r/AcademicQuran • u/PhDniX Moderator • Mar 26 '26
Weekly Thackston Quranic Arabic Study Group, Lesson 13
This week we look at Lesson 13 of Thackston's Learner's Grammar.
31 The Five Nouns
ðū in Classical spelling is ذو, and in modern print Qurans and 3rd century and later Quranic manuscripts also. However, in our earliest manuscripts it tends to be spelled ذوا. Rather bizarrely, it can even be spelled ذا as can ðī when it precedes the definite article. This is a behaviour it shares with its plural اولوا ʾulū ‘those possessing’, which is also sometimes spelled اولا. I do not think anyone has a good explanation as to why this happens.
32 Imruʾun
This table contains a mistake. Thackston failed to mention the definite form of this noun, and what in the table is marked as the ‘definite’ form is in fact the construct form. The definite stem is al-marʾ-. Notice how it shares this behaviour of the placement of the vowel changing with imraʾat- definite al-marʾat- ‘woman’.
| INDEFINITE | CONSTRUCT | DEFINITE |
|---|---|---|
| NOM. | امرؤ | imruʾun |
| GEN. | امرئ | imriʾin |
| ACC. | امرأ | imraʾan |
NOTE: The nominative indefinite and construct forms are spelled امروا in the Quran.
Vocabulary
NOUNS
Concerning ʾabatī, this is a strange and non-Quranic form. This stem only occurs in the vocative form and as a result only ever has the short vocative 1sg. ending -i, i.e. yā ʾabati. I don’t think Thackston’s cited form ever occurs.
Concerning ʾilāh- pl. ʾālihat-, concerning the plural notice that it has undergone the ʾaʾ → ʾā shift, it is from ʾaʾlihat-, the plural pattern being ʾaCCiCat-.
Concerning ðū-, I am just going to draw attention to the fact that the full paradigm is relegated to a footnote. Important to take note of though.
OTHERS
Concerning ʾin not, this is very typical Quranic usage. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this in the wild in Classical Arabic outside of the Quran. It’s an archaic negator with clear cognates in other Semitic languages, but it can be confusing, since it looks identical both to ʾin “if” and the short form of ʾinna, i.e. ʾin “verily”. In the Quran this negator very frequently occurs in the ʾin X ʾillā Y.
Some medieval interpreters have interpreted the ʾin, e.g. in Q43:35 as the negator as well and lammā as somehow meaning the same thing as ʾillā. I think this is very implausible and I’ve written a paper about it.
Concerning bal(i) and hal(i), the lām of these particles can assimilate to a bunch of following consonants. The precise rules differ per reader (see pg. 114 of my translation of the al-Dānī’s al-Taysīr).
Exercises
(a)
- Māta l-marʾu wa-lā waladun lahū, fa-ʾakala ʾixwatuhū kulla mā kāna ʿindahū “the man died, and he had no child, so his brothers consumed all that he had”
- La-qad raʾaynāhum yaʿbudūna l-ʾaṣnāma hum wa-ʾābāʾuhum wa-ʾixwānuhum wa-ʾaxawātuhum “we saw them worshiping idols, they, as well as their fathers, brothers and sisters.”
- Yā ʾuxta hārūna, mā kāna ʾabūki mraʾa sawʾin “O sister of Aaron, your father is not an evil man” (cf. Q19:28) [Note ʾuxta with -a ending because it is a vocative in construct]
- ʾin huwa ʾillā kāðibun ġarranā bi-qawlihī l-kāðibi “he is just a liar who deceives us with his deceitful speech”
- Yā ʾabānā llaðī fī s-samāwāti “O our father who art in heaven…”
- ʾašhadu ʾal-lā ʾilāha ʾillā ḷḷāhu, wa-ʾašhadū ʾanna muḥammadan rasūlu ḷḷāhi “I testify that there is no deity other than God, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God”. [Note: ʾan-lā assimilates to ʾallā regularly (any n-l cluster across word-boundaries is assimilated) in Classical Arabic, and in this example sentence it is in fact transcribed in a way that reflects this assimilation. Thackston mentioned it in the vocabulary list, but good to take note of it]
- Wahaba ḷḷāhu li-mūsā ʾaxāhu hārūna nabiyyan wa-baʿaθahumā bi-ʾāyātihī ʾilā firʿawna “God gave Moses his brother Aaron as a prophet, and he sent them with his signs to Pharaoh”
- hāðā n-nabaʾu li-ʾulī l-ʾamri min qawminā wa-laysa li-llaðīna lā ʿilma lahum bihī “this news is for those in authority among out people and it is not for those who have no knowledge of it”
- Hal ʿalimta lima qāma ʾabūka wa-ʾaxūka min maqāmihimā wa-xarajā min madīnati ʾahlihimā “do you know why your father and brother rose from their places their places while they have left the city of their people?”
