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laysa and
Conjugating kaana
Posted by Ibnulyemen on Jul 27, 2017 in Grammar, Pronunciation, Vocabulary

The Arabic sentence is either


ismiiyah nominal, i.e. has no verb, or

filiiyah verbal. Their

frequency is similar. laysa not and
kaana was/were are mainly associated with the nominal.
Therefore, both are important and frequent; knowing the regularity and irregularity of their

taSriif conjugation is essential for easier learning and effective use of Arabic.

is for negation and


for past tense formation. As a rule, they are placed at the start of a sentence. In this case, their form
remains the same except for gender agreement.

Examples:(*)

(1)


. al-bayt kabiir the house is big.

. kaana al-bayt kabiiran the house was big.



. laysa al-bayt kabiiran the house is not big.

(2)




. al-bint jamiilah the girl is beautiful.


. kaanat al-bint jamiilatan the girl was beautiful.



. laysat al-bint jamiilatan the girl is not beautiful.

(3)




. al-awlaad aqwiiya the boys are strong.



. kaana al-awlaad aqwiiya the boys were strong.




. laysa al-awlaad aqwiiya the boys are not strong.

(4)




. al-banaat samiinat the girls are chubby.

. kaanat al-banaat samiinat the girls were chubby.



. laysat al-banaat samiinat the girls are not chubby.

are the same, i.e. not marked for gender or number even though the number in (1) is
and
In (1) and (3), the forms of
singular and plural in (3). This is always the case all verbs in the past tense forms when they precede the subject (i.e. doer); e.g.,
kataba al-walad the boy wrote and kataba al-awlaad the boys wrote.

are marked for gender with the ( but not for number). In like manner, this
and
In (2) and (4), however, the forms of
applies to all past tense forms when they occur before the subject; e.g., katabat al-bint the girl wrote and

katabat al-banaat the girls wrote.

and
What if they ( ) are placed after the subject, i.e. after the first word/phrase of the nominal sentence?

In this case, must agree in gender and number. Lets move them to second position, i.e. after
and mubtada
subject/topic in the above examples, and observe what happens.

(5)



. al-bayt kaana kabiiran the house was big.


. al-bayt laysa kabiiran the house is not big.

(6)



. al-bint kaanat jamiilatan the girl was beautiful.



. al-bint Laysat jamiilatan the girl is not beautiful.

(7)




. al-awlaad kaanuu aqwiiya the boys were strong.




. al-awlaad laysuu aqwiiya the boys are not strong.

(8)
. al-banaat kunna samiinat the girls were chubby.



. al-banaat lasna samiinat the girst are not chubby.

In (5) and (6), theres no number agreement as both are singular. But in (7) and (8), the number agreement is obvious. In (7), the
. In (8), there is more to it than adding the number suffix. This is
and
plural marker is simply appended to the end of
what matters most here. What is going on?

has become . The weak letter of


has disappeared and the has become doubled. Here is the explanation: basically,
the feminine plural suffix is
, i.e. with fatHah, so when appending it to , it becomes
. As a rule, and for ease of
becomes
pronunciation, the first loses it fatHah for a sukoon, and hence, ,
. Now you have two sukoon in a row
one on and one on the . Grammatically, if you have two consecutive letters both with sukoon in the same word, the first letter
. Now, in
should be dropped. Thus, we get , you have two identical letters in a row, the first with a sukoon and the second
with a fatHah. They qualify to become one with a shaddah, i.e. . How about ?Why does it become ? Great question! This is
to disambiguate the meaning of from the meaning of kanna to remain quietanother word in Arabic.

:
Here is the sequence for conjugating

In the table above you can see the serial conjugation of hunna they(f), ana I, and
with
and
naHnu we.

Exercise:

and
Try writing out the serial conjugation of with these pronouns:

Answers will be posted on Facebook Page after 24 hours.

NB: dual forms are not included because they are rather infrequent.

Tags: conjugation, kaana , laysa

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About the Author: Ibnulyemen


Marhaban! I am from Yemen. I am a language teacher. I teach English and Arabic. Besides Arabic and English, I speak French
and some German. I have a strong flair for languages; most of my foreign language competency has been self-learning. For
Arabic, I have a strong command of its formal aspects. So, if you have any question about Arabic grammar or morphology, feel
free to ask any question you may have. In this blog, I will be leading you through Arabic language learning in a sequential and
interactive fashion. I will focus on Modern Standard Arabic. Arabic dialectal expressions and vocabulary will be highlighted
whenever pertinent to the topic of each post. Enjoy learning!
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