LessonsA Second Sense of Majāz: Case Changes Through Ellipsis and AdditionQuiz

بِحَذْفِ لَفْظٍ أَوْ زِيَادَةِ لَفْظٍ
Because a word is deleted or another word is added.

With deletion, an understood element is omitted from the spoken construction, and a remaining word may acquire a new syntactic position. With addition, an inserted element changes the grammatical treatment of a following word. The technical term “additional” does not imply that the language serves no rhetorical purpose.

Both processes require comparing an understood underlying structure with the actual wording. Without that comparison, it is easy to confuse semantic transfer with a change described in terms of case assignment.

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Deletion and addition as two mechanisms

A Second Sense of Majāz: Case Changes Through Ellipsis and Addition

بِحَذْفِ لَفْظٍ أَوْ زِيَادَةِ لَفْظٍ
Because a word is deleted or another word is added.

With deletion, an understood element is omitted from the spoken construction, and a remaining word may acquire a new syntactic position. With addition, an inserted element changes the grammatical treatment of a following word. The technical term “additional” does not imply that the language serves no rhetorical purpose.

Both processes require comparing an understood underlying structure with the actual wording. Without that comparison, it is easy to confuse semantic transfer with a change described in terms of case assignment.