LESSON SEVENTEEN : Idafa (posessive Construction)

[.: Anna :.]

We have seen some "idafa" phrases already such as
غرفة الجلوس
some people might have wondered "why don't we put AL on the front of the word ghurfa?" Well this topic basically explains why you can not do that :)

إضافة

This is used for phrases that could usually be expressed in english in this format : "The... of the....." (eg "The window of the car", "the book of the boy") which is equivilent to : "The .....'s ......" (eg the car's window, the boy's book."

Grammatically this is a possessive construction. It takes the I case (genative), meaning that the second part of the construction should always take a kasra. The first part should not take a definite article, but it is defined by it's relationship to the second part and therefore should not have tanween.

example...

بابُ الْبيتِ
baab ul bayt(i)
the door of the house

كتابُ ابنِهِ
kitaab ubnihi
the book of his son

It is possible to qualify any of the nouns in the Idafa structure (to add an adjective to discribe them), but as the idafa should not be broken they will be placed at the end, whichever of the nouns they are qualifying. This means the case ending is important in showing which noun the adjective belongs to.

This means if you were to say "the big house of the boy / the boy's big house" in Arabic the word order would be like this :

the house (subject) - the boy(who it belongs to) - the big (describing the subject, or who it belongs to depending on case ending)

سيارةُ البنتِ الصغيرةُ
sayyaarat ul bint is sagheera(tu)
the small car of the girl

سيارةُ البنتِ الصغيرةِ
sayyaarat ul bint is sagheera(ti)
the car of the small girl

There could be an idafa with more than two nouns (double idafa). In this case the 2nd, 3rd and any other nouns would all take kasra and as usual the first is determined by the function in the sentence.

example :

بابُ بيتِ الرجلِ
baabu bayt ir rajul(i)
the door of the man's house

as above only the final noun will show a definite article.

In some cases if the Idafa construction will be too complecated, for example if the first noun was following a preposition and therefore in the genetive with kasra, and there was an adjective, you will not be able to tell which noun the adjective is referring to, so you might prefer to abandon this construction and express it a different way...

فى كتابِ الطالبِ الجديدِ
fi kitaab iT Taalib il jadeed(i)

is it.... in the book of the new student, or in the new book of the student? no way to tell! if you wanted to say in the new book of the student (just to choose one for example) it may be better to say
فى الكتابِ الجديدِ للطالبِ
fil kitaab il jadeedi lit taalib(i)

as this will avoid any ambiguity.

Sometimes you might see an idafa where the second part does not begin with definate article. This is known as "indefinate idafa". Common examples of this are when the 2nd part is a person's name which is grammatically seen as indefiniate (such as Mohammed) eg :

كتابُ محمّدٍ
kitaabu Mohammedin
Mohammed's book / the book of Mohammed

[.: Anna :.]

Exercises

Excersizes

1.) translate the following into Arabic:

1.) this is the teacher's house
2.) the door of ahmed's car is big
3.) i found it in the big box of the clever student
4.) that is the boy's friend's dog
5.) he is my son's teacher

2.) translate the following into English

أين قلمُ المدرّسِ؟
متى غادرت بنتُ الإمامِ؟
هذا بيتُ الطبيبِ
شباكُ مسجدِ مدينتي جميلٌ
من تلك؟ هي أجتُ محمّدٍ الصغيرةُ

3. highlight the idafas in the previous sentences.

4. True or false questions
a) The first part of Idafa always begins with definate article
b) idafas can be translated as "the.... of the...."
c) you can have more than two nouns in an idafa
d) idafas can easily be broken in the middle
e) idafa is rarely used in arabic
f) you must ALWAYS have definate article in the final part of Idafa

5. Make 5 of your own sentences featuring idafa constructions

[.: Anna :.]

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