# لكن صاحبتنا هذه كانت من قوة الجذب بحيث لا يسعك إلا أن تحس وجودها وتشعر بما تفيضه حولها



## lena55313

Dear friends, could you kindly check my tashkeel attempt? I have some questions regarding the translation but I'd like to check the vowels first.
وَلَكِنْ صَاحِبَتُنَا هَذِهِ كَانَتْ مِنْ قُوَّةِ الْجَذْبِ بِحَيْثِ لا يَسْعَكَ إلاّ أنْ تَحَسَّ وُجُودَهَا وَتَشْعُرُ بِمَا تَفِيضَهُ حَوْلَهَا

In the previous topic there is the previous paragraph of the book.

Context:
  ومن الفتيات من لا يفطن المرء إليها على فرط حسنها، لأول وهلة، ولكن صاحبتنا هذه كانت من قوة الجذب بحيث لا يسعك إلا أن تحس وجودها وتشعر بما تفيضه حولها، ولا تكاد تجلس إليها خمس دقائق حتى تلم بما فطرت عليه من جرأة الجنان الذي لا يدري أن في الدنيا ما يتقى، ومن حرارة النفس الغريرة التي لم يصدمها من التجاريب ما يطفئها، ومنٍ خفة الروح التي لا يثقلها إلحاح اللحم

My literal translation:
but this girl has something like the power of attraction, so there is not much for you to do, except feel its existence (existence of attraction) and sense that she spreads it (attraction) like a flow around herself

I hope very much that it is right, fingers crossed)))


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## cherine

lena55313 said:


> وَلَكِنَّ صَاحِبَتَنَا هَذِهِ كَانَتْ مِنْ قُوَّةِ الْجَذْبِ بِحَيْثُ لا يَسَعُكَ إلاّ أنْ تُحِسَّ وُجُودَهَا وَتَشْعُرَ بِمَا تُفِييضُهُ حَوْلَهَا


You don't need to worry much about the mistakes in initial and middle vowels (e.g. tufiiD-tafiiD) as these can be learned from a dictionary like the Hans Wehr. But you should be careful with final vowels because they're related to grammar and indicate the position of the word in the sentence. So you need to be careful with لكن صاحبتنا where لكن is اسم إنّ (and it's laakinna not laakin) so صاحبتنا must be Saa7ibatana: اسم لكنّ منصوب. Also بحيث though it follows the preposition ب it's always بِحَيْثُ.


> but this girl has something like the power of attraction, so there is not much for you to do, except feel its existence (existence of attraction) and sense that she spreads it (attraction) like a flow around herself


كانت من قوة الجذب she had *such a power of* attraction that you could but notice her existence


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## Abu Talha

cherine said:


> you need to be careful with لكن صاحبتنا where لكن is اسم إنّ (and it's laakinna not laakin) so صاحبتنا must be Saa7ibatana: اسم لكنّ منصوب.


لكنَّ صاحبتَنا is of course correct, but I thought لكنْ صاحبتُنا is also a possible reading, isn't it?


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## lena55313

Hi, Cherine!
Thank you very much for your reply.

I join the Abu Talha's question. Is it possible to say لَكِنْ here. Are there any rules about what to chose, لَكِنْ or لَكِنَّ , if they are followed by a noun?

As I see أنْ تُحِسَّ is derived from the أحَسَّ (the 4th form). I thought it was from حَسَّ (the 1st form). Why is the 4th form here instead of the 1st?

The same question is about the verb أفاض, why not the فاض?


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## Mahaodeh

I hope you don't mind if I pitch in Cherine:


Abu Talha said:


> لكنَّ صاحبتَنا is of course correct, but I thought لكنْ صاحبتُنا is also a possible reading, isn't it?





lena55313 said:


> I join the Abu Talha's question. Is it possible to say لَكِنْ here. Are there any rules about what to chose, لَكِنْ or لَكِنَّ , if they are followed by a noun?


I suppose. Both have the same meaning and in this case I don't see why it can't be either. I don't know of any rules save that one is من أخوات إن and the other is غير عاملة.


lena55313 said:


> As I see أنْ تُحِسَّ is derived from the أحَسَّ (the 4th form). I thought it was from حَسَّ (the 1st form). Why is the 4th form here instead of the 1st?


OK, so technically both have the same meaning. However, not all linguists agree (some say حسّ does not give the same meaning, although I must say that they are a little too strict). The most important reason, however, is that أحسّ is by far the most common in giving this meaning both in MSA and in Classical Arabic (in the Quran for example, when حسّ is used it does not give the meaning of 'feel'). Most people automatically read it as تُحسّ even if in their dialect they use تَحسّ.



lena55313 said:


> The same question is about the verb أفاض, why not the فاض?


Here there is actually a difference in meaning. You use فاض to refer to yourself as increasing, overflowing...etc., while you use أفاض when it is something else that is being increased or overflowing...etc. You would say for example: فاضَ الخيرُ على الناس or أفاض اللهُ الخيرَ على الناس.

