Nunation
Encyclopedia : N : NU : NUN : Nunation
In some Semitic languages, notably Arabic, nunation is the addition of a final -n to a noun 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, but that is not always the case. This has lead to the extremely common misconception that nunation is a marker for indefiniteness and is analogous to an indefinite article. In fact, many definite nouns (proper names) take nunation, as for example in the expression أشهد أن محمدا رسول الله
See also
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.