Lower Intermediate - Possessive pronouns

Let’s compare an example from this podcast with a word from the podcast entitled “Fizzy Drinks”. In this podcast we have ﻜﺘﺎﺒﻬﻡ (their book), and in “Fizzy Drinks” we have ﻤﻨﺘﺠﺎﺘﻬﻡ (their products). Since the possessive pronoun suffixes (ﻬﻡ) are identical, one would expect the final syllables of ﻜﺘﺎﺒﻬﻡ and ﻤﻨﺘﺠﺎﺘﻬﻡ to be pronounced in exactly the same way. Yet ﻜﺘﺎﺒﻬﻡ is pronounced kitaabUHUM, while ﻤﻨﺘﺠﺎﺘﻬﻡ is pronounced muntajaatIHIM. I can’t find any explanation for this difference in pronunciation.

This is very interesting note. The (7arakah) of last letter in the word seems to cause this. Where (kasrah) makes the suffix to be (him) while (fat7ah and 9'ammah) makes it (hum).
So the word (kitaabu) took the (hum) suffix while (muntajaati) took (him).
Such effect of the (kasrah) occurs in Arabic as it is considered a strong (7arakah), so it normally leaves an effect on the pronunciation of the word. In fact it is common that (kasrah) takes certain rule while (9'ammah and fat7ah) take another rule together.

Thanks for your prompt reply, Ehab. I'll have to learn a lot more about Arabic phonetics. I can't find any information about these subtle phenomena on the other websites devoted to spoken Arabic.

lads - i thought this was related to nominative and genitive - I am wrong to understand it this way ?at least this is what i learned in class- thanks for the reply

Je n'ai pas compris votre question, plop. Pourriez-vous préciser votre pensée?

Am I right in thinking this follows a pattern of not having "ii-hu" sounds? For instance, when you're saying "in him" فيه , that would be said "fiihii" not "fiihu"?

when i took classes in fusha the teacher explained us that there is a accusative , nominative and genitive (just like in classical greek and latin - which i did study when i was in college)-now these take different harakaat ie : u =nominative(defined) -i(gen def.) and a(accusative defined) (undefined they take tanwien)
now about the use of nom-gen and acc i refer to ehab as i do not know al the right terminology of grammar in englich -in french cod coid etc..) -hope this clarifies

I think I now know more or less what you mean, plop. Let’s begin with the problems associated with case systems. Classical Latin has six cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative and ablative). Early Latin had two additional cases (locative and instrumental). Ancient Greek, by contrast, has only five cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive and dative), and Modern Standard Arabic has only three (nominative, accusative and genitive). Gérard Lecomte deals very briefly with the Arabic case system at the beginning of the fourth chapter of his extremely succinct Arabic grammar (Grammaire de l’arabe. PUF, 1980). The three suffixed vowels you refer to are also mentioned by Lecomte.

Now let’s turn to the problems posed by possessive pronoun suffixes. In the podcast these suffixes were attached to the noun ﻜﺘﺎﺐ, and everything appeared to be perfectly straightforward (ﺒﺴﻴﻂ) since ﻜﺘﺎﺐ has no case ending. You probably want to know what ﻜﺘﺎﺐ would look or sound like if it had both a case ending and a possessive pronoun suffix. If we frame the question this way Ehab will know exactly what we mean and I’m sure he’ll be able to provide a satisfactory answer.

Si vous avez du mal à formuler vos questions en anglais je vous fournirai toutes les tournures et tous les termes techniques dont vous avez besoin.

Right, essential thing to highlight first is that the case ending (harakah of last letter) goes at the end of the word itself even if it is linked to a pronoun. So we say (Haad'a ketaabu Ahmed هذا كتابُ أحمد- this is Ahmed's book) or (Naqaltu men ketaabi Ahmed نقلت من كتابِ أحمد - I copied from Ahmed's book).
Now if we have a pronoun linked, we still need to satisfy the noun itself first by adding its right harakah, then putting the right harakah as well to the pronoun. For instance (Haad'a ketaabuhu هذا كتابُه- this is his book), (Be3tu ketaabahu بعت كتابَهُ - I sold his book) and (Na6'artu fee ketaabihi نظرت في كتابِهِ - I looked at his book).
So the issue of accusative , nominative and genitive is not directly related to the harakah of the pronoun (ـه) but it is indeed related to the harakah of the noun (كتاب). I am saying (not directly) because in my last comment I gave the relation briefly, and here are the detailed one:

This type of masculine pronoun (ـه) comes in two case endings.
One is to take kasra (ـهِ) if it was proceeded by a word with another kasra (like in كتابِ) or letter yaa (like in في) at the end, so we say (ketaabihi كتابِهِ) and (feehi فيه).
The other case ending for this pronoun is to take 9'ammah (ـهُ) if it was proceeded by all other variety of harakaat, whether it is fat7a (كتابَ), alef (ربا), sokoon (عنْ) or  9'ammah and wow letter.
Now the last thing to mention is the plural case when we add a meem (م) like in (ketaabuhum كتابُهُم), as you see the meem (م) does not make any difference to the pronoun (ـه) and it is here to make the word plural only.

That was a detailed answer, I hope it was clear enough, and sorry to the Lower Intermediate learners who must be puzzled by now if they had enough patience to reach here and read this :) .

thanks to both of you - grammar item perfectly clear for me now - thanks

Thanks for the very detailed answer, Ehab. Since the problems associated with possessive pronouns are extremely complex, most listeners would probably welcome a second podcast on this subject.

Several points need to be examined in more detail:

- the use of proper nouns (cf. the example where you mention Ahmed’s book)

- the pronunciation of the words used in your example sentences (Since the examples are very good, they can be used in the second podcast.)

- the problems posed by ta marbuta (e.g. ﺴﻴﺎﺮﺘﻚ)

- the differences between possessive pronoun suffixes (e.g. ﻚ) and independent possessive pronouns (e.g ﻠﻚ)

- syntactic patterns like NOUN + [NOUN + POSSESSIVE PRONOUN SUFFIX] + PREDICATIVE ADJECTIVE (cf. my latest comment on the podcast entitled “Longest range goal”).

Hi. Thank you for these very helpful lessons. Does 'my book' change depending on the gender of the person talking? Or is it always kitabi regardless of whether a male or a female is speaking? Shukraan!