Exple;

The book of Adam, li-kte:b mte:3 E:dim.

As we can say: “li-kte:b mte:3i” = The book of mine. Note that “mte:3” is followed by a possessive adjective.

The structure somebody’s something too, can be rendered by the use of “mte:3”. Example: Samy’s book, would be li-kte:b mte:3 Samy. (the book of Samy). Or Simply, we omit “li” the article and “mte:3”, and we just stick both words together, and it would be “kte:b Samy”. Note that it is the opposite of English structure; this case is known in grammar as Genitive.

   Samy’s book  =  kte:b Samy (book/Samy).

-          This case is with masculine names, as for feminine names, it is the same thing, the same endings, but just, the feminine name adds “t” at its end.

Example;

 “qoffe” is basket, so when to add the possessive adjectives, a letter “t” should be inserted between the feminine noun and the possessive adjective, and remove the vowel “e”.

So always remember, with feminine nouns;

Feminine Noun + t + Possessive adjective.

With (I, you sg.and he), you just add the following poss. Adj. (i, k and u)

But with (she, you pl., we and they), you have to add a vowel “i” before the “t” just to facilitate the pronunciation.

Also, to say Samy’s basket, it would be qoff(i) +t+ Samy, which is qoffit Samy.

It is a little bit difficult to memorize, but by the time you will see that it is not that difficult.

Why is it so complicated with feminine nouns? The answer is, the true feminine noun ends with “t” in its original form. But, in Arabic when feminine nouns are not in the genitive case, so the “t” is replaced by “h”, and as this sound comes after a vowel and at the end of it, so it is not pronounced. Finally, when to use a feminine noun with a possessive adjective, the sound “t” had to appear, as it really exists, and is one part with the word.

The word “qoffe”, in its original pronunciation in Arabic, is “qoffeton”. The final suffix “---on” in the word in Arabic, means that the word is in the nominative case, in the dative form, the word would be “qoffetin”, and in the accusative case the word would be “qoffeten”. But when the word is connected to possessive adjectives, only the part “qoffet---” is used plus the possessive adjectives(qoffeti, qoffetuke, qoffetuhu, etc).

But, happily, in Tunisian there are no cases. Just the radical part of the word is kept, “qoffet---”. And to make it much easier, it is pronounced “qoffeh/qoffe”.