Ellipsis in the Arabic Language:
Examples from The Glorious Qur’ān
The present study has as its aim a discussion of Ellipses as exemplified by the Glorious Qur’an. A useful definition of Ellipsis is that given by David Crystal in A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (Oxford and London: Basil Blackwell in association with André Deutsch, Second Edition, 1987). Crystal defines Ellipsis as
A term used in grammatical analysis to refer to a sentence where, for reasons of economy, emphasis or style, a part of the structure has been omitted, which is recoverable from a scrutiny of the context. Traditional grammars talk here of an element being ‘understood’, but linguistic analyses tend to constrain the notion more, emphasizing the need for the ‘elided’ (or ellipted) parts of the sentence to be unambiguously specifiable. For example in the sequence A: Where are you going? B: To town, the ‘full’ form of B’s sentence is predictable from A’s sentence (‘I am going to town’). But in such sentences as Thanks, Yes, etc., it is generally unclear what the full form of such sentences might be (e.g. ‘Thanks is due to you’? ‘I give you thanks’?), and in such circumstances the term ‘ellipsis’ would probably not be used…1
However, the term Ellipsis as adopted in this study coincides with M. A. K.Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan’s definition that it is “something left unsaid”, where “unsaid” implies “ but understood nevertheless."2 Halliday and Hasan further state that
an item is elliptical if its structure does not express all the features that have gone into its make-up – all the meaningful choices that are embodied in it.
…ellipsis occurs when something that is structurally necessary is left unsaid; there is a sense of incompleteness associated with it…But it is useful to recognize … that the essential characteristic of ellipsis is that something which is present in the selection of underlying (‘systemic’) options is omitted in the structure – whether or not the resulting structure is in itself ‘incomplete’3
It is this definition of Ellipsis that is adopted in the present study.
But before we set out to cite some examples of Ellipsis in the Glorious Qur’ān, a word of caution is in order. The term Ellipsis should not be, in any sense, taken to imply that anything, whether a single word or even a single letter, was actually there in the Qurā’n then it was deleted for any reason whatsoever. The only implication of the word Ellipsis as used in the present study is that it is, to quote Crystal, a device used for “economy, emphasis or style” where the lack of mention of the “predictable” or “presupposed” element is considered to be stylistically more aesthetic than the explicit mention of it.
Traditional discussions of Ellipsis in Arabic and in The Glorious Qur’ān claim that it falls into two types:
(1) A type in which the utterance is quite acceptable as it stands, but the Ellipsis stems from the fact that if one is concerned with clarifying and expounding the utterance further, he has to resort to a word or more than one word for more clarification without bringing to the utterance an element or shade of meaning that has not been already implied. However, had there been explicit mention of the covertly implied element, it would have been considered as some sort of unnecessary tautology, and hence it is much better for such an element not to be given overt expression; (2) a type where the Ellipsis stems from the fact that the utterance as it stands requires the presupposition of an ellipted element either for (a) rational (or logical) reasons, or (b) for grammatical (or structural) considerations
Examples of each of these two types are:
1.
{يَا بَنِي آدَمَ خُذُواْ زِينَتَكُمْ عِندَ كُلِّ مَسْجِدٍ وكُلُواْ وَاشْرَبُواْ وَلاَ تُسْرِفُواْ إِنَّهُ لاَ يُحِبُّ الْمُسْرِفِينَ} (31) سورة الأعراف
O children of Adam! Wear your beautiful apparel / at every time and place / of prayer: eat and drink: / But waste not by excess, / for Allah loveth not the wasters. (7:31)4
The purpose of this Verse is simply to draw attention to the necessity of eating and drinking without excess as a means of preserving life. The mention, however, of the kinds of food to be eaten or the kinds of beverage to be drunk is immaterial to the intent of the Verse. The purpose is not to explicitly enumerate these kinds, and hence mentioning them is irrelevant to the intention. Thus, although the verbs كلوا واشربوا (“eat and drink”) are transitive verbs, the objects have been omitted, bringing about the elliptical structure.5
2. a.
