# ليلا نائي الفجر



## ryanh119

Hi Everyone,

I'm reading a story by Zakaria Tamer, and there's a line I don't quite get. This story is full of images, and is very politicized. Leading up to the sentence I'm struggling with, an innocent baby boy is captured and sentenced to death, whereupon he is buried in a field of orange trees. Upon the arrival of spring, he becomes a tree:

وكانت ثمارها أقمارا حمر تحرق ليلا نائي الفجر​
So as I understand it, [the tree's] fruits were like red moons, burning during the most distant part of night from daybreak (i.e. the darkest part of night). Is that correct? Does anyone have any other interpretations?

Thanks!
Ryan


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## AndyRoo

I think نائي might be from the root نوأ . Munjid describes ناء النجم as "[a star] going down in the west with the dawn as another replaces it in the east" [!].

So possibly it is saying the oranges burn red as the night gives way to the dawn.


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## lukebeadgcf

نائي is actually the active participle of the verb نأى "to be remote." I don't really understand the sentence any more than what you two have translated though.


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## إسكندراني

That's what it means. Red moon burning bright in a dark night far (in time) from daybreak


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## ryanh119

Tamer loves to play with words that come from different roots but look similar. I like the way you think, Andyroo. That would give the sentence a very different meaning than the one I came up with, but I'll consider it. I'm inclined to agree with Luke, but couldn't نائي be the active participle of ناء ينوء? It fits the _wazan_ just fine.



إسكندراني said:


> That's what it means. Red moon burning bright in a dark night far (in time) from daybreak



Thanks يسكندراني, I can always count on you to chime in with a definitive answer.


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## lukebeadgcf

Let me see if I can vowel this to understand it better:

وَكانتْ ثمارُها أقمارًا حمرًا تَحْرِقُ ليلًا نائيَ الفجرِ

I think I understand now. I needed to know that it was نائيَ which is مفعول فيه (adjective of place/time).

... and its fruits were like sanguine moons which smouldered at night in the faraway morning twilight.

or

... and its fruits were like sanguine moons ablaze in a night with no signs of dawn.

Depending on whether you interpret نائي as ظرف مكان or ظرف زمان.



ryanh119 said:


> Tamer loves to play with words that come from different roots but look similar. I like the way you think, Andyroo. That would give the sentence a very different meaning than the one I came up with, but I'll consider it. I'm inclined to agree with Luke, but couldn't نائي be the active participle of ناء ينوء? It fits the _wazan_ just fine.



No, the active participles of verbs which are both أجوف (have a vowel in the middle) and مهموز اللام (have a همزة as the last radical) don't usually form active participles. It would be something like: 

نائئ (As will be discussed below, this is not allowed because لا تلتقي همزتان في آخر الكلمة)

نائي can only be an active participle of نأى. (I will take this back. See below)

Interestingly, there is not a single active participle listed in all of Wehr for this type of verb. I take this back. See below.


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## ryanh119

Thanks! That's one of those nuances I haven't figured out yet. Good to know.

Lol, I love my Wehr, but that seems to happen a lot.


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## Abu Talha

lukebeadgcf said:


> No, the active participles of verbs which are both أجوف (have a vowel in the middle) and مهموز اللام (have a همزة as the last radical) don't usually form active participles.


That's an interesting observation. Thanks for bringing it up. I found some more discussion on this topic using the verb جاء يجيء : http://www.alfaseeh.com/vb/showthread.php?t=28216#8
I'll quote a small portion:


> "جاء" أصلها "جيأ" على وزن "درأ"، واسم فاعلها أصله "جايئ" على وزن "دارئ"، لكن الفعل "جيأ" تعرض للإبدال فصار "جاء"، ومن جانب آخر فقد تعرض اسم الفاعل "جايئ" إلى القلب المكاني فصار "جائي" على وزن "قاضي" ويعل إعلالها وهو الصواب، وذلك على رأي الخليل الذي لا يصوب كلمة "جائئ" لعدم جواز اجتماع الهمزتين في آخر الكلمة.
> 
> أما سيبويه الذي لا يقول بالقلب المكاني، فيقر بأن أصل اسم الفاعل هو "جايئ" على وزن فاعل، لكنه يدعي أن الياء تنقلب همزة كما في "بائع"، فيصير "جائئ"، وأن الهمزة الأخيرة في جائئ لا تبقى على حالها (بسبب منع اجتماع همزتين في آخر الكلمة في اسم الفاعل الأجوف مهموز اللام) بل تبدل ياءً فيصير اسم الفاعل "جائي" على وزن فاعل، ثم يعل إعلال قاضٍ فيصير جاءٍ على وزن فاع.ٍ


If correct, would that mean that it could potentially be an اسم فاعل for ناء too?


