Arabic: An Essential Grammar

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Chapter 21

Broken plurals and

collective nouns

21.1 A very large number of nouns and adjectives have a plural called

the broken plural, ت ْك ِسي ِرََّج ْم ُع لـ. It may be compared to the English

irregular plural, e.g., ‘man – men’, ‘mouse – mice’, ‘foot – feet’, etc.

Broken plurals are formed from the singular by internal changes and/or

specific increments according to some thirty different patterns. There

are hardly any rules about how to form the broken plural from the

singular. The broken plural occurs more frequently than the sound

plural (regular plural).

Some singular nouns may have more than one form of the broken

plural, and some may have both a sound plural and a broken plural.

21.2 The list below contains some of the most common patterns of

the broken plural.

singular broken plural singular broken plural

(a)َبا ٌب ba ̄bun َأ ْب َوا ٌب

abwa ̄bun (b)َمِل ٌك malikun ُمـُلـو ٌك mulu ̄kun

door king

(c)َك ِبي ٌر kabı-run ِك َبا ٌر kiba ̄run (d)َش ْه ٌر sˇahrun َأ ْش ُه ٌر

asˇhurun

big month

(e)َأ ٌخ

ah

̆

un ِإ ْخ َوا ٌن

ih

̆

wa ̄nun (f )َم ْب ًنى mabnan َم َبا ٍن maba ̄nin

brother building

(g)ُس َؤا ٌل su

a ̄lun َأ ْس ِئَل ٌة

as

ilatun (h)َط ِري ٌق t

̇

ar-ıqun ُط ُر ٌق t

̇

uruqun

question road