Chapter 1.5

We should be comfortable doing tarkeeb here.

You may have seen the verb دَخَلَ used without the preposition فِيْ. We told you earlier that sometimes verbs are incapable of having a direct object, and instead require the use of a preposition. That preposition may or may not be required in English, and we would translate it in the way that makes sense in English.

It is also common for verbs to give the speaker the option of whether or not to use a preposition. دَخَلَ is an example of this; it can have a مفعول به directly, , or it can come with the preposition, (which is more common). Both will be translated the same way, but there would be some slight rhetorical difference between the two.

Finally, on this topic, sometimes the dictionary will list multiple prepositions that a verb can have, and depending on which you use, it can significantly affect the meaning. For example, the verb رَغِبَ, when used with the prepositions بِ ، فِي, or عَلَى, will mean "to prefer; to desire". But when used with the preposition عَنْ, it means "to dislike, detest, loathe". Two completely opposite meanings depending on which preposition you decide to use.

This is a very significant sentence and the main focus for this lesson. This is the first time we are seeing the Harf أَنْ. But before delving into that, let's see what major portions we expect this sentence to have. We start off with the verb so we have aالجملة الفعليّة. Therefore, we expect a فعل and a فاعل at the very least. The meaning of is "to intend", and you intend something, so we can expect there will be a مفعول به. Looking at our sentence, fits that role. We also see which is a متعلّق, and every متعلّق must connect to a verb. There are two verbs here, أَرَادَ and يَسْجُدُوْا, so the متعلّق will either connect to أَرَادَ and be the 4th major portion, or it will connect to يَسْجُدُوْا and we will only have 3 major portions. If we think, we can understand that in reality, it is the intention to prostrate that is occurring because it is the day of Eid. The special occasion is what caused the intention to occur, so we would link the متعلّق to أَرَادَ as a top level major portion.

The أَنْ here is called أَنْ مَصْدَرِيَّة. It does three things.

1. The first is that it converts the جملة فعلية it enters upon into a phrase. This allows it to occupy slots that are too small for a sentence, such as مفعول به.
2. The second thing it does is to convert the فعل into the meaning of the مصدر. So the tense will be removed from the verb, leaving only the action. This will often result in a "to x" translation where "x" is the action. In our case, "they are prostrating" becomes "to prostrate". "To prostrate" has no tense, it makes no mention of the past, present, or future. It is simply a reference to the action of prostrating.
3. The last thing it does is make the verb منصوب. The verb يَسْجُدُوْنَ became يَسْجُدُوْا.

The جملة فعلية that the أَنْ مَصْدَرِيَّة converts is called a few names. You may hear about it in other places as صِلَةُ الْمَوْصُوْلِ الْحَرْفِي or simply صِلَةُ for short. In my opinion, it is not the most descriptive or easy to understand. We mention it here so you are aware of the term, but for this course, we will use the term مُرَكَّبٌ بِتَأْوِيْلِ الْمَصْدَرِ (Murakkab biTa'weeli-lmasdar). The word مُرَكَّبٌ means "built, compound, composite", and the word تَأْوِيْلٌ means "interpretation". Together, مُرَكَّبٌ بِتَأْوِيْلِ الْمَصْدَرِ means "Compound structure in the meaning of the Masdar", which, while a bit wordy, compared to most of the other terms we've learned, explains exactly what this structure is. Inside the مُرَكَّبٌ بِتَأْوِيْلِ الْمَصْدَرِ, you should be able to complete the remaining tarkeeb analysis. Try it before taking a look at the answer.

The متعلّق is then a جارّ مجرور, with the مجرور being an أنّ, an أنّم أنّ, and a أنّر أنّ. And then a مضاف مضاف إليه.

We are now ready to give the full analysis of this sentence:

Notice how the first verb تَعَجَّبَ has no pronoun inside it as the فاعل is coming in the form of a noun, but the second verb دَهِشُوْا does not have a noun coming as a فاعل, so it is conjugation #3 with the pronoun coming as the فاعل.

The verb تَعَجَّبَ is noteworthy. It looks like a مضارع because it begins with a Taa, which we know is one of the signs of مضارع. However, this is actually a ماضي. We have briefly mentioned verb forms before, and they will be studied in much more detail during the course. But in short, this verb is a different verb form, so it looks different from what you have learned and will not rhyme with anything you have learned.

This sentence introduces our second and third topic this lesson, and that is regarding the demonstrative phrase, and the discussion on مُعْرَب and مَبْنِي.

The Demonstrative Pronoun - هٰذَا

A demonstrative pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun. It is used to point to someone or something specific. It can be combined with a noun to form a phrase such as ((this book)), or it can stand alone and form a sentence such as, ((this is a book)). In Arabic, the demonstrative pronoun is called إِسْمُ الْإِشَارَة (literally noun of signalling/motioning).

