Kāna, the Diptote, and the Passive: Vowellizing a Single Sentence
Omar is in the final ten minutes of the grammar section. He must vowellize and justify: «كان في المدينةِ ثلاثةُ مساجدَ لم يُبنَ منها إلا واحدٌ.» The mark scheme gives 1 mark for each case ending and 1 for the reason, 12 marks in total. Omar knows «كان» needs an ism and a khabar, but he cannot decide whether «في المدينة» is the fronted khabar with «ثلاثة» as the delayed ism, or whether «ثلاثة» is the ism and the prepositional phrase is the khabar. He also hesitates over «واحدٌ»: the verb «يُبنَ» is passive, so is «واحد» a fa'il, a na'ib fa'il, or a badal? His teacher has warned that «إلا» after a negated passive changes the parsing of what follows. He has four minutes to choose one analysis and defend it; the other five sentences in the section are straightforward.
1. Resolve the kāna clause: is «في المدينة» the khabar or the ism? State the vowelling of «ثلاثة» and «مساجد» and defend one analysis.
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Decision: «في المدينةِ» is the fronted khabar (خبر مقدّم), and «ثلاثةُ» is the delayed ism (اسم مؤخّر) of kāna, marfūʿ.
Reasoning: The ism of kāna must be a noun phrase that can stand as a mubtadaʾ. A prepositional phrase cannot serve as ism, so «في المدينة» cannot be the ism. It must therefore be the khabar, placed before the indefinite ism because the ism is new information and the locative phrase sets the scene.
Vowelling: «ثلاثةُ» takes ḍamma because it is ism kāna. «مساجدَ» is muḍāf ilayh, majrūr, but takes fatḥa because it is a diptote (ممنوع من الصرف) on the pattern مفاعل. Writing «ثلاثةَ» would wrongly make it manṣūb; writing «مساجدِ» with kasra would ignore the diptote rule. The full phrase is therefore «ثلاثةُ مساجدَ».
2. Parse «واحدٌ» and explain what «إلا» does to the clause «لم يُبنَ منها إلا واحدٌ».
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Parsing: «واحدٌ» is nāʾib fāʿil (نائب فاعل) of the passive verb «يُبنَ», marfūʿ.
Reasoning: The passive verb needs something to bear the action. With «إلا», the clause is restrictive (حصر): ‘none of them was built except one’. «منها» is a prepositional phrase attached to the verb and refers back to «مساجد». «إلا» does not make «واحد» manṣūb here, because the preceding verb is passive and «واحد» is the only candidate for nāʾib fāʿil; the exception is from a negated set, so the excepted item takes the case its role requires.
Common error: Calling «واحد» mafʿūl bihi or badal. Both fail: there is no transitive active verb, and there is no matching antecedent in case for a badal reading. The exam is testing whether the candidate can distinguish passive syntax from active syntax under «إلا».
3. A classmate writes «كان في المدينةِ ثلاثةَ مساجدِ لم يُبنَ منها إلا واحدٌ». Identify two vowelling errors and explain the rules, not just the corrections.
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Correction: «كان في المدينةِ ثلاثةُ مساجدَ لم يُبنَ منها إلا واحدٌ».
Error 1: «ثلاثةَ» has fatḥa. It is ism kāna and must be marfūʿ, so it takes ḍamma: «ثلاثةُ». The prepositional phrase «في المدينة» is the khabar, not the ism, so «ثلاثة» cannot be manṣūb as a khabar.
Error 2: «مساجدِ» has kasra. It is muḍāf ilayh and therefore majrūr in principle, but «مساجد» is a diptote (ممنوع من الصرف) on the pattern مفاعل, so the genitive is marked by fatḥa, not kasra: «مساجدَ». It also takes no tanwīn.
Why this matters: The mark scheme awards a reason mark, so writing ‘wrong case’ is not enough. The candidate must name the grammatical role and the relevant rule: ism kāna is marfūʿ; diptotes take fatḥa in jarr.