Pronouncing al-'iDaafa الإضافة
Special Pronunciation for "city" and "state" in al-'iDaafa الإضافة
You may have noticed that the words "city" and "state" are pronounced madiina and wilaaya in the vocabulary list, but when used in the dialogues, they are pronounced madiinat and wilaayat. This is because in the dialogues these words function as first terms of al-'iDaafa الإضافة. Most feminine words are pronounced with a final "t" sound at the end of the word when they are first terms of al-'iDaafa الإضافة.
مدينة واشنطون  madiinat Washington the city of Washington |
مدينة madiina city |
|
ولاية كولورادو wilaayat Colorado the state of Colorado |
ولاية wilaaya state |
Although most feminine words get a final "t" added to them, not every term of al-'iDaafa الإضافة does. All we expect you to remember, for now, is that madiina مدينة and wilaaya ولاية are pronounced madiinat and wilaayat when they are the first terms of an 'iDaafa contruction. We will address the behavior of other words later.
More on pronouncing al-'iDaafa الإضافة
ة (taa' marbuuTa
تاء مربوطة) and al-'iDaafa
الإضافة The unique pronunciation rules for many feminine first terms of al-'iDaafa
الإضافة has to do with the presence of the symbol ة (called
taa' marbuuTa تاء مربوطة). Most feminine words end with this
symbol, which only occurs at the end of a word. There it takes one of the following two shapes: ة ـة Remember that not every first term of al-'iDaafa الإضافة
gets a final "t" added to it, only those that end with ة do.
حبيب منى
Habiib Mona
Mona's (male) dear one
حبيب
Habiib
dear one (male)
حبيبة سامي
Habiibat Saami
Sami's (female) dear one
حبيبة
Habiiba
dear one (female)