Eliza
Professional Teacher
Arabic case endings I'm studying the case endings in Arabic and I'm confused. ّI learned that when words do not have alif lam, their case ending should be damma, fatha, or kasra with tanween. Why does this example not use tanween on the words? جاءوا فجرَ يومِ الاقتراعِ.
Jan 14, 2019 2:32 AM
Answers · 8
1
I'm supposed that you're asking on the word فجر and يوم. And why both don't have tanween even though there is no alif lam there. The answer is, tanween has to be deleted for the case of "possessive case". For example, "door of the car" indicates a door that belongs to a car. "Book of Tony" or "Ahmad's book", indicates a book that belongs to Tony, and the latter to Ahmad. A door: ّباب (with tanween). But when you form into a "possessive case" such as "door of the car", then it becomes: بابُ السيارة That is, "باب" comes without tanween even though there isn't prefixed with alif lam. So the same case with the "فجر" in your question. The tanween is gone because it's in a possessive case. That is, فجر يوم القتراع : "فجر" has no tanween because it's possessed by "اليوم". Now, since "اليوم" is also possessed by "الاقتراع", then both, alif lam and tanween, has to be gone as well by the same principle. It becomes: فجر يوم الاقتراع No tanween in both فجر and يوم even though both are not prefixed by alif lam. If you want to dive more about this, you can find this principle called: "mudhaf and mudhaf ilayhi" (the spellings might be different). For English speakers, it's like the "of". Then, whatever the noun before "of", then its consequent arabic cannot have alif lam and tanween. Book of Ahmad. Book cannot have alif lam and tanween. Sunrise of the day. Sunrise cannot have alif lam and tanween. Sunrise of the day of the voting. Sunrise AND day cannot have alif lam and tanween. And so on.
January 16, 2019
1
I don’t know Arabic, but I just love case endings, so I’d guess that the rule has to do with whether or not the words are definite. The alif laam on the last word in the genitive phrase makes the entire phrase (and all it’s nouns) definite. Using alif laam on the preceding nouns is unnecessary, and would in fact be wrong. That's just my guess.
January 14, 2019
Hi, I'm not very versed in Arabic but I think these Grammar notes may help to answer your question, InshaaAllah: - Quranic Grammar - The Possessive Construction: http://corpus.quran.com/documentation/possessiveconstruction.jsp - The Idaafa: http://allthearabicyouneverlearnedthefirsttimearound.com/p1/p1-ch2/the-idaafa/ - Arabic case system (الإعراب): http://arabic.desert-sky.net/g_cases.html Happy learning! :)
January 15, 2019
your question is not correctly asked
January 15, 2019
جاءوا يوم الإقتراع فجراً
January 14, 2019
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