# التعلق بواحد منها



## lena55313

Hi everybody,
I've started to read a book in Arabic and have a question.
This is a citation:
شوشو فتاة يقول لك جسمها إنها ناهزت التاسعة عشرة، ويشهد حديثها وحركاتها أنها لم تجاوز السابعة عشرة. وهي ذات قامة معتدلة وجسم غض ووجه صبيح متألق، ترتاح العين إلى النظر 
إلى معارفة جملة، وتشغل بوقعها مجتمعة عن التعلق بواحد منها على الخصوص

I can't understand the end of the last sentence, after the comma.* All that effect distracts (draws attention) from ........  particularly.  *

Many thanks in advance


----------



## analeeh

I think it should be إلى معارفه جملة.

Then it reads as something like (and this will need some restructuring with the rest of the sentence): the eye is pleased to see its (the face's) features as a whole, which by their appearing together distract you from focusing on any one of them in particular'.


----------



## lena55313

The eye was pleased to see معارفة جملة
Is it about the hair? I've translated it as a camel's mane. 
So, the eye is pleased to see (her camel's mane?) - then the verb تشغل - it means to distract - so is this verb a predicate , and is an eye its subject?


----------



## analeeh

No. The whole thing is a relative clause of وجه. I'm struggling to produce a nice English translation for ترتاح إلى in this context, but syntactically at least this should help even if it's not particularly idiomatic:

وهي ذات ... وجه صبيح متألق، ترتاح العين إلى النظر إلى معارفه جملة، وتشغل بوقعها مجتمعة عن التعلق بواحد منها على الخصوص
_she had a beautiful shining face whose features the eye was pleased to look at as a whole _(jumlatan) _and _[also the eye]_ was distracted _(tushghal) _by their _[the features'] _appearing _(waq3) _together _(mujtami3atan) _from staying too long _(at-ta3alluq) _on any one of them.
_
معارف means features, and the ـه here is possessive, referring back to _wijh_.


----------



## lena55313

But here is written: nazara ila معارفة جملة - so the look to where? To the camel's mane? Is it about hair?
Google translates it as "a total knowledge" but I found in Arabic-Russian dictionary that the معارفة also could mean "the mane of a horse".


----------



## cherine

There is no camels here, the ـة in معارفة is a typo.
What is the title of the novel or story? If I can find a copy I can double-check the text.


----------



## analeeh

lena55313 said:


> But here is written: nazara ila معارفة جملة - so the look to where? To the camel's mane? Is it about hair?
> Google translates it as "a total knowledge" but I found in Arabic-Russian dictionary that the معارفة also could mean "the mane of a horse".



No, as I said above - معارف here means 'facial features' and ًجملة is not an adjective but an adverb meaning 'as a whole'. It is absolutely nothing to do with camels, as Cherine said.


----------



## lena55313

Hi, Cherine.
It's
*إبراهيم الكاتب*
تأليف
إبراهيم عبد القادر المازني

Analeeh, thank you for your patience. I've just now noticed that you wrote ha at the end of the word - not ta.
I'll reread the sentence once again and try to catch how the words are structured there.
It's very difficult to read without vowels.
Thank you very much.


----------



## cherine

Thank you for the information, Lena. Giving the page is also helpful, but never mind this time: I found it, it's the first sentence of the first chapter. The first 5% of the book can be checked here, and I believe the whole novel is also available online on other website.


lena55313 said:


> I've just now noticed that you wrote ha at the end of the word - not ta.


Yes, in the copy I found it is with a haa2, so the pronoun refers to the face:
هِيَ ذَاتُ قَامةٍ مُعْتَدِلَةٍ وَجِسْمٍ غَضٍّ وَوَجْهٍ صَبِيحٍ مُتَأَلِّقٍ، تَرْتَاحُ العَيْنُ إلى النَظَرِ إلى مَعَارِفِهِ جُمْلَةً، وَتُشْغَلُ بِوَقْعِهَا مُجْتَمِعَةً عَنْ التَعَلُّقِ بِوَاحِدٍ مِنْها على الخُصُوصِ

Analeeh already gave a good translation, but here's another attempt from me:
The eye is pleased to look at the whole of its (the face) feature, and is [too] distracted by the effect/influence of the whole features to linger on one of them in particular.


----------



## lena55313

Cherine, thank you very much for marking vowels.
But that made more new questions.)))
1.Why is there jumlatan but not jumlatin here? We can see a preposition ila here. I read that after ila it should be a genitive case. 
2. إلى معارفه جملة  : I've checked up 3 dictionaries and couldn't find the meaning "features as a whole". معارف - is a sentence, knowledge, information etc. Is that phrase an idiom?
What are the cognates of the word معارف? Do they have something to do with the verb عرف?


----------



## Saley

lena55313 said:


> 1.Why is there jumlatan but not jumlatin here? We can see a preposition ila here. I read that after ila it should be a gen*i*tive case


إلى governs the case of معارفه. The word جملةً is an adverb, as analeeh has pointed out, and it doesn’t have to agree in case with anything; like almost all Arabic adverbs, it is formed by putting a noun into the accusative.


> 2. إلى معارفه جملة : I've checked up 3 dictionaries and couldn't find the meaning "features as a whole". معارف - is a sentence, knowledge, information etc. Is that phrase an idiom?
> What are the cognates of the word معارف? Do they have something to do with the verb عرف?


See the Hans Wehr dictionary under the root ع-ر-ف. It translates معارف as ‘face, countenance, features’.


----------



## lena55313

Saley, many thanks for that brilliant link. I've never heard about Hans Wehr before.


----------



## lena55313

Can I ask one more question, please?



cherine said:


> بِوَقْعِهَا


Bewak-iha. Haa is the female pronoun.
Is the noun معارف a feminine word?



analeeh said:


> _was distracted _(tushghal) *by their [the features'] appearing (waq3) *_together _(mujtami3atan) _from_


Why Bewak-iha, not Bewak-ihi?


----------



## analeeh

No, معارف is a plural (albeit one without a singular). Like English 'features'. If it wasn't, you couldn't say 'one of them'.


----------



## lena55313

Analeeh, I see.
But why did the writer put a pronoun هَا, not a pronoun هم or a pronoun هن?
Should it be a بوقعهم or a بوقعهن instead of a بوقعه?
Do I understand it right that we speak about the appearing of the features? The وقع of the معارف?


----------



## Saley

lena55313 said:


> But why did the writer put a pronoun هَا, not a pronoun هم or a pronoun هن?
> Should it be a بوقعهم or a بوقعهن instead of a بوقعه?


Because هم and هنّ can refer to human beings only. Non-human plural nouns are almost always treated syntactically as feminine singular nouns in Arabic. I doubt you can proceed very far without basic grammar. 


> Do I understand it right that we speak about the appearing of the features? The وقع of the معارف?


You’re right, وقعها stands for وقع المعارفِ or وقع معارفِه.


----------



## lena55313

Saley, thank you!!!! I read about this rule before but completely forgot.


----------



## lena55313

I caughte the sentence at last. I read it aloud all together and it was like music. Beautiful.


----------

