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Arabic Grammatical Cases

1. What are grammatical case?
2. How many cases does Arabic have?
3. How to recognize the grammatical case in Arabic?
4. Grammar cases of Arabic duals
5. Grammar cases of Arabic plurals
6. Summary of the lesson
7. Arabic cases chart
8. Arabic cases chart with examples
9. Exercise

What are grammatical case?

The Arabic name for the grammatical case is اِعْرَابٌ

Grammatical cases determine the roles (relations) of different nouns and pronouns in a sentence, e.g. whether a noun or pronoun is the subject or object.

The noun "David" and the pronoun "he" are subjects in the above sentences. They are in the subjective case. The subjective case is also called the Nominative case.

Book, it, Mike and him are the objective case. The objective case is called the accusative case.

How many cases does Arabic have?

Arabic has three cases:

1. Subjective case (Nominative case)
2. Objective case (Accusative case)
3. Possessive case (Genitive case)

How to recognize the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives in Arabic?

Normally, in Arabic, the verb is the first element in the sentence, followed by the subject and then the object. However, we can interchange positions of the verb, subject, and object for emphasis or other reasons. Please see the following example.

ضَرَبَ is the verb in past. Our focus is not on Arabic verbs in this lesson. We want to learn Arabic grammatical cases.

In the above example, we can see that the noun Zyed has a double vowel with dammah or in Arabic we call it tanween dammah ( ـٌ ) i.e. زَيْدٌ , while the noun Hamid has the tanween fatah ( ـً ا ), i.e. حَامِدًا.

So, it's the tanween تَنْوِيْن in Arabic sentences that indicates the subjective case or objective case of a singular noun or an adjective. Another important point here is that the noun in the objective case (nominative case) is taking an extra alif ( ـً ا ) , i.e. حَامِدًا .
There are two exceptions where we don't add this extra alif ( ـً ا ).

1. If the last letter of the word is ta marboota ة, then extra alif would not be written, e.g.
   فَتْحَةً
   كَسْرَةً
2. If the word ends with the letter hamza ( ء ) and second last letter is alif ( ا ) like
   سَمَاءً

We have already learned the rules of tanween. You can recall from the lesson Tanween or from the Summary of reading rules.

For emphasis, poetry, or whatever reason, we can also switch the order of the above example sentence and still the subjective and objective cases are giving the real sence of the sentence.

We can also place the object before the subject and the meanings of the sentence remain the same. Although that feels strange.

The third condition of tanween is tanween with kasra ( ـٍ ) which represents the genitive (possessive) case.
Please see the below example.

The preposition ل means for or of. It shows possession and brings the respective noun, pronoun, and adjective in the possessive case.

Till now in this lesson, we have learned that for singular nouns and adjectives, three types of tanweens are used to indicate the grammatical cases. Arabic terms for three cases are:

1. A noun, pronoun or adjective that is in the nominative or subjective case ( مَرْفُوْعٌ ) is called the subject. The Arabic term for the subject is:
   رَفْعٌ
2. A noun, pronoun or adjective that is in the accusative case ( مَنْصُوْبٌ ) is called the object, in Arabic:
   نَصْبٌ
3. Similarly, a noun, pronoun or adjective in the genitive case ( مَجْرُوْرٌ ) is called:
   جَرٌ

Please see the following examples.

Not all Arabic nouns end in double vowels or tanween ( ـٌ ، ـً ا ، ـٍ ). Solid plural nouns and dual nouns have no tanweens at their ends.

Grammar cases of Arabic duals

From the lesson Dual Nouns, we know that a dual noun ends in the suffix انِ-
We don't have "tanweens" at the ends of dual nouns. So, we need to change the letters in the accusative and genitive cases.

While making accusative and genitive cases of dual nouns, we change the suffix انِ-   to  ـَ يْنِ   in both accusative and genitive cases.

Grammar cases of Arabic plurals

(a) Sound plurals

From the lesson Arabic plurals, we know that masculine sound plurals end in the suffix ـُ وْنَ and feminine sound plurals end in the suffix اتٌ- .

In feminine plurals, we have tanween ( ـٌ ). The declension of feminine solid plural noun occurs just by changing the tanween dammah to tanween kasra ( ـٍ ). In masculine plurals, we don't have tanween at the end. Their suffix ـُ وْنَ is changed to ـِ يْنَ in the accusative and genitive cases.

(b) Broken plurals

Declension of Arabic broken plural nouns from the nominative case to the accusative and genitive follows the same rule as singular nouns.

Please note that we are not adding an extra alif ( ـً ا ) to the accusative case of نِسَاءً
In case you are wondering why? Please read the above-explained exceptions.

Summary of the lesson

Either in a phrase or a sentence, an Arabic noun can only be in the one of three cases:

1. Nominative case   مَرْفُوْعٌ
2. Accusative case   مَنْصُوْبٌ
3. Genitive case   مَجْرُوْرٌ
4. Some nouns decline with the help of harakat حَرَكَات i.e. ( ـٌ ـً ـٍ ـُ ـَ ـِ ). Declensions with help of harakat are called اِعْرَابِ الْحَرَكَات
5. Some nouns decline with the help of their suffixes. These declensions are called اِعْرَابِ الْحُرُوْف
   حُرُوْف is plural of the word حَرْف , which means an alphabatic letter. اِعْرَابِ الْحُرُوْف means declension with the help of letters.
6. Singular nouns, feminine solid plurals, and broken plurals decline with the help of harakat ( اِعْرَابِ الْحَرَكَات ).
7. Dual nouns and masculine solid plurals decline with the help of suffixes or alphabatic letters ( اِعْرَابِ الْحُرُوْف ).

Arabic cases chart

Arabic cases chart with examples

Exercise

We are not introducing new words in this lesson. Below is the list of words we have already learned in previous lessons. These are in the nominative case. Try to converty them into accusative and genitive cases.

مُسْلِمٌ
مُسْلِمَانِ
مُسْلِمُوْنَ
مُسْلِمَةٌ
مُسْلِمَتَانِ
مُسْلِمَاتٌ
كَافِرٌ
كَافِرَةٌ
كَافِرَانِ
كَافِرَتَانِ
كَافِرُوْنَ
كَافِرَاتٌ
نَجَّارٌ
نَجَّارَةٌ
نَجَّارَانِ
نَجَّارَتَانِ
نَجَّارُوْنَ

نَجَّارَاتٌ
قَلْبٌ
قَلْبَانِ
قَلُوْبٌ
نَجُوْمٌ
طُلَّابٌ

Answers

Please note, cases play a very important role in Arabic grammar. It is not possible to make sentences and phrases without understanding the above explained three grammatical cases.
We will be using grammatical cases throughout this course. Before advancing to the next lesson, please make sure you have a complete understanding of this lesson.

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