Seller, goods, buyer, price · Arabic case · working claim, revisable
The seller is the subject. A spelled noun subject is nominative. Several printed lines show the seller only in the verb: بِعْتُ is first person singular. Arabic has no ergative. The goods are accusative. On the sell reading the buyer is another accusative, or genitive after مِنْ or لِـ. A noun after بِـ is genitive. That is the price where the line is a sale.
بَاعَ · bāʿa · Form I, root ب ي ع. Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, gives the imperfect يَبِيعُ and the verbal nouns بَيْع and مَبِيع, the second anomalous beside regular مَبَاع. Lane, citing the Ṣiḥāḥ, the Mughrib, the Miṣbāḥ, and the Qāmūs, gives the verb two contrary significations: he sold it, and he bought it. Al-Jawharī prints بِعْتُ الشيءَ: شَرَيْتُهُ, and then بِعْتُهُ أيضاً: اشْتَرَيْتُهُ، وهو من الأضداد. Al-Muṭarrizī prints the same split: بَاعَ الشيءَ إذا شَرَاهُ أو اشْتَرَاهُ. Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī defines البَيْع as giving the thing priced and taking the price, and الشِّرَاء as giving the price and taking the thing priced, and he says each name is used for the other. When بَائِع is used without restriction, al-Fayyūmī says what comes to mind is the one who hands over the goods. This page files the sell reading under the four places. The buy reading is the next paragraph, because the same لِـ does not name the same person there.
The goods are the accusative one can keep alone. Al-Fayyūmī, al-Miṣbāḥ al-munīr, prints بِعْتُ زَيْدًا الدَّارَ: the verb takes two objects. He says one often keeps only the second, because that is what the predication is about, بِعْتُ الدَّارَ. زَيْدًا is his first object, the person. الدَّارَ is his second, the house. One may keep the person alone when there is no ambiguity, بِعْتُ الْأَمِيرَ, because an emir is not a thing that is sold. Lane, citing the Mughrib, prints بَاعَهُ الشَّيْءَ and بَاعَهُ مِنْهُ, “he sold to him the thing” and “he sold it to him.” Al-Zamakhsharī prints the same pair, بَاعَهُ الشيءَ وبَاعَهُ منه. English Wiktionary labels the verb transitive and ditransitive and prints بَاعَ زَيْدٌ مَتَاعَهُ, goods only, the seller nominative, and بَاعَنِي بَعْضَ الْأَثَاثِ, “he sold me some furniture.” The buyer is the accusative pronoun ـنِي. The furniture is a second accusative. No price is in either Wiktionary sentence. Habib Anthony Salmone glosses Form I as “Sold.”
The buyer is that accusative, or genitive after مِنْ, or genitive after لِـ. Al-Fayyūmī prints بِعْتُ مِنْ زَيْدٍ الدَّارَ and says مِنْ enters on the first object as corroboration, as in كَتَمْتُهُ الحديثَ beside كَتَمْتُ منه الحديثَ. Lane repeats that مِنْ is corroborative, citing the Miṣbāḥ. The same paragraph says لِـ sometimes stands where مِنْ stands: بِعْتُكَ الشَّيْءَ and بِعْتُهُ لَكَ, and the لِـ is redundant when the verb means sold. Al-Fayyūmī’s comparison is Qur’an 22:26, بَوَّأْنَا لِإِبْرَاهِيمَ, where he calls the لِـ redundant beside بَوَّأْنَا إِبْرَاهِيمَ. On the contrary signification the same preposition is not redundant. Al-Muṭarrizī prints بَاعَ لَهُ الشَّيْءَ إذا اشْتَرَاهُ لَهُ, “he bought the thing for him.” Lane glosses that line the same way, and he glosses Ṭarafa’s مَنْ لَمْ تَبِعْ لَهُ بَتَاتًا as “for whom thou hast not bought travelling-provisions.”
The price is genitive after بِـ on the sale lines that print a sum. Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī, explaining the hadith that forbids two bargains in one, prints بِعْتُكَ هذا الثَّوْبَ نَقْدًا بِعَشَرَةٍ، ونَسِيئَةً بِخَمْسَةَ عَشَرَ. The buyer is the accusative pronoun ـكَ. The garment is accusative. بِعَشَرَةٍ and بِخَمْسَةَ عَشَرَ are the two prices, genitive after بِـ. نَقْدًا and نَسِيئَةً are the manner, cash or credit. They are not a fifth participant. Al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī prints بِعْتُكَ هذا الثَّوْبَ بالرَّقْمِ الذي عليه, the same double accusative, the price the figure on the garment, genitive after بِـ. His bayʿ al-wafāʾ line is بِعْتُ منك هذا العين بما لك عليَّ من الدَّيْن: the buyer is genitive after مِنْ, the thing is accusative, and the debt is genitive after بِـ. His ʿīna line sells the thing من المستقرض بأكثر من القيمة, again مِنْ for the buyer and بِـ for the higher price. Lane’s article on بَاعَ does not print a sell-reading price in بِـ. The بِـ he does print on this verb is the purchase line from al-Zamakhsharī, بَاعَ دُنْيَاهُ بِآخِرَتِهِ, “he purchased his enjoyments of the present world at the expense of his enjoyments of the world to come.” Reinhart Dozy says the verb is made to take a second object by فِي, glossed as giving it to him for a price, by عَلَى, and by الباء. The ZDMG pages he cites were not opened. A clause that stacks Fayyūmī’s لِـ with Madīnī’s بِـ is unprinted.
