3.13 Numbers, Time, and Money — Epoché
What you will be able to do Count from one to ten, and say why خَمْسَة رِجَال has a feminine-looking numeral in front of a masculine noun. Read a number and the noun it counts, and know which of them is in the plural. Tell the time, using the ordinal numbers and the feminine word for an hour. Ask a price and read the answer. Recognise the one place where an Arabic learner's instinct is reliably wrong, and stop correcting it. Prerequisites : 3.12 and the have construction Numbers in Arabic have a reputation, and it is deserved. They are the one part of the elementary grammar where the rules seem designed to be forgotten, and educated native speakers make mistakes with the higher ones in speech. What follows is the first period's share of it: one to ten, the hours of the clock, and asking a price. The full system, including the numbers above ten and the way they interact with the case endings, is lesson 3.31 in the third period, and there is no advantage in meeting it sooner. The pattern One and two are not numbers The words for one and two behave like adjectives, not like numerals. They follow the noun and agree with it, and in practice they are usually left out altogether, because a bare singular already means one and the dual of 3.14 already means two. So a learner rarely needs them. The ninth sentence of 3.9 said she wrote one letter and did use the word, but it was there for emphasis; without it the sentence would still have meant a letter. Three to ten reverse their gender Here is the famous rule. From three to ten, the numeral takes the opposite gender to the noun it counts. A masculine noun takes a numeral with the feminine ending; a feminine noun takes a numeral without it. Number Before a masculine noun Before a feminine noun Example three ثَلَاثَة ثَلَاث ثَلَاثَة أَقْلَام four أَرْبَعَة أَرْبَع أَرْبَعَة بُيُوت five خَمْسَة خَمْس خَمْسَة رِجَال ten عَشَرَة عَشْر عَشْرَة أَقْلَام There is a historical explanation, and it is not worth much: the numerals were originally abstract nouns of a shape that happened to carry the ending, and the agreement froze. No practical help follows from it. What does help is to stop trying to correct it. Every learner, on reading five men with a feminine-looking numeral, assumes he has misread. He has not. Read it, accept it, and move on; after twenty sentences the shape will look right. What the noun does From three to ten the noun counted is in the plural, and in the genitive, because the numeral and the noun form a possessive chain of 3.5. Literally, a five of men. That is worth knowing because it explains the word order and because it predicts the behaviour of the article: if the whole phrase is to be definite, the article goes on the noun and not on the numeral, exactly as 3.5 said. From eleven upwards the noun goes back into the singular and takes an accusative ending, which you saw with the word for how many in 3.10. That is the one piece of the higher system worth carrying now, because it makes the eighth sentence of that lesson readable. The clock To tell the time, Arabic uses the feminine word for an hour, which you met in 3.2, with an ordinal number after it. The ordinal is feminine, agreeing with the hour, and the number is not reversed: ordinals agree normally. In practice the word for the hour is often dropped and the ordinal stands alone, exactly as English says at two rather than at two o'clock. The tenth sentence below does this. Money Prices are asked with the question word for how many preceded by the single-letter preposition meaning with, which gives for how much. The answer is a number and a currency, and the currency behaves like any other counted noun. The noun for a price is also a common way to ask, and the sixth sentence below uses it with a possessive ending: literally what is its price. How English says it English numerals do not change at all. Five is five before anything, the noun after it is plural, and there is nothing else to know. This is one of the very few places where English is simpler than Arabic rather than merely different. So there is nothing to transfer and a real rule to learn. The advice that works is not to learn the rule as a rule but to learn four or five phrases by heart, with a masculine noun and a feminine noun in each, and let the pattern settle by ear. The exercises below are built for that. English tells the time with o'clock and with a system of past and to that Arabic also has; those belong to the conversation volume and are not needed here. What is needed is the bare hour, and that is one word. For money, English says how much and Arabic says for how many, which is closer to the older English what does it cost. The Arabic question has the preposition fused to the question word, so it is one word where English has two. One last difference. English uses the singular after a number when the phrase is attributive, as in a five-mile walk, and Arabic does something comparable above ten. If you have wondered why five miles and five-mile differ in English, the Arabic system will feel less arbitrary. Real sentences Eleven sentences. For each with a number in it, say whether the noun is masculine or feminine and check the numeral against the rule. As printed With the vowels supplied English لديك ثلاثة أقلام. [1] لَدَيْك ثَلَاثَة أَقْلَام. You have three pens. مررت بأربعة بيوت. [2] مَرَرْتُ بِأَرْبَعَة بُيُوت. I passed by four houses. رأيت خمسة رجال. [3] رَأَيْتُ خَمْسَة رِجَال. I saw five men. لدي عشرة أقلام. [4] لَدَيَّ عَشْرَة أَقْلَام. I have ten pens. دفعت له خمسة دولارات. [5] دَفَعْتُ لَهُ خَمْسَة دُولَارَات. I paid him five dollars. كم ثمنها؟ [6] كَمْ ثَمَنُهَا؟ How much is it? الثمن مرتفع. [7] الثََّمَن مُرْتَفِع. The price is high. بكم الدولار الأن؟ [8] بِكَمْ الدُّولَار الْأَن؟ How much is the dollar now? بدأ الفلم في الساعة الثانية. [9] بَدَأَ الْفِلْم فِي السََّاعَة الثََّانِيَة. The film started at 2 o'clock. لم تأت قبل الثانية. [10] لَمْ تَأْت قَبْلَ الثََّانِيَة. She didn't come before two