{وَاسْأَلِ الْقَرْيَةَ الَّتِي كُنَّا فِيهَا وَالْعِيْرَ الَّتِي أَقْبَلْنَا فِيهَا وَإِنَّا لَصَادِقُونَ} (82) سورة يوسف
Ask at the town where / We have been and the caravan / In which we returned, / And (you will find) we are / Indeed telling the truth… (12:82) 6
Although the translation renders the elliptical part as “ask at the town” or rather “village”, the meaning of course is “ask the people (inhabitants) of the village”, since one cannot address a “village” in the literal sense of the word -- in terms of the houses and other physical
components. Likewise, the same applies to العير (literally, “the camels”) in the same sense that what is meant is “ask the owners of the camels” or “ask the caravan.”
2. b.
{مَّثَلُ الْجَنَّةِ الَّتِي وُعِدَ الْمُتَّقُونَ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الأَنْهَارُ أُكُلُهَا دَآئِمٌ وِظِلُّهَا تِلْكَ عُقْبَى الَّذِينَ اتَّقَواْ وَّعُقْبَى الْكَافِرِينَ النَّارُ} (35) سورة الرعد
The parable of the Garden / Which the righteous are promised! - / Beneath it flow rivers: / Perpetual is the enjoyment there of- / And the shade therein: / Such is the End / Of the Righteous; and the End/ Of Unbelievers is the fire. (13:35)
In the translation “the shade therein” stands for “perpetual is the shade therein” or “the shade therein is perpetual”. In other words, a full interpretation of the elliptical structure is “ its enjoyment is perpetual and its shade is perpetual”, but what we literally have in the Arabic Verse is equivalent of “its enjoyment is perpetual and its shade.”
Adhering to the constrained scope of Ellipsis as defined by Crystal, and to the Halliday - Hasan notion of elliptical structures, the present study concerns itself only with type 2 b.., i.e. with Ellipsis stemming from grammatical or structural considerations.
Now we turn to a somewhat detailed discussion of Ellipsis. Elliptical structures have several manifestations, among which are:
1.Subject Deletion:
Subject deletion occurs frequently in answering questions.
An example is:
{وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا هِيَهْ * نَارٌ حَامِيَةٌ} (10-11) سورة القارعة
10. And what will explain / To thee what this is?
11. (It is) a Fire / Blazing fiercely! (101: 10-11)
The answer to the question posed is “ a Fire Blazing fiercely” without an overt subject; and hence the inclusion of the subject “It is” in parentheses in the translation.
The deletion of the subject of the sentence also abounds after فاء الجواب, i.e. the particle introducing a clause that expresses the result or effect of a preceding clause. For example,
{مَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلِنَفْسِهِ وَمَنْ أَسَاء فَعَلَيْهَا وَمَا رَبُّكَ بِظَلَّامٍ لِّلْعَبِيدِ} (46) سورة فصلت
Whoever works righteousness / Benefits his own soul; Whoever works evil, it is / Against his own soul: / Nor is thy Lord ever / Unjust (in the least) To His servants. (41:46)
The interpretation is من عمل صالحا فعمله لنفسه, i.e. whoever works righteousness, his (righteous) work benefits his soul. Then the subject “his work” was ellipted and فاء الجواب was therefore attached to لنفسه , thus becoming فلنفسه.
The same applies to ومن أساء فعليها where the interpretation would be ومن أساء فاساءته عليها “whoever works evil, his (evil) work is against his own soul”, where “his (evil) work” is deleted and /fā’ aljawāb/ attached to عليها , thus becoming فعلبها.
Subject deletion also occurs frequently in Verses containing the verb “say” and its derivatives. For example,
{وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُم مَّاذَا أَنزَلَ رَبُّكُمْ قَالُواْ أَسَاطِيرُ الأَوَّلِينَ} (24) سورة النحل
When it is said to them / “What is it that your Lord / Has revealed?” they say, / “Tales of the ancients!” (16:24).