اِبْتَاعَ · ibtāʿa · Form VIII of ب ي ع. Al-Jawharī glosses الابْتِيَاع as الاشْتِرَاء. Al-Fayyūmī prints ابْتَاعَ زَيْدٌ الدَّارَ, “Zayd bought the house,” and ابْتَاعَهَا لِغَيْرِهِ, “he bought it for someone else.” The house is accusative. The other person is genitive after لِـ, and that لِـ is the person the purchase is made for. Lane gives ابْتَاعَهُ the sense “he bought it,” citing the Ṣiḥāḥ, the Mughrib, the Miṣbāḥ, and the Qāmūs. Salmone’s bracket is “[acc. & Min], Bought, purchased of.” The entry prints no clause. English Wiktionary glosses the finite verb as “to buy, to purchase” and gives a synonym اِشْتَرَى. Its example is the verbal noun قَرَّرَ الرَّجُلُ ابْتِيَاعَ سَيَّارَةٍ جَدِيدَةٍ. The car is genitive after that noun. It is not the accusative of a finite ابْتَاعَ. Wiktionary prints no sell sense. Dozy prints ابتاع: باع, citing the Journal Asiatique 1841, 1: 411. That journal page was not opened. The sell gloss is Dozy’s line. It is not the gloss in Lane, al-Jawharī, or al-Fayyūmī.
شَرَى · sharā · Form I, root ش ر ي, and اِشْتَرَى · ishtarā · Form VIII of that root, not of ب ي ع. Lane glosses شَرَاهُ as بَاعَهُ in the sense “he sold it,” citing the Ṣiḥāḥ, the Mughrib, and the Qāmūs, and as “he gave it for a price,” citing the Miṣbāḥ. He also glosses it as اشْتَرَاهُ in the sense “he bought it.” He then says, citing the Tahdhīb and the Qāmūs, that both شَرَى and اشْتَرَى signify “he sold it,” that شَرَى is more used in that sense, and that both also signify “he bought it,” which is the more usual meaning of اشْتَرَى. Qur’an 12:20, which Lane prints as xii. 20, is وَشَرَوْهُ بِثَمَنٍ بَخْسٍ. Lane’s English is “and they sold him for a deficient, or an insufficient, price.” The person sold is the accusative pronoun. بِثَمَنٍ is بِـ plus a genitive price. English Wiktionary lists “to sell” first and quotes the same verse, including دَرَاهِمَ مَعْدُودَةٍ, and lists “to buy” second. Al-Rāghib cites the same verse for the use of a buy-name as a sell-name. Lane’s filled example of اشْتَرَى is the other direction. Qur’an 2:16, which he prints as ii. 15, is أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلَالَةَ بِالْهُدَىٰ. He glosses it as those who have purchased error with right direction, or taken error in exchange for guidance. The error is accusative. بِالْهُدَىٰ is the thing given up. English Wiktionary glosses اِشْتَرَى as “to buy, to purchase,” synonym اِبْتَاعَ, and as “rare, obsolete, to sell,” and quotes Qur’an 2:90 بِئْسَمَا اشْتَرَوْا بِهِ أَنفُسَهُمْ with no English translation. This page does not assign the accusative and the بِـ of that untranslated quotation. The references on that Wiktionary page name Hans Wehr, 1979, under شري, and do not quote him. The Wehr volume was not opened. No Wehr gloss is cited.
Where this frame diverges from English sell X to Y for Z. The English page prints Pat sold a lawnmower to Chris and Pat sold Chris a lawnmower for twenty dollars. The goods are an object. The buyer is to plus a noun, or a bare first object. The price is for plus the sum. بَاعَ puts the goods in the accusative, as English puts them in an object. The buyer, on the sell reading, is a second accusative, بِعْتُكَ and بَاعَنِي and بِعْتُ زَيْدًا, or genitive after مِنْ, بِعْتُ مِنْ زَيْدٍ and بِعْتُ منك. لِـ can occupy that buyer place, and al-Fayyūmī and Lane call it redundant there. English to is not described as redundant. The price, where Madīnī or al-Jurjānī prints one, is genitive after بِـ, بِعَشَرَةٍ and بالرَّقْمِ, not for. The printed price sits with a second-accusative buyer or with مِنْ. It does not sit with لِـ in any line opened here. The same verb also means bought. بَاعَ لَهُ الشَّيْءَ on that reading is “he bought it for him,” and the لِـ is the person benefited, not the redundant buyer of the sale. English sell does not also mean buy. Form VIII اِبْتَاعَ is the buy side of this root in Lane, al-Jawharī, al-Fayyūmī, Salmone, and Wiktionary. Dozy’s ابتاع: باع is the sell gloss those entries do not give. Form VIII اِشْتَرَى is usually the buy side of another root. Lane records a sell gloss and says the buy gloss is the more usual one. Form I شَرَى is a selling verb in Qur’an 12:20, with the person sold in the accusative and the price in بِـ.