Arabic/Sentence Fragments/Cases

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Arabic like many languages uses grammatical cases. Arabic only has three cases: nominative, genitive, and accusative.

However, they are for the most part not written. When Arabic is not written fully vowelled the only cases visible are dual nouns, and sound masculine plural nouns, and indefinite accusative case. Because short vowels, and tanween are not pronounced at the end of sentences cases usually go unpronounced at the end of the sentence. However, in fully vowelled text they are still written when they are not pronounced. Most cases can be avoided by pronouncing each word in its pausal form, however most view that pronouncing each word pausally is incorrect, at the very least it is not considered eloquent.

Cases in the singular and in all irregular plurals[edit | edit source]

Nominative:ُ u
Genitive: ِ i
Accusative:َ a

For indefinite nouns[edit | edit source]

N: ٌ uN
G: ٍ iN
A: ً aN/aa

Cases in the regular masculine plural[edit | edit source]

N: ـونَ uuna
G: ـِينَ iina
A: ـِينَ iina

Cases in the regular feminine plural[edit | edit source]

Definite[edit | edit source]

N: ـاتُ aatu
G: ـاتِ aati
A: ـاتِ aati

Indefinite[edit | edit source]

N: ـاتٌaatuN
G: ـاتٍ aatiN
A: ـاتٍ aatiN

Cases on Names[edit | edit source]

Putting case endings on names is something to be avoided, because it is really tricky. Most names never take case endings. In news broadcasts, names of people, and cities are not given case endings if they are composed of only one word.

Most names that do take cases instead of taking "a,i,u" like most normal words instead use "a,a,u" some even take tanween.