What are personal pronouns in Arabic?
Personal pronouns refer to persons or entities and stand on their own as substitutes for nouns. They show distinctions in gender, number, and person.
You may already be familiar with this grammar concept, but the interesting part is that Arabic has more personal pronouns than English.
Also, don’t forget:
Singular → for one thing
Dual → for two things
Plural → for three or more
Let’s see how they look:
The masculine pronouns أنتم (antum) and هم (hum) end with a sukuun, which means they need a vowel if followed by a cluster of consonants. Usually, that vowel will be a damma.
Even though we haven’t yet covered verb conjugation, keep in mind that Arabic verbs conjugate fully, meaning that from the verb itself you can already tell who is performing the action. Because of this, the personal pronoun can be omitted. But if you decide to use it, the effect is added emphasis.
For example, if I want to say “I can’t” in Arabic, I say:
لا أقدر (la aqdir)
Here, I didn’t use the first person pronoun أنا (ana). But if I say:
أنا لا أقدر (ana la aqdir),
then it emphasises I, as in I can’t (but maybe others can). In English, this nuance only makes sense with strong intonation, but in Arabic it’s built into the grammar.
Now let’s return to the equational sentence.
If you’ve ever been to Dubai and taken the metro, you’ve probably heard the announcement:
المَحَطَّةُ القادِمَةُ هي بُرج خَليفَة / دُبَي مول
(al mahaTTatu l qadimatu hiya Burj Khalifa / Dubai Mall)
→ “The next station is Burj Khalifa / Dubai Mall.”
But wait, didn’t we say Arabic drops the verb “to be” in the present tense? Why is هي (hiya) here?
This is not a mistake. In Arabic, when the predicate is a definite noun, a third-person pronoun may be inserted between the subject and predicate. It acts as a linker and substitutes for the verb “to be.”
Examples
هٰذه هي الفرصةُ التي كُنتُ أَنتَظِرُها (hadhihi hiya al furSa alati kuntu antadhiruha) → This is the opportunity I was waiting for.
Here, هي emphasises which opportunity is being talked aboutأَنتَ هو الصَّديقُ الحَقيقي (anta huwa aS Sadiq al Haqiqi) → You are the true friend.
This could have worked without هو, but then there would be less emphasis on who the true friend actually is.
And we all know true friends are important.
