Nouns in English and Arabic
Duality morpheme:
English does not have a duality morpheme; it only has the
singularity morpheme and the plurality morpheme. Arabic has
the duality morpheme ‫ كتابين‬،‫ كتابان‬.
Plurality morpheme:
The plurality morpheme in English expresses itself in many
ways:
1- Adding /s/ if the final is voiceless; book+/s/
2- Adding /z/ if the final is voiced; door+/z/
3- Adding /ǝz/if the final is hissing; church+/ǝz/
4- Adding zero to some words; fish, sheep
5- Adding /ǝn/ or /rǝn/ to some nouns; oxen, children
6- Using infixes; teeth, feet
7- Using a variety of suffixes with foreign nouns;
syllabus→syllabi, datum→data
The plurality morpheme in Arabic is expressed in these ways:
1- /uw/ is added to the human singular in the nominative case to
make the sound masculine plural, e.g. ‫كاتبو‬.
2- /iy/ is added to the human singular in the accusative or
genitive case to make the sound masculine plural, e.g. ‫ كاتبي‬.
3- /a:t/ is added to the human feminine singular to make the
sound feminine plural, e.g.‫كاتبات‬.
4- Some singulars are changed internally to make what is called
broken plurals, e.g. ‫رجال → رجل‬.
To compare English to Arabic, one notices the following:
1- Both languages have regular and irregular plurals.
2- English does not have a plural morpheme based on gender,
but Arabic has the sound masculine plural morpheme and the
sound feminine plural morpheme both based on gender, i.e.
/uw, iy, a:t/.
3- In both languages, the plurality morpheme can be a suffix or
infix, e.g. books, feet, ‫كاتبون‬.
Gender:
English sometimes uses the feminine morpheme-ess, e.g.
singress, lioness. Arabic uses such a morpheme more frequently,
i.e./at/ suffixed as in ‫معلمة‬.
However, Arabic distinguishes real femininity from figurative
femininity, a distinction not made in English. The real feminine
refers to females, e.g. ‫معلمة‬. The figurative feminine refers to
non-female femininized words, e.g. ‫ نافذة‬،‫شجرة‬. The same holds
true for real masculinity, which refers to males, e.g. ‫ولد‬, and
figurative masculinity, which refers to non-male masculinized
nouns, e.g. ‫قلم‬.
Genitive structure:
1- The genitive structure in English is a structure which uses an
apostrophe or an apostrophe s between two related nouns, e.g.
the boy’s book, the boys’ books. In Arabic, it simply requires the
stringing of two related nouns e.g. ‫ كتاب الولد‬using the genitive
case marker /i/ suffixed to the second noun of the genitive
structure.
2- The genitive structure in both languages is mainly a
relationship between two nouns. Such a relation could be an
owner-owned relation, the boy’s book; whole-part relation, the
dog’s tail; a doer-action relation, the man’s hunting. In Arabic,
the relationship is in the opposite direction, ،‫ ذيل الكلب‬،‫كتاب الولد‬
‫صيد الرجل‬.
3- The genitive structure in English does not allow a determiner
before the second part, e.g. *the boy’s the book. The genitive in
Arabic does, e.g. ‫كتاب الولد‬.
4- The genitive structure in English allows a determiner before
the first part, e.g. the boy. The Genitive structure in Arabic does
not.
5- The genitive in English requires an animate first part
generally, i.e. human or animal, e.g. the boy’s book, the cat’s
tail. Arabic does not have such a restriction.
Quantifiers with nouns:
Which quantifiers go with which nouns in both languages?
1- Cardinal numbers precede the countable noun in English, but
precede or follow it in Arabic: seven books, ‫كتب سبعة‬،‫سبعة كتب‬.
2- The cardinal is masculinized or femininized in Arabic
according to the gender of the adjacent noun, but the cardinal
remains in one constant form in English regardless of the noun
gender, e.g. seven men, ‫ سبع رجال‬seven women, ‫سبعة نساء‬.
3- In English, the counted noun is always plural except after
one, e.g. seven cars. In Arabic, it may be singular or plural
depending on the number range, e.g. ‫ ثالثون رجال‬،‫سبعة رجال‬.
4- The cardinal does not come with an uncountable noun in both
languages. It is used only with the countable nouns in both
languages.
5- The quantifiers each, every, both, a couple of, a few, several,
many, and a number of are used before the countable nouns in
English, but not before the uncountable. In Arabic, there are
similar quantifiers such as ،‫ كال‬،‫ زوج من‬،‫ كل‬،‫ كثير من‬،‫ عديد من‬،‫عدد من‬
‫ بضع‬،‫ قليل من‬. These go with countable nouns. However, some of
them go with uncountable nouns as well, e.g. ‫ كثير من‬،‫قليل من الماء‬
‫ كل الماء‬،‫ الماء‬. The contrast here is that the quantifiers each, every
a few of and many go with the countable nouns only, but the
quantifiers ‫ كثير من‬،‫ قليل من‬and ‫ كل‬go with both the countable and
the uncountable nouns in Arabic, e.g. ‫ كل األوالد‬،‫ كل الماء‬.
6- In English, many is used with the countable nouns; much with
the uncountable nouns, e.g. many dollars, much money. In
Arabic, there is no such dichotomy; ‫ كثير‬is used with both the
countable and the uncountable nouns, e.g. ‫ كثير من‬،‫كثير من الماء‬
‫ الطالب‬. Similarly, whereas English has the dichotomy of a few
plus a countable noun and a little plus an uncountable noun,
Arabic uses ‫ قليل من‬with both the countable and uncountable
nouns, e.g. ‫ قليل من الطالب‬،‫ قليل من الماء‬.
7- English uses some, most, all and a lot of with both the
countable and uncountable nouns, e.g. some books, some water.
Similarly, Arabic does the same with ،‫ بعض‬،‫ معظم‬،‫ جميع‬, e.g. ‫جميع‬
‫ جميع الطالب‬،‫ الماء‬.
8- English gives a few and a little positive meanings and few and
little negative ones. Arabic does not have a similar dichotomy.
Quantifier-Verb agreement:
When the quantifier is a subject or part of the subject, the
subject-verb agreement requires special attention in both English
and Arabic.
1- Although the subject seems plural, with a singular quantifier
like every, each, ‫ كل‬, it is treated as singular in both languages,
e.g.
- Every man and woman is to attend the meeting.
- Each book and notebook is important.
- ‫كل رجل وامرأة حضر اشترك في التصويت‬
2- With a singular quantifier in the subject, the subject is
considered singular, and so is the verb in English and Arabic,
e.g.
- Every one of my students is polite.
- ‫كل واحد من طالبي حضر‬
3- With most quantifiers in English and Arabic, the quantifier is
singular if the noun after it is singular, and it is plural if the noun
is plural, e.g.
- ‫بعض الكتاب تلف‬
- ‫بعض الطالب حضروا‬
- Two thirds of the book is good
(measurement)
- Two thirds of the students are good
- ‫ثلثا الطالب غابوا‬
- ‫ثالثة أرباع الكتاب قد ترجم‬