The core relative-pronoun system of formal Modern Standard Arabic is inherited from Classical Arabic: الذي، التي، اللذان، اللذين، اللتان، اللتين، الذين and several feminine-plural forms. A reader of the Qur'an, premodern prose, or poetry therefore recognizes much of the same architecture. The danger is not total unfamiliarity but false familiarity: some forms are productive today, some are elevated alternatives, and a few belong only to old poetic or tribal usage.
This page is a recognition guide. Contemporary MSA remains the production baseline. Quranic examples are labeled, quoted briefly in normalized modern spelling rather than Uthmani orthography, and not presented as templates for ordinary emails or reports.
The productive contemporary baseline
All specific relatives agree with a definite antecedent in gender and number. Only the dual forms visibly distinguish nominative from accusative/genitive case.
| Antecedent | Nominative | Accusative / genitive | Contemporary status |
|---|---|---|---|
| masculine singular | الذي | الذي | fully productive |
| feminine singular | التي | التي | fully productive |
| masculine dual | اللذان | اللذين | fully productive in formal MSA |
| feminine dual | اللتان | اللتين | fully productive in formal MSA |
| masculine/mixed rational plural | الذين | الذين | fully productive |
| feminine rational plural | اللاتي / اللواتي | اللاتي / اللواتي | both productive in formal MSA |
| feminine rational plural | اللائي | اللائي | formal/literary; also Quranic |
Calling اللذان or اللذين “Classical” does not make it obsolete. They are required whenever polished MSA explicitly tracks a definite masculine dual antecedent.
وصل الباحثان اللذان أعدا الملخص.
waṣala l-bāḥithāni lladhāni ʾaʿaddā l-mulakhkhaṣ.
The two researchers who prepared the summary arrived. (Contemporary formal MSA.)
تحدثت مع الباحثين اللذين أعدا الملخص.
taḥaddathtu maʿa l-bāḥithayni lladhayni ʾaʿaddā l-mulakhkhaṣ.
I spoke with the two researchers who prepared the summary. (Contemporary formal MSA.)
The first اللذان is nominative because it follows the nominative subject الباحثان. The second اللذين is genitive because مع governs الباحثين. Relative-pronoun case follows the antecedent's role in the larger sentence, not its role inside the relative clause.
The first sentence also displays the verb–subject order asymmetry: matrix وصل comes before the overt dual subject and remains singular, while أعدا carries dual agreement with the two researchers inside the relative clause. Number on the relative pronoun and number on a preceding matrix verb therefore follow different rules.
The feminine-plural alternatives
اللاتي and اللواتي are normal formal contemporary choices for plural groups of women. اللائي is also grammatical and remains visible in elevated prose, legal or religious discussion, and Classical texts (formal/literary). The three forms do not encode three different English meanings. Editorial convention, rhythm, and register usually decide among them.
شكرت المديرة الموظفات اللاتي نظمن المؤتمر.
shakarati l-mudīratu l-muwaẓẓafāti llātī naẓẓamna l-muʾtamar.
The director thanked the employees who organized the conference. (All are women; contemporary formal MSA.)
استمعت إلى الطبيبات اللواتي شاركن في الدراسة.
ʾistamaʿtu ʾilā ṭ-ṭabībāti llawātī shārakna fī d-dirāsa(h).
I listened to the doctors who participated in the study. (All are women; contemporary formal MSA.)
أشاد المؤرخ بالكاتبات اللائي حفظن هذه الرسائل.
ʾashāda l-muʾarrikhu bi-l-kātibāti llāʾī ḥafiẓna hādhihi r-rasāʾil.
The historian praised the women writers who preserved these letters. (Formal/literary.)
These feminine plural forms belong to rational reference. A non-rational plural normally takes feminine-singular التي, in both contemporary MSA and the inherited formal system.
درست الوثائق القديمة التي وجدها الفريق.
darastu l-wathāʾiqa l-qadīmata llatī wajadahā l-farīq.
I studied the old documents that the team found.
Using اللواتي merely because الوثائق is morphologically plural would ignore the rational/non-rational agreement distinction.
Quranic forms: familiar morphology in a Classical text
The Qur'an contains the ordinary inherited forms, but Quranic syntax, recitation, and Uthmani orthography constitute a specialist system. A normalized spelling can help learners recognize the grammar without imitating a printed muṣḥaf's signs.
واللذان يأتيانها منكم
wa-lladhāni yaʾtiyānihā minkum
And the two among you who commit it... (Qur'an 4:16, brief excerpt in normalized spelling; Classical/Quranic.)
The nominative dual اللذان is followed by dual يأتيان and an object suffix. The morphology is still intelligible to an MSA reader; what makes the passage Quranic is the historical text and its full linguistic context, not a special modern meaning of اللذان.
اللائي also occurs in the Qur'an, including at 58:2 and 65:4. It should be recognized immediately, but a contemporary writer does not need to replace every اللاتي with اللائي to sound “more correct.” That produces needless elevation rather than better MSA.
Printed Qur'ans may represent the same words with Uthmani spelling conventions and recitation marks not used in ordinary prose. Those graphic conventions are explained separately in Quranic and Uthmani Orthography. Do not silently copy those specialist signs into an MSA report, and do not “correct” a scripture citation into house-style spelling when exact quotation is required.
Resumptives remain part of the system
Older forms do not remove the return pronoun—the عائد—required when the antecedent is an object or prepositional complement inside the relative clause.
كرمت الجامعة الباحثتين اللتين تعاونت معهما.
karramati l-jāmiʿatu l-bāḥithatayni llatayni taʿāwantu maʿahumā.
