# iDafa/iDaafa الإضافة + adjective



## DrKissinger1

This is actually a fairly basic question that has been bugging me for some time, since I don't believe it is ever addressed in the al-Kitaab series (I actually recently purchased the more rigorous Michigan Modern Standard Arabic series, but that will take some time to get through).

If I wish to describe one of the elements of an iDaafa, does the adjective follow the element, or must it come at the end? I seem to remember being told that an adjective must always follow an iDaafa, but that would create some confusion. For example:

قرأ الرجل كتاب علوم الكندي العظيم

This could be translated as: "The man read the great book of science of al-Kindi", "The man read the book of great science of al-Kindi", or "The man read the book of science of great al-Kindi". Is it necessary to rely on context and which is more likely? Or am I mistaken?​


----------



## asadxyz

Dear
قرأ الرجل كتاب علوم الكندي العظيم
Since sentenece is without tashkeel (diacritic marks) rather more specifically الاعراب ie. case ending ,it is creating trouble.
Now there are three nouns which are likely candidates to be qualified by the adjective العظيم .
كتاب = it is in fact "kitaaba" with baa maftooh
علوم = It is in fact "uloomi" with maa maksoor (majroor) because it is mudhaaf ilaih of Kitaab also.
الكندي = it is also considered "majroor since it is mudhaaf ilaih of uloom.

If the word العظيم is
العظيم = al3azeema ie. maa maftooh (mansoob),then it will qualify "kitaaba"
العظيم = al3azeemi ie. maa maksoor (majroor) ,then it will qualify الكندي

It cannot Qualify "uloom" because adjective for plural irrational objects is usually "feminine singular" i.e then it would have been العظيمة .
But let us wait for some expert opinion.


----------



## cherine

Well, I'm not an expert, but it's true that without tashkeel it's impossible to know what/who exactly is the 3aziim. It's either the book or al-Kindi, but not العلوم because the adjective in this case can only be feminine.
When writing such sentences myself, I try to make it a bit longer only to make it clearer. Something like:
الكتاب العظيم الذي كتبه الكندي في العلوم
كتاب العلوم الذي كتبه العالم العظيم الكندي


----------



## Sidjanga

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
Hi all,

With a noun (here بيت) that's determined by a genitive (here أختي) and an adjective (here الجديد), is there more than one possible word order?

To mean _We were in/at my sister's new house._ I would tend to put it like this:

 كنّا في بيت أختي الجديد.

Would  كنّا في بيت الجديد أختي. also be posible here?

And how about the following sentence, where بيت  and عمّي coincide in gender?

_We were in/at my uncle's new house._

 كنّا في بيت الجديد عمّي. .?

I reckon that كنّا في بيت عمّي الجديد. at least _could _be misunderstood to my "my new uncle's house" - if that is not its actual meaning anyway.

شكراَ


----------



## nanos

LOL! You can't have a new uncle  (not one with a house anyway), but your uncle can have a new house  . And it doesn't make sense to put the words in that order. The first word order you put is the only one to use...i.e. a noun+a genitive+an adjective


----------



## Sidjanga

Thank you, nanos!
(but, you know, there _are _people who are lucky enough to own a house even from birth on ;-)). In any case, I am happy to see that I have made you laugh. )

So in the case of the sentence with *أمّي*, it would have to be كنّا في بيت الجديد عمّي. (which would be noun - adjective - noun/genitive).

But that is not a general rule, is it? 
I believe you can (or have to ?) say طاولة أكل الكبيرة, and _not _طاولة الكبيرة أكل, or is this word order possible too?

So, in the case of the *sister*'s house, is either word order posible?
And if so, would كنّا في بيت أختي الجديد. (in contrast to كنّا في بيت الجديد أختي) sound like she has various houses, and we now were at her newest one?


----------



## elroy

Answers below... 





Sigianga said:


> So in the case of the sentence with *أمّي*, it would have to be كنّا في بيت الجديد عمّي . (which would be noun - adjective - noun/genitive).
> 
> But that is not a general rule, is it?
> I believe you can (or have to ?) say طاولة أكل الكبيرة , and _not _طاولة الكبيرة أكل , or is this word order possible too?
> 
> It's either طاولة أكل كبيرة ("a big dining table") or طاولة الأكل الكبيرة ("the big dining table").
> 
> So, in the case of the *sister*'s house, is either word order posible?
> And if so, would كنّا في بيت أختي الجديد . (in contrast to كنّا في بيت الجديد أختي ) sound like she has various houses, and we now were at her newest one? The sentence doesn't say anything about how many houses she has.  It could mean that she has more than one house, and only one is new, or that she just got a new house after her old one was sold or burned down or whatever.


