Case / Suffix Sticker
What sign sticks to the word?
المعنى
A visible marker attached to a word that shows role, relation, number, tense, person, case, direction, or other grammatical function.
طريقة التعرّف عليه
Look for small endings that change the word's role or meaning.
أمثلة
-s|-ed|-ing|case endings|plural endings
dogs|walked|house's
The teacher corrected the students' essays.
Visual guide
word + suffix sticker --------------------- dog + -s -> dogs walk + -ed -> walked house + 's -> house's ending = grammar signal
Same job, different coding no ending: dog (context) word: plural marker + dog suffix: dog + -s -> dogs many endings can encode: role, number, time, person
نظرة على اللغة
في اللغة الأم
Formal MSA has rich suffixal morphology for case, mood, number, gender and agreement.
جاءَ الطالبُ ورأيتُ الطالبَ.
The student came and I saw the student.
في اللغة قيد التعلم
English has very little case marking, mainly in pronouns and possessive forms.
She saw him.
he/him = limited case marking in pronouns
Learners from case-rich languages may expect noun endings; learners from case-poor languages may still confuse he/him.
Usually lighter in your learning language
Do not over-transfer this pattern from your own language. It is often less explicit in your learning language.