Formal Modern Standard Arabic often evaluates an entire proposition before naming any human evaluator: يبدو أنَّ... “it seems that...,” من الواضح أنَّ... “it is clear that...,” and يُعتقد أنَّ... “it is believed that....” English begins these translations with dummy it. Arabic has no corresponding pronoun: the clause itself supplies what seems, is clear, or is believed.
These patterns are sometimes called “raising-like” because English can alternate between It seems that the plan works and The plan seems to work. The label is useful only if it does not obscure Arabic structure. Impersonal يبدو أنَّ الخطةَ... evaluates a proposition; personal تبدو الخطةُ قابلةً... has an overt grammatical subject and a predicative complement. The two frames overlap in meaning but differ in case, agreement, and information structure.
The broader subject-control and raising-like overview introduces the finite complement architecture; this page concentrates on evidential stance and advanced formal usage.
A scale of stance, not interchangeable ornaments
| Frame | Usual stance | Source profile | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| يبدو أَنَّ... | appearance or inference from available signs | speaker/writer inference | neutral-to-formal |
| مِنَ الْوَاضِحِ أَنَّ... | strong claim that evidence makes the conclusion clear | writer assumes accessible grounds | formal/academic |
| يُعْتَقَدُ أَنَّ... | belief attributed without naming its holder | community, literature, or unspecified analysts | formal/academic/journalistic |
| تَشِيرُ الْبَيَانَاتُ إِلَى أَنَّ... | inference explicitly anchored in evidence | named data | academic/journalistic |
Choosing among them changes epistemic responsibility. من الواضح is stronger than يبدو; يُعتقد attributes a belief but does not identify evidence. Good academic prose does not use an impersonal passive to make a controversial conclusion appear universally accepted.
يبدو أن الخطة قابلة للتنفيذ ضمن الميزانية الحالية.
yabdū ʾanna l-khuṭṭata qābilatun lit-tanfīdhi ḍimna l-mīzāniyyati l-ḥāliyya.
It seems that the plan is feasible within the current budget. (Formal inference.)
Heavy أنَّ assigns accusative to الخطةَ. Predicate قابلةٌ is nominative and feminine singular. Nothing in يبدو or أنَّ makes a following imperfect subjunctive.
من الواضح أن العينتين لا تمثلان جميع السكان.
mina l-wāḍiḥi ʾanna l-ʿayyinatayni lā tumaththilāni jamīʿa s-sukkān.
It is clear that the two samples do not represent the whole population. (Academic; dual noun of أنّ.)
The dual accusative العينتينِ is the noun of أنَّ. Predicate verb تمثلانِ remains indicative with its agreement nūn because heavy أنَّ does not govern mood.
Impersonal passive reporting
In يُعتقد أنَّ..., passive Form VIII يُعْتَقَدُ is normally third-person masculine singular. It does not agree with the first noun inside the following clause, because that noun belongs to أنَّ, not to the matrix passive verb.
يعتقد أن السياسة الجديدة ستخفض استهلاك الطاقة في المباني العامة.
yuʿtaqadu ʾanna s-siyāsata l-jadīdata satukhaffiḍu stihlāka ṭ-ṭāqati fī l-mabānī l-ʿāmma.
It is believed that the new policy will reduce energy consumption in public buildings. (Formal; fully parsed reportive frame.)
The matrix governor is passive يُعتقدُ. Heavy أنَّ governs accusative السياسةَ; الجديدةَ agrees with it; future predicate ستخفضُ is indicative; استهلاكَ is its direct object. English linear order gives no reliable shortcut to those case relations.
يعتقد كثير من الباحثين أن السياسة الجديدة ستخفض استهلاك الطاقة.
yaʿtaqidu kathīrun mina l-bāḥithīna ʾanna s-siyāsata l-jadīdata satukhaffiḍu stihlāka ṭ-ṭāqa.
Many researchers believe that the new policy will reduce energy consumption. (Active attribution.)
