Lesson 70 – الدَّرْسُ السَّبْعونَ

The concomitant object - الْمَفْعُول مَـعَـهُ

The concomitant object - الْمَفْـعُـولُ مَـعَـهُ

  • We are still in lesson seventy of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
  • The Arabic concomitant object (الْمَفْعُول مَعَه /al mafξūl maξahu/) is an accusative dispensable noun, indicating the companionship with the action of the verb, i.e. the action of the verb occurs in the company of the concomitant object. Consider the following example:

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English meaning

Arabic example

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Qassim walked along (with) the mountain

سارَ قاسِمٌ وَالْجَبَلَ

/sāra Qâsimun wal ĵabala/

  • We understand from the above mentioned example that Qassim walked in the existence (company) of the mountain.
  • You may notice that the noun preceding the /wāw/ is in the nominative case because it is the doer of the verb, while the noun after the /wāw/ is in the accusative case because it is a concomitant object. This means that the /wāw/ here is of concomitance. The following table shows some examples of the other type of /wāw/, which is the /wāw/ of coordination (attraction). Please consider carefully the grammatical sign of the nouns preceding and the noun following the /wāw/:

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English meaning

Arabic sentence

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Tariq and Ibrahim came

حَضَرَ طارِقٌ وإِبْراهِيمُ

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I went to the school and the library

ذَهَبْتُ إلى الْمَدْرَسَةِ وَالمَكْتَبَةِ

  • You may notice in the above mentioned examples that the noun before the /wāw/ has the same case of the noun after it. This means that it is not the /wāw/ of concomitance, and the following noun (إِبْراهِيمُ - المَكْتَبَةِ) is not concomitant object, rather it is a follower, i.e. it has the same case of the preceding noun(طارِقٌ - الْمَدْرَسَةِ).
  • The following table shows more example of the concomitant object, which is always in the accusative case:

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English meaning

Arabic sentence

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Ali went out at sunrise

خَرَجَ عَلِيٌّ وَشُرُوقَ الشَّمْسِ

/kharĵa ξaliyyun wa shurūqa ash shamsi/

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Ibrahim played in the rain

لَعِبَ إبراهِيمُ وَالمَطَرَ

/laξiba ibrâhimu wal maŧara/

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The child slept in the cold

نامَ الطِّفْلُ وَالبَرْدَ

/nāma aŧ ŧiflu wal bardu/

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I woke up at the call of the dawn

اِسْتَيْقَظْتُ وَأَذَانَ الفَجْرِ

/istayqađhtu wa adhāna al faĵrri/

  • In the above mentioned examples we notice that the nouns after the /wāw/ are concomitant objects, respectively as follows:

Concomitant object

البَرْدَ

أَذَانَ الفَجْرِ

شُرُوقَ الشَّمْسِ

المَطَرَ

English meaning

Cold

The call of the dawn

Sunrise

Rain

  • The above mentioned object are dispensable parts in the verbal sentence, they indicate that the action of the verb occurs in the company (existence) of them.