SYNGRP: Syntactic Grouping

    From The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric

    الجمع
    SYNGRP: Syntactic Grouping
    CategoryLinguistic Embellishments
    (‘ilm al-badī‘)
    SubcategoryGrouping & Distinguishing
      
    Balagha-Corpus.com
    Corpus dataSee examples
      
    Balaghascore.com
    CodeCB-2
      
    BalaghaBase.org
    CodeQ82
      
    OpenAlex.org
    IDW4415388510
      
    Cite this page
    🔗 DOI10.64393/balagha.Q82
     Download PDF
      
    Taxonomy
    ARDTv0.1.0, v0.1.1
      
    Provenance
    Sources8

    Definition

    Syntactic Grouping (al-jamʿ) is an Arabic rhetorical device where the communicator brings together multiple things under a single predicate or judgment.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

    Linguistic Operations

    • The device requires a minimum of two subjects (shayʾān) and may extend to more (fasāʿidan).[4][5][6]
    • All subjects are brought together under a single predicate or judgment (ḥukm wāḥid).[1][3][4][5][6]

    Recognition

    The following diagnostic tests aid identification, derived from the mechanism observable across source examples:

    • There are multiple subjects or nouns present in the sentence.
    • A single predicate or judgment applies collectively to all of those subjects.

    Diagnostic Pragmatic Effects

    • Equipoise under judgment: By placing multiple — sometimes heterogeneous — subjects beneath a single predicate, al-jamʿ places them on the same rhetorical footing with respect to that judgment. This can be especially striking when the grouped items differ in nature, since the shared predication levels them into one evaluative frame.
    • Argumentative compression: What would otherwise require multiple separate propositions is conveyed in a single utterance, lending the judgment a compact and unified force. The shared predicate can make the statement feel more immediate and concentrated than if each subject were treated independently.
    • Association and transfer of quality: Grouping subjects under one predicate places them in mutual rhetorical association. Subjects elevated by a positive predicate may reinforce one another’s dignity, while subjects condemned by a negative predicate may intensify one another’s blame. The device can therefore function as implicit elevation or condemnation by association.
    • Sense of breadth and comprehensiveness: When several subjects are grouped together under one judgment, the accumulation can create an impression of breadth, suggesting that the judgment extends across a wider field rather than applying to an isolated case.

    Applying the Recognition Framework

    The information on this page can be used to evaluate whether this device is present in a candidate lexical item using the Specific Device Recognition part of the Universal Framework for Identifying Arabic Rhetorical Devices:

    • Use the Definition, Mechanism, and Recognition sections of this page in Step 1.
    • Apply the substitution test in Step 2.
    • Consider contextual indicators in Step 3.
    • Use the Diagnostic Rhetorical Effects section of this page in Step 4.

    Types of Syntactic Grouping

    Nāṣif et al. (2012) illustrate two common numerical patterns of al-jamʿ:[1]

    Type 1: Grouping of two (fī ithnayn)

    Source Example

    ٱلْمَالُ وَٱلْبَنُونَ زِينَةُ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا

    Wealth and children are the adornment of the worldly life.

    Qurʾān 18:46

    Explanation
    Wealth and children are gathered under one predicate: being the adornment of worldly life.[1][3][4][5]
    Constructed Example

    الْعِلْمُ وَالْعَمَلُ أَسَاسُ النَّجَاحِ

    Knowledge and action are the foundation of success.

    Explanation
    Knowledge and action are gathered under one predicate: being the foundation of success.

    Type 2: Grouping of more than two (fī akthar)

    Source Example

    إِنَّمَا الْخَمْرُ وَالْمَيْسِرُ وَالْأَنْصَابُ وَالْأَزْلَامُ رِجْسٌ مِنْ عَمَلِ الشَّيْطَانِ

    Wine, gambling, altars, and divining arrows are filth from the work of Satan.

    Qurʾān 5:90

    Explanation
    Four things are brought together under one judgment: impurity.[1]
    Source Example

    مَنْ أَصْبَحَ آمِناً فِي سِرْبِهِ، مُعَافًى فِي بَدَنِهِ، عِنْدَهُ قُوتُ يَوْمِهِ، فَكَأَنَّمَا حِيزَتْ لَهُ الدُّنْيَا بِحَذَافِيرِهَا

    Whoever wakes safe in his dwelling, healthy in his body, with his day’s sustenance — it is as though the world in its entirety has been gathered for him.

    Attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ

    Explanation
    Security (al-amn), bodily health (al-ʿāfiyah), and daily sustenance (qūt al-yawm) are gathered under one judgment: the equivalent of possessing the whole world.[5]
    Source Example

    آرَاؤُهُ وَعَطَايَاهُ وَنِعْمَتُهُ وَعَفْوُهُ رَحْمَةٌ لِلنَّاسِ كُلِّهِمْ

    His views, his gifts, his bounty, and his forgiveness are a mercy to all men.

    Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī

    Explanation
    Four things — his views, gifts, bounty, and forgiveness — are brought together under one judgment: being a mercy to all people.[6]
    Source Example

    إِنَّ الشَّبَابَ وَالْفَرَاغَ وَالْجِدَةَ مَفْسَدَةٌ لِلْمَرْءِ أَيَّ مَفْسَدَةٍ

    Youth and idleness and passion cause — oh! — such mischief among men!

    al-Waʾwāʾ

    Explanation
    Youth, idleness, and prosperity are brought together under one judgment: being a source of corruption for a person.[6]
    Source Example

    تَرَقْرَقَ مَاءُ مُقْلَتَايَ وَوَجْهُهُ وَيُذْكَى عَلَى قَلْبِي وَوَجْنَتِهِ الْجَمْرُ

    With [diamond] water my eyes and his face glisten, and embers glow both on my heart and on his cheeks.

    Ibn Khafāja al-Andalusī

    Explanation
    The poet combines corresponding elements within shared judgments: the water of his eyes and the beloved’s face are associated under glistening, while his heart and the beloved’s cheek are associated with glowing embers.[6]
    Source Example

    حَيَاتِي وَمَوْتِي فِي يَدَيْهِ وَجَنَّتِي وَنَارِي وَرِيِّي فِي الْهَوَى وَأَوَامِي

    In his hands are laid my life and death, my Paradise and Fire, the slaking of my passion and my thirst.

    Abū al-Durr Yāqūt al-Rūmī

    Explanation
    Life and death, Paradise and Fire, and satisfaction and thirst are brought together within a single governing context: all are placed in the beloved’s hands.[6]
    Constructed Example

    الصِّدْقُ وَالْأَمَانَةُ وَالتَّوَاضُعُ دَعَائِمُ الشَّخْصِيَّةِ الْكَرِيمَةِ

    Truthfulness, trustworthiness, and humility are the pillars of noble character.

    Explanation
    Three qualities — truthfulness, trustworthiness, and humility — are gathered under one judgment: constituting the pillars of noble character.

    Type 3: Enumerative Grouping (al-taʿdīd)

    A form of Syntactic Grouping in which the things sharing the same predicate or judgment are presented as an enumerated succession of individual nouns. Enumerative Grouping may co-occur with pairing (izdiwāj), antithesis (muṭābaqa), paronomasia (tajnīs), or multiple contrast (muqābala).[7]

    Source Example

    ضَنًى وَسُهَادًا وَاصْفِرَارًا وَزَفْرَةً
    وَصَبْرًا وَهَمًّا وَاحْتِرَاقًا وَأَدْمُعَا

    Emaciation, sleeplessness, pallor, a sigh,
    endurance, anxiety, burning, and tears.

    Explanation
    The individual nouns are successively enumerated within the same syntactic grouping, each falling under the same predicate or judgment.[7]

    Different From

    • CE-3: Semantic Grouping where the lexical items are connected by a semantic rather than syntactic relationship. In Syntactic Grouping, the unity arises from shared grammatical predication.

    See Also

    Notes

  • Nāṣif et al. (2012), al-Hāshimī (2019), ʿAkkāwī (1996), ʿAtīq (2002), and al-Nābulusī as presented by Cachia (1998) define al-jamʿ through the same basic mechanism of bringing two or more things together under one judgment, while Heinrichs (1998) renders it as the “combination of several subjects for one predication.”[1][2][3][4][5][6]
  • ʿAkkāwī (1996) notes that ḥusn al-jamʿ (the excellence/elegance of grouping) is the same device as al-jamʿ and that its discussion is subsumed under it.[8]

    References

    1. ↑ a b c d e f Ḥafnī Nāṣif, Muḥammad Diyāb, Sultan Muḥammad and Muṣṭafā Ṭammām, Durūs al-Balāgha (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012), 110, ISBN 9786144162798.
    2. ↑ a b W. P. Heinrichs, ‘Rhetorical Figures’, in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey (London: Routledge, 1998), 658, ISBN 0415068088. DOI: 10.4324/9780203020425
    3. ↑ a b c d Aḥmad al-Hāshimī, Jawāhir al-Balāgha fī al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ (Windsor: Hindāwī Foundation, 2019), 373-374, ISBN 9781527316386.
    4. ↑ a b c d e Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 460.
    5. ↑ a b c d e f ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 155-156.
    6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 43-44; §65, ISBN 9783447040327.
    7. ↑ a b Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), p. 44; §66, ISBN 9783447040327.
    8. ↑ Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 538.



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