# this castle of a king / this castle of the king



## Ibn Nacer

Bonsoir,


This castle of *a* king Vs this castle of *the* king 
_Ce château __*d'un*__ roi_ Vs _ce château __*du*__ roi_

How to translate these expressions?
Comment traduire ces deux expressions ?

Merci.


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## shafaq

This castle of *a* king  حصن ملك هذا
this castle of *the* kingحصن الملك هذا


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## Ibn Nacer

shafaq said:


> This castle of *a* king  حصن ملك هذا
> this castle of *the* kingحصن الملك هذا


Merci bien.


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## jack_1313

shafaq said:


> This castle of *a* king  حصن ملك هذا



This doesn't work because demonstrative pronouns need to be paired with definite nouns and حصن ملك is an indefinite إضافة structure.

I suggest هذا الحصن لملك, which could mean either _this castle belonging to a king _or _this castle belongs to a king_​, depending on the context.


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## Ibn Nacer

jack_1313 said:


> This doesn't work because demonstrative pronouns need to be paired with definite nouns and حصن ملك is an indefinite إضافة structure.
> 
> I suggest هذا الحصن لملك, which could mean either _this castle belonging to a king _or _this castle belongs to a king_​, depending on the context.



I also thought of that. About the construction "هذا الحصن لملك" I asked the question here : *هذا كتابٌ لِمحمدٍ*

However, with this construction, can we say for example : "This castle of *a* king is old" ? 

Is this sentence هذا الحصن لملك قديمٌ correct?


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## shafaq

jack_1313 said:


> This doesn't work because demonstrative pronouns need to be paired with definite nouns and حصن ملك is an indefinite إضافة structure.



Do you mean that phrases like هذا كتابٌ(=this is a book.) are wrong? Are you sure?



jack_1313 said:


> I suggest هذا الحصن لملك, which could mean either _this castle belonging to a king _or _this castle belongs to a king_​, depending on the context.


Yes! It means " _this castle belongs to a king_​," as you described above or "_this castle is belonging to a king_​," but not as "this castle of a king ..."



Ibn Nacer said:


> I also thought of that. About the construction "هذا الحصن لملك" I asked the question here : *هذا كتابٌ لِمحمدٍ*
> 
> However, with this construction, can we say for example : "This castle of *a* king is old" ?
> 
> Is this sentence هذا الحصن لملك قديمٌ correct?


[/QUOTE]
As it was in most cases; without vowelization; it will be understood as "This castle (is for)/(belongs to) an ancient king."
With your way of vowelization it means "This castle which is for a king  and (it is) an ancient one."; while your question was "This castle of a king Vs this castle of the king " which is diffeerent by some way.


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## إسكندراني

'This castle of a king' is bad English in the first place.


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## shafaq

إسكندراني said:


> 'This castle of a king' is bad English in the first place.



Please be informed that we are talking on the SECOND PLACE  which is GOOD; not the fFIRST; as you supposed.


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## Bakr

أتفق مع اسكندراني، ابن ناصر يحاول أن يضع جملا بسيطة للترجمة وهي أحيانا جمل تعليمية مختصرة وغامضة حتى في اللغة الأصل، أفضل مثلا

_*C'est* un château __*d'un*__ roi _Vs _*c'est* le château __*du*__ roi_

هذا حصن/ هذه قلعة ملك/أحد الملوك  vs   هذا حصن/هذه قلعة الملك


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## إسكندراني

shafaq said:


> Please be informed that we are talking on the SECOND PLACE  which is GOOD; not the fFIRST; as you supposed.


Again, I have no idea what this means? The point is, we can't say the sentence proposed in either language, Arabic or English. It's simply not a valid construction.

To express the sentence, we do as Bakr suggested. But as a phrase, 'this castle of a king' doesn't exist.


