Editing Classical Arabic (section)

==== State ====
The definite article spread areally among the Central Semitic languages and it would seem that Proto-Arabic lacked any overt marking of definiteness. Besides dialects with no definite article, the Safaitic inscriptions exhibit about four different article forms, ordered by frequency: ''h-'', ''ʾ-'', ''ʾl-'', and ''hn-''. The Old Arabic of the Nabataean inscriptions exhibits almost exclusively the form ''ʾl-''. Unlike the Classical Arabic article, the Old Arabic ''ʾl'' almost never exhibits the assimilation of the coda to the coronals; the same situation is attested in the Graeco-Arabica, but in A1 the coda assimilates to the following ''d'', αδαυρα *''ʾad-dawra'' {{lang|ar|الدورة}} 'the region'.

In Classical Arabic, the definite article takes the form ''al-'', with the coda of the article exhibiting assimilation to the following dental and denti-alveolar consonants. Note the inclusion of palatal {{IPA|/ɕ/}}, which alone among the palatal consonants exhibits assimilation, indicating that assimilation ceased to be productive before that consonant shifted from Old Arabic {{IPA|/ɬ/}}:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+ [[sun and moon letters|Sun consonants]] in Classical Arabic
! colspan="2" | [[Dental consonant|Dental]]
! colspan="2" | [[Denti-alveolar consonant|Denti-alveolar]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
|-
! style="font-size: 80%;" | plain
! style="font-size: 80%;" | [[Velarization|emphatic]]
! style="font-size: 80%;" | plain
! style="font-size: 80%;" | [[Velarization|emphatic]]
|-
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| {{IPA link|n}} ''n'' – {{lang|ar|ن}}
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|-
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| {{IPA link|t}} ''t'' – {{lang|ar|ت}}
| {{IPA link|tˤ}} ''ṭ'' – {{lang|ar|ط}}
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|-
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| {{IPA link|d}} ''d'' – {{lang|ar|د}}
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|-
| {{IPA link|θ}} ''ṯ'' – {{lang|ar|ث}}
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| {{IPA link|s}} ''s'' – {{lang|ar|س}}
| {{IPA link|sˤ}} ''ṣ'' – {{lang|ar|ص}}
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|-
| {{IPA link|ð}} ''ḏ'' – {{lang|ar|ذ}}
| {{IPA link|ðˤ}} ''ẓ'' – {{lang|ar|ظ}}
| {{IPA link|z}} ''z'' – {{lang|ar|ز}}
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|-
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| {{IPA link|ɕ}} (< *ɬ) ''[[š]]'' – {{lang|ar|ش}}
|{{IPA link|ɮˤ}} ''ḍ'' – {{lang|ar|ض}}
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|-
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| {{IPA link|l}} ''l'' – {{lang|ar|ل}}
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|-
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| {{IPA link|r}} ''r'' – {{lang|ar|ر}}
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|}