----------



## Mahaodeh

Sigianga said:


> I reckon that كنّا في بيت عمّي الجديد. at least _could _be misunderstood to my "my new uncle's house" - if that is not its actual meaning anyway.
> 
> شكراَ


 
Yes, this happens; I remember once while going to pick up my sister from university I saw a sign saying:

 مكتبة جامعة بغداد الثانية

and I commented at the time: is الثانية refering to the library, the university or Baghdad? The truth is that technically it can by any one of them. So that works for your sentence too. Most of the time you can tell from the context or from previous knowledge or simply common sense, bu if you really want to be specific you could say:

 كنا في البيت الجديد لعمي، أو كنا عند عمي في بيته الجديد

Rephrasing is a good option, but in your case the context makes you assume it's not a new uncle, it's a new house that belongs to the uncle; in my example context tells me it's definitely not a second Baghdad, but my previous knowledge tells me it's the second library because I previously know that there is no second university.


----------



## Sidjanga

Many thanks for the explanations, corrections, and examples!

I now see that I must have got nanos wrong last night,  at least partly.

As to ...طاولة الأكل الـ, that's one of those things I actually _know_ but sometimes still fail to (automatically) _see_. Thanks for reminding me once more.


----------



## Sidjanga

Hi again,

Is it true that - when reading out the following sentence,  pronouncing all case endings - its two generally possible meanings can (or have to) be distinguished as follows,

كنّا في بيت أخي الكبير.

[...fi: baiti 'axi: alkabi:r*a*] -> _We were at my *elder brother*'s house._
[...fi: baiti 'axi: alkabi:r*i*] -> _We were at my brother's *big house*.

_i.e. that the adjective following the genitive construction (of the two nouns) is/has to be in accusative when it is meant to determine the latter noun?

I hope I have not come to give a terribly distrusting impression by now  - I have just been coming across too much contradictory information about too may things recently.


----------



## clevermizo

The problem with this sentence is that it follows في, so in both cases the word kabiir is in the "genitive" (which is also the case used when following a preposition. I will show the parsing of syntax with brackets:

1. [fii [bayti [akhi l-kabiiri] ] ]  (in the house of my old(er) brother)
2. [fii [bayti [akhi] l-kabiiri] ] (in my brother's big house)

The ambiguity in this case is real without context. This is because the preposition fii causes all parts of its complement to take the kasra. However in other cases we could disambiguate:

1. dakhaltu bayta akhi l-kabiira (I entered my brother's big house)دخلت بيت أخي الكبير
2. dakhaltu bayta akhi l-kabiiri (I entered my big brother's house)دخلت بيت أخي الكبير

1. haadha huwa baytu akhi l-kabiiru (This is my brother's big house)هذا هو بيت أخي الكبير
2. haadha huwa baytu akhi l-kabiiri (This is my big brother's house)هذا هو بيت أخي الكبير


----------



## Sidjanga

Many thanks for your clear and comprehensive answer, clevermizo.

It's what I was expecting (or actually hoping for ).

(nevertheless, I came across yet another sugestion today - that for the brother to be older, and not the house to be big, it should actually be كنّا في بيت أخي الكبيرُ [alkabi:r*u*..]....)

This knowledge seems to be rather scarce and precious. 

Thanks again.


----------



## clevermizo

That doesn't seem possible. bayti akhi l-kabiiri is all governed by fii.

Just as an aside, the "a" in al- of the definite article is ellided when preceded by a vowel ("akhi l-kabiir" not "akhi al-kabiir.")


----------



## Sidjanga

clevermizo said:


> That doesn't seem possible. bayti akhi l-kabiiri is all governed by fii. (...)


Yes, thanks; I am sorry that I obviously didn't make myself clear.

I am aware that [kabi:r*u*] would be incorrect here, but there are quite a few people (native speakers) out there who do not seem to see it quite like that (or who just don't know what would be correct).

Cheers


----------



## elroy

To sum up: If there's a "fii" in the picture, it doesn't matter if "kabiir" modifies the house or the brother.  It's in the genitive in both cases.

Sigianga, as you know, MSA is nobody's native language, so not all native speakers of (colloquial) Arabic have the same feel for it.  To me, "fii bayti akhi 'l-kabiiru" and "fii bayti akhi 'l-kabiira" sound absolutely dreadful  but I guess not everyone can say the same.


----------



## paieye

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
السلام عليكم I have looked for the answers elsewhere in the forum without success.

I need to say something such as  "I am using the old doctor's new car," or "I am using the pretty girl's new pen," i.e. an idaafa with (1) nouns of different genders and (2) each noun carrying an adjective.

شكرا جزيلا


----------



## paieye

I have found an explanation on the Internet as follows:

"The new door of the dirty car of the beautiful student" is rendered as if it were:

"Door car the student beautiful dirty new."

The analysis is therefore: Noun1 -- Noun 2 --  Noun 3 -- Adjective 3 --  Adjective 2 --  Adjective 1.

Not surprisingly, the writer comments that speakers of Arabic take much care to avoid idaafa-heavy sentences of this kind.


