Lesson 77 – الدَّرْسُ السَّابِعُ والسَّبْعونَ
Types of Prepositions - أَقْسام حُرُوف الْجَرِّ
The similar to an augmented preposition - حرف الْجَرِّ شَبِيه بالزَّائِدِ
- We are still in lesson seventy seven of our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course with images and audios will help you learn Arabic.
- The similar to an Arabic augmented preposition is like the augmented preposition in two aspect, and it is different from the augmented preposition in one aspect as follows:
1- It is like the augmented preposition in the matter that it affects the declension of the following noun, and it does not need to be related to a preceding attachment.
2- It is different from the augmented preposition in the fact that the essential meaning of the sentence will be changed if it is removed.
Only one preposition can be a similar to the augmented preposition. It is (رُبَّ /rubba) which comes in one of two opposite meanings (i.e. it means rarity in some structures and it means profusion in some others). Consider the meaning of (rubba) in each of the following examples:
| Picture | Meaning of (rubba) | Example | |
| English | Arabic | ||
|
| Rarity | It might happen (rarely) that a hardworking student fails | |
|
| Profusion | It might happen (many) that someone unhappy in the first life becomes happy in the other life | |
- From the above mentioned examples we also notice that the prepositional phrase of (rubba) is not related to a previous attachment. We also notice that it cannot be eliminated from the sentence, otherwise it would make an essential change in the meaning.
- More examples:
| English | Arabic |
| There might be a brother which is not from your mother (i.e. a brother in Islam) | |
| There might be a friend who betrays you. | |
| There might be a generous but coward. |
- In some cases, especially in literary texts, the preposition (rubba) is removed, and becomes supposed, so it affects the following noun as if it exists. This happens after the coordinative (wa وَ) when the following noun is in the genitive case, as in the following examples:
| English | Arabic |
| There might be a (brave) heart who likes the death and dislikes the life | |
| It might happen that a young child surpasses the men |
- In the previous two sentences the particle (wa وَ) is followed by a noun in the genitive case, without an evident reason of being genitive. We suppose that they are genitive by a virtual (rubba) the similar to an augmented preposition.
- Therefore the two above mentioned examples are supposed to be as follows:
| English | Arabic |
| There might be a (brave) heart who likes the death and dislikes the life | |
| It might happen that a young child surpasses the men |
- It is important here to mention that it is common to put (ما mā) after (rubba), and it becomes inactive (i.e. it does not affect the following noun in the declension), and its meaning becomes (may be or perhaps), as in the following example:
| English | Arabic |
| Muhammad may be at home |