Every thing, between, before, then, or and when

This lesson teaches eight common words: "every" and "thing"; "before", "then" and "when", for time and order; and "between", "or" and "that", for how things stand to each other. It also teaches the way Arabic joins two nouns so that the first is "of" the second.

The new words

Two nouns joined

When two nouns stand together and the first is "of" the second, Arabic calls it iḍāfah. The first noun drops al- and the ending -n; the second takes the genitive ending, most often i. "Every thing" is kullu shayʾin: kullu, "every", then shayʾin, "thing", in the genitive.

This verse opens wa-kulla shayʾin: "and every thing", with kulla in the accusative, as the corpus marks it, and shayʾin in the genitive. The second noun is always in the genitive; the first takes whatever ending its place in the sentence asks for.

Li-kulli is li, "for", from the first lesson, and kulli, in the genitive after it.

Then, or, when

Thumma is "then": it joins two things and says the second comes after the first.

Aw is "or".

Idhā is "when", most often of what is still to come. The corpus marks it as a word of time.

That

Anna is a word of its own, and works like inna from the fourth lesson: the corpus counts it among the words of inna's kind, and the word after it takes the accusative, as after inna. Where inna gives weight to a sentence, anna is "that", and makes what follows part of a longer sentence.

Annahum is anna and hum, "they": "that they".

In a sentence

This sentence was written for practice. Kulla yawmin, "every day": kull, then the noun it belongs to, in the genitive.

Reading

الكلمات التي تعرفها كاملةً بعد هذا الدرس مُعلَّمة.

Recall

• What happens to the first of two nouns joined in an iḍāfah?
• What ending does the second noun take?
• How is "that they" written?

Answers: it drops al- and the ending -n; the genitive, most often i; annahum.

Next

The next lesson teaches the earth, the sky, the day, a people, nafs and people, and how Arabic marks a noun feminine or plural.