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Arabic Nunation (تَنْوِينٌ): Its Origin and Deeper Grammatical Idea
This article delves into the origin and core idea of Arabic nunation (تَنْوِينٌ). It explains why this pronounced-but-unwritten “n” ending is more than just an indefinite marker, analyzing Sibawayhi’s “light” and “heavy” word concepts.
Arabic nunation (تَنْوِينٌ), the “n” sound at a noun’s end, is more than just an indefinite marker; it has a deeper origin and purpose.
Nunation or Tanwīn (تَنْوِينٌ) stands for an extra نْ at the end of a noun (اِسْمٌ), which you pronounce (لَفْظًا) but do not write (لا خَطًّا). It practically means that you add a pronounced “n”-ending to an indefinite noun if you mark it with case endings.
In this article, we will have a closer look about the origin and idea of the term nunation. In a second article, we will check what nunation actually expresses.
The term تنوين
The term تَنْوِينٌ is the مَصْدَرٌ of the II-verb يُنَوِّنُ – نَوَّنَ (R2=و) denoting adding Nun(-ation) to a noun. At the early stages of Arabic, it indicated the nasalization of the final vowel of the word in the case ending of the noun.
Therefore, تَنْوِينٌ is nothing but an extra ن without a vowel (نُونٌ زائِدةٌ ساكِنةٌ) at the end of a word. In the early stages of Arabic, Tanwīn was not primarily a marker of indefiniteness (a; an) which explains why it is found on proper names like مُحَمَّدٌ (Muhammad-un). Instead, it simply marked the absence of the definite article. The sign of the Nunation is the doubling of the relevant vowel sign.
Early application of Nunation (تنوين)
Let’s see an example: a book (كِتابٌ), pronounced “kitābun“.
Scholars disagree whether the word, in early stages of Arabic, used to be written like this: كِتابُنْ. In other ancient Semitic languages, the letter Mīm had been used for a similar purpose. Nevertheless, the form with the written ن helps us to understand what nunation means: adding a نُونٌ. In Classical Arabic, such نُونٌ can’t be expressed by the letter ن of the alphabet. Instead, we use diacritical signs such as ٌ_.
What is the difference between nunation (تَنْوِينٌ) and the letter نُونٌ?
- تَنْوِينٌ: It may occur at the final position of a noun depending on the function of the word. If you stop at the word, you don’t pronounce it. E.g.: كِتابٌ – كِتابْ. You pronounce it “kitābun” or “kitāb”.
- نُونٌ: If you see the letter ن in the basic form of a noun (singular), it is a root letter. You can’t get rid of it. If you stop at the end of the word, you have to say the ن. For example: مُؤْمِنٌ – مُؤْمِنْ. You pronounce it “mu’minun” or “mu’min”.
The concept and value of the Nūn in the application of the Tanwīn is deeply rooted in the fields of syntax and morphology. To determine whether a noun gets nunation or not, we have to look at the characteristics of a word, its shape, gender, and pattern.
The grammarian Sībawayhi examined many words and organized them hierarchically. He used the terms light and heavy.
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Lighter words
Lighter words (أَخَفُّ) are better established (أَشَدُّ تَمَكُّنٍ) and usually were first. By first, we mean that it is the origin and from that source other forms were derived. Let’s see what Sībawayhi found out.
- The lighter form is usually the shorter one.
This means that…
- …the indefinite is lighter than the definite;
- …the masculine is lighter than the feminine. In other words, the feminine form is heavier than the masculine because it is derived from the masculine form. We could also say that the masculine form comes first.
2. The noun is lighter than the verb because a verb must have a noun with it, while a noun does not necessarily need a verb.
In the words of Sibawayhi: “Can’t you see that the verb needs the noun, without which there wouldn’t be an utterance, whereas the noun can do without the verb?”1
Practically speaking, this means that a transitive verb needs an object. This makes the verb heavier than the noun, even if that heaviness is just the result of an insertion. Furthermore, verbs are heavier, mainly because they are derived from nouns.
