Having: lahu, lakum and the pronouns after li and bi

Arabic most often says "have" with no verb. It says that a thing is "for" someone, with li and a pronoun: lahu is "for him", and so "he has". This lesson teaches that, and the pronouns as the corpus writes them after li and bi.

The new words

These are the pronouns of the second lesson. After li and bi, and in a few other places, the corpus writes the pronoun as a word of its own rather than as a part joined to the end, and names it by its spelling. So the table counts them apart: -kum after la- is here, and -kum after a noun was in lesson 2. Humu is the one that is more than that: it is "they" or "them" with u on its m, most often before al-, and it stands after li less often than it stands on its own, as hum, "they", of lesson 5 does.

Li with a pronoun

Before a pronoun, li is said la, except before -ī, "me", where it stays lī.

Lahu is la and hu, "him". In the corpus's spelling hu is written with a small wāw that lengthens its vowel.

Lakum is la and kum, "you", more than two: "for you".

Lahā is la and hā, "her" or "it", for a thing called feminine.

Bi with a pronoun

Bihi is bi and hi, "him" or "it": "with it" or "by it". After i, the pronoun hu is said hi, as hum is said him.

In a sentence

This sentence was written for practice. Laka kitābun: "for you", laka, then "a book", with -un because it is not definite: "you have a book".

Reading

الكلمات التي تعرفها كاملةً بعد هذا الدرس مُعلَّمة.

Recall

• How does Arabic say "he has"?
• How is li said before a pronoun?
• Why is it bihi and not bihu?

Answers: lahu, "for him"; la, but lī before -ī; after i, hu is said hi.

Next

The next lesson teaches the pronouns that stand on their own, "you", "we" and "they", and the dual: two people or things.