Possessive case

Possessive case in Arabic: Property first!

In English we express possession using 's or "of". However, in Arabic there is no equivalent for " 's " and "of". To express possession you just mention the property before the owner, eg:

English	Arabic
the student's book	كتابُ الطالبِ
the man's house	بيتُ الرجلِ
the rector's car	سيارةُ المديرِ

The first noun (property) is called مُضاف and the second (owner) مُضاف إلَيه . The whole construct is called إضافة, roughly meaning possession. In fact إضافة is used for more than just possession.

Note that the 1^st noun (property) is without the definite article in all the examples above, and this despite being definite in meaning as shown in the translation of the examples. The absence of double vowels too should be noted.

Note also that the 2^nd noun is always vowelled with a 'kasra' (or two, as you will see below).

(In)definiteness of the property

Suppose you want to say "a man's house" instead of "the man's house". Here both nouns (man & house) are indefinite. So we remove the ال in الرجل (man); بيت (house) is without ال in all cases, definite or not. We are then left with بيتُ رجلٍ.

English	Arabic
a student's book	كتابُ طالبٍ
a woman's house	بيتُ امرأةٍ
a rector's car	سيارةُ مديرٍ

Rules ...

• of مضاف

1. is always placed first
2. never takes ال nor double vowels
3. its definiteness depends on that of the مضاف إليه
4. loses its final ن if dual or sound masculine plural

• of مضاف إليه

1. is always placed second
2. may or may not take ال
3. ends in ـِ or ـٍ, depending on whether definite or not
4. ends in ين if dual or sound masculine plural

Qualifying the property

No other word can come between the two nouns of a possessive case; any adjective to the first (property) will be placed after the second (owner), not after the first as is normally the case.

Since an adjective for the second (owner) will also come after the second, there can be some ambiguity as to which of the two words an adjective qualifies. This problem is solved by relying on gender, number, vowel ending and/or definiteness because the adjective will agree with what it qualifies (see Agreement).

English	Arabic
the man's new car	سيارةُ الرجلِ الجديدةُ
the new student's book	كتابُ الطالبِ الجديدِ
the student's new book	كتابُ الطالبِ الجديدُ

In the first example, it is clear that the adjective "الجديدة " is for "سيارة " as they both share the same gender, whereas "الرجل " is masculine and cannot be qualified by a feminine adjective.

The second & third examples differ from each other only in the vowel ending of the adjective (the 3^rd word), which determines which of the two previous words the adjective describes.

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Other topics availabe on this site:

Arabic alphabet — Indefinite nouns — Definite nouns — Nominal sentences
Adjectives — Feminine — Singular pronouns — Dual nouns — Dual pronouns
Basic declension of nouns — Demonstrative: This — Demonstrative: That
Plural — Plural pronouns — Preposition — There is/are — To have
Possessive case — Broken Plural — Possessive Adjectives