Possessive case
Possessive case
In Arabic there is no equivalent for " 's " and "of". To express possession you just mention the property before the owner, eg:
| English | Arabic |
|---|---|
| the student's book | كتابُ الطالبِ |
| the man's house | بيتُ الرجلِ |
| the rector's car | سيارةُ المديرِ |
The first noun (property) is called مُضاف and the second (owner) مُضاف إلَيه . The whole construct is called إضافة, roughly meaning possession. In fact إضافة is used for more than just possession.
(In)definiteness of the property
Suppose you want to say "a man's house". Here both nouns (man & house) are indefinite. So we remove the ال in الرجل; house (بيت) is without ال in all cases, definite or not. We are then left with بيتُ رجلٍ.
| English | Arabic |
|---|---|
| a student's book | كتابُ طالبٍ |
| a woman's house | بيتُ امرأةٍ |
| a rector's car | سيارةُ مديرٍ |
Rules ...
of مضاف
- is always placed first
- never takes ال nor double vowels
- its definiteness depends on that of the مضاف إليه
- loses its final ن if dual or sound masculine plural
of مضاف إليه
- is always placed second
- may or may not take ال
- ends in ـِ or ـٍ, depending on whether definite or not
- ends in ين if dual or sound masculine plural
Qualifying the property
No other word can come between the two words; any adjective to the first (property) will be placed after the second (owner), not after the first as is normally the case.
Since an adjective for the second (owner) will also come after the second, there can be some ambiguity as to which of the two words an adjective qualifies. This problem is solved by relying on gender, number, vowel ending and/or definiteness because the adjective will agree with what it qualifies (see Agreement).
| English | Arabic |
|---|---|
| the man's new car | سيارةُ الرجلِ الجديدةُ |
| the new student's book | كتابُ الطالبِ الجديدِ |
| the student's new book | كتابُ الطالبِ الجديدُ |
In the first example, it is clear that the adjective "الجديدة " is for "سيارة " as they both share the same gender, whereas "الرجل " is masculine and cannot be qualified by a feminine adjective.
The second & third examples differ from each other only in the vowel ending of the adjective, which determines which of the two previous words the adjective describes.