# المانعين حماهم



## davoosh

Hello,

I was wondering if anybody could explain why المانعين is used here instead of مانعي or another form. It is from a old poem - perhaps it is just 'poetic license'?

فلقد عملت بأن سيفي منهم بيدي أمضى من لساني مضربا 
*المانعين* حماهم وحمى الندى وحمى بني قحطان أن يتنبها

If the meaning is 'those who prevent their protection', I would have expected مانعي حماهم.

Thanks.


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## elroy

Both are correct.  In Arabic active verbal particles can function as verbs or as nouns.


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## davoosh

If it is functioning as a verb should it not be المانعون ?


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## elroy

That's a different question!  

Are you sure you typed everything correctly?  I tried to find the poem online and couldn't.


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## davoosh

Yes, it is definitely المانعين, this is what is causing the confusion!

Is it perhaps one of those strange iDaafa's in which both parts appear with al-? I think I have seen something similar before.


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## elroy

I meant the rest of what you typed.  We need to understand the rest of the sentence to determine if the case makes sense. 

The double definite construction has nothing to do with the case of the first noun.


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## davoosh

Hmm yes, I have checked and that is how it is written. The poem is unpublished from the 10th century, so it's pretty archaic, but there should still be a reason why it's like that.


ذرني أجدد ذلك العهد الذي أعي على الأيام  أن يتقشبا
فلقد عملت بأن سيفي منهم بيدي أمضى من لساني مضربا 
*المانعين* حماهم وحمى الندى وحمى بني قحطان أن يتنبها
هم قطعوا بأكفهم أرحامهم غضبا لجار بيوتهم أن يغضبا


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## elroy

I can't say I understand everything, but my guess is that المانعين is the object of مضربا, hence accusative.


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## davoosh

Thanks - that does seem to make the most sense!


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## analeeh

Yeah - I think it's less that participles can act as verbs and as nouns and more specifically that participles can take either genitive objects or, less commonly (though more commonly in CA) direct objects. So _al-maani3iin_ still means 'the ones who...'


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## elroy

analeeh said:


> can take [...] direct objects.


 a.k.a. act as verbs!  

This is very common in MSA.


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## analeeh

Well, in one respect yes 'act as verbs'. But in another and probably more important syntactic sense, no. _al-maani3iin_ - assuming our hypothesis about it being a direct object is correct - still has a nominal sense, is still acting as a nominal morphologically and still occupies a nominal position syntactically. Saying 'acting as a verb' implies to me that it is to be understood in a verbal sense, which participles often are, but not so much here I think.


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## davoosh

While I understand this is poetic language, would I be correct in assuming 'مضرب مانعي حماهم' sounds more natural? Or perhaps with a preposition 'مضرب المانعين عن حماهم'?

مضرب could ambiguously be miDrab (I.e. sword or similar) or muDarrib (striking).

When participles act as a verb with a direct object do they remove the final nuun like in iDaafa
e.g. مدرّسو المدرسة vs المعلمون الأطفال (Those who teach children, with mu3allimuun as a verb).


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## cherine

For مضربا, I understood it like this سيفي أمضى مَضْرِبًا من لِساني my sword in my hand hits/hurts harder than my tongue.

المانعين is referring to a group of people that must have be mentioned somewhere previously in the poem (who's the poet? We need more background and context to clarify this). So, if the persons were mentioned earlier in the poem, it makes sense that المانعين is definite.


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## davoosh

Thanks,

My trouble with this sentence is that it is المانعين and not المانعون which should mean that this word is the object of another verb, or governed by a preposition. The only explanation I can see here is that مضربا is a verb (all lines end in -aa, so perhaps this ending was just for the rhyme which isn't unusual in classical poetry). I doubt this is just a mistake by the poet judging from the highly classical style.

My best interpretation is:
سيفي أمضى من لساني وهو يضرب الذين يمنعون حماهم


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## be.010

davoosh said:


> Thanks,
> 
> My trouble with this sentence is that it is المانعين and not المانعون which should mean that this word is the object of another verb, or governed by a preposition. The only explanation I can see here is that مضربا is a verb (all lines end in -aa, so perhaps this ending was just for the rhyme which isn't unusual in classical poetry). I doubt this is just a mistake by the poet judging from the highly classical style.
> 
> My best interpretation is:
> سيفي أمضى من لساني وهو يضرب الذين يمنعون حماهم


That wouldn't really make sense because the second verse sounds like a compliment. "Those who protect their honor and possessions from being plundered...". Second, مضرَب as it sounds with a fat7a (أمضى مضربًا) doesn't take an object. It's here  اسم مكان and that doesn't take an object despite being one of المشتقات.
To me it sounds like بدل من "هم" of منهم, but we really need the rest of the poem to understand what Ibn Hani2 was talking about 

By the way, the last word is يُتنهّبا
The second word is probably علمت instead of عملت.
And finally, bravo on finding that version of the poem!! I searched a lot and couldn't find a correct version! The version I found everywhere online is obviously mixed with another poem.


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## cherine

davoosh said:


> My trouble with this sentence is that it is المانعين and not المانعون which should mean that this word is the object of another verb, or governed by a preposition.


I agree with Be that مضربا is not a verb nor working as a verb. If the previous verses (which you still didn't mention, nor the source, nor the name of the poem or the poet  ) doesn't mention who "they" are, and we have to limit ourselves to those 4 lines, I'd say that  المانعين is مجرور، بدل عن الضمير في "منهم" in سيفي منهم.
P.S. Re-reading Be's post, I see he said the same thing.



be.010 said:


> By the way, the last word is يُتنهّبا
> The second word is probably علمت instead of عملت.


I forgot to mention these. Thank you!


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## davoosh

Thanks both, it makes more sense if المانعين is بدل عن الضمير في منهم.

The poem is by ابن هانئ but unfortunately I only have it in printed form. I will try to update this post later and include some more lines.


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## cherine

No problem, just mentioning the title of the poem and the name of the poet is enough.


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