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Thanks for pointing that out.  Examining the surrounding verses has caused me to reconsider my earlier replies.  To quote your earlier post... "I will have to give this some more thought"   

Thanks for your post.

The prefix إِلۡ is ...

I'm not sure it meets the definition of a prefix since it is written as a separate word

The prefix إِلۡ is ... not likely to be the definite article (the) because the definite article never occurs with a Kasra in Arabic.

Agreed -- and I find that huruf has already proven this to my satisfaction by pointing out "You are mixing up two different roots. you equate 'ill with 'aal. They are two different words from two different roots."

The suffix يَاسِين is peculiar in that it phonetically spells out the first verse of chapter 36, whether this has any bearing on the meaning I cannot say.

Interesting


Again, what is unique about this is that when the Quran is parsed into words, numerous translators and institutions have chosen to treat these two words as one.  Even though the Quran has other proper names which consist of multiple words, they are parsed as multiple words, e.g.
Dhul-Kifl written as two words (separated by space) ذَا ٱلْكِفْلِ and parsed as 2 words:
38:48:4 وَذَا
38:48:5 ٱلْكِفْلِ

"إِلْ يَاسِينَ" is the only instance in the Quran where two words are parsed as one word.

One can say that "But Dhul-Kifl is a proper name made from Arabic words" and "إِلْ يَاسِينَ" is a foreign proper name.

Which then makes me wonder why, if it's a foreign name meaning we don't understand it's lexical/morphological construction, would it make sense to write a single proper name as two words in the first place?

And so another question that comes to my mind is whether or not there is a difference in pronunciation between "إِلْ يَاسِينَ" and "إِلْيَاسِينَ"?  Can any native Arabic speakers weigh in on that?

I believe Mazhar is saying that there is a difference:

Not two words, it is one word; pause after first syllable -- if space is not there the word gets conjoined, and there will be no pause. The word is spelled to mimic the sound of name in original language.

I've listened to several different recitations of verses 37:130 and 37:123.
I can't for the life of me hear any (more of a) pause after the "ل" in the 37:130 recitation of إِلْ يَاسِينَ than after the "ل" in the 37:123 recitation of "إِلياسَ":
37:130 http://www.openburhan.net/?sid=37&vid=130
37:123 http://www.openburhan.net/?sid=37&vid=123

Can someone who speaks Arabic fluently please confirm they hear a pause?

Bear in mind that two other Readings (Nāfi' and Ibn 'Āmir) report the construction as آلِ يَاسِين ...

I don't know what you mean by "report the construction".  I believe the readings are "readings", not "writings" (i.e. they are written representations of a style(?) of recitation).  I have "written" copies of 14 different readings (Riwayat), and all copies write it as "إِلْ يَاسِينَ".  But I don't believe this confirms whether or not those two "words" are really one lexical word with an embedded space and thus one lexical meaning (i.e. a variation of the word Ily?s per Omar).

Interesting.  Thanks-

Thanks Mazhar - so it seems you're in agreement with Omar's findings:

Omar (Dictionary of the Holy Quran) lists إل ياسين under the root الياس (p. 29)
...  According to some it is another form of Ily?s, and both words designate the same person, as Sain?' and S?n?n are both names of Mount Senai.

Even so, I'm not sure that explains why the name is written as two words instead of one?

Anyone?

Thanks for the link.

Thank you - I am looking forward to learning from your site.

Thanks - and thank you for all the hard work you put into that site.

I was hoping for an option to download...

Vocative particle renders an indefinite noun definite...

That makes sense to me -- I guess one would not "call out" to a non-definite being

Thanks for taking the time to teach -- however, I'm very limited in my Arabic.  Since the examples you posted are .gif images instead of arabic text, I cannot copy/paste/search without attempting to re-type them (very tedious for me in Arabic) and the gifs are not clear to me on several of the tashkeel.  I'm thus not sure whether these are words from the Quran (which would be very useful as examples for me) or not - and if I cannot find them in the Quran, I have not idea what the Arabic words are that you've given as example or what they mean.