The active paraphrase is usually better when the source can be named. The passive is valuable when consensus is genuinely broad, the holder is irrelevant, or the preceding text has already established whose view is being summarized.
Personal يبدو and the raising-like alternation
Arabic can also put the evaluated entity in the matrix clause: تبدو النتائجُ مستقرةً. Here النتائج is the nominative subject of تبدو, and مستقرةً is an accusative predicative complement. Because النتائج is a nonhuman plural, it triggers feminine-singular agreement.
تبدو النتائج مستقرة، لكن الفترة المرصودة قصيرة.
tabdū n-natāʾiju mustaqirratan, lākinna l-fatrata l-marṣūdata qaṣīra.
The results seem stable, but the observed period is short. (Formal/academic.)
يبدو أن النتائج مستقرة، لكن الفترة المرصودة قصيرة.
yabdū ʾanna n-natāʾija mustaqirratun, lākinna l-fatrata l-marṣūdata qaṣīra.
It seems that the results are stable, but the observed period is short. (Propositional framing.)
The first version makes النتائج the discourse topic and describes their appearance. The second makes the writer's inference the frame for the complete proposition. Calling this an alternation does not mean that an Arabic noun has literally moved out of an infinitive, as an English-centered analysis might suggest.
The personal frame also agrees normally with human subjects:
يبدو الخبيران واثقين من سلامة الإجراء بعد الاختبار الأخير.
yabdū l-khabīrāni wāthiqayni min salāmati l-ʾijrāʾi baʿda l-ikhtibāri l-ʾakhīr.
The two experts seem confident that the procedure is sound after the latest test. (Formal; verb-first singular, dual predicative complement.)
Preverbal يبدو is singular in neutral VSO; nominative الخبيرانِ is its dual subject; accusative واثقينِ agrees with that subject. Do not let English seem confident erase Arabic case.
Clausal scope and evidential commitment
The stance expression normally has scope over the entire following أنَّ proposition. Negation can either deny the embedded claim or deny the evaluator's confidence, and those are not the same.
يبدو أن اللجنة لن توافق على الصيغة الحالية.
yabdū ʾanna l-lajnata lan tuwāfiqa ʿalā ṣ-ṣīghati l-ḥāliyya.
It appears that the committee will not approve the current wording. (Negation is inside the proposition.)
لا يبدو أن اللجنة ستوافق على الصيغة الحالية.
lā yabdū ʾanna l-lajnata satuwāfiqu ʿalā ṣ-ṣīghati l-ḥāliyya.
It does not appear that the committee will approve the current wording. (The positive inference is denied.)
The two sentences often support a similar practical expectation, but the first positively infers nonapproval; the second withholds an inference of approval. In legal or scientific argument, that scope difference can matter.
Evidence may be named explicitly with تشير ... إلى أنَّ:
تشير بيانات الأشهر الستة الأخيرة إلى أن معدل الأعطال انخفض بعد تحديث النظام.
tushīru bayānātu l-ʾashhuri s-sittati l-ʾakhīrati ʾilā ʾanna muʿaddala l-ʾaʿṭāli nkhafaḍa baʿda taḥdīthi n-niẓām.
Data from the last six months indicate that the failure rate fell after the system update. (Academic; evidence is explicit.)
This is often preferable to bare من الواضح because the reader can inspect the claimed basis. The preposition إلى belongs to تشير and must not be dropped before the clause.
Register and older alternatives
All three core frames are productive in contemporary formal MSA. يُقال، يُعتقد، يُفترض are conventional reportive passives in journalism and scholarship. Personal patterns such as بدا لي الأمرُ... remain current. Older elevated prose may omit more recoverable material, but there is no benefit in imitating Classical ellipsis when a modern أنَّ clause states the scope clearly. Formal does not mean archaizing.
Common Mistakes
Supplying an English dummy pronoun
❌ هو يبدو أن الخطة ناجحة، وهو لا يعود على اسم سابق.