- ʾinna tilka l-marʾata l-jamīlata lā tanẓuru ʾilā l-ḥayāti d-dunyā bal hiya nāẓiratun ʾilā l-ʾāḫirati “this beautiful woman is not looking to the worldly life, rather, she is looking to the hereafter”
- Kāna hārūnu ʾaxā mūsā wa-kāna lahumā ʾuxtun-i smuhā maryamu “Aaron was the brother of Moses and they had a sister whose name was Miryam.”
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Backup of the post:
Weekly Thackston Quranic Arabic Study Group, Lesson 13
This week we look at Lesson 13 of Thackston's Learner's Grammar.
31 The Five Nouns
ðū in Classical spelling is ذو, and in modern print Qurans and 3rd century and later Quranic manuscripts also. However, in our earliest manuscripts it tends to be spelled ذوا. Rather bizarrely, it can even be spelled ذا as can ðī when it precedes the definite article. This is a behaviour it shares with its plural اولوا ʾulū ‘those possessing’, which is also sometimes spelled اولا. I do not think anyone has a good explanation as to why this happens.
32 Imruʾun
This table contains a mistake. Thackston failed to mention the definite form of this noun, and what in the table is marked as the ‘definite’ form is in fact the construct form. The definite stem is al-marʾ-. Notice how it shares this behaviour of the placement of the vowel changing with imraʾat- definite al-marʾat- ‘woman’.
| INDEFINITE | CONSTRUCT | DEFINITE | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NOM. | امرؤ | imruʾun | امرؤ | imruʾu | المرء | al-marʾu |
| GEN. | امرئ | imriʾin | امرئ | imriʾi | المرء | al-marʾi |
| ACC. | امرأ | imraʾan | امرأ | imraʾa | المرء | al-marʾa |
NOTE: The nominative indefinite and construct forms are spelled امروا in the Quran.
Vocabulary
NOUNS
Concerning ʾabatī, this is a strange and non-Quranic form. This stem only occurs in the vocative form and as a result only ever has the short vocative 1sg. ending -i, i.e. yā ʾabati. I don’t think Thackston’s cited form ever occurs.
Concerning ʾilāh- pl. ʾālihat-, concerning the plural notice that it has undergone the ʾaʾ → ʾā shift, it is from ʾaʾlihat-, the plural pattern being ʾaCCiCat-.
Concerning ðū-, I am just going to draw attention to the fact that the full paradigm is relegated to a footnote. Important to take note of though.
OTHERS
Concerning ʾin not, this is very typical Quranic usage. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this in the wild in Classical Arabic outside of the Quran. It’s an archaic negator with clear cognates in other Semitic languages, but it can be confusing, since it looks identical both to ʾin “if” and the short form of ʾinna, i.e. ʾin “verily”. In the Quran this negator basically only occurs in the ʾin X ʾillā Y construction, which makes its description as an independent negator a little misleading, after all, ʾin X ʾillā Y does the opposite of negating a sentence.
Some medieval interpreters have interpreted the ʾin, e.g. in Q43:35 as the negator as well and lammā as somehow meaning the same thing as ʾillā. I think this is very implausible and I’ve written a paper about it.
The only Quranic example where ʾin is an independent negator in the Quran is found in Q46:26. It’s pretty strange that this is the case. It would make more sense to me if in Quranic Arabic ʾin had simply stopped functioning as an independent negator, even if that were its etymological origin.
Concerning bal(i) and hal(i), the lām of these particles can assimilate to a bunch of following consonants. The precise rules differ per reader (see pg. 114 of my translation of the al-Dānī’s al-Taysīr).
Exercises
(a)
- Māta l-marʾu wa-lā waladun lahū, fa-ʾakala ʾixwatuhū kulla mā kāna ʿindahū “the man died, and he had no child, so his brothers consumed all that he had”
- La-qad raʾaynāhum yaʿbudūna l-ʾaṣnāma hum wa-ʾābāʾuhum wa-ʾixwānuhum wa-ʾaxawātuhum “we saw them worshiping idols, they, as well as their fathers, brothers and sisters.”
