When an Arabic relative clause describes two coordinated nouns—“the engineer and the translator who...” or “the files and photographs that...” — الذي cannot simply remain unchanged like English who or that. Formal Modern Standard Arabic resolves the antecedents into one agreement value. You must decide whether the combined reference is dual or plural, masculine or feminine, and rational or non-rational.
That agreement appears not only on the relative pronoun. It can also appear on the verb, adjective, and any resumptive object or prepositional suffix inside the relative clause. The first and most important decision, however, comes earlier: a definite antecedent normally takes an overt الذي-series relative, whereas an indefinite antecedent takes a directly following adjectival clause without that pronoun.
The architecture starts with definiteness
Coordination does not cancel the ordinary definiteness rule. When every coordinated antecedent is definite and the clause describes that identifiable set, use a matching member of the الذي series. When the coordinated expression is indefinite, attach the descriptive clause directly.
وصل المدير والمترجمة اللذان سيقدمان التقرير.
waṣala l-mudīru wa-l-mutarjimatu lladhāni sa-yuqaddimāni t-taqrīr.
The director and the translator who will present the report have arrived.
The two definite singular people form one two-member antecedent. Because the pair is mixed-gender, masculine dual اللذان is the resolved form. The relative-clause verb is dual سيقدمان.
وصل مدير ومترجمة سيقدمان التقرير.
waṣala mudīrun wa-mutarjimatun sa-yuqaddimāni t-taqrīr.
A director and a translator who will present the report have arrived.
Here the antecedents introduce two new, indefinite people, so there is no اللذان. English uses who in both sentences; Arabic uses antecedent definiteness to choose between two clause architectures.
A practical resolution table
The following slice covers the most useful formal patterns. Dual relative pronouns show case; plural الذين and feminine singular التي do not change their spelling by case.
| Combined antecedent | Typical resolution | Relative form |
|---|---|---|
| two masculine or mixed-gender people, nominative | masculine dual | اللذان |
| two masculine or mixed-gender people, accusative/genitive | masculine dual oblique | اللذين |
| two feminine people | feminine dual | اللتان / اللتين |
| three or more men, or a mixed-gender rational group | masculine rational plural | الذين |
| three or more women | feminine rational plural | اللاتي / اللواتي |
| one or more non-rational plural noun conjuncts | feminine singular | التي |
The masculine form is the conventional resolution for a group containing both masculine and feminine rational referents. This is grammatical gender resolution, not a claim that the women disappear from the reference.
كرمنا الباحثات والباحثين الذين أنجزوا الدراسة.
karramnā l-bāḥithāti wa-l-bāḥithīna lladhīna ʾanjazū d-dirāsa(h).
We honored the female and male researchers who completed the study.
Because this is a mixed group of people larger than two, الذين and plural أنجزوا are expected. A group consisting only of women takes a feminine plural relative:
اتصلت بالطبيبات والممرضات اللواتي يعملن في العيادة الليلية.
ʾittaṣaltu bi-ṭ-ṭabībāti wa-l-mumarriḍāti llawātī yaʿmalna fī l-ʿiyādati l-layliyya(h).
I contacted the doctors and nurses who work at the night clinic. (All are women.)
Both اللاتي and اللواتي are acceptable in formal contemporary MSA. Choose one consistently within a document unless you are discussing variation.
Dual agreement is real, including in oblique case
English coordination encourages learners to reach immediately for a plural. Arabic can treat two coordinated singular referents as a semantic dual. If the whole antecedent is governed by a preposition or verb, the relative pronoun must also use the oblique dual form.
تحدثت مع الطبيب والممرضة اللذين أشرفا على العلاج.
taḥaddathtu maʿa ṭ-ṭabībi wa-l-mumarriḍati lladhayni ʾashrafā ʿalā l-ʿilāj.
I spoke with the doctor and the nurse who supervised the treatment.
