The three classification of a Noun in Arabic: ma'rifah & nakirah

After knowing the classification of a word, we will learn one of them.

We are going to learn the noun and its classification.

Classification of  a Noun

There are 3 classifications of a noun, they are:

1. المَعْرِفَةُ وَالنَّكِرَةُ (al-ma'rifatu wa an-nakiratu).

المَعْرِفَةُ (al-ma'rifah) means the definite.

النَّكِرَةُ (an-nakirah) means the indefinite.

2. الْمُذَكَّرُ وَالْمُؤَنَّثُ (al-mudhakkaru wa al-mu-annathu)

الْمُذَكَّرُ (al-mudhakkar) means the masculine.

الْمُؤَنَّثُ (al-mu-annathu) means the feminine.

3. المُفْرَدُ وَالمُثَنَّى وَالجَمْعُ (al-mufrad wa al-muthannaa wa al-jam'u)

المُفْرَدُ (al-mufrad) means the singular.

المُثَنَّى (al-muthannaa) means the dual.

الجَمْعُ (al-jam'u) means the plural.


Now, we are going to see one by one, start from the definite noun/al-ma'rifah and the indefinite noun/an-nakirah.

المَعْرِفَةُ وَالنَّكِرَةُ (al-ma'rifatu wa an-nakiratu)

النَّكِرَةُ (an-nakiratu) : the indefinite noun

an-nakirah is thing that refers to any place, person, thing and doesn't denote a particular person, place, or thing.

Examples:

مُدَرِّسٌ (mudarrisun): a teacher.

مَدْرَسَةٌ (madrasatun): a school.

طَالِبٌ (ṭaalibun) : a student.

المَعْرِفَةُ (al-ma'rifatu) : the definite noun

al-ma'rifah is one that denotes a particular person, place, or  thing.


There are several types of definite nouns, but in this lesson, I only discuss two types. They are:


1. Proper noun (عَلَمٌ).

عَلَمٌ ('alamun) is : the specific name of person, country/city, etc.


Examples:

مُحَمَّدٌ (Muhammad) -> the name of person.

مَكَّةُ (makkah) -> the name of city.



2. A noun which is attached by definite article "al" ( الْ)


Examples:

الْمُدَرِّسُ (al-mudarrisu) : the teacher.

الْمَدْرَسَةُ (al-madrasatu) : the school.

الطَّالِبُ (aṭ-ṭaalibu): the student.

al-ma'rifah and an-nakirah notes

1. Commonly, the indefinite noun is translated into English with the articles "a" or "an" whereas the definite noun with article "the".

2. Definite article (الْ) is only attached to nouns.

3. Definite article (الْ) in Arabic language is called  حَرْفُ تَعْرِيْفٍ (harfu ta'riifin).

4. After adding harf ta'riif to a noun, the noun loses its nunation (tanwiin) -> only one vowel sign remains.

Example:

كِتَابٌ (kitaabun) : a book. => This is indefinite noun.

If we change this indefinite noun to become the definite noun, we add harf ta'riif ( الْ ).

So, the definite noun of kitaabun is => الْكِتَابُ (al-kitaabu).


We will discuss the definite nouns more detail at the next article.

After learning more about types of definite nouns, we will continue on the next classification of noun, namely mudhakkar wa mu-annath and mufrad/muthannaa/jam'un. in shaa Allah.


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The lesson which is related to this :

Durus al-lughah volume 1 chapter 3 : definite and indefinite noun

Part of speech in Arabic (Arabic Grammar)

Noun in Arabic Language

Kind of  the words in Arabic


PS.
You should read the related article to get a more comprehensive insight about this lesson.