The university honored the two researchers with whom I collaborated. (Both are women.)
The antecedent is accusative dual, so اللتين is accusative. The suffix ـهما after مع resumes the same two women inside the relative clause. English can leave with at the end; Arabic supplies the preposition's object.
قرأت رسائل الكاتبات اللائي كتب إليهن المؤرخ.
qaraʾtu rasāʾila l-kātibāti llāʾī kataba ʾilayhinna l-muʾarrikh.
I read the letters of the women writers to whom the historian wrote. (Formal/literary.)
إليهن carries a feminine-plural resumptive. The elevated choice اللائي does not change that ordinary syntactic requirement.
Recognition-only poetic and old dialectal forms
Classical Arabic literature preserves forms outside the contemporary paradigm. They matter for philology and difficult reading, not for active modern composition.
| Form | Function | Recommended treatment |
|---|---|---|
| الألى | plural “those who” in older elevated and poetic language | recognize as الذين; do not use in neutral MSA (archaic/literary) |
| اللذون | rare old dialectal nominative plural beside widespread الذين | recognition only in philological or poetic material (archaic/regional: old tribal usage) |
| ذو as a relative | an invariable old dialectal relative associated in traditional grammar with Ṭayyiʾ | do not confuse with productive declinable ذو “possessor of” (archaic/regional: old tribal usage) |
These labels are essential. ذو خبرة in contemporary MSA means “possessing experience”; it is not the old relative ذو. Similarly, الألى may be intelligible in a poem, but inserting it into a news report merely imitates an older voice.
الألى حفظوا العهد مذكورون في القصيدة.
al-ʾulā ḥafiẓū l-ʿahda madhkūrūna fī l-qaṣīda(h).
Those who kept the covenant are mentioned in the poem. (Archaic/literary recognition example; neutral MSA uses الذين.)
الذين حفظوا العهد مذكورون في القصيدة.
alladhīna ḥafiẓū l-ʿahda madhkūrūna fī l-qaṣīda(h).
Those who kept the covenant are mentioned in the poem. (Contemporary formal MSA.)
The paired examples show register, not a change in propositional meaning.
Definite and indefinite relatives across periods
The old paradigm still rests on the central architecture of specific relatives: definite antecedents take a matching relative pronoun, while indefinite antecedents normally take a directly following adjectival clause.
هذا هو المخطوط الذي وصفه المؤرخ، وذلك سجل يذكر التاريخ نفسه.
hādhā huwa l-makhṭūṭu lladhī waṣafahu l-muʾarrikhu, wa-dhālika sijillun yadhkuru t-tārīkha nafsah.
This is the manuscript that the historian described, and that is a record mentioning the same date.
In هذا هو المخطوط الذي..., هذا is the subject and definite المخطوط is an identifying predicate introduced by the separating pronoun هو; its definiteness selects الذي. In ذلك سجل يذكر..., سجل is an indefinite predicate—“that is a record”—and its adjectival clause has no relative pronoun.
Common Mistakes
Treating “this book” as an indefinite predicate
❌ هذا كتاب الذي وجدناه.
Incorrect for ‘this book that we found’ — the noun in a demonstrative phrase must be definite.
✅ هذا الكتاب الذي وجدناه قديم.
hādhā l-kitābu lladhī wajadnāhu qadīm.
This book that we found is old.
Adding الذي after an indefinite antecedent
❌ قرأت مقالا الذي يقارن الروايتين.
Incorrect — the indefinite antecedent مقالا takes a directly following clause.
✅ قرأت مقالا يقارن الروايتين.
qaraʾtu maqālan yuqārinu r-riwāyatayni.
I read an article comparing the two accounts.
Ignoring dual case
❌ سلمت على الطالبين اللذان فازا.
Incorrect — the genitive dual antecedent requires اللذين.
✅ سلمت على الطالبين اللذين فازا.
sallamtu ʿalā ṭ-ṭālibayni lladhayni fāzā.
I greeted the two students who won.
Stranding the preposition
❌ الكاتبات اللائي تحدث المؤرخ إلى مشهورات.
Incorrect — إلى needs a feminine-plural resumptive suffix.
✅ الكاتبات اللائي تحدث المؤرخ إليهن مشهورات.
al-kātibātu llāʾī taḥaddatha l-muʾarrikhu ʾilayhinna mashhūrāt.
The women writers to whom the historian spoke are famous. (Formal/literary.)
Using an archaic form as neutral modern prose
الألى شاركوا في الاجتماع قدموا اقتراحا.
al-ʾulā shārakū fī l-ijtimāʿi qaddamū qtirāḥā.
Those who participated in the meeting submitted a proposal. (Archaic/literary wording.)
الذين شاركوا في الاجتماع قدموا اقتراحا.
alladhīna shārakū fī l-ijtimāʿi qaddamū qtirāḥā.
Those who participated in the meeting submitted a proposal. (Contemporary formal MSA.)
The first sentence is grammatically coherent in an inherited literary register; it is not an impossible Arabic string. The second expresses the same proposition with the productive contemporary form expected in a report.
Key Takeaways
- اللذان/اللذين and اللتان/اللتين are not obsolete: their case contrast remains productive in formal MSA.
- اللاتي and اللواتي are normal contemporary feminine-plural relatives; اللائي is also grammatical but often more elevated or text-associated.
- Quranic relative morphology is largely recognizable from MSA, but Quranic language and Uthmani spelling should remain explicitly labeled.
- الألى، اللذون, and relative ذو belong to recognition-level Classical, poetic, or old dialectal study, not neutral modern production.
- Across registers, definiteness determines whether the الذي series appears, and object or prepositional roles still require resumptives.
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