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## shafaq

In spite of the fact that I don't have enough mental flexibility to get the such like phrases topic of that thread; somehow, I did think of asking someone has enough capability coping with such an artistic and literaturistic ways of using a language. And that is what he said me:
" "Someone"s as you; have limited brains to be able to distinguish the difference between daily conversations and artistic way of using a language which is most valuable, worth to be ever-rememberable and permanent part of a language; as well as different, unusual and rarest.

These "someone"s -which you are one of them- has no mental flexibility to cope with this artistic way of using a language -that called "the literature" in the linguistic sciences- and accuse it to be "bad" and "non-exist". " as he continued saying:

" If you have an ability to think to run a simple search on internet; you would have found out that many thousand samples in that manner are already "exist"s; against your limited knowledge; like:

"It is most probable that *this castle of a* «Bhutanese robber Knight» was destroyed ..." here, and 

" *This castle of a* house is the home of John Taylor..." here and 

"*This castle of a* college—Bryn Mawr—is ..." here and 

" *This castle of a* country may well have its evil tyrant inside ..." here and 

"*this castle of a* hotel catches my eye. " here ; as well as thousands others in similar manner."

He was so brutal and sarcastic toward me. So I cut him off saying:

-But, at least in Arabic; this way is "bad" and non"exist" ...!

He grinned sarcasticly looking at my face and added:

"Again; if you have let your brain to work, instead of saying "bad" and "nonexist" without any search; you would have found out many thousand samples of that way of usage in Arabic too..." contending with indicating only one sample out of thousands in that manner: أى رجل دين هذا؟

Then he quited talking, saying:

"Don't worry man! There are millions even billions like you around there; getting blind and denier against all different, rare and unusual which mostly are most valuables... "


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## إسكندراني

Ok, first of all I am struggling to understand you shafaq, please would you try to put ideas across more clearly? I promise I'm not being obnoxious intentionally, but when we are dealing with a linguistic issue it is important we communicate in a common language. If English is not good for you any other language is fine, I'll try to figure it out.

as for the examples you put forward, these are figures of speech, not normal sentences. So in English we can say 'this hulk of a man was seven foot tall' to mean 'this hulk-like man was seven foot tall'. There is no hulk belonging to a man.

ps: are we allowed to post youtube videos now? My podcast was suddenly interrupted!


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## Qureshpor

I believe the answer and the explanation provided by jack_1313 is correct.

هذا الحصن لملك

a) This castle is of/for a king > This castle belongs to a king (not to anyone else)

b) This castle, belonging to a (once mighty) king (is now in a state of utter ruin and no one has the slightest concern for it).

My main point here is that one would n't find such sentences in complete isolation. In proper context "This castle of a king" that is هذا الحصن لملك would make sense.


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## Qureshpor

shafaq said:


> This castle of *a* king  حصن ملك هذا
> This castle of *the* king حصن الملك هذا


Brother shafaq, I believe your sentence...

This castle of *the* king حصن الملك هذا

is quite correct. This is because حصن الملك means "*The* castle of the king". Therefore adding هذا at the end of the construct merely changes "The castle" to "This castle". However حصن ملك means "*a* castle of a king" and NOT "*The* castle of a king". Therefore هذا can not be linked to حصن الملك in the way that you have done. Please see post 34 of the thread below. I used to think that حصن ملك meant "*The* castle of a king" but you will see from the thread below that I was shown to be mistaken in my understanding.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2331996&page=2&highlight=Qureshpor+indefinite

If I am wrong, I hope learned members will correct me.


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## shafaq

Qureshpor said:


> Brother shafaq, I believe your sentence...
> 
> This castle of *the* king حصن الملك هذاis quite correct. This is because حصن الملك means "*The* castle of the king". Therefore adding هذا at the end of the construct merely changes "The castle" to "This castle".
> 
> However حصن ملك means "*a* castle of a king" and NOT "*The* castle of a king".
> 
> Therefore هذا can not be linked to حصن الملك in the way that you have done.
> 
> Please see post 34 of the thread below. I used to think that حصن ملك meant "*The* castle of a king" but you will see from the thread below that I was shown to be mistaken in my understanding.
> 
> http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2331996&page=2&highlight=Qureshpor+indefinite
> 
> If I am wrong, I hope learned members will correct me.



