أَنْبَتَ الرَّبِيعُ الْبَقْلَ
Spring caused the herbage to grow.
“Anbata” conveys causing growth, and “al-rabīʿ” denotes spring. Both words retain their ordinary lexical meanings. Yet growing is attributed to the season, a temporal or causal associate, not to the ultimate creator of the growth.
The key insight is that rational figurative predication does not require figurative words. A change in attribution is possible even if both lexical elements remain literal.
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Four Types of Rational Figurative Predication: Quranic and Nondeclarative Examples
أَنْبَتَ الرَّبِيعُ الْبَقْلَ
Spring caused the herbage to grow.
“Anbata” conveys causing growth, and “al-rabīʿ” denotes spring. Both words retain their ordinary lexical meanings. Yet growing is attributed to the season, a temporal or causal associate, not to the ultimate creator of the growth.
The key insight is that rational figurative predication does not require figurative words. A change in attribution is possible even if both lexical elements remain literal.