Lesson 59 – الدَّرْسُ التَّاسِعُ وَالْخَمْسُونَ
/kāna/ and its sisters - كـانَ وَأَخَوَاتُـهـا
/kāna/ and its sisters – كـان وَأَخَواتِـها
- Let's Continue to learn Arabic through our free Arabic language course. This Arabic course contains Arabic grammar, Arabic syntax, Arabic morphology and more.
- /kāna/ and its sisters are thirteen Arabic verbs. We have just learnt seven of them in the previous part of this lesson, and now we are going to study the remaining six verbs in this part In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing).
- Before we start studying these verbs we would like to remind you that these verbs are called annuller verbs (أفْعَال ناسِخَة /afξāl nāsikhah/), which intervene in the nominal sentence only. The sentence remains nominal sentence although it begins with one of these verbs.
- Each of the previous six verbs makes the subject qualified by the predicate in the same tense of the annuller verb. The seven remaining verbs have different meanings, e.g. (لَيْسَ /laysa/) means the negation.
- The following table shows the rest of the annuller verbs with examples.
| Picture | Example | Annuller verb | ||
| English | Arabic | English | Arabic | |
|
| The price is not convenient | /laysa as siξru munāsiban/ | Not (negating verb) | /laysa/ |
|
|
My friend is still faithful | /mā zāla ŝadīqī wafiyyan | Still |
/mā zāla/ /lā yazālu/ |
|
| Arabic language is still very important | لا تَزَالُ العَرَبِيَّةُ لُغَةً مُهِمَّةً جِدًّا /lā tazālu al lughatu al ξarabiyyatu lughatan muhimmatan ĵiddan/ | ||
|
| The student is still excellent in his study | مَا بَرِحَ الطَّالِبُ مُتَفَوِّقًا فِي دِرَاسَتِهِ /mā bariħa aŧ ŧâlibu mutafawwiqan fī dirâsatihi/ | Still (to continue to be or to do) |
/bariħa/ /lā yabraħu/ |
|
| I will continue to obey my parents | لا أَبْرَحُ مُطِيعًا لِوَالِدَيَّ /lā abraħu muŧīξan liwālidayya/ | ||
|
| The science is still useful | /mā fati’a al ξilmu mufīdan/ | Still (to continue to be or to do) |
/mā fati’a/ /lā yafta’u/ |
|
| You continue being charitable to poor people | لا تَفْتَأُ مُحْسِنًا للفُقَراء /lā tafta’u muħsinan lil fuqarâ’i/ | ||
|
| The cold weather is still severe | مَا اِنْفَكَّ البَرْدُ قَارِصًا /mā infakka al bardu qâriŝan/ | Still (to continue to be or to do) |
/mā infakka/ /lā yanfakku/ |
|
| People are still co-operating | مَا انْفَكَّ النَّاسُ مُتَعَاوِنِين /mā infakka an nāsu mutξāwinīna/ | ||
|
| I do not raise my voice as long as my father is present | لا أَرْفَعُ صَوْتِي، مَا دَامَ أبِي مَوْجُودًا /lā arfaξu ŝawtī mā dāma abī mawĵūdan/ | As long as | /mā dāma/ |
|
| As long as success is important, I have to succeed | مَا دَامَ النَّجَاحُ مُهِمًّا فَيَجِبُ أَنْ أَنْجَحَ /mā dāma an naĵāħu muhimman, fa yaĵibu an anĵaħa/ | ||
- We notice that the second group of the annuller verbs (كان وأخواتها) is very different from the first.
- The verb (لَيْسَ /laysa/) is only used for the negation of the sentence (as we studied in lesson 31, part 7.
- The following 4 verbs (زَالَ – بَرِحَ – فَتِيءَ - اِنْفَكَّ) have one meaning (still – to continue to be or to continue to do something), and the last verb (مادَامَ /mā dāma/) means the continuity under a certain condition (as long as). - These last five verbs must be preceded by a negating particle(ما - لا)
(ما /mā) is used with the past verb (مَا زَالَ - مَا بَرِحَ - مَا فَتِيءَ - مَا اِنْفَكَّ), while (لا /lā/) is with the present verb (لا يزَالُ - لا يَبْرَحُ - لا يَفتَأُ - لا يَنْفَكُّ). Except for the last verb (مادَامَ /mā dāma/) it is only used with (ما /mā/) and the verb has to be always in the past.