Lesson 83 – الدَّرْسُ الثَّالِثُ والثَّمانون

The style of astonishment - أُسْلُوبُ التَّعَجُّبِ

The second pattern of astonishment فِعْلُ التَّعَجُّبِ الثَّانِي(أَفْعِلْ بِـ)

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  • This pattern consists of three parts as follows:
  • The verb augmented with an in initial hamzah in the pattern of the imperative.
  • Please consider the following examples of the verbs augmented with an initial hamzah in the past and imperative (this will be studied later in the lessons of the Arabic morphology (الصَّرْفُ). 

أَقْبَلَ

أَهْمَلَ

أَخْرَجَ

أَدْخَلَ

Past

أَقْبِلْ

أَهْمِلْ

أَخْرِجْ

أَدْخِلْ

Present

Come

Neglect

Extract

Put

Meaning

  • Therefore the astonishment here uses the pattern of the imperative, but the meaning of the verb in this structure is not the imperative, rather it means the astonishment as in the previous pattern. Therefore the sentence أكْرِم بِمُحَمَّدٍ means (how generous is Muhammad). You may notice that this structure has the same meaning asما أكْرَمَ مُحَمّدًا .
  • In the previous structure the doer of the verb of the astonishment was a latent pronoun related to the indefinite vague noun (ما), while in this structure the doer is the noun which follows the preposition (بِ).
  • Therefore the doer here is affected by two factors:
  • A- The meaning (being a doer of the verb), and because of this factor it has to be in the nominative case, i.e. signed originally with đammah on its last letter.
  • B- The preposition (بِ), and this factor affects the noun to be in the genitive case.
  • Therefore the noun here will be in the nominative case, but it is signed with a virtual đammah for the nominative case, and signed with an evident kasrah because of the genitive case.
  • Please note that the preposition here is considered an augmented preposition (see the original and the augmented prepositions in lesson 77).
  • Consider the following examples:

Structure

Example

The doer of astonishment

The verb of astonishment

English

Arabic

بِمُحَمَّدٍ

أَكْرِمْ

How generous student is Muhammad!

أَكْرِمْ بِمُحَمَّدٍ مِنْ طالِبٍ

بِفاطِمَةَ

أَجْمِلْ

How beautiful woman is Fatima!

أَجْمِلْ بِفاطِمَةَ مِنْ اِمْرَأةٍ

بِهِ

أَنْعِمْ

How good is this food!

أَنْعِمْ بِهِ مِنْ طَعامٍ

بِهَذَا

أَكْرِمْ

How generous is this man!

أَكْرِمْ بِهَذَا مِنْ رَجُلٍ