There is an opposition between blue and red part of your post; but; I think you were going to say 
"*Therefore هذا can not be linked to حصن ملك(without article ال)in the way that you have done.* "

If I have got your point correctly; then; I am going to ask you too; the same question I asked jack_1313, in post #6 above .


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## Qureshpor

shafaq said:


> There is an opposition between blue and red part of your post; but; I think you were going to say
> "*Therefore هذا can not be linked to حصن ملك(without article ال)in the way that you have done.* "
> 
> If I have got your point correctly; then; I am going to ask you too; the same question I asked jack_1313, in post #6 above .


Yes, it was a cut/paste mistake on my part. I meant to say as you have understood.

I believe in # post 6 your question was:


shafaq said:


> Do you mean that phrases like هذا كتابٌ(=this is a book.) are wrong? Are you sure?


No, هذا كتابٌ (This is a book) is not wrong. This is an equational sentence where we have هذا on one side of the equation and كتابٌ on the other. This is NOT the same as حصن ملك هذا (Hisnu malikin haaδaa).


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## shafaq

Qureshpor said:


> I believe in # post 6 your question was:
> 
> No, هذا كتابٌ (This is a book) is not wrong.
> *This is an equational sentence where we have هذا on one side of the equation and كتابٌ on the other.
> 
> *This is NOT the same as حصن ملك هذا (Hisnu malikin haaδaa).


I am not good in algebra too; but at least I know an equation is some thing like a=b; then b=a; then (a=b)=(b=a).

 Because of my limited knowledge on algebra; please hep me to apply that on the language:

هذا حصنٌThis is a castle. (a=b)
هذا  حصنُ ملكٍ This a king's castle. (a=b)

حصنٌ هذا A castle is this. (b=a)
حصنُ ملكٍ هذا A king's castle is this. (b=a)

 As you can see apart from given examples in the thread #11; this type;  inverted structures is not only allowed but widely used; especially by -unlike me- high-end, educated brains of most languages. Without suchlike literaturistic wealth; a language tends to be consist of handfuls colloquial bla bla;  condemned to death.

 Again; as it can be seen through thread #11; this type of usages; aren't stand-alone complete sentences in all instances but ; mostly overture or part of complete sentences . 
This type of inverted, complete and/or incomplete sentences or phrases maybe rare in daily colloquial conversations but; are common within *most valuable part of all languages*.


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## Qureshpor

^ I am sorry you've had to bring in algebra into the discussion. I merely mentioned an "equational sentence" because this is the usual term in Arabic grammar books written in English.

I think you are misunderstanding حصنُ ملكٍ هذا to be an equational sentence, which it is not. 

Let's look at a few simple examples.

haaδaa kitaabun = This is a book

kitaabun haaδaa = This is a book

kitaabu haaδaa  =  The book of this...

kitaabu haaδa_rrajuli = The book of this man/This man's book

Hisnu malikin            = a castle of a king = a king's castle

haaδaa Hisnu malikin = This *is *a king's castle

Hisnu malikin haaδaa = *This *a king's castle (which does n't make sense)

It seems in Arabic we can't say "This an apple". We say "This apple" where, using Arabic logic, the "apple" here is "the apple" and not "an apple".

Hisnu_lmaliki            = The castle of the king = The king's castle     

Hisnu_lmaliki haaδaa = *This* [king's castle]     = This king's castle

If my explanation is faulty, I hope others will come forward and point this out.


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## ruqwee

First of all, I confess I did not read all the conversation in this thread, so I apologize if somebody posted a similar answer.
My translation of the two sentences would be:
this castle of a king = القصر الملكي هذا 
this castle of the king = قصر الملك هذا


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## Qureshpor

^ Your first phrase means "This royal palace".


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## shafaq

Dear brother/sister Qureshpor  ! Are you aware of the contradictions between your staments?

