المضمرات - Pronouns (Part 1)
This article will focus on المضمرات, which is of the eight categories of الاسماء المبني.
Pronouns (المضمرات) are one of the eight categories of الاسماء المبني, those words whose endings do not change with the changing of its grammatical relation to others words in a sentence.
Definition of المضمرات
اسم وُضع ليدل على مُتكلِّم أو مُخاطَبٍ أو غائب تقدّم ذكرُه لفظًا أو معنًى أو حُكمًا
An ism that indicates first, second, or third person whose antecedent has been mentioned explicitly, implicitly, or in ruling.
The table below shows what is meant by the last part of the definition.
Categories of مضمرات
Categorization 1: with respect to attachment
There are two types of مضمر with respect to their attachments:
مُتَّصِل (attached): such a pronoun that is attached to the word before it—it cannot be used alone.
مُنفَصِل (detached): such a pronoun that is unattached to the word before it—it is used alone.
The word before a ضمير could be an فعل ,اسم, or حرف.
الضمير المتصل - Attached Pronoun
An attached pronoun can occur in all three states:
الضمير المنفصل - Detached Pronoun
A detached pronoun can only occur in two states:
Categorization 2: with respect to concealment
There are two types of مضمر with respect to whether they are hidden or not:
المُستَتِر (hidden): such a pronoun that is hidden within a word.
البارزِة (apparent): such a pronoun that is apparent.
الضمير المُستَتِر - Hidden Pronoun
There are only eight such hidden pronouns, all of which are also ضمير مرفوع متصل.
In all of these situations, there is an indication of the ضمير in the word. Other ضمير مرفوع متصل actually have an indicator on it.
For example, in كَتَبا and كتبتَ, the ا and تَ are considered ضمير مرفوع متصل, respectively. The تْ in كتبتْ is actually called a علامة التأنيث (indication of femininity) and not a ضمير.
الضمير البارز - Apparent Pronoun
All other pronouns are considered apparent (بارز).
The subsequent post will cover two more categorizations of pronouns.