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## lukebeadgcf

Excellent find Daee. As I'm sure you've realized, in the text and in the link you've provided, the author explains how two Arabic grammarians: سيبويه and الخليل explain how to build the اسم فاعل from the verb جاء. Their conclusion is the same, but their explanation is different

سيبويه says that the middle vowel in جاء first becomes a همزة in the اسم فاعل, like other أسماء فاعل from hollow verbs (قائم، بائع)

So first you have جائئ (which is not allowed because two همزة cannot meet at the end of the word)

So you change the second همزة into a ي to get جائي/جاءٍ

الخليل begins with جايئ, saying that the middle vowel does not necessarily turn into همزة in the اسم فاعل.

He simply switches the ياء and the همزة in جايئ to get جائي/جاءٍ

To answer your question Daee, yes, and in fact the author mentions ناءٍ specifically in his explanation:

*لأنه  لايلتقي همزتان في كلمة إلا لزم الآخرة منهما البدل، فتصير: "جائي"، ثم  صارت: جاءٍ، عوملت معاملة: قاض؛ ومثلها: ساءٍ، **وناءٍ**، وشاءٍ؛ وهذا مذهب  سيبويه في أنه غير مقلوب، ووزنه "فاعل".*

So I take what I said back about نائي only being the active participle of نأى, although I think that that is probably a hundred times more common that it being the active participle of ناء.

JEEZ, I even take back what I said about Wehr. Upon looking more closely, I've found الجائيات "the things to come." What a day!


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## ayed

In Saudi Badawi dialect, we usually use the fixed expression that says:" الجايات أكثر من الرايحات"and said of the one who missed an opportunity or occasion or something. We mean what has gone is gone and what will come is more than what has just gone.Hence, "*many more things are yet to come*"so to speak.


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## cherine

lukebeadgcf said:


> Let me see if I can vowel this to understand it better:
> 
> وَكانتْ ثمارُها أقمارًا حمرًا تَحْرِقُ ليلًا نائيَ الفجرِ
> 
> [...]... and its fruits were like sanguine moons ablaze in a night with no signs of dawn.


This is the only way I understood the sentence.
ليلاً نائي الفجر is a long night (because the dawn is very far).

The English can, of course, be phrased in different ways, but I'm commenting on the last part.
For the rest of the sentence, I think we should drop "like". And تحرق ليلاً is more like "burning the night", but maybe it doesn't sound as good in English as it does in Arabic.


> Depending on whether you interpret نائي as ظرف مكان or ظرف زمان.


I know I'm not as good at grammar as I used to be  But I believe نائي is not a Zarf, it's a نعت سببي.


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## lukebeadgcf

I agree. I did this very fast. One thing I misunderstood was that حرق is transitive, so unless it's in the passive, ليلا is a مفعول به, and not a ظرف. But this sentence makes sense different ways, so I'm still not sure of the exact إعراب. 

The reason I understood نائي as a ظرف is because I wasn't cognitively connecting it to ليلا; that is, I thought it was an independent adverbial phrase. I think that technically, it can be a ظرف مكان if you understand the sentence as I did in my first translation, "... in the faraway morning twilight." But this understanding does not make tons of sense to native speakers, so I withdraw it.

As for my second translation, it is clearly a نعت of ليلا, whether we interpret ليلا as مفعول به or as ظرف زمان (in the case of the verb being passive). 

Thank you for the corrections. I know that I can sometimes say too much without thinking about it carefully. 

In any case, it's a beautiful sentence and it conveys a very imaginitive image. Perhaps there is some ambiguity implied?


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## cherine

lukebeadgcf said:


> I agree. I did this very fast. One thing I misunderstood was that حرق is transitive, so unless it's in the passive, ليلا is a مفعول به, and not a ظرف. But this sentence makes sense different ways, so I'm still not sure of the exact إعراب.


Luckily, the sentence is quite simple from the grammatical standpoint:

وَكانتْ ثمارُها أقمارًا حمرًا تَحْرِقُ ليلًا نائيَ الفجرِ
كانت: فعل ماض ناقص
ثمارها: ثمارُ اسم كان مرفوع، والهاء ضمير مبني في محل جر مضاف إليه
أقمارًا: خبر كان منصوب
حمرًا: نعت لـ(أقمارًا) منصوب
تحرقُ: فعل مضارع منصوب
ليلاً: مفعول به منصوب
نائيَ: نعت سببي منصوب
الفجرِ: مضاف إليه مجرور

There's no appearent reason why either ليل nor نائي should be considered a ظرف.