----------



## HamzyDumzy

I think to avoid the confusion you have just stated above, one would have to use a possessive pronoun in between. So for example:

السيارة الجديدة للطبيب القديم
and
القلم الجديد للبنت الجميلة


----------



## barkoosh

In general, when you have a lot of components, or when there's a risk of confusion, it's better to use the construction ل. For those two examples, in addition to the construction with ل, you can also say:
سيارة الطبيب المسنّ الجديدة
قلم الفتاة الجميلة الجديد
Since "old" is masc. and "new" is fem. in the first example, and "pretty" is fem. and "new" is masc. in the second, you can't mix things up.

Elaborating on the first example, you're saying here: car(f) - the_doctor(m) - the_old(m) - the_new(f). You're not going to think that "old" and "new" refer to the same noun because they're not of the same gender. So the mind can still link "new" with "car" because 1. they're both fem. while the separating part ("old doctor") is masc., and 2. the separating part is too short to break the link. So what if the separating part is too long? Well, it's better then to use the construction with ل. The analysis "Door car the student beautiful dirty new" is really confusing and should be avoided.

Now let's say that the doctor is a woman. Can I still use the construction car(f) - the_doctor(f) - the_old(f) - the_new(f) (that is, سيارة الطبيبة المسنة الجديدة)? Yes BUT only if I'm sure, based on the context, that the reader would link "new" to the car not to the female doctor. If not, I should use ل:
السيارة الجديدة للطبيبة المسنة


----------



## paieye

Thank you.


----------



## mikehill

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
آهْلًا,
Hello All,
I have query about the subject of Possessed & Possessor (مُضَا ف وَ مُضَا ف إ لَيْهِ), I believe its also known as اَلْاِضَافَةُ.
(I hope thats correct).
Since I couldnt find a thread with مُضَاف I decided to create and ask my question.

Anyway from what I have learnt online and stuff there are several rules for this topic.

*Possessor - مُضَا ف إ لَيْهِ*
- Is always مَجْرُوْر (genitive case)
- Can take تَنْوِيْن (tanwin) or ال (the definite article)
- Can be نَكِرَة (indefinite) or مَعْرِفَة (definite)

*Possessed - مُضَا ف*
- Can take any case ending, as the need be
- Never takes تَنْوِيْن (tanwin) or ال (the definite article)
- Is مَعْرِفَة (definite) by position

So based on these rules are the following sentences correct?
(I am still not able to make full sentences, so please be helpful)

Table of the the teacher - مَكْتَبُ الْمُدَرِّسِ
Table of a teacher -  مَكْتَبُ مُدَرِّسٍ
The new pen of Bilal (or The pen of Bilal is new) - قَلَمُ بِلآلٍ الجَدِيدُ
How can I say "*A *new pen of Bilal?"
(note the indefiniteness of the pen)

The new pen of the teacher - قَلَمُ المُدَرِّسِ الْدجَيْدُ
The new pen of the new teacher - القَلَمُ الجَدِيدُ لِلْمُدَرِّسِ الجَدِيدِ
( I also heard of another rule where "Only the final word of a complex اَلْاِضَافَةُ will take ال/ definiteness. Is this correct?)

But how can I say
*"A *pen of *the *new teacher"? and
"*A *new pen of a new teacher"? and also
"*A *new pen of *the *new teacher"

I would really appreciate if you could place the diacritics/harakah when providing your answers.
شكرًا


----------



## Qureshpor

How can I say "*A *new pen of Bilal?"

قلمٌ جدیدٌ لبلال

The new pen of the new teacher

القَلَمُ الجَدِيدُ لِلْمُدَرِّسِ الجَدِيدِ

*"A *pen of *the *new teacher"?

قلمٌ للمدرس الجدید

"*A *new pen of a new teacher"?

قلمٌ جدیدٌ  لمدرس جدید

"*A *new pen of *the *new teacher"?

قلمٌ جدیدٌ  للمدرس الجدید

Apologies. I was n't able to put all the i3raab. Hopefully, other forum members will rectify any errors on my part.

The new pen of the new teacher

القَلَمُ الجَدِيدُ لِلْمُدَرِّسِ الجَدِيدِ 

One can also say:

قلمُ المدرسِ الجدیدِ الجدیدُ

But, as you can see, it is better to stick to your version!

*Possessed - مُضَا ف*
- Can take any case ending, as the need be
- Never takes تَنْوِيْن (tanwin) or ال (the definite article)
- Is مَعْرِفَة (definite) by position

This can be semantically definite or indefinite.

    نظرت وجهَ رجل میت

She looked at the face of a dead man.

مثلُ ھٰذا An example of this

But grammatically it is indefinite since one can apply an indefinite adjective to it.

کلبُ دار نابحٌ a barking dog of a house/ a barking house-dog


----------



## mikehill

Thanks very much @Qureshpor it is highly appreciated!
You really helped me out here!


----------

