The Three States for an Arabic Noun

In Arabic, a noun always fits into exactly one of three states:

• It end with a tanween
• It begins with ال
• It’s followed by another noun in an idāfah construction.

That’s it, there are no other possibilities.

Simple, right? One, and exactly one, of these situations must apply. That’s the rule.

Or is it…?

For a while now, I’ve been trying to keep track of every possible counterexample to this “rule” that I’ve come across. Some might say that they are footnotes to the rule rather than outright exceptions, but tomato tomato, at the end of the day, they show the rule isn’t as simple as it appears.

(And I’m not even talking about the fact that verbs sometimes take tanween. No, I’m still not over that. And in case you’re wondering what the idāfah construct is all about, we’ve had some fun with that before.)

So, here are some cases where a noun can appear where it fits in none (or more than one) of the above states:

• Duals and regular masculine plurals
  Examples: جَنَّتانِ and مؤمنونَ
  The apparent explanation is that the ن at the end of the word “takes the place of a tanween”, and is evidenced by the fact that it is removed when the word is used in an idāfah construct, just like the tanween would have been. Fine, but then why do we keep the ن when you add the ال for definiteness like in المؤمنونَ? Shouldn’t the tanween be removed there too? At least be consistent…
  
• Words that never change their form
  Examples: هو , الذي , هذا
  These are still nouns. They don’t follow the rule.
  
• Diptotes that never take tanween under any circumstance
  There are several kinds of these. If they are incapable of wearing a tanween, but can still be used in situations where tanween would be appropriate, then in those same situations, they don’t belong in any of the three states we said were available.
  Now, there are many kinds of diptotes. Based on LearnArabicOnline.com, they include:
  • Names or adjectives with a deviated construction, like اُخَر 
  • Foreign names, like the Hebrew-imported ابراهيم
  • Feminine names, even if Arabic ones, like زينب
  • Nouns that appear feminine due to ending with the alif maqsurah or alif mamduda markers, like أشياء
  • Nouns in the pattern known as muntaha al-jumu’, like مساجد and فواكه
  • Names that fit the pattern of a verb, like احمد
  • Hyphenated (compound) names, like بعلبك
  • Nouns that take an ان at the end despite not being dual form, like سكران
    
• The addressed entity that is either a proper name or an indefinite, undescribed, but intentionally referenced noun
  Examples: یا محمدُ and یا رجلُ
  In the first example, the addressed entity is a proper name (Muhammad).
  In the second example (translated as “O man”), the addressed entity is referred to by the indefinite noun “man”, which has no defining particle like “the” nor any adjective like “brave”, “kind”, “old”. However, it is intentionally referenced, which means the person calling out has a particular man in mind when making this call, perhaps the man he is facing or looking at right now. This is in contrast to a call where there is no particular man in mind, something like “O any man” in English, although we never say that, but if you do in Arabic, then it can take a tanween in that case, so it’s not an exception to the rule we’re looking at right now. Why is there a difference? Why is this even possible? Arabic is strange…
  
• The negated noun in an absolute negation (the ism for lā nāfiyah lil-jins)
  Examples: لا إلهَ إلا الله and لا ريبَ
  These nouns don’t take tanween, they don’t take ال, they aren’t part of the idāfah construct. It’s a different construct that absolutely negates (as in “there is no ____ at all”).
  
• The acting noun in a lafdhi idāfah construct
  Example: المعلّمُ الولدِ
  This is techincally an idāfah construct, but in this case, the first word also is allowed to have ال or a tanween, so technically we fit in two of the mentioned states, not exactly one. In this kind of idāfah construct, we’re not saying the first word is property of the second word, but instead the subject or object of it, where the first word is doing the work of a verb. The example here means something closer to “the one who teaches the boy” rather than “the boy’s teacher”.

Are there more cases? Well, let me respond by asking, isn’t this enough??

There might be more. This is a list in progress. But it’s already more than clear that the “simple” “rule” is neither simple nor a rule.