Archive for May, 2009
Aragoz: the famous Egyptian puppet Posted by aziza on May 31, 2009
Aragoz (الأراجوز), also Karagoz is a traditional puppet in Egyptian popular culture. It started about 70 centuries ago, and since then has continued to entertain people, young and old. It is a small puppet of a man with a funny pointy hat and bright clothes. The puppet appears on a small stage or stand behind…
Even more on numbers and agreement in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 29, 2009
In this post, I continue to explain rules related to numbers and their specification(التمييز). I deal specifically with a very confusing set of numbers, i.e. between 11 and 99. Although it is very easy to form the specification for this set of numbers, gender agreement can be a challenging aspect. When we talk…
More on numbers and agreement in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 25, 2009
When we talk about a number of things, e.g. five cars or seven friends, we need to use the appropriate form of the number and the appropriate noun to follow. The noun that follows numbers is called specification (التمييز). It is an indefinite noun that follows a number to specify what the number refers to. It has…
Numbers in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 21, 2009
Arabic Numbers (الأعداد) are given in the table below. When read on their own, they are usually in the feminine form, and the teens always end in the work (عشر), as for complex numbers in Arabic, they follow the system (units and tens), e.g. twenty one is (واحد وعشرون), literally like (one and twenty)…
The Genitive Case in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 20, 2009
The genitive case(حالة الجر) is the case of nouns that occur after prepositions or as second word in idafa constructions, and their modifying adjectives. Nouns and adjectives that are genitive are called (المجرور) in Arabic. There are various endings used to mark the genitive case; depending on the number, gender and definiteness of the noun…
The Accusative Case in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 16, 2009
The accusative case (حالة النصب) is the case of nouns used as object in verbal sentences, and their modifying adjectives. Nouns and adjectives that are accusative are called (المنصوب) in Arabic. There are various endings used to mark the accusative case; depending on the number, gender and definiteness of the noun or adjective in question…
Marking the Nominative Case in Arabic Posted by aziza on May 12, 2009
As was mentioned before, the nominative case is the case of nouns used as subject and predicate of the nominal sentence as well as subject of verbal sentences, and their modifying adjectives. There are various endings used to mark the nominative case; depending on the number, gender and definiteness of the noun or adjective in…