Breakdown of هل صديقك هو المشارك الثاني عشر؟
الal
the
هلhal
is / are (question marker)
هوhuwa
he / his / him (attached)
صديقsadîq
friend
Questions & Answers about هل صديقك هو المشارك الثاني عشر؟
Why does the word for "twelfth" look like "the second ten"?
In Arabic, ordinal numbers from 11th to 19th are compound words. You combine the ordinal for the single digit (like الثاني for second) with the word for ten (عشر). Together, الثاني عشر means "the twelfth".
Since المشارك (the participant) is the predicate here, shouldn't the number matching it end in a Damma?
Normally adjectives match the case of the noun, but compound numbers from 11 to 19 are an exception. They are fixed (indeclinable) and lock their endings with a Fatha, regardless of their grammatical role in the sentence. That is why you will always see the second part as عشرَ with a Fatha, even when describing a nominative noun.
Why is the pronoun هو (he) used here if the sentence just means "Is your friend the twelfth participant?"
In this sentence, هو acts as a separating pronoun. Because both the subject صديقك (your friend) and the predicate المشارك (the participant) are definite, putting them right next to each other could be confused for an adjective phrase (meaning "your participating friend"). Adding هو acts like an equals sign to clearly mean "your friend IS the participant".
If the friend was female, how would the compound number change?