I was able to understand your example of يٰرَبِّ  since you listed the verses (25:30...)

Because my knowledge of grammar is weak, I've started to examine the grammar tags on the morphological segments provided on corpus.quran.com as well as the tags assigned by Shuly Wintner's database at University of Haifa (which Kais told me he also utilized).

It seems your database is more complete(?) e.g.

corpus.quran.com: PREFIX|ya+
STEM|POS:N|LEM:rab~|ROOT:rbb|M|ACC
SUFFIX|PRON:1S

haqeeqat.pk: Vocative Particle + Possessive Phrase: Noun: Masculine; singular; accusative + Possessive Pronoun: First Person in genitive state elided.

Would you be willing to share with me a copy of your database that pertains to the grammatical parsing?

Peace-

Thanks for your post, but I'm not sure what to make of it.  Can you please explain the point you are making?

PS: Interesting - I just started examining http://haqeeqat.pk a few days ago!  Is that your site?  Someone put a lot of work into that site!

[with [the article] ال prefixed to it]

Thank you all for your posts.  With the help of your responses, I've responded (on another site) regarding the article I cited at the top of this thread (http://www.muslim.org/islam/allah.htm).

I would greatly appreciate your comments on what I have written.

May peace be with you--
Samir

You said: So if the word Allah was al-ilah ('the God'), we would not be able to say: ya Allah, which we do.

Although we say "ya Allah", I?ve been wondering for the past couple of weeks whether this constitutes supporting evidence?  And so today I did some more research.

The article you cited (http://www.muslim.org/islam/allah.htm) quotes Lane as saying "Allah ... is a proper name applied to the Being Who exists necessarily, by Himself, comprising all the attributes of perfection, a proper name denoting the true god ... the al being inseparable from it, not derived..."

Reading this excerpt, with emphasized text and a reference to ?many linguistical authorities? misled me into accepting that Lane presented this ?definition? conclusively.  But after examining Lane?s Lexicon today, I find the following:
?   The emphases were not Lane?s
?   Lane?s text says ??is a proper name (Msb, K,)??: i.e. Lane cites 2 of the 100+ linguistical authorities for this statement
?   Lane?s text says ??the ال being inseparable from it: (Msb:) not derived: (Lth, Msb, K:)??: i.e. Lane cites one source re ?inseparable? and three sources re: ?not derived?

But Lane had much more to say on the matter.  The author of the article truncated the rest of the sentence:
??not derived: (Lth, Msb, K:) or it is originally إِلهٌ, or إِلَاهٌ, (Sb, A Heyth, S, Msb, K,) of the measure فِعَالٌ in the sense of the measure مَفْعُولٌ, meaning مَأْلُوهٌ, (S, K, *) with [the article] ال prefixed to it, (Sb, A Heyth, S, Msb,)?? where four reference were cited re: ?prefixed? ? AND, there is more Lane says on the topic (green bold is mine).

This led me to examine the Quran where I find that "ya Allah" appears nowhere.  If it had, I would certainly agree my question was conclusively resolved.  I then examined all 361 instances of the prefixed vocative particle ya and found yārabbi ("O my Lord!").

This struck me as odd -- verses where "My Lord" was invoked, but not "My God/Allah"?  ... which led to further research:

As the author of the article points out, ?according to the Arabic language when you address someone by the vocative form ya followed by a title, the al ('the') must be dropped from the title.?

I suppose this is why, within the Quran, the word 'اللَّهُمَّ' (l-lahuma) is used in five verses for "Oh God/Allah": because (as I understand now) you cannot prefix "ya" directly to a noun with the definite article.  So I now wonder whether using "Ya Allah" as we do may not be grammatically correct (i.e. per the Quran)?

Which brings me back to my original question:
?I'm wondering what the basis is for this word being tagged as PN with one token instead of two??

(And also, please point out anything I may have overlooked? I don?t speak Arabic)