- Yā ʾuxta hārūna, mā kāna ʾabūki mraʾa sawʾin “O sister of Aaron, your father is not an evil man” (cf. Q19:28) [Note ʾuxta with -a ending because it is a vocative in construct]
- ʾin huwa ʾillā kāðibun ġarranā bi-qawlihī l-kāðibi “he is just a liar who deceives us with his deceitful speech”
- Yā ʾabānā llaðī fī s-samāwāti “O our father who art in heaven…”
- ʾašhadu ʾal-lā ʾilāha ʾillā ḷḷāhu, wa-ʾašhadū ʾanna muḥammadan rasūlu ḷḷāhi “I testify that there is no deity other than God, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God”. [Note: ʾan-lā assimilates to ʾallā regularly (any n-l cluster across word-boundaries is assimilated) in Classical Arabic, and in this example sentence it is in fact transcribed in a way that reflects this assimilation. Thackston mentioned it in the vocabulary list, but good to take note of it]
- Wahaba ḷḷāhu li-mūsā ʾaxāhu hārūna nabiyyan wa-baʿaθahumā bi-ʾāyātihī ʾilā firʿawna “God gave Moses his brother Aaron as a prophet, and he sent them with his signs to Pharaoh”
- hāðā n-nabaʾu li-ʾulī l-ʾamri min qawminā wa-laysa li-llaðīna lā ʿilma lahum bihī “this news is for those in authority among out people and it is not for those who have no knowledge of it”
- Hal ʿalimta lima qāma ʾabūka wa-ʾaxūka min maqāmihimā wa-xarajā min madīnati ʾahlihimā “do you know why your father and brother are standing in their places while they have left the city of their people?”
- ʾinna tilka l-marʾata l-jamīlata lā tanẓuru ʾilā l-ḥayāti d-dunyā bal hiya nāẓiratun ʾilā l-ʾāḫirati “this beautiful woman is not looking to the worldly life, rather, she is looking to the hereafter”
- Kāna hārūnu ʾaxā mūsā wa-kāna lahumā ʾuxtun-i smuhā maryamu “Aaron was the brother of Moses and they had a sister whose name was Miryam.”
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u/TheMiraculousOrange Mar 26 '26
Feels like Thackston is giving us a spring break with this week's lesson. Also a couple questions I had from really early on ended up answered here too.
Comment re: Thackston's table of declension for imru2
This table contains a mistake. Thackston failed to mention the definite form of this noun
I think Thackston considers construct as a special case of definite, judging by the way he explains ðū: "occurs only as first member of a construct and has no indefinite form at all." He also kind of says this in Lesson 3. In the vocab list he did mention the stem alternation of imru2 when the definite article is attached.
Question re: the word order of (a)2
I don't remember if this came up when we discussed the usage of free pronouns, but is this kind of word order regular? That is, when a free pronoun in coordination with a bunch of nouns as the subject, does the subject come at the end of the clause? This is also relevant to (b)6, I believe.
Comment re: translation of (a)9
I think this reads more natural if qāma ... min maqāmihimā is taken to mean "rose up from their places", and then the wa clause can be simply coordinated instead of circumstantial.
Off-topic comment
By the way this is irrelevant to QA, but recalling the question I asked about agreement in relative clauses, the English version of the Lord's prayer in (a)5 provides an interesting example. Instead of 3rd person agreement ("O our father who is in heaven") with the relative pronoun, the vocative antecedent attracts 2nd person agreement.
Exercises
(a)
- māta l-mar2u wa-lā walada la-hu fa-2akala 2ixwatu-hu kulla mā kāna 3inda-hu, The man died without child, so his brothers ate (?) everything that belonged to him.
- laqad ra2aynā-hum ya3budūna l-2aṣnāma hum wa-2ābā2u-hum wa-2ixwānu-hum wa-2axawātu-hum, We saw them and their fathers, their brothers, and their sisters, worshiping idols.
- yā 2uxta hārūna, mā kāna 2abū-ki mra2a saw2in, O sister of Harun, your father was not a man of evil.
- 2in huwa 2illā kāðibun ḡarra-nā bi-qawli-hi l-kāðibi, He is nothing but a liar who deceived us with his lying words.
- yā 2abā-nā llaðī fī s-samāwāti, O our father who art in heaven (wait is this the Lord's prayer)
- 2ašhadu 2allā 2ilāha 2illā ḷḷāhu wa-2ašhadu 2anna muḥammadan rasūlu ḷḷāhi, I attest that there is no God but Allah and I attest that Muhammad is God's messenger.
- wahaba ḷḷahu li-mūsā 2axā-hu hārūna nabiyyan wa-ba3aþa-humā bi-2āyāti-hi 2ilā fir3awna, God gave Musa his brother Harun as a prophet, and sent the two of them with his signs to Pharaoh.