According to my assumption; your first contradiction is within your post #18:


Qureshpor said:


> Let's look at a few simple examples.
> 
> haaδaa kitaabun = This is a book
> 
> kitaabun haaδaa = This is a book
> 
> Hisnu malikin            = a castle of a king = a king's castle
> 
> haaδaa Hisnu malikin = This *is *a king's castle
> 
> Hisnu malikin haaδaa = *This *a king's castle (which does n't make sense)


.
You say 
" ((اسم الإشارة=indicator)haaδaa   kitaabun (مشار اليه=indicated))=((مشار اليه=indicated)kitaabun haaδaa(اسم الإشارة=indicator))" 
because they both mean "This is a book "; (as I say since the beginning).
Please note that indicator=اسم الإشارة and indicated=مشار اليه are place-interchangeables in your examples and indicatedمشار اليه(a book= كتابٌ) is نكرة=undefined.

So you say; *constructions like*
*indicator+undefined indicated 
                                             is identical with 
undefined indicated+indicator

                                             are equal and both are correct*.


Then, just a line after; this time you say
#1
"*haaδaa   + Hisnu malikin = This is a king's castle 
indicator + undefined indicated **is OK! and makes sense*;" 
                                                                                      but
#2
"*Hisnu malikin         + haaδaa     **is not = to This is a king's castle.
undefined indicated + indicator   is not OK!** and doesn't make sense.*"

What is holding you back from translating phrase#2 "Hisnu malikin haaδaa" as "This *is *a king's castle"? According to your in-blue statements; both are same constructions and mean same...

Which is the particle that stands for "*is*" which is existing in #1 but missing in #2?

Again; according to my assumption; your second contradiction is between your posts #14 and #18.

.#14 





Qureshpor said:


> However حصن ملك means "*a* castle of a king" and NOT "*The* castle of a king".
> *Therefore هذا can not be linked to حصن ملك in the way that you have done.*


 You state that *
an indicator(=اسم الإشارة) can't be linked to an undefined indicated(=مشار اليه غير معرفة)a..*.

But in turn; by your three examples; you do what you forbid me:   


.#18 





Qureshpor said:


> haaδaa       kitaabun                = This is a book
> indicator + undefined indicator
> مشار اليه غير معرفة +   اسم الإشارة
> 
> 
> kitaabun                  haaδaa     = This is a book
> undefined indicator + indicator
> اسم الإشارة +        مشار اليه غير معرفة
> ...........
> 
> haaδaa      Hisnu malikin           = This *is *a king's castle.
> indicator + undefined indicator
> مشار اليه غير معرفة +   اسم الإشارة


.

I think this is a new trend: If I did; it is OK! If you did; not!. (Just for fun...)

A third contradiction (to me) is within your post #18; where you say
.


Qureshpor said:


> Let's look at a few simple examples.
> 
> haaδaa kitaabun = This is a book
> 
> kitaabun haaδaa = This is a book


and a few lines below you say



Qureshpor said:


> It seems in Arabic we can't say "This an apple". We say "This apple" where, using Arabic logic, the "apple" here is "the apple" and not "an apple".


.
If you can say  "haaδaa kitaabun = This is a book" or "kitaabun haaδaa = This is a book " in Arabic; why we can't say "This is an apple"; while both a book and an apple are made of tree? I don't think it is because of "a" vs. "an" ...


I thank you and all participants here;  for their efforts in the sake of seeking truth.


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## Qureshpor

^ Let me avoid all the verbosity

I don't think I can do any better than to improve on Jack_1313's explanation. I apologise for not having been able to express my thoughts clearly.

"This doesn't work because demonstrative pronouns need to be paired with definite nouns and حصن ملك is an indefinite إضافة structure."


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## Ibn Nacer

shafaq said:


> As it was in most cases; without vowelization; it will be understood as "This castle (is for)/(belongs to) an ancient king."
> With your way of vowelization it means "This castle which is for a king  and (it is) an ancient one."; while your question was "This castle of a king Vs this castle of the king " which is diffeerent by some way.