When the إِسْمُ الْإِشَارَة combines with a noun to form a phrase, the noun it points to is called مُشَارٌ أِلَيْهِ. This type of phrase is an extension phrase, just like the موصوف صفة phrase. Therefore, the إِسْمُ الْإِشَارَة and مُشَارٌ أِلَيْهِ will match in gender, number, grammatical state, and definiteness. And this is how we figure out whether or not a demonstrative pronoun is combining with the noun after it to make a phrase. Take a closer look at . The demonstrative pronoun is definite, just like all pronouns (they refer to a specific entity). However, is indefinite, so this cannot be the demonstrative phrase. We have exhausted the phrase level relationships, we drop the "is," and say هٰذَا is the مبتدأ and is the خبر. This is a book. on the other hand, matches in all four properties; both are definite, masculine, marfoo, and singular. Therefore, this will be a phrase.

As for the demonstrative pronouns themselves, we list them below.

معرب and مبني

This is an introduction to the topic, and you will receive a dedicated lesson on معرب and مبني at a later date.

If a word is معرب, that means it experiences grammatical states and reflects those grammatical states, for example:

We have معرب words. These constitute around 80% of all أسماء. In our table above, we have used the إِسْمُ الْإِشَارَة مُشَارٌ أِلَيْهِ phrase in all three examples. And since it is an extension phrase, we know that the word will match the grammatical state of هٰذَا. We observe the cycling of Dammah, Fathah, and Kasrah to reflect the changing states.

Then we have مبني words. These words are either those that do not experience state at all, or they experience them but do not reflect them. Look at هٰذَا in the table. It is part of a phrase that is first فاعل, then مفعول به, and finally مضاف إليه. It goes from being مرفوع to منصوب, and then مجرور. Nevertheless, throughout all these cases, it remains هٰذَا. It doesn't change. It is معرب.

This is an interesting sentence to analyse in full. Before we proceed, a note about : it comes from and is the present passive form. Ibraheem is the نائب الفاعل, so we have ((Ibraheem is said about him)), where "about him" refers to the . As this phrasing is somewhat awkward in English, we translate it as "He is called Ibraheem."

Next, we proceed with the analysis of the major components at the top level, which is quite straightforward.

Following that, in the مقولة, we encounter the standard فعل فاعل مفعول به.

Here is where it gets interesting and the point of analysing this sentence. How do we break down the مفعول به? First, we notice that we have the word فَتًى, which is indefinite, followed by two sentences, يَذْكُرُهُم and يُقَالُ لَهُ إِبْرَاهِيْم. So, maybe we are dealing with two descriptions? For يُقَالُ لَهُ إِبْرَاهِيْم, this would fit and would be correct. Because the young boy is called Ibraheem. But for يَذْكُرُهُم, it is not correct. Mentioning the idols is not a description of Ibraheem. Rather, it is the state Ibraheem was in when the people who are talking here heard him. They heard him while he was talking about the idols. This is, in fact, ذو الحال and حال.

We see the هَمْزَةُ الْإِسْتِفْهَام (Hamza of Interrogation) occurring at the beginning, telling us that we are dealing with a question. When asking a question involving a verb, you are usually in doubt about one of two things:

1. You are in doubt about whether the action occurred.
2. You know that the action occurred but you don't know who did it.

In our case, the people can see that the idols are broken but don't know who did it. And it is for that reason that the pronoun was pulled out and brought to the front. The focus of the question (the thing you are in doubt over) is placed immediately after the particle of interrogation. Had the pronoun not been pulled out, the sentence would be , in which case we are asking Ibraheem whether he broke the idols the same way we might ask someone if they've had breakfast, i.e., we are asking whether the action took place or not. We could, therefore, translate our original sentence as, "Did you do this to our Gods, O Ibraheem?"

This is the first time we are seeing . It is a conjunction that is used to deflect attention away from the previous statement without affirming or denying it and bring attention and focus to the upcoming sentence.

We also see a strange ordering in , which we translated as "this big one of them", where "this big one" is an إِسْمُ الْإِشَارَة مُشَارٌ أِلَيْهِ phrase. A literal word-for-word translation would be "this big", but once again, that would be considered broken English, and we add the word "one" to make the translation flow.

Now, onto the issue of ordering. We know that the إِسْمُ الْإِشَارَة can be used either as a phrase or on its own like a مبتدأ and خبر, e.g., ((This boy)) vs ((This is a boy)). But what happens when you are using it as a phrase, but the مشار أليه is a مضاف in a مضاف مضاف إليه phrase? We know that the مضاف cannot have tanween nor can it have 'Al'. This lack of 'Al' can then confuse the reader into thinking there is no phrasal relationship and making a mistranslation or getting confused. Recall also that there are no vowels in most written Arabic, so the lack of tanween will be of no help. Therefore, when the مشار أليه happens to also be a مضاف, then we invert the structure, and the اسم إن will come after the مضاف إليه. Therefore,

We are seeing another instance of the واو حاليّة. We have two sentences with opposite values; the first is a non-informative sentence in the form of a question, and the second is an informative sentence directly linked to the question asked.