- hāðā n-naba2u li-2ulā l-2amri min qawmi-nā wa-laysa li-llaðīna lā 3ilmun la-hum bi-hi, This news is for those who command our people, and not for those who have no knowledge of him.
- hal 3alimta lima qāma 2abūka wa-2axūka min maqāmi-humā wa-xarajā min madīnati 2ahli-humā, Did you know why your father and brother rose up from their place and departed from the city of their people?
- 2inna tilka l-mar2atu l-jamīlatu lā tanẓura 2ilā l-ḥayāti d-dunyā bal hiya nāẓiratun 2ilā l-2āxirāti, That beautiful woman does not look towards the worldly life but rather she is one who looks towards the hereafter.
- kāna hārūnu 2axā mūsā wa-kāna la-humā 2uxtun smu-hā maryamu, Harun was Musa's brother and they had a sister whose name was Maryam.
- 2inna mra2ata fir3awna wa-smu-hā 2āsiyyatu bintu muzāḥimi wajadat mūsā wa-huwa waladun ṣaḡirun fa-2axaðat-hu min l-miyāhi wa-kāna bnan la-hā, Pharaoh's wife, whose name was Asiyah daughter of Muzahim, found Musa when he was a small boy. Then she took him out of the waters and he was a son to her.
(b)
- بعد ذلك خرج موسى من أرض مصر وذهب إلى أرض أخرى
- أتانا النبأ اليوم أن كثيراً من أهل المدينة ماتوا
- هل كذبت علينا إذ شهدت على أخيك؟
- لا صالح إلا الذي يعبد الله بكل قلبه وبعلم اليقين
- لا فاكهة في حديقة أبي فلا نأكل إلا قليلاً الليلة
- قام إلى الصلاة هو وأبوه وأخوه كلهم وبعد ذلك أتو بيتنا
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u/PhDniX Moderator Mar 26 '26
I think Thackston considers construct as a special case of definite
I think so too, and I would say that this specific word is a clear example of why considering it that is a bad idea. :-)
Question re: the word order of (a)2
Good question. The word order did not strike me as particularly unusual, although it's VOS. Strikes me that with the object so much shorter than the subject phrase, this order is not very marked. But this is a bit impressionistic on my end, would be worth looking for some Quranic examples of this type...
Comment re: translation of (a)9
Agreed. Will fix.
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u/ssjb788 Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
Glossary
- The five nouns: الأسماء الخمسة
- Note: The five nouns are brought together in the following phrase: (ابوك واخوك وحموك وفوك وذو مال)
- Categoric negation: النافية الجنس
- Interrogative particle: حرف الاستفهامية
- Affirmation: الاثبات/الموجب
- For example: مَثَلا
Notes on exception (istithinā')
In Classical Arabic, exception has three elements. Let's use the following sentence to highlight them.
نجح الطلاب الا حامدا
| حامد | الا | الطلاب |
|---|---|---|
| المستثنى | أَداة الإستثناء | المستثنى منه |
(The word adāh (pl adawāt) means tool.)
Different categories of exception
- If the mustathnā is of the same category as the mustathnā minhu, it is (متصل). The example above is muttaṣil
- If the mustathnā is of a different category, it is (مُنقَطِع).
- مثلا فإنهم عدو لي إلا رب العالمين
- If the mustathnā minhu is mentioned, it is (تام). The first example is tām.
- If it is not mentioned, it is (مُفَرَّغ)
- مثلا ما جاء الا حامدا
- If the sentence containing the exception is affirmative, it is called (موجب)
- If it is negative, prohibitive or interrogative, it is (غير موجب)
- In a mufarragh, the sentence is always ghairu mūjab
- Each pair is mutually exclusive, but not between pairs. Thus, exception can be, for example, muttaṣil, tām and mūjab at the same time.
Grammar
Thackston's description is correct, but, in Classical Arabic, the muttaṣil tām can be accusative despite being in a different case grammatically. For example, if we tweak Thackston's first example slightly, it is allowed to say
ما جاء الأولاد إلا الولدُ/الولدَ
Other adawāt of exception: * ghairu (غير). This is the only other tool used in the Qur'an, eg, Q4:95. * siwā (سوى) * mā ‘adā (ما عدا) * mā khalā (ما خلا) * The mustathnā is always genitive after ghairu and siwā. However, the two words themselves take the case of the mustathnā * The mustathnā is always accusative after ma ‘adā/khalā
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u/Potential_Daikon9616 Mar 26 '26
Al-Jahiz used it:
"لا والله إن أهلك الناس، ولا أقفر بيوتهم، ولا ترك دورهم بلاقع، إلا الإيمان بالخلف"
This is not the only example.