Cognate accusative for emphasis

The Cognate Accusative for Emphasis (المفعول المطلق المؤكد للفعل)

In English, we emphasize that an action truly happened using adverbs like "really" or "totally." Arabic achieves this using the cognate accusative (المفعول المطلق).

To create a cognate accusative, follow the main verb with its own indefinite verbal noun (مصدر).

Rules for the Emphatic Cognate Accusative

To use the cognate accusative purely for emphasis (مؤكد للفعل) to assert the reality of an action:

• Derivation: The noun must be the exact verbal noun (مصدر) derived from the main verb's root.
• Case: It must be in the indefinite accusative case (منصوب), typically ending with (ـاً).
• No Adjectives: For this specific type of emphasis, the verbal noun must stand alone. Adding an adjective changes the function from emphasizing that the action happened to describing how it happened.

Notice how the indefinite accusative verbal noun anchors the verb's action to assert its reality:

You can use this structure multiple times in a single sentence to emphasize a chain of grueling events:

Emphasizing Complex Verbs

The cognate accusative works exactly the same way with more complex verbs. Just use the specific verbal noun pattern that corresponds to the verb form. Here, the verb استنزف (to drain) pairs with its verbal noun استنزافا, and أنهك (to exhaust) pairs with إنهاكا: