# iDafa/iDaafa الإضافة + adjective



## Al-Talibah

Salaam, I hope someone can clarify something for me! 

I want to write: The ancient history of the world.

According to another discussion here about ال, I know that 2 nouns together (idaafa) only has one ال and that 1 noun and an adjective together uses ال on both words.  So, bearing that in mind, which would be correct?

١.  القديمة التريخية العالمية
٢.  القديمة التريخية من العالمية
٣.  قديمة التريخية العالمية

As you can tell im confused, the العاامية is the bit that throws me off! Also, according to Hans Wehr dictionary, it should be القديمية, with a ي before the ة.  But elsewhere its with the ي , which is correct?

Thanks so much )


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## linguist786

تاريخ قديم العالم _taariikhu qadiimu 'l-3aalam(i)_

تاريخ قديم = muDaaf
العالم = muDaaf ilayhi

The rule is that the muDaaf cannot have alif-laam.


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## Ibn Nacer

I think the word قديم  is an adjective so it should be placed after the annexation and it should be defined because the mudhâf is defined : تاريخ العالم القديم

What do you think?

Je pense que le mot قديم devrait être placé après le dernier terme d'annexion car rien ne peut se placer entre le mudhâf et le mudhâf ilayhi. De plus cet adjectif doit s'accorder avec le mudhâf or ce dernier est défini car le mudhâf ilayhi est défini.


Pour lever l'ambiguïté on peut utiliser la préposition lâm : تاريخ القديم للعالم

...


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## إسكندراني

تاريخ العالم القديم


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## Al-Talibah

Thanks so much for both your replies  I think this is where my problem lies ..... Unless there are different words to describe these constructions, I have never come across the terms muDaaf and muDaaf ilayhi - and im in my second year of Arabic! ( can you please clarify what these are? First time I have come across them and only then, in this forum! Thank you 


إسكندراني said:


> تاريخ العالم القديم


This seems right to me, although I may be wrong. This satisfy's the rules of noun + adj. Needing ال and idaafa(?)


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## Ibn Nacer

I said in my first message that the adjective should be placed after the annexation (idhâfah). The adjective can not be placed between the Mudhaf and Mudhaf ilayhi. It is a rule.

 Mudhâf is the first term of the annexation(idhâfah), example تاريخ
 Mudhâf ilayhi is the second term of the annexation(idhâfah), example عالم


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## Al-Talibah

Thanks so much for the clarification, I really appreciate it


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## cherine

Hi,

I think the simplest way to understand الإضافة is to think of it as "the X _*of*_ Y" knowing that, in Arabic, X is called المضاف and Y is المضاف إليه, and that both X and Y are not separated by any word or preposition:
كتاب الولد
باب البيت
مدرسة أختي
Also Y can be a pronoun affixed to X: كتابي، بابه، مدرستها

Regarding your sentence, its Arabic translation is تاريخ العالم القديم (all masculine words).
تاريخ is مضاف
العالم is مضاف إليه
القديم is صفة/نعت العالم

In other words, "ancient" here describes the world not the History.
If you want a more literal translation, we can say التاريخ القديم للعالم which doesn't have iDaafa, and is not the common way we say it.


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## linguist786

But what if you want to specifically describe the history as being ancient and not the world?

Is it a rule that you can't have a Sifat after the muDaaf? If it is, that means you can never describe a muDaaf!


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## cherine

Of course you can. It's just that with all 3 words in the same grammatical gender, it could be confusing, this is why -in such cases- it's "safer" to reword the sentence, like: التاريخ القديم للعالم.
But if we have 2 different genders, like:
سيارة أخي القديمة is very obvious what the adjective is describing (the car not the brother  ).


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## Ibn Nacer

cherine said:


> Hi,
> 
> I think the simplest way to understand الإضافة is to think of it as "the X _*of*_ Y" knowing that, in Arabic, X is called المضاف and Y is المضاف إليه, and that both X and Y are not separated by any word or preposition:
> كتاب الولد
> باب البيت
> مدرسة أختي
> Also Y can be a pronoun affixed to X: كتابي، بابه، مدرستها
> 
> Regarding your sentence, its Arabic translation is تاريخ العالم القديم (all masculine words).
> تاريخ is مضاف
> العالم is مضاف إليه
> القديم is صفة/نعت العالم
> 
> In other words, "ancient" here describes the world not the History.
> If you want a more literal translation, we can say التاريخ القديم للعالم which doesn't have iDaafa, and is not the common way we say it.



Merci Cherine c'est une bonne explication. Dans mon premier message j'avais dit que pour lever l'ambiguïté on pouvait utiliser la préposition lâm : تاريخ القديم للعالم comme tu l'a rappelé.

Mais penses-tu que l'utilisation de l'idhâfah est préférable ?



linguist786 said:


> But what if you want to specifically describe the history as being ancient and not the world?



In this case, with the vowels you can know : *تاريخُ العالمِ القديمِ

*


Al-Talibah said:


> Thanks so much for the clarification, I really appreciate it



De rien...


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## cherine

Ibn Nacer said:


> Merci Cherine c'est une bonne explication. Dans mon premier message j'avais dit que pour lever l'ambiguïté on pouvait utiliser la préposition lâm : تاريخ القديم للعالم comme tu l'a rappelé.


Merci à toi, Ibn Nacer. J'ai, en fait, utilisé ta version mais avec une petite correction: التاريخ . Sinon القديم aussi doit être indéfini تاريخ قديم .


> Mais penses-tu que l'utilisation de l'idhâfah est préférable ?


Personellement, je préfère toujours ce qui est plus simple tant qu'il n'y ait pas lieu de confusion.
Comme j'ai dit, pour une structure تاريخ العالم القديم (oú tous les mots sont au masculin) il est difficile de distinguer quel est l'ancien: l'Histoire ou le monde, surtout si les voyelles ne sont pas marquées تاريخُ العالمِ القديمُ ou تاريخُ العالمِ القديمِ .


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## Ibn Nacer

cherine said:


> J'ai, en fait, utilisé ta version mais avec une petite correction: التاريخ . Sinon القديم aussi doit être indéfini تاريخ قديم .



Ah oui, c'est toi qui a raison, j'ai oublié l'article défini.



cherine said:


> Personellement, je préfère toujours ce qui est plus simple tant qu'il n'y ait pas lieu de confusion.
> Comme j'ai dit, pour une structure تاريخ العالم القديم (oú tous les mots  sont au masculin) il est difficile de distinguer quel est l'ancien:  l'Histoire ou le monde, surtout si les voyelles ne sont pas marquées  تاريخُ العالمِ القديمُ ou تاريخُ العالمِ القديمِ .



Ok c'est noté. Merci.


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## cherine

Je t'en prie.


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## Al-Talibah

Thanks all so much for your help in this - I have learnt a lot from you all!!  including some French, which coincidentally I am also studying  )


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## cherine

You're welcome  And sorry for putting in French, I just replied to Ibn Nacer in the language he knows best, but if you need me to translate what I said, please let me know.


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## Mahaodeh

تاريخ العالم القديم can also mean "the history of the ancient/old world"

To clear the ambiguity I would go for التاريخ القديم للعالم.


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## Al-Talibah

Thank for this.


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## aurelien.demarest

Hi guys,

I have read many reads related with the idaafa and I know it will take time to learn  but there's something I still have problems to understand which is the article (or not).
In the simplest case by reading Cherine's explanation above I understand the use of the المضاف and the المضاف إليه.
What is not clear is the article "al" and when I have to put it into the المضاف 

I took 2 sentences from the web, hope first they are correct. 
Then I'd like to know why in the first there's an "al" associated to the noun girl and why there isn't in the second (the house).

The small car of the girl
سيارةُ البنتِ الصغيرةُ

The door of *the* house of the man
بابُ بيتِ الرجلِ

Thanks
Aurélien


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## akhooha

You've got 2 different types of idafas here.
The first:


> The small car of the girl
> سيارةُ البنتِ الصغيرةُ


 is a _simple_ idafa, with 2 nouns and one adjective.
The first noun (سيارةُ) is the mudaf, and it cannot take the ال. The second noun is the mudaf ilaih and it can be either definite or indefinite. Since you're talking about the girl, it is definite and will take the ال. The sentence can be ambiguous, as both سيارةُ and البنتِ are feminine, so the adjective can refer to either the girl or the car. In contrast, an idafa like سيارة الولد الصغيرة would not be ambiguous, as الصغيرة could only refer to سيارة , (since الولد is masculine).
The only way to get around the ambiguity of your original idafa is not to use an idafa: السيارة الصغيرة للبنت

Your second sentence:


> The door of *the* house of the man
> بابُ بيتِ الرجلِ


 is a _multiple_ idafa, with 3 nouns and no adjective. Even though all 3 nouns are definite in meaning, the first two nouns (since they must both be considered mudaf) cannot take the ال.


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## aurelien.demarest

Hi Akooha,

thank you very much for helping me. Maybe you did already explain, or may be it's just that I don't get it but even with your explanation I don't understand how can I know when I need to put the article or not.

In the second case for instance, can you tell me why I don't say "the house" = "البيت"? Because I understand the multiple idafa but I don't understand why we don't put the article on "the house" as well as we did for "the girl" 

Isn't that sentence also correct?

بابُ البيتِ الرجلِ 

Thanks
Aurélien


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## akhooha

aurelien.demarest said:


> Isn't that sentence also correct?
> بابُ البيتِ الرجلِ


The first thing to remember is that the ال _never_ goes on the first term of the idafa.
If what you're talking about is definite, then the ال goes on the _last_ term of the idafa. You have a multiple idafa with 3 terms: (1) the door (2) the house, and (3) the man. Since the _last_ term of your idafa is "the man", the ال gets attached to رجلِ:
بابُ بيتِ الرجلِ
A quick rule: the ال never goes with the first term of the idafa, but _can_* go with the _last_ term of the idafa. 
You could have an even more complex multiple idafa, for example, with 4 terms:
"the manager of the office of the president of the university "
and the ال would still have to fall on the _last_ term of the idafa:
مديرُ مكتبِ رئيسِ الجامعةِ
I say _can_ go, because you could have an _indefinite_ idafa and not use ال at all:
"a door of a house" = بابُ بيتٍ


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## cherine

No, Aurélien. When you say باب البيت الرجل it is not clear what belongs to what (qu'est-ce qui appartient à quoi/qui). Or, in other words, there's nothing indicating that the house belongs to the man, because البيت الرجل is not an iDaafa structure in itself and doesn't mean anything.

 Try to think of each part separately first, then form the long structure:
The house of the man بيت الرجل
the door of the house باب البيت
Then, to put them together, you'll need to drop the common word (house), and keep the one with the "correct" iDaafa structure بيت الرجل , so you'll have باب بيت الرجل .

Another example: the book of the teacher of the class:
the teacher of the class مدرس الفصل
the book of the teach كتاب المدرس
Together: كتاب مدرِّس الفصل

If we have a pronoun instead of the article, for example: the book of my brother:
my brother (which also means, even if never used like this, the brother of me) أخي
the book of "the brother" كتاب أخ
the book of _my_ brother كتاب أخي

I hope I didn't confuse you more with these examples. Please let us know if it's still unclear.


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## aurelien.demarest

Hi Cherine,

thanks for your help.
yes it is a bit clearer now. I hope over a period of time and training  I will get it!
One question about specific examples:
السنة الماضية
As far as i know in this example we have a singular "year" and its adjective "past". 
Why then do we put 2 "al" in that case? 
Maybe it has nothing to see with the idafa but I don't get why we use two times the "al".

Same question for instance in that example:
اكبر منتخبات كرة القدم

If I separate as you told me I would say "_biggest_" "_teams_" "_soccer_" so I would expect to have something like
اكبر منتخبات الكرة قدم

is my approach wrong.. 

Aurélien


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## akhooha

> One question about specific examples:
> السنة الماضية
> As far as i know in this example we have a singular "year" and its adjective "past".
> Why then do we put 2 "al" in that case?
> Maybe it has nothing to see with the idafa but I don't get why we use two times the "al".


You're right --- the case above has nothing to do with an idafa. It is simply a noun and an adjective. If the noun is definite, then its adective is also definite.
*a* past year: سنة ماضية
*the* past year: السنة الماضية


> Same question for instance in that example:
> اكبر منتخبات كرة القدم
> If I separate as you told me I would say "biggest" "teams" "soccer" so I would expect to have something like
> اكبر منتخبات الكرة قدم
> is my approach wrong..


Yes, your approach is wrong. كرة القدم is itself an idafa --- literally "ball of the foot". When you have multiple idafa, such as أكبر منتخبات كرة القدم , you actually have 4 terms of the idafa: biggest, teams, ball, and foot. If you take a look again at what I mentioned in post *#23*, you will see that the ال only gets attached to the _*last*_ term of the idafa.


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