Nunation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In some Semitic languages, notably Arabic, nunation is the addition of a final -n to a noun or adjective to indicate that it is fully declinable and syntactically unmarked for definiteness.

Since Arabic has no indefinite article, nouns in a syntactic context unmarked for definiteness are generally indefinite; this has lead to the extremely common but inaccurate belief that nunation is a marker for indefiniteness and is analogous to an indefinite article. The lack of a marker for definiteness does not necessarily make a word indefinite; in fact, many definite nouns (proper names) take nunation, as for example in the expression أشهد أن محمدا رسول الله (‘ashhadu 'anna Muḥammadan rasūlullāh - "I witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God."), in which the name Muhammad, a definite noun, is nunated.

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