> The reason I understood نائي as a ظرف is because I wasn't cognitively connecting it to ليلا; that is, I thought it was an independent adverbial phrase. I think that technically, it can be a ظرف مكان if you understand the sentence as I did in my first translation


In this frame of analysis (yes, I know you withdrew it, but just speaking) I think it's better to consider it ظرف زمان because we're talking about time and not place.
But again, I think we already agreed it's not a ظرف in the first place. 


> Thank you for the corrections. I know that I can sometimes say too much without thinking about it carefully.


You're welcome. And don't worry, I do the same. I don't think I can't count the posts I regret having posted in the forum. 


> In any case, it's a beautiful sentence and it conveys a very imaginitive image. Perhaps there is some ambiguity implied?


It is a very beautiful metaphore indeed. But I don't see any possible ambiguity. At least in the limit of the sentence we have.


ryanh119 said:


> I'm reading a story by Zakaria Tamer, and there's a line I don't quite get. This story is full of images, and is very politicized. Leading up to the sentence I'm struggling with, an innocent baby boy is captured and sentenced to death, whereupon he is buried in a field of orange trees. Upon the arrival of spring, he becomes a tree:


Could you please give it us the title of the story? I'd be interested in reading it. I've already read a few stories of Tamer and I like them a lot.


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## lukebeadgcf

cherine said:


> There's no appearent reason why either ليل nor نائي should be considered a ظرف.



If you read تُحْرَقُ, then ليلا is a ظرف زمان



> In this frame of analysis (yes, I know you withdrew it, but just  speaking) I think it's better to consider it ظرف زمان because we're  talking about time and not place.



I am trying to say I DID understand it as a ظرف مكان. "...in the faraway [in distance, as in on the horizon] morning twilight."


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## Abu Talha

cherine said:


> I know I'm not as good at grammar as I used to be  But I believe نائي is not a Zarf, it's a نعت سببي.


Cherine, I've never been much good at grammatical analysis so forgive me I make (many) mistakes. But I thought that a نعت سببي needed a ضمير عائد back to the first word? That is, if it were a نعت سببي wouldn't it be ليلا نائيًا فجرُهُ ? Or at least, الفجر at the end would not be مضاف إليه مجرور but rather مرفوع ?

Also, wouldn't ليلة be used instead of ليل if it meant "a night"? Or can ليل be used to refer to a single night, as well as to "night-time"?

Also, could تحرق be form IV passive (فعل مضارع مرفوع للفعل أحرق مجهول فاعله ) because the فعل مجرد for حرق did not have to do with burning classically, as far as I know.*
*EDIT: I just checked the dictionary, and I think it *can* be form I.

Or, it could be active as you say here:


cherine said:


> I think we should drop "like". And تحرق ليلاً is more like "burning the night", but maybe it doesn't sound as good in English as it does in Arabic.


But do you mean "burning [in] the night", as we may say in English, "I was studying the whole night", where the verb is intransitive? Or do you mean that the night is the object that is being burnt and the moons are the subject for تحرق?

Could نائي الفجر then be a false iDaafa describing ليل?
"Its fruits were red moons burning the a remote-of-dawn nighttime."*
*All beauty present in the original has been killed in this translation!

Thanks.


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## cherine

lukebeadgcf said:


> If you read تُحْرَقُ, then ليلا is a ظرف زمان


Sure, but only if there wasn't نائي الفجر after ليلاً . That last part made it impossible -at least for me- to read or imagine the verb in the passive, or ليلاً as a ظرف .


> I am trying to say I DID understand it as a ظرف مكان. "...in the faraway [in distance, as in on the horizon] morning twilight."


Ah. Ok.


daee said:


> Cherine, I've never been much good at grammatical analysis so forgive me I make (many) mistakes. But I thought that a نعت سببي needed a ضمير عائد back to the first word? That is, if it were a نعت سببي wouldn't it be ليلا نائيًا فجرُهُ ? Or at least, الفجر at the end would not be مضاف إليه مجرور but rather مرفوع ?


You're absolutely right, and I'm totally wrong. Again  (I think I made a similar mistake in a previous thread).
Correction to follow a bit later.


> Also, wouldn't ليلة be used instead of ليل if it meant "a night"? Or can ليل be used to refer to a single night, as well as to "night-time"?