Incorrect—Arabic does not insert هو as a meaningless counterpart of English dummy ‘it.’
✅ يبدو أن الخطة تحقق أهدافها حتى الآن.
yabdū ʾanna l-khuṭṭata tuḥaqiqu ʾahdāfahā ḥattā l-ʾān.
It appears that the plan is meeting its objectives so far.
Making the verb agree with a noun inside أنَّ
❌ تعتقد أن النتائج ستتغير قريبا، والمقصود مبني للمجهول.
Incorrect for impersonal ‘it is believed’—use masculine-singular passive يُعتقد; النتائج belongs inside the embedded proposition.
✅ يعتقد أن النتائج ستتغير بعد اكتمال التجربة.
yuʿtaqadu ʾanna n-natāʾija satataghayyaru baʿda ktimāli t-tajriba.
It is believed that the results will change after the experiment is completed.
Treating heavy أنَّ as a subjunctive governor
❌ من الواضح أن الباحثون يختلفوا في تفسير النتيجة.
Incorrect—أنَّ requires accusative الباحثينَ, while predicate يختلفونَ remains indicative.
✅ من الواضح أن الباحثين يختلفون في تفسير النتيجة.
mina l-wāḍiḥi ʾanna l-bāḥithīna yakhtalifūna fī tafsīri n-natīja.
It is clear that the researchers differ in their interpretation of the result.
Losing case on a personal predicative complement
❌ يبدو المقترح مناسب للمرحلة الحالية.
Incorrect in fully inflected formal analysis—the nominative subject المقترحُ takes accusative predicative مناسبًا after يبدو.
✅ يبدو المقترح مناسبا للمرحلة التجريبية فقط.
yabdū l-muqtaraḥu munāsiban lil-marḥalati t-tajrībiyyati faqaṭ.
The proposal seems suitable only for the pilot phase.
Presenting source-free belief as established fact
❌ يعتقد أن العلاج فعال، ولذلك ثبتت فعاليته.
Faulty reasoning—an impersonal belief report does not itself establish the truth of the proposition.
✅ تشير نتائج التجربة إلى أن العلاج قد يكون فعالا، لكن الأدلة ما زالت محدودة.
tushīru natāʾiju t-tajribati ʾilā ʾanna l-ʿilāja qad yakūnu faʿʿālan, lākinna l-ʾadillata mā zālat maḥdūda.
The trial results indicate that the treatment may be effective, but the evidence remains limited. (Academic caution.)
Key Takeaways
- Impersonal Arabic uses no dummy counterpart of English it; the following proposition supplies the evaluated content.
- Heavy أنَّ assigns accusative to its noun but does not govern the mood of its predicate verb.
- Personal يبدو + subject + predicative and impersonal يبدو أنَّ + proposition differ in case, agreement, and information structure.
- يبدو، من الواضح، يُعتقد, and evidence-anchored تشير ... إلى أنَّ express different levels and sources of commitment.
- Passive attribution is a discourse choice, not permission to hide a relevant source or inflate uncertainty into consensus.
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Start learning Arabic →Related Topics
- Subject Control and Raising-Like PredicatesB2 — Build finite complements after أراد، حاول، استطاع, and يبدو while tracking reference, mood, and overt embedded subjects.
- Impersonal and Reportive PassivesB2 — Use يقال, يعتقد, and يسمح with clauses and prepositional complements to report claims, beliefs, and permissions without a dummy subject.
- أنّ + Nominalized Content ClausesB1 — Embed facts and propositions with أنّ while tracking its accusative noun, nominative predicate, and role in the larger sentence.
- Nominalized Clauses and Verbal-Noun StyleC1 — Choose among أنّ clauses, أنْ clauses, and lexical maṣdars while preserving participant roles, case, and readable formal style.
- Conditional, Exceptive, and Restrictive InteractionsC1 — Control the scope and case of إنما, ما...إلا, إلا إذا, and لولا when restriction, exception, and condition overlap.