So if this sentence was: وَتَشْعُرُ بِمَا تَفِيضَهُ حَوْلَهَا it would mean that she is overflowing herself! Not only does it not make sense in this context, but the use of ما here implies that she is doing the overflowing but she is not overflowing herself, there is something that overflows around her that is not indicated explicitly, only referred to implicitly with ما. The word here is obviously تُفيضُ.​


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## lena55313

Thank you, Maha!
Everything is clear.


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## lena55313

Mahaodeh said:


> save that one is من أخوات إن and the other is غير عاملة.


Are these the names of some rules? What are they?
And one more question about lakin vs lakinna: 
Does the lakin(na) in the citation above mean literally "but"?



cherine said:


> لكن صاحبتنا


If there were no special rules about lakin and lakinna, why did you choose lakinna? Was it your personal preference? Can you imagine the situation when you would choose lakin instead of lakinna before the noun?
I address this question to all native speakers.


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## lena55313

cherine said:


> كانت من قوة الجذب she had *such a power of* attraction that you could but notice her existence


Whose existence? Existence of a girl? Or an existence of a power?


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## cherine

Abu Talha said:


> لكنَّ صاحبتَنا is of course correct, but I thought لكنْ صاحبتُنا is also a possible reading, isn't it?


You're absolutely right. It's just that my first reading was laakinna not laakin.
To those interested, the main difference between the two is that لكنَّ can only precede a noun or a pronoun, while لكنْ can procede nouns, pronouns and verbs.


lena55313 said:


> As I see أنْ تُحِسَّ is derived from the أحَسَّ (the 4th form). I thought it was from حَسَّ (the 1st form). Why is the 4th form here instead of the 1st?


The verb in the past is أَحَسَّ - يُحِسّ - إحساسًا (to feel). I'm not sure how often the form حس is used, and I think it has different meanings (check Hans Wehr).


> The same question is about the verb أفاض, why not the فاض?


All I know is that the verb فاض is intransitive while أفاض is transitive. Here, we can use the intransitive form which is usually used with rivers and overflowing containers (e.g. cups) but the intransitive as the meaning is she's exuding sensations (of beauty, attractiveness, innocence...etc).


Mahaodeh said:


> I hope you don't mind if I pitch in Cherine:


Of course, not, Maha.  The more contributions, the more interesting the discussion.



lena55313 said:


> Are these the names of some rules? What are they?


You should learn about أخوات إن، أخوات كان and you'll find threads about them in the forum.
As for عاملة - غير عاملة you will also find it explained in grammar books. Basically, لَكِنْ is غير عاملة which means it doesn't change the i3raab of the word following it, while لكنّ (and the other "sisters of inna) does.


> Does the lakin(na) in the citation above mean literally "but"?


Yes. It's used to mark the contrast between this girl who can't go unnoticed and the other girls who you can miss (not notice) even though they're very beautiful.


> If there were no special rules about lakin and lakinna, why did you choose lakinna? Was it your personal preference? Can you imagine the situation when you would choose lakin instead of lakinna before the noun?


As we explained above, both have the same meaning. I just went for laakinna without giving it much thought, maybe because I feel laakin is used most with verbs (though there's no rule that says so). So you don't need to worry about this one, just know that both have the same meaning and the only difference is that laakinna cannot precede verbs.


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## lena55313

cherine said:


> the contrast between this girl who can't go unnoticed and the other girls who you can miss (not notice) even though they're very beautiful.


Can you, please, explain how did you know that وُجُودَهَا is about the girl but not about the attraction. The word قُوَّةِ has the place in the sentence after the word صَاحِبَتُنَا and before the word وُجُودَهَا. In English, as I know, there is something like a rule about words "that, this, etc." - they substitute the last noun, which is located before them. 
May be the reason is that if we want to substitute the idafa we substitute the latter word not the former? 
قُوَّةِ الْجَذْبِ - would it be substituted by ه  or by ها?


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## cherine

I don't know how to explain this, but وجودها can only refer to the girl not her attraction. It doesn't even make sense to say that we feel the existence of her force of attraction. The same goes for the ها in حولها: it can only refer to the girl. Maybe someone else can have a better worded explanation.


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## Mahaodeh

I agree with cherine, to me it can only refer to the girl not her power of attraction. I too can't explain why.


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## elroy

The whole sentence is a description of the girl.

A semi-literal gloss:

_But this, our friend was_
_due to (her) strong power of attraction_
_you can't but feel her presence
and
feel what emanates forth from her 
_​I don't know if this helps, but it makes no sense for the pronouns to refer to "power." 