Thank you very much for this explanation.

For the meaning "This castle which is for a king..." should not we add the relative pronoun الذي since the word الحصن is definite ? (هذا الحصن الذي لملك...ا)

I opened this thread الشركة التي في Vs الشركة في                 about this issue.

What do you think please?



Qureshpor said:


> I believe the answer and the explanation provided by jack_1313 is correct.
> 
> هذا الحصن لملك
> 
> a) This castle is of/for a king > This castle belongs to a king (not to anyone else)
> 
> b) This castle, belonging to a (once mighty) king (is now in a state of utter ruin and no one has the slightest concern for it).
> 
> My main point here is that one would n't find such sentences in complete isolation. In proper context "This castle of a king" that is هذا الحصن لملك would make sense.


About the construction "هذا الحصن لملك" I asked the question here : *هذا كتابٌ لِمحمدٍ*

It seems that for Mahaodeh this expression (هذا الكتابُ لِمحمدٍ) can not mean "This book *of* Muhammad" so I assume that the expresion "هذا الحصن لملك" means "This castle belongs to a king" not "This castle of a king" but I do not know if this is correct.





Qureshpor said:


> I don't think I can do any better than to improve on Jack_1313's explanation. I apologise for not having been able to express my thoughts clearly.
> 
> "This doesn't work because demonstrative pronouns need to be paired with definite nouns and حصن ملك is an indefinite إضافة structure."





shafaq said:


> Do you mean that phrases like هذا كتابٌ(=this is a book.) are wrong? Are you sure?


Grammatically I think we have this :

هذا حصنٌ (this is a castle) ---> mubtada' + khabar (The mubtada' can be definite whereas the khabar is undefinite but the noun and his adjective must agree in definition/determination).

هذا الحصن (this castle) ---> The word  الحصن is badal it must be definite by the article "al".

حصن الملك هذا (this castle of *the* king) ---> Unlike the expression هذا الحصن the word حصن can not have the definite article "al" so the pronoun هذا is placed after the annexation then هذا is *adjective* of حصن which is definite by the annexation. Since حصن is definite the adjective must be definite. This is the case here.

But in حصن ملك هذا the word  حصن is not definite whereas the adjectif هذا is définite, maybe that's the problem.

What do you think please?

PS : See this : Q29 Ism al-Ishaarah where it is said that هذا is an adjective when it is placed after the annexation.


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## Qureshpor

Ibn Nacer said:


> [...] هذا الحصن (this castle) ---> The word  الحصن is badal it must be definite by the article "al".
> 
> حصن الملك هذا (this castle of *the* king) ---> Unlike the expression هذا الحصن the word حصن can not have the definite article "al" so the pronoun هذا is placed after the annexation then هذا is *adjective* of حصن which is definite by the annexation. Since حصن is definite the adjective must be definite. This is the case here.
> 
> But in حصن ملك هذا the word  حصن is not definite whereas the adjective هذا is definite, maybe that's the problem.
> 
> What do you think please?


We must n't forget that ھٰذا الحصن can imply "This is the castle...." (cf. ذٰلک الکتابُ لا ریبَ فیھِ) which is often translated into English as "This is the book.....".

I agree this is where the problem is and I agree with your explanation too. May be you, Jack_1313 and I have got it all wrong. This is of course a possibility.


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## jack_1313

Hi guys – sorry it has taken me a while to come back to this topic. The end of the school year is very busy.


Firstly, I think we need to clearly distinguish between different functions of demonstrative pronouns (أسماء الإشارة ) in Arabic because those functions affect the rules that apply. There appears to have been some confusion about this earlier in the thread.

On one hand, a demonstrative pronoun can act as a determiner – a word use alongside a noun to identify it. In this function, it appears as part of a noun phrase:
هذا الكتاب _This book..._
This is obviously not a complete clause, but a component of one.

