# You, who were there, saw what happened



## flancy

In English and other languages we often say things like "You, who were there, saw what happened. Tell us!"

I thought that in Arabic it would be similiar: أنت الذي كنت هناك رأيت ما حدث but then I read that it is not possible to make a ضمير into منعوت. In other words, there can never be a نعت following it. How then would you say things like the above sentence and other sentences like "I, who have lived in poverty, know exactly how you feel?"


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## rayloom

Nothing prevents using what's called a جملة معترضة in Arabic. The rule refers to formations like منه الرؤوفِ الرحيمِ. Relative pronouns are usually considered a badal (apposition). 
A sentence like in your example, the relative phrase would be considered a مبتدأ ثان and the verbal phrase رأيت ما حدث would be considered the predicate.


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## Matat

This exists in Arabic, but it's not a نعت/منعوت; this is called الاختصاص. Here are two examples I made up
نحن الطلابَ نريد كذا وكذا
"We, the students, want this and that."
أنتم المدرسين يجب عليكم أن تفعلوا كذا وكذا
"You, the teachers, must do this and that."

However, your sentence does not clearly show this meaning by itself. I would add an أيها:
أنت ـ أيها الذي كان هناك ـ رأيت ما حدث. ارو لنا ما حدث!
Let's get some feedback about what others think about this.


rayloom said:


> the relative phrase would be considered a مبتدأ ثان


This doesn't fit well with the meaning. If you call الذي a مبتدأ ثان, that means taking away the first مبتدأ (which is أنت) would retain the meaning. However, if you did that in this sentence, the meaning would become "The one who was there, you saw what happened", which isn't the intended meaning here. I don't think this is possible either (though I'm not completely certain) because the مبتدأ would be in third person while the خبر would be in second person.

It makes more sense for الذي to fit more in an اختصاص in the original sentence. The technical I'raab would be مفعول به لفعل محذوف تقديره "أخص"ـ.


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## bearded

Matat said:


> أنتم المدرسين يجب عليكم أن تفعلوا كذا وكذا


Why ''al-mudarrisiin'' and not ''al-mudarrisuun''?(and previously 'Tullaba'?) I thought those were the subjects of the verb. I'm sure there must be some rule I'not aware of.. Thank you.


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## Matat

bearded said:


> Why ''al-mudarrisiin'' and not ''al-mudarrisuun''?(and previously 'Tullaba'?) I thought those were the subjects of the verb.


This might be a little advanced if you are a beginner student, but الاختصاص is a concept used in Arabic to describe a subject pronoun. The noun which describes the pronoun would be in the accusative case. In the sentence you quoted, أنتم is the nominal subject (مبتدأ) and the predicate (خبر) is the the verbal sentence يجب عليكم أن تفعلوا كذا وكذا. The noun المدرسين is what describes أنتم, so it is in the accusative case. The verbal subject (فاعل) of يجب is actually the masdari phrase أنْ تفعلوا. Once again though, if you are a beginner student in Arabic, this might be a little hard to grasp.


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## rayloom

الاختصاص usually involves a definite noun or the vocatives, even concerning the vocatives there's some debate on their synactic analysis. 
Although I personally don't see why it can't be considered منصوبة على الاختصاص, if not for the definition. 
The مبتدأ ثان doesn't necessarily mean that taking the first مبتدأ retains the meaning, as we can see from multiple examples of its usage, especially when the second mubtada' is a pronoun as in 
ذلك هو الفضل الكبير.


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## Matat

rayloom said:


> The مبتدأ ثان doesn't necessarily mean that taking the first مبتدأ retains the meaning, as we can see from multiple examples of its usage, especially when the second mubtada' is a pronoun as in
> ذلك هو الفضل الكبير.


ذلك هو الفضل الكبير makes sense. ذلك is the مبتدأ and الفضل is the خبر which describes it. A pronoun can certainly be a مبتدأ just as it can be many things (e.g. خبر، مفعول به، مجرور، etc.), but this depends on the meaning in the sentence. This is not, however, the meaning in Flancy's sentence. "who were there" is not the subject of the sentence. "You" and "you" alone is the subject. الذي كان هناك/الذي كنت هناك is none other than an اختصاص for the meaning Flancy is trying to present. 



rayloom said:


> The مبتدأ ثان doesn't necessarily mean that taking the first مبتدأ retains the meaning


As a مبتدأ, the sentence should at least make sense if the first مبتدأ is taken away. The sentence الذي كنت هناك رأيت ما حدث doesn't make sense unless الذي is a vocative.


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## jack_1313

flancy said:


> In English and other languages we often say things like "You, who were there, saw what happened. Tell us!"



