Broken plural

In linguistics, a broken plural (or internal plural) is an irregular plural form of a noun or adjective found in the Semitic languages and other Afroasiatic languages such as the Berber languages. Broken plurals are formed by changing the pattern of consonants and vowels inside the singular form. They contrast with sound plurals (or external plurals), which are formed by adding a suffix, but are also formally distinct from phenomena like the Germanic umlaut, a form of vowel mutation used in plural forms in Germanic languages. There have been a variety of theoretical approaches to understanding these processes and varied attempts to produce systems or rules that can systematize these plural forms. However, the question of the origin of the broken plurals for the languages that exhibit them is not settled, though there are certain probabilities in distributions of specific plural forms in relation to specific singular patterns. As the conversions outgo by far the extent of mutations caused by the Germanic umlaut that is evidenced to be caused by inflectional suffixes, the sheer multiplicity of shapes corresponds to multiplex attempts at historical explanation ranging from proposals of transphonologizations and multiple accentual changes to switches between the categories of collectives, abstracta and plurals or noun class switches. While the phenomenon is known from several Semitic languages, it is most productive in Arabic. In Arabic, the regular way of making a plural for a masculine noun is adding the suffix (for the nominative) or (for the accusative and genitive) at the end. For feminine nouns, the regular way is to add the suffix . However, not all plurals follow these simple rules. One class of nouns in both spoken and written Arabic produce plurals by changing the pattern of vowels inside the word, sometimes also with the addition of a prefix or suffix. This system is not fully regular, and it is used mainly for masculine non-human nouns; human nouns are pluralized regularly or irregularly.

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Related concepts (10)

Semitic root

The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or "radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or "transfixes") which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns.

Arabic grammar

Arabic grammar (النحو العربي) is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with the grammar of other Semitic languages. Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have largely the same grammar; colloquial spoken varieties of Arabic can vary in different ways.

Apophony

In linguistics, apophony (also known as ablaut, (vowel) gradation, (vowel) mutation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is any alternation within a word that indicates grammatical information (often inflectional). Apophony is exemplified in English as the internal vowel alternations that produce such related words as sng, sng, sng, sng bnd, bnd bld, bld brd, brd dm, dm fd, fd l, l rse, rse, rsen wve, wve ft, ft gse, gse tth, tth The difference in these vowels marks variously a difference in tense or aspect (e.