Lesson 84 – الدَّرْسُ الرَّابِع والثَّمانون

Warning and exhortation style - أُسْلُوبُ الإغْرَاءِ وَالتَّحْذِيرِ

The warning – التَّحْذِير

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• The warning means to alert someone (the spoken to) about something bad or odious to avoid.
• The Arabic warning style can be in one of the following forms:
• 1- The repetition of the noun which refers the thing warned about (as in the previous style of exhortation).
• Consider the following example:

• The omitted verb here is supposed to be (أُحَذِّر) which means (I warn) or (I warn you). The doer which also is omitted is supposed to be the latent pronoun (أنا), because the verb here is affirmative, while in the style of exhortation it was imperative and the omitted doer was related to the spoken to.
• The first noun in the above mentioned example is the direct object related to the omitted verb of warning, so it is in the accusative case (signed with fatħah on its last letter). The second noun mentioned in the example above is a confirmative, and it is a follower, so that it is also in the accusative case.
• 2- The coordination to the detached accusative pronoun. In this form the pronoun which indicates the warned person is a prominent detached pronoun (إيَّاكَ). We learnt the detached accusative pronouns in lesson 44. The following table shows the detached pronouns related to the second person only, i.e. the spoken to, because  the form of warning is supposed to be addressed to the spoken to (for revision purpose):

• In the form of warning we put the prominent pronoun as mentioned above, and then we insert the coordination particle (wa) and put afterwards the object of warning.
• Consider the following example:

• In the above mentioned sentence the first noun is (إِيَّاكَ) which is the detached accusative pronoun, referring to a direct object of the omitted verb (أُحَذِّر) which means (I warn you). The particle (إِيَّاكَ) is indeclinable (we learnt that all pronouns are indeclinable, i.e. they do not change according to the grammatical case (nominative, accusative, or genitive) or the position in the sentence. The particle (wa) is a coordination particle, and the object of warning (النِّفاق) is also a direct object related to another omitted verb (احْذَرْ) which means (beware). Therefore the meaning of the structure above is (I warn you, and beware of the hypocrisy).
• Instead of the detached accusative pronoun, we can use other nouns which can replace them, as (نَفْسَكَ Yourself - رِجْلَكَ Your leg - يَدَك Your hand). Consider the following example:

• More examples:

• from the above mentioned examples you may notice that  the detached accusative pronoun (إيَّاكَ) is only used in the warning style, and not with the exhortation style.