Gulf Arabic Grammar
...G.2.1. Definite Article ...G.2.2 Personal Pronouns ...G.2.3 Possessive Pronouns ...G.2.4. Possessives with maal- ...G.2.5 Commands and Requests ...G.2.6 Broken Plural ...G.2.7 Plural -aat ...G.2.8 Plural -iin ...G.2.9 Plural -iyya ...G.3.1 The Construct State - iDaafat ...G.3.2 The Dual Form ...G.3.3 Adjectives ...G.3.4 Personal Pronoun Suffixes ...G.3.5 Prepositions ...G.3.6 To Have, 3ind- ...G.3.7 Past Tense I ...G.4.1 More on Adjectives ...G.4.2 Comparison Forms ...G.4.3 Numbers: Cardinals and Ordinals ...G.4.4 Telling the Time ...G.4.5 Question Words ...G.4.6 This, That, These (Demonstrative Pronouns) ...G.4.7 Past Tense II

Gulf Arabic Grammar - The Construct State (iDaafat)

Combinations of two words, the first of which does NOT have a definite article.

wasaT il-madiina – (the) center of the city (city center)

7afiiz as-sayyid al-ManSuuri – (the) office of Mr. Masuuri

maktab il-bariid – office of the post (the Post Office)

Sunduug il-bariid – box of the post = P.O. Box (Most addresses in the Gulf are P.O.Box addresses. This is due to the fact that, in most cases, mail is not deliver to homes or offices, but is collected from Post Office Boxes.)

shaari3 il-malik fahd – street/road of King Fahd (King Fahd Str.)

In the following case, we have two iDaafats – nihaayat ish-shaari3 (the end of the road)and shaari3 il-malik (the street of King Fahd), therefore shaari3 loses its definite article ish-.

nihaayat shaari3 al-malik fahd – end of street of King Fahd (the end of King Fahd Str.)

In case we do not mean the second word to be definite, we get the following examples. No need for English ‘of’ or ‘a’.

wasaT madiina – (a) center (of a) city

shaari3 malik – (a) street (of a) king

nihaayat shaari3 – (an) end (of a) street

To recapitulate by comparison:

bayt it-taajir – (the) house (of) the merchant

bayt taajir – (a) house (of a) merchant