ظرف (grammatical term)

  • But adverbs are classified as accusatives in Western grammars anyway. I guess we had better get used to Arabic terminology. ;)

    Jana
     
    Whodunit said:
    Arabic is so different from our European languages.
    That's why I suggested we all get used to using Arabic terminology to talk about Arabic grammar, at least to avoid confusions.
    When we first studied French at school, teachers used to tell us to "think in French" when we want to write, otherwise we will write strange stuff that can't be considered French. I guess the same goes for all languages, right ?
     
    Correct - I could not have put it better. ;)

    ظرف is not "accusative."
    ظرف is not "adverb."
    ظرف is ظرف ! :D

    "Accusative of place" is what I guessed the English approximation would be. You seem to label anything that is منصوب "accusative," and I just translated مكان! :D
     
    Again terminology in Arabic :)
    I understand how hard it is to express ظرف in English. I don't know the translation of that word myself, so let's just use it as it is :)
    there is also ظرف زمان. the ظروف are fixed (usually fixed) words used to express place or time :
    ظرف زمان : amsi, ghadan, al2aan....
    ظرف مكان : amaama (in front of), khalfa (behind), yameen (to the right), yasaar (to the left)...
     
    Correct. A ظرف is always منصوب , which means that it is inflected with a فتحة (the vowel sound "a") in its simple forms. It gets trickier with complex forms, in which it might be inflected with a تنوين ("an") or an alef.
     
    elroy said:
    A ظرف is always منصوب , which means that it is inflected with a فتحة (the vowel sound "a") in its simple forms.
    A little exception : Some zuruuf are مبنية (i.e. they never change in inflections) such as :
    for the time : الآن، إذْ، أَمْسِ
    for the place : حَيْثُ، أَيْنَ، ثَمَّ
    I'm copying this from the Grammar book i had at school. I hope it's clear, and am ready for discussions :)
     
    Of course! :) I guess my "always" was hasty. I meant that is how they are inflected when they are inflected. ;)

    I do have some questions though:

    What does إذْ mean?
    I thought ثَمَّ was a حرف عطف. I guess it can be either one, depending on the construction...
     
    elroy said:
    What does إذْ mean?
    I thought ثَمَّ was a حرف عطف. I guess it can be either one, depending on the construction...
    For إذ My Arabic-English dictionary gives the meanings : then, as, while, suddenly (to my knowledge, it's often used in the sense of suddenly, to express an action that didn't take long to occur...)
    There's also the expression إذْ أَنَّ which means (since, as, because, for) this compound form is used to explain the cause.

    ثَمَّ thamma is different from ثُمَّ thumma. The first has the meaning of (there) while the second is just exactly what you said : حرف عطف . As you see, the difference is not only in their use, but also in their pronounciation.
     
    Of course!

    I didn't see the dot in the first word, so I thought it was إد (id) :), and I didn't see the vowel in the second word, so I thought it was "thumma."

    But now it's all clear. I am familiar with both "ith" and "thamma."

    Darn small script! I guess it even gets us natives from time to time! ;)
     
    Back
    Top