Now, what about HEAVY words?
Heavier words
How can we understand “heavy” in this context?
- Verbs have heavy endings and do not carry nunation because they are heavier than nouns.
- Heavy words don’t get a كَسْرةٌ in the genitive case. Words such as red (أَحْمَرُ) are considered heavy by the Arabs, which is why they have a فَتْحةٌ (“-a”) in the genitive case.
- Adjectives like أَحْمَرُ, although they are nouns (اِسْمٌ) in Arabic, are heavy because they resemble a verb in the present tense – and verbs, in the logic of Sībawayhi, are heavier than nouns.
Hierarchy of Arabic words
We can derive the following hierarchy:
In other words, when you drop the تَنْوِينٌ, this was a sign for Bedouins in ancient times that a word becomes heavier.
But Sībawayhi did not only analyze forms and gender to determine whether a word is light or heavy. He also took a look at the sounds (phonological sense).
- The letter ي is lighter and more frequent than the و.
- The marker of the genitive case (كَسْرةٌ) is lighter for the Arabs than the sound of the nominative (ضَمّةٌ) case.
Three take-aways
Okay, but what should we make out of that? What does light and heavy tell us? Sībawayhi concluded that…
- …the indefinite form is more declinable (أَشَدُّ تَمَكُّنٍ) than the definite. Most words are declinable when indefinite.
- …the singular is more declinable than the plural. This explains why some plural patterns are diptotes (مَمْنُوعٌ مِن الصَّرْفِ) and cannot get تَنْوِينٌ when indefinite. Such plural forms follow patterns that are exclusively used for plurals and could not be used for singular patterns! E.g., keys (مَفاتِيحُ).
- …the masculine is more declinable than the feminine because تَنْوِينٌ is the sign of the more declinable. Why is this important? When you deal with diptotes (مَمْنُوعٌ مِن الصَّرْفِ), you will find out that feminine nouns are more often diptotes than masculine.
In part 2 of this mini series, we will check what nunation actually expresses.
Nunation (Tanween) Is Not Just an Indefinite Article: The True Role of تنوين Explained
This article explores the deeper meaning of Arabic nunation (تنوين), as defined by Sibawayhi's concept of "firm establishment." It explains nunation's role in case inflections, its presence in proper nouns, absence in diptotes, and behavior in Idafa constructions.
REFERENCES
- أَلَا تَرَى أَنَّ الْفِعْلَ لَا بُدَّ لَهُ مِنَ الِاسْمِ وَإِلَّا لَمْ يَكُنْ كَلَامًا وَالِاسْمُ قَدْ يَسْتَغْنِي عَنْ الْفِعْلِ ↩︎
Regarding nasalisation in the wider Semitic context, this is close, but not quite.
Nasalisation in Semitic languages originally expressed the absolute state, not lack of definite article, in fact most Semitic languages don’t even have a definite article. Also some nasalisation is actually written in Arabic, the final ن on sound masculine dual and plural forms is actually the same phenomena. It’s only on singular nouns, feminine nouns and broken plurals that it’s not written (except with diacritics).
In Proto-Semitic both mimation and nunation existed, mimation after short vowels and nunation after long vowels and diphthongs. In Arabic these were all leveled to nunation, whilst in Hebrew and Ugaritic for instance they were all leveled to mimation. In Akkadian and Sabaic the Proto-Semitic situation was retained.
Here’s a brief explanation of the development of absolute state nasalisation in the Semitic languages.
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Tanween used to appear in writing as a letter ن at the end of singular nouns, but grammarians decided long time ago that it was better not to write it to avoid confusion. They agreed instead to indicate it by doubling the mark of the case-sign, or the “move” (the short vowel), on the last letter.
Very very interesting! waiting for the next part. Incidentally what resources do you prefer/recommend for studying Sībawayhi’s works?