Breakdown of هل سيمنع توجيه الأم ابنتها المشكلة؟
الal
the
هلhal
is / are (question marker)
هhu
his / him (object) / it (dummy pronoun after لأن)
مشكلةmushkila
problem
سsa
will (future prefix)
أمumm
mother
منعmana'a
to prevent / to forbid
ابنةibna
daughter
توجيهtawjîh
guiding
Questions & Answers about هل سيمنع توجيه الأم ابنتها المشكلة؟
Why is ابنتها (her daughter) acting as a direct object when there is no verb immediately preceding it?
It is the direct object of the verbal noun (masdar) توجيه (guiding). In Arabic, a masdar can govern a sentence just like its corresponding verb, meaning it can take its own direct object in the accusative case (ابنتَها). Here, the mother is doing the guiding, and the daughter is the one being guided.
How does the Idafa (genitive construction) work in توجيه الأم if the mother is actually doing the action?
Both ابنتها and المشكلة are direct objects in this sentence. How do we tell which one belongs to which action?
You can figure this out by looking at the word order and grouping the ideas. The phrase توجيه الأم ابنتها acts like a mini-sentence (the mother's guiding of her daughter) that as a whole serves as the subject of the main verb. Once that entire noun phrase is complete, المشكلة appears as the direct object of the main verb at the start of the sentence, سيمنع (will prevent).
Why is the main verb سيمنع (will prevent) in the masculine form when the sentence is about a mother and a daughter?
The grammatical subject of سيمنع is توجيه (guiding), not the mother or the daughter. Because توجيه is a masculine noun, the verb must be conjugated in the masculine form to agree with it.
Is there another way to express guiding her daughter without using the accusative case for the daughter?
Yes! Instead of having the masdar directly govern an accusative object, you will frequently see the preposition لِـ (to/for) used in this type of structure. You could say توجيه الأم لابنتها, which means the exact same thing but avoids the complex double-object grammar we see in this sentence.
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