Breakdown of أين الشقيقان اللذان عندهما رابطة قوية؟
أينayna
where
الal
the
قويqawiyy
strong
عند'inda
at / to have
هماhumâ
their / them (two)
شقيقshaqîq
brother (full)
اللذانalladhâni
the two who (m. dual nom.)
رابطةrâbita
bond; association, league
Questions & Answers about أين الشقيقان اللذان عندهما رابطة قوية؟
Why do we use اللذان here, and why does it end in ـان instead of ـين?
اللذان is the relative pronoun 'who' for masculine dual nouns. It refers back to الشقيقان (the two brothers). Because الشقيقان is in the nominative case (it is the subject of the sentence), the relative pronoun must also match its case. The ـان ending shows it is nominative, whereas اللذين would be used if the brothers were the object of a verb or came after a preposition.
Why is the word for 'they have' written as عندهما and not عندهم?
عند means 'at' or 'with', and we attach a pronoun to it to express possession. Because we are talking about exactly two brothers, we must use the dual pronoun suffix ـهما (them/their for two people) instead of the plural suffix ـهم (them/their for three or more).
I usually see أخ for 'brother'. What does شقيق mean here?
While أخ is the general word for 'brother', شقيق specifically means a 'full brother' (sharing both the same mother and father). The dual form here is الشقيقان (the two full brothers).
What is the grammatical role of رابطة قوية after عندهما?
The phrase عندهما رابطة قوية is a nominal sentence acting as the relative clause. Literally, it means 'at the two of them [is] a strong bond'. Because رابطة (a bond) is the actual subject of this mini-sentence, it takes the nominative case, and its adjective قوية matches it.
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