Getting down with خفض, Part 2: ي

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله,

We’ve covered كَسرَة (kasrah), which is the main indicator of خفض (khafdh), also known as جَرّ (jarr).  Today, we’re going on to the second sign of jarr, the letter ي.

No, not “yeah”! I said the letter ي!

Substitution of ي for كسرة

وَ أمّا اليَاءُ فَتَكُوْنُ علَامَةً لِلْخَفْضِ فِي ثَلاثَةِ مَواضِعَ: فِي الأسْماءِ الخَمْسَةِ, وَفِي التَثْنِيَةِ, وَالجَمْعِ

As for the ي, it is a sign of khafdh in three situations: the “five nouns”, the dual and the plural.

ي has three situations in which it is an indicator that a word is in jarr:

1. The “five nouns”
2. Dual nouns
3. Plural nouns

The “five nouns”

You know them and the conditions for giving them their endings from before.

For example:

• سَلِّمْ عَلى أبِيكَ صَباحَ كُلِّ يَومٍ (“Salute your father in the morning every day”)
• لا تَرْفَعْ صَوْتَكَ عَلى صَوْتِ أخِيْكَ الأكْبَرِ (“Don’t raise your voice over the voice of your elder brother”)
• لا تَكُنْ مُحِبّاً لِذي المالِ إلا أنْ يَكُوْنَ مُؤَدَّباً (“Don’t be a lover of one who has wealth except if he is refined”).

The word أخِيْك,is in jarr because it is mudhaaf ilayh, and أبِيْكَ and ذِي المالِ are in jarr because of a particle of jarr before them.  The sign of  jarr for all three is the ي.

Looking at the َك in the first two examples:

• it’s the pronoun of the 2nd person (“you”)
• it is مُضاف إلَيه (mudhaaf ilayh).  The mudhaaf here is أبِيْ or أخِيْ
• It is fixed upon فتحة (fathah) – pronouns are fixed, meaning the ending sound doesn’t change when their status does.
• It’s in the state of jarr (because it’s mudhaaf ilayh).

In the third example, المالِ is also mudhaaf ilayh and it is in jarr using the kasrah.

The dual

For example:

• انظُرْ إلى الْجُنْدِيَّيْنِ (“Look at the two soldiers”)
• سَلِّمْ عَلى الْصَدِيقَيْنِ (“Salute the two friends”).

الجُنْدِيَّيْنِ and الصَدِيْقَيْنِ are in jarr because of a particle of jarr before them, and the sign of jarr is the ي with a fathah before it and a kasrah after (which will give you the “ayni” sound). Each of them is dual because it indicates the meaning of two.  In the status of رفع (raf’), they were الجُنْدِيّانِ and الصَدِيْقانِ (with an “aani”) sound.

The sound masculine plural

For example:

• رَضِيتُ عَنِ الْبَكْرِيْنَ (“I was pleased with the Bakr’s”)
• نَظَرْتُ إلى المُسْلِمِينَ الْخاشَعِيْنَ (“I looked at the humble Muslims”).

البَكْرِِيْنَ and المُسْلِمِيْنَ are in jarr because of  a particle of jarr before them, and the sign of jarr is the ي with a kasrah before it and a fathah after (which gives an “eena” sound). Each of them is a sound masculine plural.

If you’ve been paying attention, you might have noticed that dual nouns and sound masculine plurals look exactly the same in نصب (nasb) and jarr!!!  How do you tell the difference? What works for me is that I know that there are only three ways a word can be in the state of jarr in the Arabic language:

1. It has one of the particles of خفض before it
2. It is mudhaaf ilayh (the second word in a “possessive phrase”)
3. It is a grammatical follower of another word that is in jarr (e.g. it’s coming as a description for that word or joined by  “and” or “or” to it).  There’s more on these grammatical followers in a later section, but these are the most common ones.

If I don’t see one of these three, then I know the word is not in jarr and I mark it up as nasb.

From the Quran

Examples of dual nouns and one of the “five nouns” showing their jarr using the letter ي (Surah 18:82-83)

• غُلامَيْنِ (“two young boys”) is in jarr because of the particle لِ before it.  يَتِيْمَيْنِ (“two orphans”) is  a description for the two boys, so it follows in status.  In the status of raf’, it was غُلامانِ يَتِيمانِ (with ا’s instead ي’s).

• المُجْرِمِيْنَ (“the criminals”) has the particle لِ before it.  In raf’ it was ألمُجْرِمُوْنَ (with a و instead of the ي)
• الكافِرِيْنَ (“the disbelievers”) has عَلى before it.
• المُجْرِِمِيْنَ has مِنْ before it
• The word يَدَيْهِ needs to be unwrapped in order to understand what’s going on here, so one step at a time:
  1. The word for “hand” is يَدٌ.
  2. We form the dual (“two hands”) how we always do by making it يَدانِ (adding an “aan” sound to it).  The ن of the dual replaces the tanwin at the end of the singular noun يَدٌ.
  3. To say “his two hands”, we’re going to use a possessive phrase (idhaafah) and simply add it to the pronoun هُ (“he”).  When a word is mudhaaf, its ending tanwin (or ن if it is a dual noun or plural) will go away.  Adding يَدانِ to ه will give us يَداهُ.  This is how it looks like in raf’…
  4. But we’re in jarr because of the word عَلى, so the ا gets demoted to ي.  We end up with يَدَيْهِ

Next up, إن شاء الله:  “partly flexible” nouns (!?!)

Exercises

1. What do the following verbs look like in the state of nasb? Hint: only the very ending will change
   1. يَجْرِيْ (“he runs”)
   2. يَبْنِيْ (“he builds”)
   3. يُنَظِّفُ (“he cleans”)
   4. يَرْكَبُ (“he rides”)
   5. يَمْحُوْ (“he erases”)
   6. يَشْرَبُ (“he drinks”)
   7. تُضِيْءُ (“she lights up”)
2. ًWhat do these nouns look like in in the states of nasb and jarr?
   1. والِدُكَ (“your father”)
   2. إخْوَتُكَ (“your brethren”)
   3. أسنانُكَ (“your teeth”)
   4. الكِتابُ (“the book”)
   5. القِطارُ (“the train”)
   6. الفاكِهَةُ (“the fruit”)
   7. الأُمُّ (“the mother”)
   8. الأصْدِقاءُ (“the friends”)
   9. التِلْمِيْذانِ (“the two students”)
   10. الرَجُلانِ (“the two men”)
   11. الجُنْدِيُّ (“the soldier”)
   12. الفَتاةُ (“the young girl”)
   13. أخُوْكَ (“your brother”)
   14. صَدِيْقُكَ (“your friend”)
   15. الجُنْدِيّانِ (“the two soldiers”)
   16. الفَتَيانِ (“the two youth”)
   17. التَاجِرُ (“the trader”)
   18. الوَرْدُ (“the rose”)
   19. النِيْلُ (“the Nile”)
   20. الِاسْتِحْمامُ (“the bath”)
   21. النَشاطُ (“the activity”)
   22. المُهْمِلُ (“the one who neglects”)
   23. المُهَذَّباتُ (“the refined females”)

Until next time, السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

 

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