Human, animal or thing
Are we talking about a person, an animal, or a thing?
المعنى
Whether we are talking about a person, an animal, or a thing can affect the words and forms we choose. This can help us ask about it or connect it to a description. Languages draw these distinctions differently, and some do not mark them in grammar. Grammatical gender and noun classes covers groups of nouns that do not necessarily match these categories.
طريقة التعرّف عليه
Compare how a language asks about or refers to people, animals, and things in otherwise similar sentences.
في اللغة الأم
In Modern Standard Arabic, plural nouns for animals and things normally take feminine singular descriptions and pointing words. Human plurals normally take plural matching forms. Man asks who someone is, while mā asks what something is, including its kind or identity.
هَؤُلَاءِ طُلَّابٌ جُدُدٌ. (Hāʾulāʾi ṭullābun jududun.)
The human plural takes a plural pointing word and a plural adjective.
هَذِهِ كُتُبٌ جَدِيدَةٌ. (Hādhihi kutubun jadīdatun.)
The nonhuman plural takes feminine singular forms.
الْقِطَطُ صَغِيرَةٌ. (Al-qiṭaṭu ṣaghīratun.)
The animal plural also normally takes a feminine singular adjective.
في اللغة قيد التعلم
English usually uses who to ask about people and what to ask about things or events. People take he, she, or they, including they for one person whose sex is unknown; things usually take it, while animals may take it, he, or she. Relative pronouns, words linking a noun to a description, include who for people, which for things or animals, and that for either.
The woman who lives next door is a nurse.
Who links the description to a person.
My bike, which is quite old, still works.
Which adds information about a thing; that cannot replace it in this sentence.
Our cat is hungry. She is waiting by her bowl.
She refers to a female cat treated as an individual.
Learners whose language uses one pronoun for both people and things may use it for a person. Learners whose language uses the same word to link descriptions to people and things may confuse who and which.