(By the way, I find بحيث superfluous and would have even said it was wrong if this weren't a recognized author.)
​


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## lena55313

Probably I've found the part which I had initially misunderstood in the sentence. I thought the meaning was: at the first glance people don't recognize the girl's beauty, but she really has this beauty and after 5 minutes people will recognize the beauty.
But really it means: There are girls whom people doesn't recognize as very beautiful persons, but our friend is not one of these girls, because she is a very-very beautiful one, with great power of attraction, so her presence would not go unnoticed, because... and then the explanation, why. 


elroy said:


> I don't know if this helps, but it makes no sense for the pronouns to refer to "power."


It helped me very much, thank you, I found my mistake.


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## lena55313

I have in this thread only one question left.
Imagine, that we have a collocation قُوَّةِ الْجَذْبِ. The قُوَّةِ is a feminine, the الْجَذْبِ is a masculine one. What pronoun would substitute this collocation, ha or hu, if we'd like to mention this collocation later in the sentence? Should we take into account the gender of the first word in the idafa or of the second word?
e.g. the power of attraction, the presence of which...
 قُوَّةُ الْجَذْبِ ... وُجُودُهَا - وُجُودُهُ
I'm not sure it is ever possible to say like this, but just to catch the main principle.


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## elroy

Feminine.  You always go with the gender of the مضاف.


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## lena55313

Thank you, Elroy. Now everything is clear.


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## ayed

The whole description could be briefed as : she was so beautiful and charismatic


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## cherine

elroy said:


> _But this, our friend was_
> _due to (her) strong power of attraction_
> _you can't but feel her presence
> and
> feel what emanates forth from her
> _​


This is a very good translation, Elroy. If I may suggest a slight change: But this girl had such a power of attraction that you couldn't but feel her presence.


> (By the way, I find بحيث superfluous and would have even said it was wrong if this weren't a recognized author.)


It can't work without it. It's an essential part of the structure كانت (من) كذا بحيث كذا she was so X that Y....


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## elroy

cherine said:


> This is a very good translation, Elroy. If I may suggest a slight change:


 Oh, my translation wasn't meant to be an idiomatic one (it's not even grammatically correct! ).  As I said, it was meant as a semi-literal gloss to help Lena understand how everything fits together.

If I were to translate it idiomatically, I would say something like "But this friend of ours had such a strong magnetism that you couldn't but feel her presence and everything that she exuded."


cherine said:


> It can't work without it. It's an essential part of the structure كانت (من) كذا بحيث كذا she was so X that Y....


 Hm, do you understand من قوة الجذب as an adjective (في محل نصب خبر كان)?  If so, then بحيث makes sense.  But I've never seen anything like من قوة الجذب used as an adjective.


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## ayed

elroy said:


> If so, then بحيث makes sense.  But I've never seen anything like من قوة الجذب used as an adjective.


من قوة الجذب بحيث
She was so magnetic ...


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## cherine

elroy said:


> Oh, my translation wasn't meant to be an idiomatic one (it's not even grammatically correct! ).


I know, but it was good so I just wanted to use it to give a more naturally sounding equivalent of the Arabic sentence. 


> do you understand من قوة الجذب as an adjective (في محل نصب خبر كان)?  If so, then بحيث makes sense.  But I've never seen anything like من قوة الجذب used as an adjective.


Can a word be both an adjective and a خبر كان? or do you mean that it is syntactically a khabar but has the meaning of an adjective/description? If it's the latter, then my answer is yes, it is very much used, like what I said in another thread:


cherine said:


> مِن just forms a part of the expression. كان من كذا بحيث كذا he was so X that he was y/that y happened كان من الجاذبية بحيث لا يُقاوَم he was so attractive he couldn't be resisted, كان من الذكاء بحيث يقرأ أفكارك he was so smart he could read your thoughts/mind.


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## lena55313

elroy said:


> _But this, our friend was
> due to (her) strong power of attraction
> you can't but feel her presence
> and
> feel what emanates forth from her _


Sorry, I have one more question))) 
وَتَشْعُرَ بِمَا تُفِيضُهُ حَوْلَهَا What noun does substitute the hu? May be Maa? If so, is it nesessary to add this hu while we already have the word "what"?


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## cherine

It is not mandatory. We can say تشعر بما تفيض. But if we are to add a pronoun, which we commonly do, then the masculine is the one to use because it's what goes with ما and الذي (remember that ما means and they are interchangeable الذي).


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## Mahaodeh

cherine said:


> It is not mandatory. We can say تشعر بما تفيض.


In this context I believe it is. تفيض is a transitive verb and the هاء is في محل نصب مفعول به.



cherine said:


> (remember that ما means and they are interchangeable الذي)


Not to nit-pick, but while the use is interchangeable, the meaning is actually slightly different. ما is used for something that is مبهم while الذي is مختص بالمفرد المذكر. The first is used for practically anything: مفرد ام جمع، مذكر ام مؤنث، عاقل ام غير عاقل; while the second is more specific.



cherine said:


> But if we are to add a pronoun, which we commonly do, then the masculine is the one to use because it's what goes with ما and الذي


I would say that we use the singular masculine because the 'thing' is not specified so we automatically go for the generic form, which is the singular masculine.


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