SYNGRP: Syntactic Grouping

    From The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric

    الجمع
    SYNGRP: Syntactic Grouping
    CategoryLinguistic Embellishments
    (‘ilm al-badī‘)
    SubcategoryGrouping & Distinguishing
    Built upon6 sources
      
    Annotation Unit
    ARDT CodeSYNGRP
    Level1
     Has 3 Level2 subunits
      
    Included in Taxonomy
    ARDTv0.1.1
    v0.1.0
      
    External Identifiers
    BALAGHAScoreCB-2
    BalaghaBaseQ82
    OpenAlexW4415388510
      
    Applications
    BalaghaCorpusSee examples
     
    Cite this page
    🔗 Live DOI10.64393/balagha.Q82
     
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    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 Communicative Enhancements

    • 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 Communicative Enhancements section of this page in Step 4.

    Types of Syntactic Grouping

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

    SYNGRP-GT: Grouping of Two (fī ithnayn)

    Q299

    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]

    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.

    Patience and persistence are essential for success.

    Explanation
    Two things — patience and persistence — are brought together under one judgment: being essential for success.

    SYNGRP-GM: Grouping of More Than Two (fī akthar)

    Q300

    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]

    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]

    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]

    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]

    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]

    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]

    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.

    Honesty, patience, and courage are essential qualities of a good leader.

    Explanation
    Three qualities — honesty, patience, and courage — are brought together under one judgment: being essential qualities of a good leader.

    SYNGRP-EG: Enumerative Grouping (al-taʿdīd)

    Q301

    Enumerative Grouping (al-taʿdīd), also known as siyāqat al-aʿdād, is a related form in which a number of individual nouns are successively presented within a single syntactic or rhetorical sequence.[7][8][9] Unlike the basic form of Syntactic Grouping, which brings multiple things together under one judgment, the rhetorical organisation here lies in the patterned accumulation of the enumerated nouns. The sequence may additionally employ pairing (izdiwāj), antithesis (muṭābaqa), paronomasia (tajnīs), or multiple contrast (muqābala).[7][9]

    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]

    الْخَيْلُ وَاللَّيْلُ وَالْبَيْدَاءُ تَعْرِفُنِي
    وَالسَّيْفُ وَالرُّمْحُ وَالْقِرْطَاسُ وَالْقَلَمُ

    Horses, night, and the desert know me,
    as do the sword, the spear, paper, and the pen.

    al-Mutanabbī

    Explanation
    The first hemistich groups three subjects — horses, night, and the desert — under the common predicate "know me," and therefore exemplifies Type 2 Syntactic Grouping. In the second hemistich, the nouns are more elaborately organised as an enumerated sequence: "the sword and the spear" form a martial pair, while "paper and the pen" form a literary pair. The two pairs are themselves set in conceptual contrast, presenting the poet as accomplished both in warfare and in letters. The example therefore illustrates how Enumerative Grouping may be strengthened through additional rhetorical patterning.[9]

    بِالْعِلْمِ وَالْقَلَمِ، وَبِالشَّجَاعَةِ وَالسَّيْفِ، يَبْنِي الْإِنْسَانُ مَجْدَهُ.

    Through knowledge and the pen, and through courage and the sword, a person builds his glory.

    Explanation
    The enumeration is organised into two related pairs: knowledge and the pen belong to the sphere of learning and writing, while courage and the sword belong to the sphere of martial action. The two pairs are successively presented within one rhetorical sequence, giving the enumeration an internal pattern rather than forming a simple list.

    He studied whatever interested him, without thinking about exhaustion, debt, responsibilities, or career.

    Explanation
    Four individual nouns — exhaustion, debt, responsibilities, and career — are successively enumerated within a single rhetorical sequence. Their accumulation builds an increasingly broad picture of the practical pressures he disregards.

    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.[10]

    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 c 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), 382.
    9. ↑ a b c 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), 587.
    10. ↑ 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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