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:
Picture | English meaning | Arabic example |
| Qassim walked along (with) the mountain | /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/:
Picture | English meaning | Arabic sentence |
| Tariq and Ibrahim came | |
| I went to the school and the library |
- 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:
Picture | English meaning | Arabic sentence |
| Ali went out at sunrise | خَرَجَ عَلِيٌّ وَشُرُوقَ الشَّمْسِ /kharĵa ξaliyyun wa shurūqa ash shamsi/ |
| Ibrahim played in the rain | /laξiba ibrâhimu wal maŧara/ |
| The child slept in the cold | /nāma aŧ ŧiflu wal bardu/ |
| 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 | ||||
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.