Original and Dependent Metaphor: Generic Nouns, Verbs, Derivatives and Particles

1. A new classification by the borrowed expression

والاستعارة باعتبار اللفظ المستعار قسمان
Metaphor has two kinds when classified by the borrowed expression.

Here the criterion is not whether the source and target are sensory or conceptual. We inspect the kind of expression borrowed. An expression functioning as a generic noun, literally or through an accepted interpretation, gives an original metaphor (aṣliyyah). Metaphor in verbs, derivatives, and particles is classified as dependent (tabaʿiyyah).

Both require resemblance and a contextual clue. The division concerns the linguistic point at which the transfer is established, not whether the metaphor is more or less beautiful.

2. Generic nouns, literally and by interpretation

A generic noun (ism al-jins) denotes a class or kind. Thus “asad” ordinarily denotes the kind lion rather than naming one specific individual. A salient resemblance can make that class-name available for metaphorical transfer.

A literal generic noun already expresses a kind by its conventional meaning. A generic noun by interpretation results when a famous proper name is treated as denoting a class of people sharing its celebrated trait. This does not happen automatically whenever a personal name is mentioned.

The distinction explains why the metaphorical use of “lion” is straightforward, while a famous name requires a special semantic interpretation.

3. The original metaphor in “asad”

رأيتُ أسداً يرمي
I saw a lion shooting arrows.

The reference to shooting arrows rules out the literal animal and points to a brave person. The source is a lion, the target a courageous human, and the shared quality bravery. As “asad” is a generic noun, the borrowed use is an original metaphor.

“Yarmī” functions as the clue, while courage is the resemblance. The feature justifying the transfer is not identical with the clue that prevents a literal reading.

4. When a famous proper name denotes a type

Some personal names become famous for a conspicuous trait. “Ḥātim,” for example, may evoke generosity. Calling another generous person “Ḥātim” presents that person as belonging, by rhetorical claim, to the kind of exceptionally generous people.

The proper name is being interpreted as a class-name; the metaphor can therefore be treated as original. Simply mentioning a historical person does not produce such a metaphor.

Contrast: “Ḥātim arrived” can be literal when it refers to the named person. “This host is a Ḥātim” can be figurative when used to magnify generosity.

5. A source noun denoting an intensive action

وقتل
And killing.

The noun “qatl” fundamentally denotes killing. When the expression is borrowed to portray a different act as exceptionally severe, the intensity associated with killing becomes the basis of the metaphor.

The critical point is that the borrowed expression is the action-noun or verbal noun itself, not a finite verb formed from it. Under the generic-noun analysis, a metaphor in the action-noun is original. It does not assert that every severe blow literally causes death.

6. Core comparison: aṣliyyah and tabaʿiyyah

CriterionOriginalDependent
ExpressionGeneric noun, literally or by interpretationVerb, derivative, particle, related forms
MechanismTransfer in the noun's meaning directlyTransfer through an underlying meaning or relation
Example“Lion” for a brave person“Spoke” of a situation

This is more than affixing a grammatical label. For a verb or derivative, the account of the metaphor traces the transfer through the meaning from which the form or relation is understood.

7. Why a metaphor in a verb is dependent

A verb includes an event-meaning and a temporal or grammatical relation. If the verb is applied to an event resembling its ordinary action, rhetorical analysis first considers the underlying action or verbal-noun meaning.

“Speaking” ordinarily describes articulated communication by a speaker. When applied to the eloquence of circumstances, one first likens what circumstances reveal to what speech communicates, then expresses the resemblance in the derived verbal form.

The metaphor is called dependent because the derived form follows a more basic semantic transfer instead of constituting an independent transfer at the level of a generic noun.

8. Distinguishing verb, verbal noun, and class noun

“Qatl” is the verbal noun: the action of killing conceived nominally.
“Qatala” is a past-tense verb: it presents that event as occurring in the past.
“Qātil” is an active participle: it characterizes an agent through the act.

The forms share a root, but the kind of borrowed expression differs. A nominal transfer can be analyzed as original, whereas a verb or derivative contains a dependent assignment of the transferred meaning.

Sharing a root is therefore not sufficient to assign the same metaphorical category to every form.

9. How a derivative acquires metaphorical meaning

Participles and related derivatives establish a relation between a bearer and an action or quality. In metaphorical use, a source action or quality is applied to a resembling situation; a derivative then characterizes a person or object by that transferred meaning.

For illustration, describing harsh criticism as “wounding” does not assert a physical injury. It maps the painful effect of criticism onto a wound and then uses a derivative to express that effect.

The decisive feature is the derivative's dependence on an underlying meaning: criticism is depicted through the effect of a wound, then characterized by the transferred quality.

10. Qualitative forms and their nominal character

An adjectival quality often characterizes a subject more stably than a finite event does. For this reason, the semantic status of qualitative derivatives raises an issue: does a particular use transfer a class-like nominal meaning, or does it carry its transferred quality through the derivative's relation to its bearer?

