lesson 12 notes
Lesson 12: كان, قال, ل ّما, ك كان The verb َكان tells us something about time- it doesn’t tell us anything by itself, as it does not have any action indicated in itself alone, unlike other verbs which do give you an action plus a time. (eg: he sat = the action of sitting done in the past) For this reason, it has been labelled by the majority of linguists as a “defective verb” ) فعل ناقص How it is used, is to transform the predicate of a nominal sentence into the past tense. It does not have any effect on the meaning of the subject nor does it affect the subject’s case. َ كانmust come before the subject and the predicate. َالسارقَ مريضا َكان ِ َق مريض َ السار ِ The thief was sick (the x was y) When َ كانis used, the subject of the nominal sentence is known as the subject of َ َكانor َ اسم كانand will be in the nominative case مرفوع The use of The thief is sick (the x is y) When َ كانis used,the predicate will be known as the predicate of َ كانor Khabr kaana, and will be in the accusative case منصوب َ كانwith a prepositional phrase and indefinite subject Occasionally, َ كانis not used with the nominal sentence (subject and predicate, as shown above) but with a prepositional phrase and indefinite subject construction: Subject prepositional phrase َّللاِ أسْوةَ حسنة ََ ل َِ لَق َْد كانَ لك ْمَ فِي رسو There was for you, in the Messenger of Allah, an excellent example. We learnt that when َ كانis used in a nominal sentence construction, it causes the case of the predicate to be منصوبhowever, when the predicate is a prepositional phrase, the use of َكان will not have any grammatical effect on the case of the predicate, however it does still render its meaning into the past tense “was”. [this is because of the previously learnt rule, that tells us, that which has strength to alter grammatical case to a word, will take precedence if it’s the closest to that word – therefore here in this example shown, we can see that فِيis closer than َ كانto ّللا ََِ ل َِ رسوthus over-riding the َ منصوبeffect of َ كانand keeping it ٌ( َم ْج ُرورprepositions render the noun which follows ٌ]) َم ْج ُرور 1 Root letters It is important to understand, that alif is never a root letter. Whenever alif appears in a “root” it was originally in fact either a waw or a yaa. To determine whether the alif was originally a waw or a yaa, you need to look at the verb in the imperfect tense. Taking the word َ كانwe can see it has an alif. We want to know if this alif was a waw or a yaa? ? و ي كا ن To know the origin, we must look at it in the imperfect tense, and can see it was a waw! َيكون Conjugation Alif( along with all long vowels), has a sukoon. Therefore when conjugating such words that have the presence of alif, waw or yaa, certain measures have to be taken to ensure that two sukoons will not end up together (as we know that you can not have 2 sukoons in succession – this is called َ – اِلتِقاءَ السا ِكني ِنthe meeting of the 2 sukoons) For example, if we want to say “you (2MS) were”, then we must put the verb َكانinto the pattern َ( فع ْلتsee verb conjugations lesson 8) كان I want to put into this pattern َفع ْلت كاْ ْنت When put into the conjugation pattern, we find 2 sukoons together! And we can not have that! To solve this problem we need to remove the weak letter alif- ُك ْنت As a tribute to the now ‘dead’ alif, look at what it originally was (whether waw or yaa’) and place a corresponding vowel in its Place (if ي-kasra, َو- dammah) ك ْنت Remove the alif completely. Now you only have one sukoon كاْ ْنت Take the word as it appears to be once you have put the basic form into the desired pattern (put the sukoon on alif even thought the pattern fa’alta has a fathah – remember that alif can only take sukoon!) 2 Singular Plural 3M َكان ْ كان َوا 3F ْ كان َت َك َن 2M َك ْنت َك ْنت ْم 2F َت ِ ك ْن َ ك ْن َتن 1 َك ْنت كنَا *note: When conjugating, if we have 2 letters that are the same, the first of which has sukoon, then you will assimilate the 2 letters together, therefore remove the first with sukoon, and replace with a shaddah. The Pluperfect: “had” / used to Sometimes the verb كانcan be used to convey the meaning of the pluperfect; the past of the past. It is used in this way when followed by another verb, and can manifest in one of three ways: +َكان Followed by an imperfect verb Followed by a Perfect verb Translate as “used to” Translate as “had” Commonly appears in the Qur’an Appears infrequently in the Qur’an ارعونَ فِي ِ كانَوا يس ْ َِ الخيْرا ت Followed by a perfect verb + َق ْد Doesn’t appear in the Qur’an (is used to emphasise the verb: ie, surely, verily, indeed etc.- do not need to translate in homework) They used to race in good deeds 3 Note: Although the basic meaning of كانis “he was”, it is frequently used in the Qur’an to mean the present “he is”. This is when referring to Allah. Ie: َكانَ ّللاَ غفوراَ رحيما Allah is the forgiving and compassionate However, this only applies to كانin the perfect, not ُ يكونin the imperfect, which means ‘he will be’ in the future. قال َ قالmeans “to say” or “to speak” and is used to introduce direct speech. Its perfect tense can be conjugated in the same way as َكان Singular Plural 3M َقال ْ ق َالوا 3F ْ قال َت َ ق ْل ن 2M َق ْلت َق ْلت ْم 2F َت ِ ق ْل َق ْلت َن 1 َق ْلت ق ْلنا *note: 3M singular and plural do not loose the weak letter alif – this is because when 3M is conjugated, it does not produce the problem of 2 sukoons together. ل ّما ل ّماmeans “when” or “after”. It is a conjunction (a word that joins two clauses in a sentence). It is used in a sentence with two perfect verbs الفعل الماضي The verb which comes right after the ّلما َ will have happened earlier in time to the second verb mentioned. It does not effect case, and must be placed at the beginning of the sentence or clause. 4 Verb 2 (action B) Verb 1 (action A) َل َما س ِمعْنا الهدى ءامنّا ِب ِه Verb 1 occurs before verb 2 When we heard the guidance, we believed in it ل ّماmust come before action A, and action A must come before action B ك َ كis a preposition which is prefixed to the front of a noun. It means “like” as in “this is like that” (not as ink “I like apples”.) As with all prepositions, the word which follows it will become majroor. َجال ِ َما ال ِنساءَ كالر Women are not like men (note: although the Arabic may be written with the definite article, in English it is not always nesserssary to translate the “deffitness” if it makes sense to translate without, because in English we do not always use “the……..” – read in English, and think does the translation make sense to give the meaning intended) 5
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