# Accusative case



## exentric

I know that Arabic only has nominative, genitive and accusative as formal cases. I also know that in order to express the dative, you use *li*. 

But, if you have a sentence,
I gave the dog a biscuit.

What case is dog going to be in? 

Also, when you use the verb shakara (to thank), is that considered dative or accusative?

*ana ashkaru allaha.*
or
*ana askharu allahi.*

By the way, I'm a total beginner so if you guys use the arabic script to explain, could you all add the accents and diacritics so I know where the vowels go in? *blush* 

Thanks, in advance.


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## Taalib

For double transitive verbs (typically, verbs of asking, considering, and giving) both objects are expressed as accusative. Consider the sentence:

اَعْطَتْ المُعَلِّمَةُ الطَّلَبَةَ اِخْتِبارًا

The (female) teacher (definite, nominative case) gave the students (definite, accusative case) a test (indefinite, accusative case).

The subject is nominative, and both objects are in the accusative case. You will find parallel structures in use with commonly used verbs like اِعْتَبَرَ (to consider), ناشَدَ (to implore), سَأَلَ (to ask), and others with similar double transitive actions.

Hope this answers your question!


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## cherine

Hello exentric, and welcome to the forum 


exentric said:


> I know that Arabic only has nominative, genitive and accusative as formal cases. I also know that in order to express the dative, you use *li*.


Well, not just li, there's also *bi, fi, min. 3ala, ila*...


> But, if you have a sentence,
> I gave the dog a biscuit.
> What case is dog going to be in?


As Taalib said, this is a double transitive verb. So, "dog" and "biscuit" would both be objects of the verb, in the accusative case. (maf3uul bihi).


> Also, when you use the verb shakara (to thank), is that considered dative or accusative?
> *ana ashkuru allaha.  *
> or
> *ana askhuru allahi.  *


Note: the verb "shakara" in the present tense is yashk*u*ru.


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## palomnik

Not my business, perhaps, excentric, but taking the terms "genitive" and "accusative" too much in their usual sense in European languages can land you in some trouble with Arabic.  As you can see from Taalib and Cherine's comments, it's not at all unusual in Arabic for a verb to take two objects in the accusative case; some derived verb forms do this as a matter of course.  The accusative case also does common - extremely common - duty as an adverbial case as well.


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## elroy

As a rule, the genitive case is used following a preposition (_li_, _min_, _3ala_, etc.) and as part of an iDaafa (which, roughly speaking, would correspond to an expression with "of" in English).

There are other uses of the genitive, but they are not nearly as common as these two.  Chances are if a noun is not in the nominative and neither of the two situations above apply, the noun will be in the accusative.


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## Anatoli

Accusative is also required after words *inna, anna, laakin*, even if the noun/pronoun is the subject of the sentence.

There are also particles derived from nouns, which can be confused with prepositions and they require accusative, not genitive.

Sabaakh_a_ 'l-khayri - good morning. The first word is in accusative, the second is in genitive.

--
Palomnik, your point is valid but there must be some English terms to describe the language, otherwise, it is too difficult to learn, not everyone can grasp the meaning of original Arabic terms, straight away, I personally prefer to know both. The cases where the accusative is not matching the usual description of the accusative case, additional (invented) terms could be used: cognate accusative, adverbial accusative, accusative of greetings, etc.


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## elroy

Anatoli said:


> Accusative is also required after words *inna, anna, laakin*, even if the noun/pronoun is the subject of the sentence.


 Correct. It's important to ignore the fact that these words would be considered subjects in English and other languages.


> There are also particles derived from nouns, which can be confused with prepositions and they require accusative, not genitive.


 Assuming you are talking about words like "fawqa" - these are considered adverbs in Arabic. They themselves are in the accusative but the objects they govern are in the genitive because in Arabic the construction is considered an iDaafa.

fawq*a* 'l-bayt*i* - above the house

Let me know if I misunderstood you. 


> Sabaakh_a_ 'l-khayri - good morning. The first word is in accusative, the second is in genitive.


 Yes, because it's an iDaafa.


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## Anatoli

elroy said:


> ...
> Assuming you are talking about words like "fawqa" - these are considered adverbs in Arabic. They themselves are in the accusative but the objects they govern are in the genitive because in Arabic the construction is considered an iDaafa.
> 
> fawq*a* 'l-bayt*i* - above the house
> 
> Let me know if I misunderstood you.
> ...


No, I didn't mean that one, I am aware of fawqa. 

One thing that comes to mind is preposition "wa-" used as "with" or "by" - requires accusative. Please ignore my comment if I don't come up with more examples (prepositions with accusative).

Agree with the rest.