The commentary discusses this tension. One treatment emphasizes the relative independence of the quality; another insists on the dependent character of derived predication.

The label cannot be decided by external word-shape alone. One must understand what the expression means and how its formation is being analyzed.

11. Dependent metaphor is not restricted to verbs

The dependent category covers more than finite verbs. Participles, other derivatives, and particles are also discussed under it.

In verbs and derivatives, the analysis often begins with the meaning of an underlying action or quality. In a particle, however, we do not have an independently denoted agent or event: the significant element is a relation or attachment between meanings.

These expressions are grouped because their metaphoric transfer depends on something beyond a self-contained generic noun, even though their grammatical structures are not alike.

12. Why particles differ from independent nouns

Particles such as “min,” “fī,” “ilā,” and the lām of purpose express relations requiring connected terms. The relation denoted by “fī,” for instance, is intelligible in context by identifying what is in what.

Metaphor in a particle is not explained merely by substituting one independent noun for another. The issue is how one kind of relational meaning is likened to another.

Terms such as beginning, containment, and end-point can name relational meanings for analysis, but those names should not erase the particle's dependence on its grammatical attachments.

13. Two ways to view a particle’s meaning

We can discuss a particle on two levels. First, its use in a particular sentence: what precisely is related to what? Second, the general relation analysts name, for example, “containment.”

A name for a general relation can be conceived separately, but a particle used in speech depends on its attachments. Mixing these levels obscures the classification.

Accordingly, one account first metaphorically transfers the relational content or what the particle connects and then regards the particle's actual use as dependent on that transfer.

14. The relational meaning in “fī niʿmah”

في نعمة
In blessing; that is, in a condition of blessing.

The phrase shows that “fī” is not confined in usage to a physical object inside a physical container. A condition can be conceived as something surrounding or embracing its bearer.

A rhetorical explanation relates physical containment to being enveloped by a state. The particle's use then follows that understood relation. This does not make every nonspatial use automatically the same species of metaphor without further examination.

15. A subtle issue in analyzing particles

One analysis of particle metaphors locates the transfer in the relations among the attached meanings, while the particle retains its conventional relational role. Another conceives a general relational meaning and traces the metaphor to the relation itself.

The first approach considers a new yet analogous attachment; the second asks whether the type of relation is borrowed.

This is more than a terminological disagreement: it explains why the particle's metaphor is called dependent and where the initial figurative transfer is taken to occur.

16. “Naṭaqat al-ḥāl”: the apparent impossibility

نَطَقَتِ الْحَالُ بِكَذَا
The circumstances spoke of this; that is, the circumstances made the fact clear.

“Naṭaqa” literally refers to speech by a speaker. A situation does not articulate words with a human tongue. Yet the clear indications provided by circumstances are likened to the communicative force of speech.

Clue: the state or situation appears as the subject of “spoke.”
Shared feature: conveying and making a meaning evident.

The metaphor concerns the situation's evidential force, not possession of an actual speech organ.

17. The dependent transfer in two stages

Stage 1: The evidential force of circumstances is likened to the communication performed by actual speech.
Stage 2: The underlying notion of speaking is borrowed for that nonverbal manifestation of meaning.
Stage 3: The figurative action is then expressed in the past-tense form “naṭaqat” and predicated of the situation.

The verbal metaphor thus rests on an earlier consideration of the action-meaning, which is why it is termed dependent. Merely observing that “situations do not speak” misses the intellectual mechanism.

18. Rhetorical gain beyond plain reporting

A plain sentence could say, “The evidence made the matter clear.” It conveys the fact but does not create the picture of speech. “Naṭaqat al-ḥāl” personifies circumstances as a witness speaking aloud.

The expression intensifies the certainty and clarity of what the situation discloses: the circumstances seem to testify for themselves.

This also illustrates the literal–figurative distinction. Actual speaking belongs to a speaker; the “speech” of circumstances is transferred. Reducing “spoke” to a flat synonym of “showed” loses the rhetoric.

19. Why the transfer is not merely metonymy

Metonymy (majāz mursal) is based on a connection other than resemblance, such as cause or part. In “naṭaqat al-ḥāl,” the analysis depends on a resemblance in making a meaning intelligible: circumstances clarify facts as speech does.

Merely observing that both circumstances and speech cause understanding would not describe the full evocative picture. The metaphor portrays a silent situation as if it were making an articulate declaration.

The intended meaning, the resemblance, and the derived verbal predication should therefore be distinguished in explaining this dependent metaphor.

20. A dependent metaphor involving the lām

فَالْتَقَطَهُ آلُ فِرْعَوْنَ لِيَكُونَ لَهُمْ عَدُوًّا وَحَزَنًا
Pharaoh's household picked him up, with the outcome that he would become their enemy and a cause of grief.

The lām of purpose normally connects an action with its intended goal. Here the household did not adopt Moses in order to make him their enemy. Enmity and grief were the actual consequence.

Rhetorical analysis relates the unavoidable outcome to an intended goal, then explains the special use of the lām through that conceptual relation.

21. Intended end versus actual consequence

An intended purpose is what motivates an action. An outcome is what follows, whether or not the agent intended it.

Pharaoh's family took the child in, not to create an enemy, but the subsequent event became one of enmity and grief for them. Describing such an unintended but eventual result in the language of an end gives the sentence its striking rhetoric.

Incorrect: “Because the lām occurs, the household must have intended enmity.”
Correct: The particle has to be interpreted in light of context and the actual consequence.

22. Where resemblance lies in the purposive lām

In one analysis, the final cause or intended end is likened to the eventual result. The lām normally marking a goal is then used where the sentence concerns the event's consequence.

The metaphor does not simply compare the letters of “lām” with some other particle. It concerns two relations: the connection between an act and its intended purpose, and the connection between an act and its inevitable outcome.

The label “lām of consequence” is useful, but it does not substitute for explaining that relational resemblance.

23. The dependent steps of the lām of consequence

1. Purpose and consequence are related because each may stand after an initiating act in an ordered account.
2. The link between an act and an outcome is portrayed through the link between an act and an intended end.
3. The lām is used in accordance with that transferred relation, and its use is treated as dependent metaphor.

This does not turn every effect into a literal intention. The rhetorical expression keeps the difference in reality while borrowing a way of presenting the relation.

24. The contextual clue for a particle metaphor

The force of “li-yakūna lahum ʿaduwwan wa ḥazanan” cannot be determined from the letter lām in isolation. The verb fa-ltaqaṭahu, the agency of Pharaoh's household, and the subsequent enmity and sorrow show that producing an enemy was not their purpose.

This is the contextual clue. Treating the particle as though it carried one mechanically fixed sense everywhere would misread the account.

Both verbal and particle metaphors require analysis of the prior meaning or relation through which the expression comes to be used figuratively.

25. Metaphor, emphasis, and false literal claims

In metaphor, the expression is applied beyond its ordinary literal referent through resemblance, while context blocks that literal reading. “The circumstances spoke” therefore does not claim that an inanimate situation articulated words through a mouth.

Likewise, a consequence expressed through the grammar of purpose does not falsely assert that Pharaoh's household deliberately wanted to create an enemy.

Rhetorical intensification can make truth more vivid, but neglecting the clue that excludes literal meaning converts a figurative portrayal into an inappropriate literal claim.

26. Comparative classification of examples

ExpressionTypeReason
Raʾaytu asadan yarmīOriginalThe generic noun “lion” is borrowed
“This man is a Ḥātim”Original, by interpretationA famous name is treated as a type
Naṭaqat al-ḥālDependentA transferred action-meaning underlies the verb
Li-yakūna lahum ʿaduwwanDependentPurpose and consequence are related through the lām

The readings involving a famous name or an unusual verb still require a genuinely figurative context. Mechanical grammatical identification is not enough.

27. A reliable method for analyzing dependent metaphors

For a new example, proceed in order:
1. Identify the literal and intended uses.
2. Determine whether the borrowed expression is a generic noun, verb, derivative, or particle.
3. For a dependent form, identify the underlying event, quality, or relation.
4. Separate the resemblance from the clue excluding literal meaning.
5. Only then assign the classification as original or dependent.

This produces an account of the structure of the figurative use, not merely a translation of the sentence.

28. Resolving frequent conceptual errors

Error 1: Every noun metaphor must be original. Not so: derivatives and qualitative forms require closer analysis, and original metaphor is linked to generic-noun status, literally or by interpretation.

Error 2: A borrowed verb transfers only its written letters. The dependent account considers the prior action-meaning or relation.

Error 3: A result marked by the lām of consequence becomes the agent's literal intention. The real distinction survives; the rhetoric merely presents one relation through the other.

Error 4: Every nonliteral expression is a metaphor. Metonymy, allusion, and other devices must be distinguished by their own criteria.

29. Worked classification cases

“Lion” for a courageous man: original, because the borrowed word is a generic noun.
“Ḥātim” for a remarkably generous host: original by interpretation, because the name is treated as a class-term.
“Naṭaqat al-ḥāl”: dependent, because nonverbal disclosure is likened to speech and then expressed as a verb.
“Li-yakūna lahum ʿaduwwan wa ḥazanan”: a particle-based dependent explanation; consequence is portrayed through purpose.

The classification may change in a different context. It concerns a particular figurative use, not the dictionary entry in isolation.

30. Synthesis and the next inquiry

In an original metaphor, a generic noun is borrowed, or a famous proper name is understood as a generic designation through its associated quality. A dependent metaphor involves a verb, derivative, or particle whose figurative use rests on an earlier meaning or relation.

Two key cases summarize the lesson:
“Naṭaqat al-ḥāl” applies the communicative action of speech to a situation's indications.
“Li-yakūna lahum ʿaduwwan wa ḥazanan” frames an unintended outcome through the grammar of purpose.

The next inquiry refines exactly where the initial figurative transfer occurs in dependent metaphors and how that relates to verbs, derivatives, and contextual clues.