Can we really modifying a regular pronoun with a relative clause in this manner in English? It sounds bizarre and unnatural to me and is certainly not part of common parlance. The closest thing that I can think of is the structure "He who does X" used as the subject of a sentence - a structure wherein we are modifying a pronoun with a restrictive relative clause - but it sounds poetic and archaic.


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## rayloom

Matat said:


> ذلك هو الفضل الكبير makes sense. ذلك is the مبتدأ and الفضل is the خبر which describes it. A pronoun can certainly be a مبتدأ just as it can be many things (e.g. خبر، مفعول به، مجرور، etc.), but this depends on the meaning in the sentence. This is not, however, the meaning in Flancy's sentence. "who were there" is not the subject of the sentence. "You" and "you" alone is the subject. الذي كان هناك/الذي كنت هناك is none other than an اختصاص for the meaning Flancy is trying to present.
> 
> 
> As a مبتدأ, the sentence should at least make sense if the first مبتدأ is taken away. The sentence الذي كنت هناك رأيت ما حدث doesn't make sense unless الذي is a vocative.



If you remove ذلك from ذلك هو الفضل الكبير, it wouln't make much sense, would it? T
That's the point I'm making against saying that المبتدأ الثاني retains the meaning if المبتدأ الأول is removed. 
الذي doesn't occur directly as a vocative. Thus it's not a vocative. It occurs as an apposition of أيها. If you have proof or a "rule" regarding it I would like to read it.


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## Matat

rayloom said:


> If you remove ذلك from ذلك هو الفضل الكبير, it wouln't make much sense, would it?


Yes, of course it wouldn't make sense, because it's the مبتدأ. I never said otherwise. In this sentence, ذلك is the مبتدأ. In أنت ـ الذي كنت هناك ـ رأيت ما حدث, the relative pronoun الذي is not. Also, just to point out, ذلك is an اسم إشارة while الذي is an اسم موصول. They are not the same class of nouns to begin with, but even if they were, the point still stands.



rayloom said:


> That's the point I'm making against saying that المبتدأ الثاني retains the meaning if المبتدأ الأول is removed.


That's fine, but the sentence should still make sense with الذي as the only مبتدأ, whether or not it retains the same meaning, and it doesn't. الذي كنت هناك/كان هناك رأيت ما حدث doesn't make sense if الذي is the مبتدأ.



rayloom said:


> الذي doesn't occur directly as a vocative. Thus it's not a vocative. It occurs as an apposition of أيها. If you have proof or a "rule" regarding it I would like to read it.


I agree. My point was the only way the sentence الذي كنت هناك/كان هناك رأيت ما حدث can make any sense whatsoever is if it could possibly be a vocative. But it can't be a مبتدأ. Whether it can or can't be a vocative without أيها is irrelevant altogether, but I don't think it can.


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## Ghabi

bearded said:


> Why ''al-mudarrisiin'' and not ''al-mudarrisuun''?(and previously 'Tullaba'?)


It's a kind of fixed expression, i.e. na7nu followed by a plural noun in manSuub. And of course the manSuub case is only orthographically visible if it's a sound plural (e.g. نحن المسلمين), not in cases like نحن العرب. The usual explanation offered for the use of manSuub is that a verb is meant but omitted (i.e. نحن أعني المسلمين "We, I mean the Muslims, ...").


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## Matat

rayloom said:


> especially when the second mubtada' is a pronoun as in
> ذلك هو الفضل الكبير.


Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you were saying the first time. It appears you were talking about هو being a مبتدأ ثان in the ذلك هو الفضل الكبير. I've never heard this i'raab before. The only i'raab I know is that that هو is a ضمير فصل, not a مبتدأ ثان.


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## bearded

Ghabi said:


> It's a kind of fixed expression, i.e. na7nu followed by a plural noun in manSuub. And of course the manSuub case is only orthographically visible if it's a sound plural (e.g. نحن المسلمين), not in cases like نحن العرب. The usual explanation offered for the use of manSuub is that a verb is meant but omitted (i.e. نحن أعني المسلمين "We, I mean the Muslims, ...").


Thank you, Ghabi, for this very clear explanation.
And thanks to the others, too.


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## flancy

Very interesting!
شكراً جزيلاً.
Can someone give me an example of this kind of منصوب (I mean الاختصاص) from the Qur'an or hadith? I wonder why none of the grammar books every mention it. I have studied مفعول به, مفعول له, تمييز, but never even heard of this, let alone studied it.


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## Matat

flancy said:


> Can someone give me an example of this kind of منصوب (I mean الاختصاص) from the Qur'an or hadith?


There is no example I know of in the Quran. Here is an example of a hadith:
نَحْنُ *معَاشِرَ الْأَنْبِيَاءِ* فِينَا بَكَاءٌ
"We, *all of the prophets*,...."


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## flancy

شكرًا جزيلاً


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