Chapter 1.7

We begin with a simple heading analysis. We see the Interrogative pronoun once again. And all pronouns are أسماء so therefore it will have a grammatical state. The is the مُسْنَد, the subject, of the sentence, the one we are talking about and in this case asking about. So it will be مرفوع on the basis of مبتدأ. Remember from our previous lessons that all pronouns are مبني, that is, they will never reflect their grammatical states and will sound exactly the same in all of their grammatical states.

That leaves as the خبر. Then we see from the translation that we have a مضاف مضاف إليه phrase, "my Lord". The يْ is called يَاءُ الْمُتَكَلِّم, "Yaa of the first person", and it is special in that it often forces the vowel on the letter before it to be كسرة, which is exactly what we see with the word . It should have been , but the Arabs hate the sound of a Yaa Saakin preceeded by a Dammah, the "uy" sound. In this case we have rabbuy. This therefore gets changed to rabbiy, purely for ease of pronunciation. The word Rab in is actually مرفوع because it is خبر, and not to be confused in being مجرور. The word just like does not reflect its grammatical state. But whereas did not reflect its state because it is مبني, the word is not reflecting its state because of pronunciation issues. Had it been any other prounoun, such as , the word would reflect its رفع state through the ضمة. Because of this pronunciation issue and the fact that Rabb would normally reflect its state, we say that the reflection in is assumed. In Arabic we would say ((Rabbiy is khabr and rabb is marfoo with the assumption of Dammah.))

We have which is answering the question "when" for the verb following it, so we have a جملة فعلية with a مفعول فيه coming first. Remember that a جملة إسمية isn't when a sentence simply starts with an اسم. The اسم also has to be the مُسْنَد, the subject, of the sentence as well.

Here the actual subject that we want to convey some information about is إِبْرَاهِيْمُ. Had we instead said , then we would have a جملة إسمية since the فاعل cannot preceed the verb. And since إِبْرَاهِيْمُ is the subject of the sentence that we are conveying information about, since he is the مُسْنَد, we would then be dealing with a جملة إسمية where we have a إِبْرَاهِيْمُ being the مبتدأ and the following جملة فعلية coming as the خبر.

Looking more closely at we notice that is مجرور. And we know that only two things cause جرّ in the language, and that is a preposition, or an اسم being مضاف إليه. The word is an اسم, which means is in جرّ because it is مضاف إليه.

is a sister of كان, and so it will have an اسم and a خبر. It is used to negate the sentence it comes upon, whereas كان is used to take the sentence into the past. Notice the emphasis in the translation. That is because with we can add the preposition to the خبر which is ((extraneous)) and only appears for emphasis.

What can we say about ? The verb used is conjugation #4. It has a كسرة in order to connect to the next word, otherwise we would have a sukoon on the Taa and the Laam and we would not be able to pronounce the words. We also know that #4 is feminine. Therefore, the word must be feminine. It is مؤنّث سماعي.

These 3 sentences all have the same structure. The final sentence is slightly more complicated. The full tarkeeb is:

Let's take a look at the first خبر in each of these sentences . Each one of these words are مرفوع because they are خبر إن, yet the second word seems to be in جرّ. Now, we've already seen a few times words which don't reflect their grammatical states. We have مبني words like and pronunciation issues like . The word doesn't reflect it's رفع state due to a pronunciation issue. Its root letters are ب ق ي which have the connotation of remanaining. You've come across this word in a previous chapter it said, .

The word means "one who remains". The root letters are ب ق ي and the word was originally supposed to be بَاقِيٌ, but the Arabs don't like pronouncing a ياء with Dammatayn when the Yaa is preceeded by a Kasrah. So they get rid of the Yaa and make the Kasrah into a Kasratain (because the word is indefinite so needs a tanween). And that's how we get .

In these 3 sentences, we have shifting genders. We have in all three sentences where both the verb and the pronoun change genders. In the first sentence, is the فاعل for and so the masculine verb is used. The هُ pronoun is in reference to the مبتدأ which is , also masculine. In the second sentence, the فاعل is which we now know is feminine, so is used. The مبتدأ is still masuline so the pronoun is still masculine. In the last sentence, both and are masculine, so we switch back to . But the مبتدأ is now so we change the pronoun to هَا.

In these 3 sentences we also see fluctuations in gender in the verb and the pronoun used. You should make sure you are able to understand how and why they change.

The only other issue of note here is the نِي in . This is the same ياء pronoun for the first person that we've seen before, in words such as . We know that this ياء (called ((The Yaa of First Person))), necessitates a Kasrah before it. This still applies even with verbs, however, the Arabs require the verb's ending to be preserved. Whether the verb is in رفع, نصب or جرّ, the Arabs require that state to be shown, which is impossible if we just put a Kasrah and say يَنْصُرِيْ. So the Arabs add a ن in between which is called the ((The Noon of Preservation)), because it preserves the sound and structure of the verb.