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In the Madinah Arabic Course videos, the lecturer says that the word الدنيا in the above is na'at (adjective) for مثل.

Isn't الحياة mudaf ilaihi (possessed noun) for مثل and الدنيا is mudaf ilaihi (possessed noun) for الحياة?

But then, why is الدنيا mansoob (accusative case)? Is it mabni (non-declinable)?

hippietrail
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Daud
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    Can you please transliterate and explain in English? Otherwise most other participants here won't even know if your question is relevant on Linguistics.SE. – prash May 15 '14 at 13:38
  • @prash Done as you asked.. I haven't transliterated the arabic words themselves but have translated the grammatical terms. – Daud May 15 '14 at 18:37
  • The question now seems very language-specific. I think someone is likely to flag it closed again. – prash May 15 '14 at 21:12
  • @prash: I believe we did away with the "language specific" rule. But we do have a rule that questions be "linguisticky" and not just about "correct usage". In the case of this question I can't tell which it falls under ... – hippietrail May 16 '14 at 01:20
  • The rule is only randomly enforced. – user6726 Nov 18 '16 at 06:09

3 Answers3

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wa ḍrib lahum maϑala l-ḥayāti d-dunyā.

ad-dunyā is indeed indeclinable; here it is an adjective (fem. sing. det.) qualifying al-ḥayāti.

fdb
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I don't think this is the right place to ask for 'irab (إعراب), but since there is no arabic.SE you can ask here ملتقى أهل اللغة
Here is the answer anyway. The lecturer is wrong, الدنيا is na'at for الحياة not for مثل.

And yes, the word الحياة is mudaf ilaih for مثل but الدنيا is not a mudaf ilaih for الحياة, it's a na'at for it. The word الدنيا is not a mansoob, it's an ism tafdeel اسم تفضيل The last one is hard for me to say in English so I'll use pure Arabic.

الدنيا ليست مبنية، بل هي معربة ولكن بحركة مقدرة على آخرها منع من ظهورها التعذر لأنه اسم مقصور، فالأصل في الدنيا أن يُكسر آخرها، ولكن كيف تكسر ما آخره ألف؟ فإذ لم يمكن ذلك قُدِّرت الحركة

Yusuf
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  • Can you point to any good site for asking arabic grammar questions IN ENGLISH ? – Daud May 17 '14 at 06:38
  • I wish I could help you, but all the sites I know are in Arabic. – Yusuf May 17 '14 at 20:18
  • Its not relevant to the question, but could u tell me where to find on the internet all the conjugation in amr, mudari'a and maadi of a particular verb – Daud May 31 '14 at 10:22
  • I don't understand the question, can you explain further? – Yusuf Jun 04 '14 at 01:57
  • I meant if there are any sites like http://www.verbix.com/languages/arabic.shtml which provide the all the amr (command verb) variations for a given verb. (the site mentioned here gives only the variations for maadi and mudari'a) – Daud Jun 04 '14 at 10:22
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    Here you go: http://qutrub.arabeyes.org/

    Here is also a scanned dictionary, but it is harder to search -so you can rely completely on the website-: http://www.islamspirit.net/islamspirit/pdf/mawsoaat_oluml_ugha/82548.pdf

    Another version: http://www.mediafire.com/download/fap6skv62pb0xm7/Antoine.el-Dahdah_An.Intermediate.Dictionary.of.Verb.Conjugation.pdf

     – Yusuf Jun 05 '14 at 15:01
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Even if the answer of fdb is correct, here just a quote from a book on إعراب القرآن I'rab al-Quran:

الواو استئنافيّة (اضرب لهم مثل) مرّ إعرابها، (الحياة) مضاف إليه مجرور (الدنيا) نعت للحياة مجرور وعلامة الجرّ الكسرة المقدرة على الألف (source)

So yes it is indeed a na'at نعت which qualifies الحياة (the life or this life) as دنيا (related to دونية) with lesser value (inferior) so it's clearly an adjective! If you are interested in the 'Irab of اضرب لهم مثل -which in my quote is only quoted as a side note- you can refer to the 'irab of verse 32 in the same surah (see here).

So the issue is that an alif الف at the end as in the case of (الدنيا) can't (physically) have a diacritic on it, which means that this sound is "estimated" and does not appear nor would be applied on the letter.

Further more the lecturer is wrong as an adjective (نعت) of a word/noun that is نكرة (not having ال at the beginning or indetermined) can't be معرفة (having ال at the beginning or determined) so by no means الدنيا can be for مَثَلَ. (See also on Arabic wikipedia)

Medi1Saif
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