Hi everyone!
In this post we’ll be looking at how Syrian handles ‘number‘: singulars, plurals, duals etc.
Plural
The plural of a noun is used to refer to two or more of that noun – unlike fuS7a, which uses plurals for three or more and uses its dual form for two. Syrian plurals are formed in a dizzying range of ways. Although there are patterns, the only reliable solution is to learn them as you encounter their singulars. Still, it’s worth briefly looking over the options, if only so you can recognise them when they pop up.
The sound masculine (ـين -iin) and sound feminine (ـات -aat) are used as in fuS7a: they pluralise masculine and feminine participles and nouns derived from adjectives (respectively), and -aat is also used as a catch-all plural for words that can’t form any other kind of plural because their shape is not amenable to a broken plural:
|
معلم |
معلمين |
|
معلمة |
معلمات m3allm-aat teachers (f.) |
| اقتصاد 2iqtiSaad economy |
اقتصادات |
The suffix ـة -a/e, as well as forming the feminine of various words, can also be used to pluralise many nouns referring to professions, especially those with the patterns fa33aal or fa33iil. Plurals in ـة are not non-existent in fuS7a but are much less common:
|
نجار |
نجارة najjaar-a carpenters |
| لعيب la33iib player |
لعيبة |
A handful of nouns referring to body parts that come in twos are pluralised with ـين -een, which looks like (and presumably historically is) the dual suffix. Note, however, that the meaning is plural. This suffix behaves unusually in 2iDaafe, as we will see in a subsequent post:
|
رجل |
رجلين rijl-een legs |
| ايد 2iid arm |
ايدين |
Finally, many, many nouns have broken plurals. Contrary to popular belief, broken plurals are not entirely irregular – they are mostly dependent on the shape of the singular. But since there are many irregularities, and many cases where a singular could plausibly take either of two patterns, it’s easiest just to learn them as they occur:
|
ولد |
ولاد wlaad children |
| بنك bank bank |
بنوكة |
|
كتاب |
كتب kitob books |
| مغربي maghirbi Moroccan |
مغاربة |
Dual
As I noted above, Syrian does still have a dual form, although it’s mostly confined to nouns (rather than there being distinct adjective, verb etc forms). It is straightforwardly produced by adding the suffix ـين -een. Final ـة -e/a becomes -t- when the suffix is added:
|
شب |
شبين shabb-een two guys |
| مكتبة maktabe bookcase |
مكتبتين |
Nouns referring to body parts that form their plural with -een have a dual in -teen instead:
|
رجل |
رجلتين |
The dual tends to be used to explicitly express that there are ‘two’ of something – that is, in exactly the same way that we use the word ‘two’ in English.
That’s all for today. Next time we’ll look at adjectives. If you want to keep up with this and other translation/Arabic-related content, follow me on Twitter at Chris Hitchcock (@chm3na).