Numbers

•  Numbers that proceed nouns should take the opposite gender

of those nouns. Furthermore, they should carry the marker that is determined by their grammatical function in the sentence. The noun itself has to be in the genitive case because this combination will create an Idaafa.

                   a. I met five students (f). قابلتُ خَمسَ طالباتٍ.  

                   b. Five students (m) came. خَمسَةُ طلابٍ.   حضَرَ

• Numbers (Revisited). It was mentioned earlier that numbers that proceed nouns should take the opposite gender of those nouns. An additional rule which you need to consider is that unlike English, the noun has to be in plural only between 3-10. After that the noun has to be singular in the accusative case. This is another example of      تمييز   "accusative of distinction."

إشتريتُ خمسة َ عَشرَ قلماً.

I bought fifteen pencils.

•   أيَّـة ُ / أيُّ both mean “which” (as a question word). The first is used for masculine while the second is used for feminine. The noun which follows either one of them has to be in the genitive case. The implication is that the two nouns create Idaafa. Please notice that أيَّـة ُ / أيُّ carry the vowel of the original case of the noun you ask about.

أيَّـة ُ مَجلـَّةٍ هذهِ؟

a. Which magazine (subject-nominative) is this?

أيَّ طالبٍ شاهدتِ؟

b. Which student (m) (object-accusative) did you (f) see?

إلی أيـَّةِ مدينةٍ سافرتَ؟

c. To which city (object of a prep.-genitive) did you travel?

A Hundred and One Rules !

Mohammed Jiyad