اللذين is genitive because the coordinated antecedent follows مع. Inside the relative clause, أشرفا has a dual subject ending. If the antecedent is exactly two women, use اللتان in nominative position and اللتين in accusative or genitive position.
قابلت المهندسة والمصممة اللتين أعدتا المخطط.
qābaltu l-muhandisata wa-l-muṣammimata llatayni ʾaʿaddatā l-mukhaṭṭaṭ.
I met the engineer and the designer who prepared the plan. (Both are women.)
Formal prose sometimes avoids a dual relative after a long or semantically loose coordination by repeating the noun or recasting the sentence. That is a clarity choice, not permission to ignore dual morphology in a compact two-member antecedent.
Rational and non-rational antecedents
Arabic agreement distinguishes rational reference—most straightforwardly, human beings—from non-rational reference. A plural of nonhuman objects normally controls feminine singular agreement, even when several plural nouns are coordinated.
راجعت الجداول والخرائط التي أرسلها الفريق.
rājaʿtu l-jadāwila wa-l-kharāʾiṭa llatī ʾarsalahā l-farīq.
I reviewed the tables and maps that the team sent.
The relative is feminine singular التي, and the object resumptive is feminine singular ـها in أرسلها. The antecedent denotes multiple things, but non-rational plural agreement treats the set grammatically as feminine singular.
When rational and non-rational nouns are coordinated into one antecedent, formal writers may use rational masculine-plural resolution if people are central, but the result can feel heavy or momentarily ambiguous. Clear contemporary prose often recasts the sentence so that each class has its own relative clause.
وصل الفنيون، والمعدات التي طلبها المستشفى.
waṣala l-fanniyyūna, wa-l-muʿaddātu llatī ṭalabahā l-mustashfā.
The technicians arrived, along with the equipment that the hospital had requested.
Here التي describes only المعدات, not both conjuncts. That local attachment avoids forcing humans and equipment into a single agreement value. Punctuation and meaning support the intended grouping, but repetition is even safer when ambiguity would matter.
Resumptives resolve with the whole antecedent
When the antecedent is the subject of the relative clause, the verb itself supplies the subject and no separate resumptive object is needed. When the antecedent is an object or follows a preposition inside the clause, formal Arabic normally uses an attached resumptive pronoun.
زارنا المحامي والمحاسبة اللذان تعاقدنا معهما.
zāranā l-muḥāmī wa-l-muḥāsibatu lladhāni taʿāqadnā maʿahumā.
The lawyer and the accountant with whom we contracted visited us.
The suffix ـهما resumes the combined dual antecedent after مع. English can strand with at the end of the clause; Arabic cannot leave مع without its complement.
The tense of that relative clause is interpreted from its own verb and the surrounding discourse; it need not copy the tense of the main clause. That separate temporal organization is developed in Tense and Aspect inside Relative Clauses. Coordination changes agreement resolution, but it does not fuse the relative event with the main event.
نشرت الصحيفة المقابلات والصور التي جمعها مراسلوها.
nasharati ṣ-ṣaḥīfatu l-muqābalāti wa-ṣ-ṣuwara llatī jamaʿahā murāsilūhā.
The newspaper published the interviews and photographs that its correspondents collected.
Again, non-rational plural resolution produces singular feminine التي and ـها. Matching only the nearest noun happens to give the same feminine form here, so meaning—not surface proximity—must establish that both nouns belong to the antecedent.
Discourse linking across sentences
A coordinated antecedent can be introduced in one sentence and retrieved in the next. Demonstratives make the discourse relation explicit and can also prevent a relative clause from attaching to the wrong nearby noun.
عرض الفريق اقتراحين: تحديث الموقع وتبسيط التسجيل. هذان الاقتراحان اللذان ناقشناهما سيخفضان وقت الانتظار.
ʿaraḍa l-farīqu qtirāḥayni: taḥdītha l-mawqiʿi wa-tabsīṭa t-tasjīl. hādhāni l-iqtirāḥāni lladhāni nāqashnāhumā sa-yukhaffiḍāni waqta l-intiẓār.