On the other hand, a demonstrative pronoun can act as a pronoun, taking the place in the sentence of whatever noun it refers to.
هذا الكتاب _This is the book._
In this example, we have a complete clause, a (nominal) sentence in which هذا is the subject (مبتدأ) and الكتاب is the predicate (خبر).

So, even though the term أسماء الإشارة has made it into English as _demonstrative pronouns_, we need to appreciate the fact that they don’t always fulfil a pronominal function. We need to keep this in mind when we consider these questions:


shafaq said:


> Do you mean that phrases like هذا كتابٌ(=this is a book.) are wrong? Are you sure?





shafaq said:


> You state that an indicator(=اسم الإشارة) can't be linked to an undefined indicated(=مشار اليه غير معرفة)a...
> But in turn; by your three examples; you do what you forbid me:



I said earlier that demonstrative pronouns need to be paired with definite nouns and that, therefore, حصن ملك هذا (_this castle of a king_) is not correct. This rule applies when we are using demonstrative pronouns as determiners, not as independent pronouns. My statement made sense in the context of the conversation because Ibn Nancer’s original question was only about using demonstrative pronouns as determiners to construct noun phrases.

So, in summary, it’s true that هذا كتابٌ is perfectly valid grammatically. However, it is a different kind of grammatical structure to what Ibn Nancer asked about. It is a nominal sentence, whereas Ibn Nancer asked about noun phrases.


Secondly, we need to work out whether or not we can use لملك (_of/for/belonging to a king_) in the manner I originally suggested (هذا الحصن لملك as a noun phrase, not a nominal clause). Let’s consider a few points:

a) ل is a preposition, so لملك is a prepositional phrase. In English, prepositional phrases can serve two functions: they can acts as adverbs or adjectives. Given Ibn Nancer’s original question, the question now is whether or not prepositional phrases can also fulfil an adjectival function in Arabic. This is essentially the same question he asked his thread that he linked us to.

The answer, as was given in that thread, is yes. But, for good measure, I was easily able to find an example in a well-known grammar reference to demonstrate the validity of this construction:

صار للإسلام في أوروبا تاريخ وجذور
_Islam in Europe has acquired roots and history._

In this example we see the prepositional phrase في أوروبا acting as an adjective modifying الإسلام.

b) In both Arabic and English, adjectives can modify nouns already modified by demonstrative pronouns acting as determiners. For example:
_This red car._
هذه السيارة الحمراء

c) In English, I see no reason why the rule applying to adjectives shouldn’t also apply to prepositional phrases fulfilling an adjectival function. I wouldn’t even notice if someone started a sentence with a noun phrase like _this woman in Dubai _or_ this man on a boat_. _This castle of a king_ only sounds odd to me because we don’t usually use _of_ to show that a person owns something in English. The relationship implied in phrases like_ castle of King David_ is something beyond simple possession and, to me, they just wouldn’t make much semantic sense if we didn’t know who exactly the King is.

Likewise, in Arabic adjectival prepositional phrases can modify nouns already modified by a demonstrative pronoun. Or, at least, people seem to regularly use them in this way. I see it most often in sentences like these:
هذا الكتاب ل[اسم الكاتب] مشهور جدا _This book by [author’s name] is very famous._
أقدم لكم هذا الكتاب ل[اسم الكاتب] _I present to you this book by [author’s name]._
To me, whether the object of the preposition is definite or indefinite seems incidental – I can’t see why it would affect the grammar of the rest of the sentence.

So, in summary, I can’t see anything grammatically wrong with هذا الحصن لملك as a noun phrase. However, if native speakers here like إسكندراني are saying that it is wrong or doesn’t seem right, that is reason enough for me to opt for alternatives in my own writing.

The most obvious alternative is to use a relative clause to express the same idea, though we would need to be a little bit more explicit about the relationship between the castle and the king:
هذا الحصن الذي يملكه ملك _This castle, which is owned by a king, ..._
هذا الحصن الذي بناه ملك _This castle, which was built by a king, ...._


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