--
As for missing dative in Arabic, I would describe it as:
use genitive with prepositions: *li*-mudarris-_in_ ("to a teacher") and accusative with no prepositions: mudarris-_an_ to convey the meaning of dative in say, German, Latin or Slavic languages.


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## elroy

Anatoli said:


> One thing that comes to mind is preposition "wa-" used as "with" or "by" - requires accusative. Please ignore my comment if I don't come up with more examples (prepositions with accusative).


 I'm confused.  "Wa," like "and" in English, is a conjunction and the word that follows it, if a noun, is in the same case as the word that precedes it.

Could you give an example sentence to demonstrate what you are talking about?


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## Anatoli

raja`a *wa*-ghuruub_a_ 'sh-shamsi

He came back with the sunset.


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## elroy

Ah, ok - thanks for the example.

This usage is quite poetic and uncommon so it didn't occur to me when you mentioned "wa."


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## linguist786

The و that Anatoli mentioned is known as واو الحال (waaw al-7aal). It is prefixed to a subordinate nominal sentence (الجملة الإسمية) It is used to describe the circumstances in which the action of the main sentence took place. For example مات أبي وأنا صغير (My father died when I was small)

There is of course another type of "wa" as used in an oath. e.g. والله

I have been told there are other uses of "wa" as-well, although I haven't come across them myself yet.


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## Anatoli

linguist786 said:


> ..
> 
> There is of course another type of "wa" as used in an oath. e.g. والله
> ...



Thanks, linguist. Your example is in genitive, isn't it?  Pronounced as [*wa-'llaahi*] - By God!.


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## elroy

Anatoli said:


> Thanks, linguist. Your example is in genitive, isn't it? Pronounced as [*wa-'llaahi*] - By God!.


 That's correct.


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## Anatoli

Thanks, Elias


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## exentric

Thank you to Taalib for answering my question and to cherine for correcting my examples and giving me the middle vowel in shakara for the present tense! I'd also like to acknowledge Palomnik, elroy and Anatoli for extra information! Also to linguist786 for the wa al-7aal.

Just a few more questions, haha...
What're inna, anna and laakin?

And how do you know if something is masculine and feminine? Is it like European languages where you just have to memorize it? If so, would you find their gender in a dictionary or something?

Allah has a ta marbutah... so does that make it feminine?

ana ashkuru allaha allati khalek
or
ana ashkuru allaha alladhi khalek

Btw, khalek = "made you". I only know the Colloquial version, heehee. *blush* I also don't know how to transcribe it properly in the Latin alphabet, sorry.


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## elroy

exentric said:


> Just a few more questions, haha...
> What're inna, anna and laakin?


_inna_ - a particle that can be added to the beginning of a sentence, sometimes to give it emphasis but sometimes just because it makes the sentence sounds better. Not translatable into English
_anna_ - that (as in "I know that you are happy.")
_laakin_ - but 


> And how do you know if something is masculine and feminine? Is it like European languages where you just have to memorize it? If so, would you find their gender in a dictionary or something?


 Most words that end with a taa marbuuta are feminine, and most words that don't are masculine - but there are exceptions that must be learned. Yes, I assume dictionaries for foreigners would indicate the gender. 


> Allah has a ta marbutah... so does that make it feminine?


 It does not. It has a regular ha and is masculine. 


> ana ashkuru allaha allati khalek
> or
> ana ashkuru allaha alladhi khal*aqaka/khalaqaki *


 The blue "a" is not pronounced unless you say each word separately and not as a sentence. 


> Btw, khalek = "made you". I only know the Colloquial version, heehee. *blush*


 In colloquial Arabic (at least in my dialect) it's _khala2ak_ (m.) and _khala2ek_ (f.).


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## exentric

Awesome! So if the noun after the particles is always accusative then it's...

ana aHlam annaka [ferHaan] ??

*dunno if stuff in bracket is right

Oh my gosh, that *is* a regular ha! LOL, whoops. 
I guess I kept randomly imagined two dots. 

In Colloquial, you'd pronounce the "a" though, right? Because the verb would be baskhor instead of ashkuru?

And yeah! I actually haven't memorized the numbers so I never use them but I checked up on wikipedia what they meant. Khala2ak would be the way to properly transcribe what I was taught. Thanks a lot elroy!


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## elroy

exentric said:


> Awesome! So if the noun after the particles is always accusative then it's...
> 
> ana aHlam annaka [ferHaan] ??


 
_Ana aHlamu annaka farHaanun._

This is getting complicated.  In normal sentences with two nouns following "anna," the first is in the accusative and the second is in the nominative. In this case the first noun is replaced by a pronoun (the -_ka_ attached to "anna") so "farHaan" is actually the second noun - so it's in the nominative. 


