Lesson 67 – الدَّرْسُ السَّابِعُ والسِّتُّونَ

The absolute object - الْمَفْعُـولُ الْمُـطْـلَـقُ

The pro- absolute object – نائِب المَفْعول المُطلق

• We are still in lesson sixty seven of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
• We now clearly understand what the Arabic absolute object is, what its rules are. We also learnt that the verb before the absolute object can be omitted, if the absolute object shows nature or number. This occurs in answering a question as follows:

• In this part we will learn another structure in which we can omit the absolute object itself, and replace it with another accusative noun called (نائِب المَفْعول المُطلق /nā’ib al mafξūl al muŧlaq/) pro-absolute object. The pro-absolute object has the same rules, and take the same grammatical case of the absolute object, i.e. it is also in the accusative case (signed originally with /fatħah/ on its last letter). The pro-absolute object makes us understand the omitted noun (the absolute object) from the context, e.g.:
• When someone says:

• We understand that he wants to say:

• We also understand that the noun (كَثِيرًا) is an adjective to the omitted original noun (سَفَرًا), which is supposed to be the absolute object, so that we call the noun (كَثِيرًا) a pro-absolute object.
• This means that the absolute object which is an original noun (مَصْدَر) can be replaced with another noun which is not original noun. The following table shows the types of nouns which can be a pro-absolute object.

• In the above mentioned table there are four types of the nouns that can replace the absolute object, and make its function as follows:

1-   The adjective:

• As in the first example (نِمْتُ طَوِيلاً), the adjective is related to the omitted original noun (نَوْمًا).

2-   The instrument:

• As in the example (ضَرَبْتُهُ سَوْطًا), the absolute object (ضَرْبًا) is omitted, and replaced with the noun of its instrument (السَّوْط).

3-   The number:

• As in the example (أَنْذَرْتُكَ ثَلاثًا), the supposed absolute object (إِنْذَارًا) is omitted, and is replaced with the number of times in which it is fulfilled ( ثَلاثًا).

4-   After (كُلَّ – بَعْض) while being annexing nouns:

• As in the examples (فَهِمْتُ كُلَّ الفَهْمِ) and (سَعَيْتُ بَعْضَ السَّعْي), in these examples we omitted the original nouns (الفَهْمِ – السَّعْي) which were supposed to be absolute objects, and replaced them by the annexing nouns (كُلَّ – بَعْض) followed by the annexed nouns.