I think ليل can refer to one night in literary texts if/when the author is not too interested in literal meanings. But I can't tell for sure which meaning (one nigh, the nigh) the author had in mind. I really just took the meatphore as a whole and didn't stop at every detail.


> But do you mean "burning [in] the night", as we may say in English, "I was studying the whole night", where the verb is intransitive? Or do you mean that the night is the object that is being burnt and the moons are the subject for تحرق?


Burning the night is a step ahead of illimunating the night. Those fruits didn't just shine in the night, they shine so much that you'd think they're burning the night. I'm sorry I'm so bad at explaning this. But to take your words: yes, I meant that the night is the object being burnt by the fruits that were like red moons.


> Could نائي الفجر then be a false iDaafa describing ليل?


Here comes the correction:
I asked a colleague whose specialty is Arabic grammar, and he said that نائي is an adjective (a normal regular common adj.) and that الفجر is a مضاف إليه.
You'll sure note that نائي is a معرَّف بالإضافة, so how can it be an adjective for an indefinite noun. I asked him that, and he said that: يجوز للمعرفة أن تصف النكرة إذا كانت تلك المعرفة نكرةً بالأساس وصارت معرفة بإضافة شيء إليها . In other words: if the word is originally indefinite and only became definite because it's a part of an iDaafa, then it can still be an adjective describing an indefinite word.


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## Abu Talha

Thanks for that detailed explanation, Cherine.


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## lukebeadgcf

daee said:


> Also, wouldn't ليلة be used instead of ليل if it meant "a night"? Or can ليل be used to refer to a single night, as well as to "night-time"?



The use of ليلًا here instead of ليلةً is another reason I tended first to interpret it as a ظرف زمان. But I suppose if oranges can "burn" a single night, I guess they could burn the collective nighttime as well?


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## Ustaath

For me what communicates the best meaning intrinsically for ليلاً is probably not an object but ظرف -
 rather than
 'burning (up) the deepest of night remote from daybreak' 
I would interpret:
كانت ثمارها أقمارا حمر تحرق ليلا نائي الفجر :
It's fruit of crimson moons burnt in the aloofness of the Deepest Night way beyond dawn

So it could be either really ...


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## lukebeadgcf

So would you read تُحرَقُ then?


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## Ustaath

صحيح 
طبعا هذا رأي آخر ليس والا  
translation tweak: burning in ... instead of burnt


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## cherine

Ustaath said:


> For me what communicates the best meaning intrinsically for ليلاً is probably not an object but ظرف


في هذه الحالة، كيف تُعرب "نائي الفجر"؟ وهل يمكن للنعت أن يصف ظرفًا؟


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## lukebeadgcf

عشت يوما واحدا

I think so. I would call it a نعت حقيقي which is منصوب because it is معطوف على ليلا which is a ظرف زمان. But it has lost its تنوين because it is part of an إضافة غير محضة or an إضافة لفظية.


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## cherine

Sorry, I'm not sure I understood. The example you provided confused me abit.
عشت يومًا واحدًا doesn't have a ظرف as far as I can see 

And I think you mistakenly put معطوف على ليلاً because a na3t is not ma3tuuf, but this is obviously just a typo/slight mistake. 
Again, are you sure that a Zarf can be described with an adjective?


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## lukebeadgcf

عشت يوما واحدا The يوما here can be interpreted as a ظرف or a مفعول به, but the meaning is different:

مفعول به:
I lived (experienced) one day.

ظرف:

I lived (for the period) of one day.

Here is a clearer example:

سكنت الغار يوما واحدا
سكنت الغار يوما جميلا
سكنت الغار ليلا نائيَ الفجر

Here, يوما cannot be interpreted as a مفعول به.

I'm not sure if I used معطوف correctly. What I mean is that, as an adjective, it follows its noun in case.


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## Ustaath

تابع المنعوت بالاعراب is how to state it - Luke you never cease to amaze me ...

 من الظروف ما يستعمل ظرفاً وغير ظرف كأَكثر أَسماءِ الزمان والمكان، إِذ تجيءُ فاعلاً ومفعولاً ومجرورة.. إلخ فيقال لها ظروف متصرفة: يومُ الخميس قريب، أُحب ساعة" الصبح، الميلُ ثلث الفرسخِ.
(pasted from here:http://www.islamguiden.com/arabi/m_a_r_44.htm)

 this is why I said it could technically be either ... so Cherine, your interpretation is also a possibility...


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## lukebeadgcf

> تابع المنعوت بالاعراب is how to state it - Luke you never cease to amaze me ...



I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. I've never really learned how to properly do إعراب.


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## Ustaath

It was a compliment  A genuine one !


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