The interpretation is قالوا هي أساطير الأولين “they say, ‘they are tales of the ancients’ ” but what we actually have is “they say ‘tales of the ancients’7
2. Predicate Deletion:
We have already cited and discussed (13:35) above. Another example of predicate deletion is
{طَاعَةٌ وَقَوْلٌ مَّعْرُوفٌ فَإِذَا عَزَمَ الْأَمْرُ فَلَوْ صَدَقُوا اللَّهَ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَّهُمْ} (21) سورة محمد
Were it to obey / And say what is just, / And when matter / Is resolved on, it were / Best for them if they / Were true to Allah. (47:21)
In this Verse طاعة وقول معروف “ obedience and just (i.e. fair) saying” is the subject of a deleted predicate such as “are better than otherwise”. 8
3. Object Deletion:
An example of object deletion in the Glorious Qur’an is the Verse:
{إِنِّي وَجَدتُّ امْرَأَةً تَمْلِكُهُمْ وَأُوتِيَتْ مِن كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَلَهَا عَرْشٌ عَظِيمٌ} (23) سورة النمل
I found (there) a woman Ruling over them and provided With every requisite; and she / Has a magnificent throne. (27:23)
The interpretation is that she was “given something from everything”, but the word “something” i.e., the object of the verb is deleted, leaving the Verse to stand as “given from every thing”. 9
4. Deleting المضاف “the annexed” or المضاف إليه “the annexed to”:
In (12:82) above we have given an example of type 2.a. of Ellipses. The same example may be given here as an example of deletion of the annexed.10
Likewise, the annexed to may be deleted, e.g.
{فِي بِضْعِ سِنِينَ لِلَّهِ الْأَمْرُ مِن قَبْلُ وَمِن بَعْدُ وَيَوْمَئِذٍ يَفْرَحُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ} (4) سورة الروم
Within a few years. With Allah is the Decision, / In the Past / And in the Future: / On that Day shall / the Believers rejoice. (30-4)
The conjoined prepositional phrases من قبل ومن بعد, literally “before and after” ( rendered in the translation as “in the past and in the future”) mean “before the Defeat and after the Victory, i.e., with the / mudāf ’ilayhi/ omitted in both cases.
5. Omission of المعطوف عليه the Antecedent and حرف العطف the Conjunction:
An example of deleting the antecedent and the conjunction is:
{فَأَوْحَيْنَا إِلَى مُوسَى أَنِ اضْرِب بِّعَصَاكَ الْبَحْرَ فَانفَلَقَ فَكَانَ كُلُّ فِرْقٍ كَالطَّوْدِ الْعَظِيمِ} (63) سورة الشعراء
Then we told Moses /By inspiration: “Strike / The sea with thy rod.”/ So it divided, and each eparate part become [sic]/ Like the huge, firm mass / of a mountain. (26:63)
The full interpretation فانفلق is , فضرب فانفلق i.e. with the deletion of the antecedent as well as the conjunction فـــ preceding and attached to it.11
6. Omission of المعطوف the Coupled and the Conjunction:
An instance of this type of Ellipsis is:
{وَمَا لَكُمْ أَلَّا تُنفِقُوا فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَلِلَّهِ مِيرَاثُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ لَا يَسْتَوِي مِنكُم مَّنْ أَنفَقَ مِن قَبْلِ الْفَتْحِ وَقَاتَلَ أُوْلَئِكَ أَعْظَمُ دَرَجَةً مِّنَ الَّذِينَ أَنفَقُوا مِن بَعْدُ وَقَاتَلُوا وَكُلًّا وَعَدَ اللَّهُ الْحُسْنَى وَاللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ} (10) سورة الحديد
And what cause have ye / Why ye should not spend / In the cause of Allah? - / For to Allah belongs / the heritage of the heavens / And the earth. / Not equal among you / Are those who spent (freely) / And fought, before the Victory, / (With those who did so later.) / Those are higher in rank / Than those who spent (freely) / And fought afterwards. / But to all has Allah promised / A goodly (reward). And Allah / Is well acquainted, With all that ye do. (57:10)
The meaning is “not equal among you are those who spent (freely) and fought, before the victory, with (or rather “to”) those who spent and fought after the victory. This explains why “with those who did so later” in the translation is included in parentheses, i.e. because is not overtly expressed in the Arabic Verse.
