Why 'لم يكن القرارُ' Is Not Majzūm: Case, Negation, and the Interrupted Predicate
During a grammar review, a 12th-grade student meets this sentence from an unseen editorial: 'لم يكن القرارُ الذي اتخذه المجلسُ مُلزِمًا، لكنّه أثار جدلًا واسعًا.' The student's draft says: 'القرار is majzūm because لم precedes it; مُلزِمًا is marfūʿ because it is the predicate.' The teacher knows the student can recite the categories of kāna but cannot apply them when a relative clause interrupts. The class has 8 minutes. The board shows three labels: ism kāna, khabar kāna, and mafʿūl bihi. The student must justify each case ending using syntactic position, not translation. A second sentence on the board reads: 'إنّ القرارَ الذي اتخذه المجلسُ مُلزِمٌ.' The teacher asks him to compare the two sentences and explain why the case of 'القرار' changes even though the words around it look similar.
1. Correct the student's analysis of the first sentence, naming the case and reason for each of 'القرار' and 'مُلزِمًا'.
Read the worked answer
The student has confused the scope of 'لم'. 'لم' is a jussive particle that affects the verb 'يكن' - it makes the verb majzūm. It does not make a noun majzūm; nouns do not take jussive case. 'يكن' is a nāqiṣ verb: its ism is 'القرار', and that ism is marfūʿ because it is the subject of kāna. 'مُلزِمًا' is khabar kāna and is manṣūb. The relative clause 'الذي اتخذه المجلس' is a ṣila; it interrupts but does not change the case of 'القرار'. So the correct labels are: ism kāna, marfūʿ; khabar kāna, manṣūb.
2. Explain why in 'إنّ القرارَ...' the same noun is manṣūb, and why 'مُلزِمٌ' is marfūʿ.
Read the worked answer
'إنّ' is a ḥarf nāsikh, the mirror image of kāna in case assignment. It makes its ism manṣūb and its khabar marfūʿ. In 'إنّ القرارَ الذي اتخذه المجلسُ مُلزِمٌ', 'القرارَ' is ism inna, manṣūb; 'مُلزِمٌ' is khabar inna, marfūʿ. The relative clause again sits between the noun and its predicate but does not alter the governance. The comparison shows a system: kāna raises the ism and lowers the khabar; inna lowers the ism and raises the khabar. The endings are not random - they are assigned by the governing particle.
3. Analyse 'الذي اتخذه المجلس' - what does the pronoun in 'اتخذه' refer to, and what is the fāʿil? How would the sentence change if 'الذي' were omitted?
Read the worked answer
'الذي' is a relative pronoun. Its clause 'اتخذه المجلس' contains the verb 'اتخذ', the object pronoun '-hu', and the fāʿil 'المجلس'. The pronoun '-hu' refers back to 'القرار' - the resumptive pronoun that links the relative clause to its antecedent. If 'الذي' were omitted, the clause would lose its relative marker and the reader could parse 'اتخذه' as a main verb, producing an ungrammatical or ambiguous string: 'لم يكن القرارُ اتخذه المجلسُ مُلزِمًا' would read as if the decision took the council, not as 'the decision that the council took'. The relative pronoun is therefore not optional here; it marks the clause boundary that keeps the kāna predicate intact.