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Understanding the النَّعْت السَّبَبِيّ in Arabic grammar

The causative description (na’at sababy نعت سببي) in Arabic is pretty tricky and often misunderstood. Let’s see why.
byGerald Drißner
January 16, 2016
2 minute read
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Last updated 3 months ago.

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To start the discussion about the topic نَعْت سَبَبِيّ, I would like to analyze the following Arabic sentence: السّيارةُ الْجميلُ لونُها

If you check the endings of the words, do you spot any mistake? Short answer: No, there isn’t a mistake! If you thought that the word الْجَمِيل should be written with a ة, you might have misunderstood the meaning of the sentence.

The second part of the sentence is a so-called causative descrip­tion (نَعْت سَبَبِيّ). The sentence …السيارةُ الجميلُ لونُها means: The car whose color is beautiful. Or: The car with the beautiful color.

Watch out! The sentence doesn’t mean: The color of the nice car…

Let us make the difference clear:

نَعْت حَقِيقِيّThe successful student.الطَّالِبُ النَّاجِحُ
نَعْت سَبَبِيّThe student whose sister is successful.الطَّالِبُ النَّاجِحةُ أُخْتُهُ

Let us check the different parts of the النَّعْت السَّبَبِيّ.

نَعْت مُؤَنَّثAlthough it is a نَعْت, it doesn’t describe what precedes, but what comes after it. The word sister (أُخْت) is the thing being de­scribed (مَوْصُوف) because it is not the (male) student, who is successful.النَّاجِحةُ
فاعِلSubject; the thing which is being described.أُخْتُهُ
To understand the exact meaning of the نَعْت سَّبَبِيّ you could rewrite the sen­tence with a relative clause اِسمْ إشارة –>الطَّالِبُ الذي نَجَحَتْ أُخْتُهُ

The rules for the النَّعْت السَّبَبِيّ

Let’s check the most important features of a :

  1. The النَّعْت السَّبَبِيّ is always singular and comes before the subject of the sentence (فاعِل) which is a اِسْم مَرْفُوع
  2. It agrees with the preceding اِسْم in: * definite/indefinite form (تَعْريف/تَنْكِير) AND * إِعْراب
  3. It agrees with the following اِسْم – which is the فاعِل – in: * gender (masculine/feminine) (تَنْكِير/ تَأْنِيث)
  4. The noun after it (فاعِل) takes the pronoun which refers to the first subject in the sentence! Notice: the فاعِل is always مَرْفُوع

Let us take a look at some examples to understand the rules:

The man whose brother is honorable came.جاءَ الرَّجُلُ الْفاضِلُ أَخُوهُ
The man whose two brothers are honorable came.جاءَ الرَّجُلُ الْفاضِلُ أَخَواهُ
Two men whose two brothers are honorable came.جاءَ رَجُلانِ فاضِلٌ أَخَواهُما
The two men whose sisters are honorable came.جاءَ الرَّجُلانِ الْفاضِلةُ أَخَواتُهُما
Ladies whose sisters are honorable came.جاءَتْ سَيِّداتٌ فاضِلةٌ أَخَواتُهُنَّ

A summary:

  • The النَّعْت الْحَقِيقِيّ always comes after the noun which it describes. It follows the noun in gender, negated/not negated, case and singular//plural.
  • The النَّعْت السَّبَبِيّ always comes before the thing which it de­scribes. It is always singular!

Interesting stuff:

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This post was published on January 16, 2016 and is over 9 years old. It was last updated 3 months ago. If you find outdated information, please let us know.

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Gerald Drißner
Gerald Drißner (Drissner) has lived in Arab and Islamic countries for more than a decade. He is the founder of Arabic for Nerds.
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