Evidence for this interpretation comes in the same Verse when it says: “Those are higher in rank than those who spent (freely) and fought afterwards”
.
7. Omission of the conjunction:
There are some Verses in the Glorious Qur’ān where only the coordinating conjunction is ellipted, for example:
{وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ نَّاعِمَةٌ} (8) سورة الغاشية
(Other) faces that Day / Will be joyful. (88:8)
In this Verse وجوه “and other faces” would be expected, since the Verse is coordinated with Verse 2:
{وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ خَاشِعَةٌ} (2) سورة الغاشية
Some faces, that Day, / Will be humiliated. (88:2)
This supposed coordination explains why the translation includes the word “other” in Verse 8 in parentheses.
8. Deleting الحال (the Adverb of Manner):
An example of deleting the /hāl/ (adverb of manner) is:
{جَنَّاتُ عَدْنٍ يَدْخُلُونَهَا وَمَنْ صَلَحَ مِنْ آبَائِهِمْ وَأَزْوَاجِهِمْ وَذُرِّيَّاتِهِمْ وَالمَلاَئِكَةُ يَدْخُلُونَ عَلَيْهِم مِّن كُلِّ بَابٍ * سَلاَمٌ عَلَيْكُم بِمَا صَبَرْتُمْ فَنِعْمَ عُقْبَى الدَّارِ } (23-24) سورة الرعد
23.Gardens of perpetual bliss: / they shall enter there, / As well as the righteous / Among their fathers, their spouses, / And their offspring: / And angels shall enter unto them / From every gate (with salutation):
24. “Peace unto you for that ye / Preserved in patience! Now / How excellent is the final Home!” (13:23-24)
The interpretation would require the supposition of the /hāl/ قائلين , i.e. “saying” at the beginning of Verse 24.
9. Omission of the Vocative Particle:
An example of omitting the vocative particle /yā/ “O” is:
{يُوسُفُ أَعْرِضْ عَنْ هَذَا وَاسْتَغْفِرِي لِذَنبِكِ إِنَّكِ كُنتِ مِنَ الْخَاطِئِينَ } (29) سورة يوسف
“O Joseph, pass this over! / (O wife), ask forgiveness/ For thy sin, for truly / Thou hast been at fault!” (12:29)
10. Deletion of جواب الشرط (the Result or Effect; and the Omission of /la/ that is the Complement of لو /law/:
The Glorious Qur’an abounds with examples of omitting the /jawāb/ in conditional sentences. One example is:
{وَلَوْ أَنَّ قُرْآنًا سُيِّرَتْ بِهِ الْجِبَالُ أَوْ قُطِّعَتْ بِهِ الأَرْضُ أَوْ كُلِّمَ بِهِ الْمَوْتَى بَل لِّلّهِ الأَمْرُ جَمِيعًا ...} (31) سورة الرعد
If there were a Qur’ān / With which mountains were moved, / Or the earth were cloven asunder, / Or the dead were made to speak, / (This would be the one!) But truly, the Command is / With Allah in the things! … (13: part of 31)12
The deleted Result Depending upon the Condition is “This would be the one!”, which is included in parentheses in the translation.
11.Omission of فاء الجواب i.e./fā’/ of Result or Effect; and omission of /la/ that is the Complement of لو /law/:
In the following example it will be noted that جواب الشرط (the Result Depending upon the Condition) is not introduced by فاء الشرط (i.e. fā’ introducing a clause that expresses the result or effect of a preceding clause), which is required when the Clause of Result is a nominal sentence or an imperative. However, /fā’ aljawāb/ has been ellipted in the following Verse:
(كُتب عليكم إذا حضر أحدَكم الموت إن ترك خيرا الوصية للوالدين والأقربين بالمعروف حقا على المتقين) (180) سورة البقرة
It is prescribed, When death approaches / Any of you, if he leaves / Any goods, that he makes a bequest / to parents and next of kin, / According to reasonable usage; This is due / From the God-fearing. (2:180)
فالوصية would be expected rather than الوصية .
