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Chapter 26

Inna ن

ّ

َ ِإ and its sisters,

ka ̄na َكـا َن and its sisters

26.1 نَّ ِإ

inna is an assertive particle, which can be translated as

‘indeed, certainly’, or by the biblical word ‘verily, (and) lo’. Mostly it is

not, however, translated at all, as it is basically used as a matter of style

or a simple syntactic device. It is placed at the beginning of a nominal

sentence before the (logical) subject, which takes the accusative case or

is expressed by a suffixed pronoun.

There are a number of other particles (and conjunctions) that are con-

strued in the same way as نَّ ِإ

inna. The Arab grammarians refer to them

as ن َو َأ َخ َوا ُت َهاَّ ِإ ‘

inna and its sisters’. After all these particles the (logical)

subject is in the accusative case. The nominal predicate remains in the

nominative case.

The following are the particles نَّ ِإ

inna and its sisters:

Note: نَّ لـ ِكـ

ا

la ̄kinna is very often prefixed with َو wa. َلـ ْيـ َت layta is very often

prefixed with َيـا ya ̄.

Examples:

نَّ ِإ^

inna, indeed, that نَّ َأ

anna, that نَّ َكـ َأ ka

anna, as if

نَّ ل ِك

ا

la ̄kinna, but َل ْي َت layta, would, if only, wish لَّ َل َع la



alla, perhaps

ن ْلـ ٌم ِدي َر َم ْش ُغو ٌلَّ ِإ ن ُه َم ْش ُغو ٌلَِّإ




inna l-mudı-ra masˇg ̇u ̄lun.

inna-hu masˇg ̇u ̄lun.

The director is (indeed) busy. He is (indeed) busy.