> In Colloquial, you'd pronounce the "a" though, right? Because the verb would be baskhor instead of ashkuru?


 Correct. But we drop the "i" of "illi" (_who/that_).

_Bashkor Alla 'lli khala2ak/khala2ek._


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## exentric

Not complicated at all, I totally got that!
Except I thought farHaan was an adjective for "happy". Apparently it's a noun, lol - so what does it really mean?
I understand it's farHaanu so it's nominative, but why the nunation?


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## elroy

exentric said:


> Not complicated at all, I totally got that!
> Except I thought farHaan was an adjective for "happy". Apparently it's a noun, lol - so what does it really mean?


 It _is_ an adjective, but in Arabic adjectives are in the same class as nouns - they are both _asmaa2_.  Sorry, I should have been clearer.


> I understand it's farHaanu so it's nominative, but why the nunation?


 Because it's indefinite.  You are happy, not *the* happy person.


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## Anatoli

A quick question: does إلا  (illa) require accusative or genitive. It's "illa rub`an", isn't it - "quarter to". If it's accusative, then it's another  case where preposition governs accusative, not genitive (provided "illa" is a preposition).

--
A little off-topic question: can a laam in laam-alif (لا) ligature have a shadda (or tanwiin fatHa as in "sahl_an_")? If yes, how do you type it, ?


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## Anatoli

Is إلا (illa) a preposition or an adverb? Does "illa" require accusative?


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## Qcumber

Anatoli said:


> raja`a *wa*-ghuruub_a_ 'sh-shamsi
> He came back with the sunset.


Isn't this a particular case of the accusative used adverbially? Of course in this structure it has to be definite.


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## Anatoli

I copied this example from a reference book verbatim. I understood it but I wouldn't be able to create such a phrase myself 

Qcumber, do you know the answer to my last question, by any chance?


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## Qcumber

Anatoli said:


> Is إلا (illa) a preposition or an adverb? Does "illa" require accusative?


Anatoli, Blachère & Gaudefroy-Demombynes (1952) list it among the "_particules négatives_" (negative particles).
P. 406 they give examples with explanations. This is how I interpret them.

1) The default case after 2illaa is the accusative.
e.g. jaa2a l qaumu 2illaa zaidan
= The crowd went except Zaid.

2) In a negative clause, if the subject is not expressed, the accusative is replaced by the nominative.
e.g. lam yabqa (shai2un) mina n naaqati 2illaa ra2suhaa
= Nothing was left of the she-camel except its head.

3) ... if the subject is expressed, the word after 2illaa may be either in the accusative (3a) or in the same case as the subject (3b).

3a) lam yakun madhkurun - siwaa Hunainin -  2illaa nafaran
= There were no prominent citizens but Hunain and some (other) persons

3b) lam yakun ladhkurun - siwaa Hunainin - 2illaa nafarin.
= ditto

4) In a majority of occurrences, the word after 2illaa is in the case required by its function in the sentence.

2aHramuu kulluhum 2illaa abu-qataadata
= All sanctified themselves except Abu-Qatada

laisa lahum fii l 2aaxirati 2illaa n naaru
= There will only be the fire of hell for them in the hereafter.


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## Anatoli

Thanks, Qcumber!


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## Qcumber

You are welcome, Anatoli, but wait for additional data by native speakers.
Perhaps the posts about 2illaa could go in a separate thread ...


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## Anatoli

It was very useful, indeed Qcumber.  Well, too much information is hard to absorb, I got what I needed at this stage.


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## rayloom

Qcumber said:


> Isn't this a particular case of the accusative used adverbially? Of course in this structure it has to be definite.


 
In "Raja3a wa ghuruuba sshamsi", the iDafa complex is definite.
And regarding لا it can be spelled with shaddah and tanwin but it should be place over the Lam.


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## Abu Bishr

Hi all

The "wa" in "Raja3a wa ghuruuba sshamsi" is called waaw al-ma'iyyah (the waaw that has the meaning of ma'a = with), and the accusative after it is called the Object of Accompaniment (المفعول معه) because it always refers to something with which or in whose company the act is performed. In MSA it is used commonly with verbs such as توافق , e.g. هذا لا يتوافق و المنهجَ الذي نسير عليه (this does not agree with the method that we follow). Note that the waaw can also be interchanged with مع e.g. هذا لا يتوافق مع المنهجِ الذي نسير عليه . The only other difference between these two sentences is that المنهج is in the accusative in the first and the genitive in the second.

So contrary to what was stated before, imho,  the waw here is not واو الحال (waaw al-Haal), since the latter can only be followed by a complete clause called جملة الحال or الجملة الحالية . I hope that this goes towards clarifying the issue a little.


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