An example of omitting لام الجواب , i.e. the /la/ that corresponds to, or is the complement of لو /law/ is:
{لَوْ نَشَاء جَعَلْنَاهُ أُجَاجًا فَلَوْلَا تَشْكُرُونَ } (70) سورة الواقعة
Were it Our Will, / We could make it / Salty (and unpalatable) /: then why do ye not / Give thanks? (56; 70)
Arabic normally requires لجعلناه in lieu of جعلناه. It is to be noted that the particle of affirmation /la/ commonly جواب الشرط (the clause of result) when جمله الشرط (the conditional clause) is introduced by لو /law/ “if”.
12. Omission of the Particle قد /qadd/ Accompanying a Past Verb Occurring as الحال /hāl/ (adverb of Manner):
An example of this type of Ellipsis is:
{إِلاَّ الَّذِينَ يَصِلُونَ إِلَىَ قَوْمٍ بَيْنَكُمْ وَبَيْنَهُم مِّيثَاقٌ أَوْ جَآؤُوكُمْ حَصِرَتْ صُدُورُهُمْ أَن يُقَاتِلُوكُمْ أَوْ يُقَاتِلُواْ قَوْمَهُمْ ...} (90) سورة النساء
Except those who join / A group between whom / And you there is a treaty / (Of peace), or those who approach / You with hearts restraining / Them from fighting you / As well as fighting their own / People … (4: part of Verse 90)
Arabic normally requires وقد حصرت “with hearts restraining” it is to be noted, however, that /qadd/, in addition to a verb in the past tense, function as an adverb of manner.
13. Omitting جواب القسم (Complement of the Oath):
In the Verse:
{ق وَالْقُرْآنِ الْمَجِيدِ} (1) سورة ق
Qaf. / By the Glorious Qur’an / (Thou art Allah’s Apostle). (50:1)
The Complement of the Oath is either “thou art Allah’s Apostle” as in the present translation, or “you will live again after you die and become dust. These two interpretations stem from Verses 2 and 3 in the same Sūrah, respectively.13
14. Omission of the Negative Particle لا /lā/ in Oaths:
An example of this case is the Verse:
{قَالُواْ تَالله تَفْتَأُ تَذْكُرُ يُوسُفَ حَتَّى تَكُونَ حَرَضًا أَوْ تَكُونَ مِنَ الْهَالِكِينَ} (85) سورة يوسف
They said: “ By Allah! / (Never) wilt thou cease / To remember Joseph / Until thou die!” (12:85)
Arabic requires لا تفتأ (i.e. in the negative), and that is why the word “never” in the translation is given in parenthesis; it is implied but not overtly expressed.
15. Omission of العائد i.e., an Object Pronoun Referring Back to the Relative Pronoun:
An example is:
{وَإِذَا رَأَوْكَ إِن يَتَّخِذُونَكَ إِلَّا هُزُوًا أَهَذَا الَّذِي بَعَثَ اللَّهُ رَسُولًا} (41) سورة الفرقان
When they see thee, / They treat you no otherwise / Than in mockery: “Is this / The one whom Allah has sent / as an apostle?” (25:41)
Arabic normally requires بعثه (“has sent him”) in place of بعث “has sent” without an object pronoun referring back to the relative pronoun الذي “whom”.
16. Deletion of مرجع الضمير (the Referent of a Pronoun):
By deletion here is meant the hiding of an ellipted element, which is hinted at either by what precedes it or by the context of situation. Examples are:
{إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَاهُ فِي لَيْلَةِ الْقَدْرِ} (1) سورة القدر
We have indeed revealed / This (message) / In the Night of Power: (97:1)
What is meant by the object pronoun in أنزلناه is the Glorious Qur’ān, which is rendered into “this (message)” in the translation.
And,
{فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَعَقَرُوهَا فَدَمْدَمَ عَلَيْهِمْ رَبُّهُم بِذَنبِهِمْ فَسَوَّاهَا * وَلَا يَخَافُ عُقْبَاهَا} (14-15) سورة الشمس
13.Then they rejected him / (As a false prophet), / And they hamstrung her, / So their Lord, on account / of their crime, obliterated / Their traces and made them / Equal (in destruction, High and low)!
14.And for Him / Is no fear / Of its consequences. (91:13-14)
It should be noted here that the pronominal reference in the word عقباها “its consequences” is to obliteration itself, which is not explicitly mentioned in Verse 13, but is rather given in the verbal form of “obliterated”.
17. Ellipsis in Compound Similies:
In addition to the above-mentioned sub-types of Ellipsis, there is one more sub-type, which is very interesting. In this sub-type an element, which should come earlier in the utterance, is ellipted, another counterpart element is given mention later in the utterance, and / or vice versa.
An example of this sub-type is this Verse:
{وَمَثَلُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ كَمَثَلِ الَّذِي يَنْعِقُ بِمَا لاَ يَسْمَعُ إِلاَّ دُعَاء وَنِدَاء صُمٌّ بُكْمٌ عُمْيٌ فَهُمْ لاَ يَعْقِلُونَ } (171) سورة البقرة
The parable of those / Who reject faith is / As if anyone were to shout / Like a goatherd, to things / That listen to nothing / But calls and cries. / Deaf, and Blind, / They are void of wisdom. (2:171)
In this Verse, there is a compound simile between two entities taken together and two more entities as one unit: the Prophet and the Unbelievers on the one hand; and the Shepherd and Herd on the other. However, only the unbelievers are mentioned in the first case; and only the shepherd (one who shouts like a goatherd) is mentioned in the second case.14
Recapitulation:
We have given examples of two types of Ellipsis in the Arabic language as exemplified by the Glorious Qur’ān. The second type falls, in turn, into two sub-types. In Type 1 the Ellipsis is due to the fact that if we are concerned with further clarification and explication of the elliptical structure, we have to resort to a word or more than one word. In type 2, the Ellipsis stems from the fact that the utterance in question requires the presupposition of an ellipted element either for (a) rational or logical considerations, or (b) for grammatical or structural considerations.
However, we confined our discussion of Ellipsis to sub-type 2.b since it is the one that more strictly meets the definition of Ellipsis as considered by modern Linguistics. Quoting Crystal once again, this constraint stresses “the need for the ‘elided’ (or ellipted) parts of the sentence to be unambiguously specifiable” through scrutiny of the utterance itself.
ENDNOTES
1 Crystal, David. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, (Oxford and London: Basil Blackwell in association with André Deutsch, Second Edition, 1987), p.107. Crystal refers the reader interested in a more detailed study of Ellipsis to two important references: R. Quirk et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Longmont 1985) ch.12; and P.H. Mathews, Syntax (Cambridge University Press, 1981), ch. 2.
2 Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. Cohesion in English (Longman, 1976), p. 142.
3 Ibid. , p.144.
4 The system of citing the Qurā’nic Verses is as follows:
(A) The Verse in Arabic is given in its full form, even when the example of Ellipsis pertains to only part of it. The reason for this is to make the context clearer to the reader. The only exception to the inclusion of the whole Verse is when it is too long and the left- out part is irrelevant to Ellipsis.
(B) The Arabic text of the Verse is then followed by an English translation. The translation used in this study is that of Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Glorious Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary, (Lahore, Pakistan; Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1981).
(C) Although Ali gives the translation on incomplete lines, with each line starting with a capital letter, the form followed here renders the translation in complete lines, and preserves capitalization. However, the places where one line ends and the following lines starts are marked by slant lines.
(D) (7:31), for example, means Sūrah (i.e. Chapter) No.7, ’Āyah (i.e. Verse) No. 31.
(E) In some cases other examples of the sub-type of Ellipsis tackled are cited only by Sūrah and Verse numbers in the Endnotes. These further examples are intended for those readers with mastery of the Arabic language, as well as for those interested in doing further research on the same topic.
(F) In case where more than one Verse are cited, the number of each Verse precedes the text, and each Verse starts on a new line.
5 A particularly interesting example of Type I of Ellipsis is to be found in (28:23-24) where there are four instances of object deletion.
7 See also (46:35) for another example of subject deletion
8 It should be noted, however, that this is one of two possible interpretations. The alternative interpretation is “Our Command is obedience and just saying.” In yhe latter case the Verse is an example of subject deletion.
9 The reader may have noticed that in (7:31) we have given a verse with object deletion as an example of Type 1 of Ellipsis, and that we are citing the present example (27:23) as an instance of object deletion. This fact serves to show that some overlapping of the type is possible or even inevitable, and that the same example of Ellipsis can be seen in different lights.
10 This is another testimony for the notion of overlapping or different lights referred to in fn.9 above.
Other examples of the deletion of the annexed are (2:189); and (33:19), (20; 96) where there are multiple mudāf deletions.
El-Khafif (see Bibliography, p 116. points out that the linguist Ibn Jinnī (d. ca. 1002) enumerated about one thousand cases of deleting the annexed. These examples were cited by Sheikh Ezzul-Dīn Ibn Abdilsalam in his book Almajaz .
11 A similar example involving the same type of deletion and even the same conjunction and verb deleted is to be found (2:60)
.
12 Another example is to be found in (6:35).
13 Verse 2 reads as follows: But they wonder that / There has come to them / A warner from among /Themselves / So the unbelievers say: / This is a wonderful thing!
As for the Verse 3, it reads as follows:
“What! When we die / and become dust, (shall we / Live again?). This is / A (sort of) Return / Far (from our understanding).”
14 Other examples of this sub-type of Ellipses, which probably deserves a separate discussion in another paper, are to be found in (27:12), (9:102) and (33:24)
Bibliography
أولاً : المراجع العربية
- القرآن الكريم.
- .
- أبو جناح ، د . صاحب . " المباحث الأسلوبية عند ابن جنى " .
-
- الأقلام . بغداد : دار الشئون الثقافية العامة ، العدد التاسع ، السنة الثالثة والعشرون . أيلول ( سبتمبر) سنة 1988 . ص 38 – 52 .
-
- الجرجاني ، عبد القاهر . دلائل الإعجاز في علم المعاني . القاهرة : مكتبة ومطبعة محمد علي صبيح وأولاده . الطبعة السادسة ، 1960 .
-
- الخفيف ، الشيخ على . " الإيجاز بالحذف في القرآن الكريم " . مجلة مجمع اللغة العربية . مؤتمر الدورة السابعة والثلاثين . القسم الثاني : البحوث . القاهرة ، 1971 . ص.ص 109 – 119 .
-
- العيسوي ، د . عبد الحميد محمد . " من صور الحذف البليغ : الاحتباك " مجلة الأزهر . رمضان 1409 هـ ، إبريل 1989 م ، ص.ص 1052 – 1058 .
-
- كاكيا ، بيير . العريف : معجم في مصطلحات النحو لعربي : عربي إنكليزي ، إنكليزي – عربي . بيروت : مكتبة لبنان ، 1973 .
ثانيًا : المراجع الإنجليزية
Ali, Abdullah Yusuf. The Glorious Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary, (Lahore, Pakistan; Sh.. Muhammad Ashraf, 1981).
Crystal, David. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, (Oxford and London: Basil Blackwell in association with André Deutsch, Second Edition, 1987).
Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. Cohesion in English (Longman, 1976).
Ziadeh, Farahat and R. Bayly Winder. An Introduction to Modern Arabic. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957).