The team presented two proposals: updating the site and simplifying registration. These two proposals, which we discussed, will reduce waiting time.
هذان الاقتراحان retrieves the two earlier proposals, اللذان agrees with that nominative dual phrase, and ـهما resumes it as the object of ناقشنا. A far demonstrative could instead signal contrast or greater discourse distance:
هذا التقرير واضح، وذلك الملحق الذي أضفناه يشرح الأرقام.
hādhā t-taqrīru wāḍiḥun, wa-dhālika l-mulḥaqu lladhī ʾaḍafnāhu yashraḥu l-ʾarqām.
This report is clear, and that appendix that we added explains the figures.
Common Mistakes
Leaving a demonstrative noun indefinite
❌ هذا كتاب الذي ناقشناه.
Incorrect — if كتاب is the predicate in ‘this is a book,’ its indefinite relative clause does not take الذي; if you mean ‘this book,’ make the noun definite.
✅ هذا الكتاب الذي ناقشناه مفيد.
hādhā l-kitābu lladhī nāqashnāhu mufīd.
This book that we discussed is useful.
Using الذي after an indefinite coordinated antecedent
❌ وصل طبيب وممرضة الذي سيعملان الليلة.
Incorrect — an indefinite antecedent takes a directly following descriptive clause, and a two-person subject is dual.
✅ وصل طبيب وممرضة سيعملان الليلة.
waṣala ṭabībun wa-mumarriḍatun sa-yaʿmalāni l-layla(h).
A doctor and a nurse who will work tonight have arrived.
Ignoring the dual
❌ قابلت المدير والمترجمة الذين أعدا التقرير.
Incorrect in this compact two-person antecedent — الذين is plural, while the verb is dual.
✅ قابلت المدير والمترجمة اللذين أعدا التقرير.
qābaltu l-mudīra wa-l-mutarjimata lladhayni ʾaʿaddā t-taqrīr.
I met the director and the translator who prepared the report.
Stranding a preposition
❌ هؤلاء المستشارون والمترجمون الذين عملنا مع وصلوا.
Incorrect — مع needs a resumptive suffix referring to the coordinated plural antecedent.
✅ هؤلاء المستشارون والمترجمون الذين عملنا معهم وصلوا.
hāʾulāʾi l-mustashārūna wa-l-mutarjimūna lladhīna ʿamilnā maʿahum waṣalū.
These advisers and translators whom we worked with have arrived.
Giving non-rational plurals rational agreement
❌ راجعت العقود والفواتير الذين أرسلهم المكتب.
Incorrect in neutral MSA — coordinated non-rational plurals normally resolve as feminine singular.
✅ راجعت العقود والفواتير التي أرسلها المكتب.
rājaʿtu l-ʿuqūda wa-l-fawātīra llatī ʾarsalahā l-maktab.
I reviewed the contracts and invoices that the office sent.
Key Takeaways
- Definiteness chooses the architecture: definite antecedents take the الذي series; indefinite antecedents take a directly attached adjectival clause.
- Two coordinated people can resolve as dual; mixed-gender rational groups resolve as masculine, while all-feminine groups use feminine forms.
- Coordinated non-rational plurals normally trigger feminine-singular التي and a feminine-singular resumptive.
- Object roles normally take resumptive suffixes, while prepositional roles require them; either suffix agrees with the whole antecedent.
- When human and nonhuman antecedents create awkward or ambiguous resolution, recast the sentence for clarity.
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Start learning Arabic →Related Topics
- Tense and Negation inside Relative ClausesB1 — Choose perfect, imperfect, future, and negative verb forms inside Arabic relative clauses according to their own time reference.
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- Near Demonstratives: هذا، هذه، هذان، هاتان، هؤلاءA1 — Choose near demonstratives by gender, number, case, and human reference, then combine them with definite nouns and relative clauses.