oh yes, I started thinking about this with verbal nouns but then the examples I found were with regular nouns.

MODS:  please change title of thread if necessary


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## 6aalib

AndyRoo said:


> But you cannot always use the singular in Arabic, e.g. أحب الكلب would mean *I like the dog *and not dogs in general..



Yes this is what I want to understand

English:

i like the dog     (ie. a specific dog)
i like dogs         (ie. dogs in general, uses plural form of noun)
i like gold          (ie. gold in general, uses singlar form of noun)

So in English, to refer to the noun in general:  "the" is NOT used, and the noun can be singular/plural (and I can not think of any rule for when to use plural/singular).    

I like food       (singular form)
I like shirts     (plural form) 
I like music     (singular form)
I like games    (plural form)

Arabic:

أحب الكلب     (ie. a specific dog)
أحب الكلاب    (ie. dogs in general, uses ال + plural form )

So one difference is that in Arabic, you use "ال" for the general case.  But is there any guideline for when to use the single/plural noun?  (As I said, I do not think there is one in English, you just learn what "sounds" right)

Also,  أحب الكلاب   could also mean "I like the (specific) dogs" depending on the context, correct?


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## AndyRoo

6aalib said:


> Yes this is what I want to understand
> 
> English:
> 
> i like the dog     (ie. a specific dog)
> i like dogs         (ie. dogs in general, uses plural form of noun)
> i like gold          (ie. gold in general, uses singlar uncountable form of noun)
> 
> So in English, to refer to the noun in general:  "the" is NOT used, and the noun can be singular/plural (and I can not think of any rule for when to use plural/singular).


This is correct, except gold is not singular it is uncountable (we don't say "a gold"). So the rule is we use the plural or the uncountable noun.



6aalib said:


> I like food       (singular uncountable form)
> I like shirts     (plural form)
> I like music     (singular uncountable form)
> I like games    (plural form)
> 
> Arabic:
> 
> أحب الكلب     (ie. a specific dog)
> أحب الكلاب    (ie. dogs in general, uses ال + plural form )
> 
> So one difference is that in Arabic, you use "ال" for the general case.



Yes that is correct, although music and food are also uncountable.


6aalib said:


> But is there any guideline for when to use the single/plural noun?  (As I said, I do not think there is one in English, you just learn what "sounds" right)


Just as in English, Arabic uses the  uncountable or the plural depending on the noun. 


6aalib said:


> Also,  أحب الكلاب   could also mean "I like the (specific) dogs" depending on the context, correct?



Yes it could.


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## 6aalib

AndyRoo said:


> Just as in English, Arabic uses the  uncountable or the plural depending on the noun.



I do not think that this can be looked up in a dictionary, correct?  

How would someone know what to use?  At least with prepositions, and broken plurals, etc you can look them up !


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## AndyRoo

6aalib said:


> I do not think that this can be looked up in a dictionary, correct?
> 
> How would someone know what to use?  At least with prepositions, and broken plurals, etc you can look them up !



You don't need to look anything up: you can use either the plural or the uncountable noun. But it depends on the noun if there is a plural form or an uncountable form of it.


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## abdulwahid

The confusion rises because of the definite article ال. Non-arabs compare it to the definite article in their own language and that's why they get confused. In English "the" is used to make a word definite, but "the" can't always be compared to ال. 

ال has several meanings in Arabic. Here are six of it's meanings:

*الأولى: أل العهدية :*

*- المعهود الذكري :" فِيهَا مِصْبَاحٌ الْمِصْبَاحُ فِي زُجَاجَةٍ الزُّجَاجَةُ كَأَنَّهَا كَوْكَبٌ دُرِّيٌّ "(35 النور)" كَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا إِلَى فِرْعَوْنَ رَسُولًا ، فَعَصَى فِرْعَوْنُ الرَّسُولَ "(15+16 المزمل)*
*- معهود ذهني : " إِذْ هُمَا فِي الْغَارِ "(40 التوبة) " إِذْ يُبَايِعُونَكَ تَحْتَ الشَّجَرَةِ "(18 الفتح)*
*- معهود حضوري : بعد اسماء الاشارة او النداء " جاءني هذا الرجل " " يا ايها الرجل"*

*الثانية لام الجنس :*

*- استغراق الأفراد : " وَخُلِقَ الإِنسَانُ ضَعِيفًا "(28 النساء)*
*- استغراق خصائص الفرد " ذلك الكتاب " " ذلك هو الرجل "*
*- استغراق الماهية " وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ الْمَاء كُلَّ شَيْءٍ حَيٍّ "(30 الأنبياء)*


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## إسكندراني

يجوز أن نقول لام العهدية وال الجنس؟


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## 6aalib

AndyRoo said:


> You don't need to look anything up: you can use either the plural or the uncountable noun. But it depends on the noun if there is a plural form or an uncountable form of it.



Ok, so for the noun: طعام = food (uncountable), there is also the plural أطمعة 

we use the uncountable:

احب الطعام = I like food 

but for shirts = قميص, it would be:  

احب القمصان  = I like shirts

?


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## abdulwahid

إسكندراني said:


> يجوز أن نقول لام العهدية وال الجنس؟



I think that they are called لام الجنس ولام العهد أو لام للجنس ولام للعهد but I don't see why you couldn't use what you suggested as long as people understand what you are saying.


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## إسكندراني

I just find it odd they call it a لام when it is clearly an ألف لام - I'm not really familiar with any terms but I've only seen ال التعريف إلخ before


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## abdulwahid

It's because most grammarians concluded that the ل by itself is what makes the word definite and that the ا is just there to help pronounce the لام. And for this reason you can see that many grammarians write لام التعريف and not ال التعريف

اعلم أن الألف واللام اللتين للتعريف وكذلك قولك: الرجل والغلام والثوب والفرس وما أشبه ذلك، للعلماء فيها مذهبان: أما الخليل فيذهب إلى أن الألف واللام كلمة واحدة مبنية من حرفين بمنزلة من ولم وإن وما أشبه ذلك، فيجعل الألف أصلية من بناء الكلمة بمنزلة الألف في إن وأن

وأما غيره من علماء البصريين والكوفيين فيذهبون إلى أن اللام للتعريف وحدها وأن الألف زيدت قبلها ليوصل إلى النطق باللام لما سكنت لأن الابتداء بالساكن ممتنع في الفطرة كما أن الوقف على متحرك ممتنع

http://islamport.com/w/lqh/Web/2295/4.htm


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## إسكندراني

زين، شكرا لك


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## Qureshpor

Continuing with this topic, can I please ask for a bit of clarity.

Can the لام الجنس be added to plural nouns? I have a sentence of the following type in mind.

و امّا یوم الجمعۃ فھو العید الاسبوعی *للمسلمین* یجتمعون بہ للمساجد لاداء فریضۃ الجمعۃ۔


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