Citizendia
Your Ad Here

In linguistics, broken plurals are a grammatical phenomenon typical in many Semitic languages of the Middle East and Ethiopia in which a singular noun is "broken" to form a plural by having its root consonant embedded in a different "frame", rather than by merely adding a prefix or suffix to the original singular noun. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. NOTE This intro is the result of careful NPOV work Please do not make potentially controversial edits to it without first discussing on the talk page An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word An affix is a Morpheme that is attached to a stem to form a word

In other words, it means that even though a language may possess a regular form of making a plural (like the suffix -s in English), some words will form irregular plurals expressed by vocalization patterns of the triliteral rather than by suffixation. In the terminology used to discuss the grammar of the Semitic languages and some other Afro-Asiatic languages, a triliteral ( Arabic: جذر ثلاثي

While the phenomenon is known from several Semitic languages, nowhere has it become as productive as in Arabic. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language

Indo-European ablaut is a similar but much simpler vowel alternation pattern occurring in ancient inflection patterns among Indo-European languages, for example in the Germanic strong verb system. In Linguistics, the term ablaut designates a system of Vowel gradation (i In the Germanic languages strong verbs are those which mark their past tenses by means of ablaut.

Contents

Broken plurals in Arabic

In Arabic, the regular way of making a plural for a masculine noun is adding the suffix -ūn at the end. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language For feminine nouns, the regular way is to add the suffix -āt. Yet one finds that less than 10% of all plurals used in everyday speech or in written texts (modern and classical, even the Qur'an) adhere to these simple rules. The Qur’an ( القرآن, literally "the recitation" also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran Instead, spoken and written Arabic produces plurals using a system of groups based on the vocalization of the word. This system is not fully regular, as can be seen in the examples and the article below.

Broken plurals are known as "Jam' Takseer" (جمع تكسير) in Arabic grammar. Arabic is a Semitic language See Arabic language for more information on the language in general These plurals constitute one of the most unusual aspects of the language, given the very strong and highly detailed grammar and derivation rules that govern the written language.

Full knowledge of these plurals comes only with extended exposure to the language, though a few rules can be noted.

Example

Semitic languages typically form triconsonantal roots, forming a "grid" into which vowels may be inserted without affecting the basic root. In the terminology used to discuss the grammar of the Semitic languages and some other Afro-Asiatic languages, a triliteral ( Arabic: جذر ثلاثي

Here are a few examples; note that the commonality is in the consonants, not the vowels.

note: these three words all have a common word root, K-T-B ك – ت – ب "to write"
WaRaQ ورق "paper" → aWRāQ أوراق "papers"
SHaJaR شجر "tree" → aSHJāR أشجار "trees"
but: JaMaL جمل "camel" → JiMāL جمال "camels"
maLBaS ملبس "dress, garb" → maLāBiS ملابس "clothes"
FaNN فنّ "art" → FuNūN فنون "arts"
but: RaBB ربّ "master, owner" → aRBāB أرباب "masters"

See also

External links

In the terminology used to discuss the grammar of the Semitic languages and some other Afro-Asiatic languages, a triliteral ( Arabic: جذر ثلاثي Nonconcatenative morphology is a form of word-formation in which the root is modified in a way other than by stringing Morphemes together
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic