Maqbool Ahmad

29th April, 2015

(2:235:31) Should not حَتَّىٰ only affect on يَبْلُغَ ? But it also makes " مجرور" يَبْلُغَ الْكِتَابُ أَجَلَهُ .

Is is acting both as حرف جار & نواصب مضارع ?

Abdul Rahman

1st May, 2015

حَتَّىٰ is a particle which can perform several functions. In this case (2:235:31), I think it is not appropriate to describe it as حرف جار. It is only حرف جار when it is placed before a noun. Here it is حرف نواصب مضارع. According to the terminology used in this website, it should be tagged SUB- subordinating conjunction . Please refer to this page http://corpus.quran.com/documentation/mood.jsp

So, the tag here should be

SUB - subordinating conjunction حرف نواصب مضارع

Abdul Rahman

1st May, 2015

In only 7 out of a total of 95 occurrences of the word in the Quran, حَتَّىٰ is it correctly tagged as P - preposition because it is placed before an ism. When placed before a verb, it cannot be called حرف جار.

Mazhar A. Nurani

1st May, 2015

Tag is correct. It is a preposition. The source book of syntactic analysis says:

«حَتَّى يَبْلُغَ» المصدر المؤول من أن المضمرة بعد حتى والفعل يبلغ في محل جر بحرف الجر وهما متعلقان بتعزموا

Abdul Rahman

2nd May, 2015

This is precisely the problem, because what is "majroor" here is the المصدر المؤول and not the actual verb that follows immediately after the particle. What we can see is that, governed by the particle, the imperfect verb becomes "mansoob" -- subjunctive mood. This is a simple rule which is easily understood. Otherwise you have to explain that after حتى there is an implicit particle أن and it is this implicit particle together with the verb which takes the quality of a verbal noun, which being governed by the حرف الجر, becomes "majroor" so that the phrase should be understood as if it was written حتى بُلُوغِ الْكِتَابِ أَجَلَهُ. Wallahu a'alam.