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Inna and It’s Sisters
By ArabicTree | February 3, 2008
The word inna (إنَّ) is a form of emphasis (eg. “indeed,” “verily,” etc.) It’s used to emphasize or draw attention to something.
Consider the difference between: المُدَرِّسُ طَوِيلٌ (the teacher is tall) and إنَّ المُدَرِّسَ طَوِيلٌ (indeed, the teacher is tall). The second draws attention to the teacher, while the first is just a normal sentence.
Grammatically, look at what inna does–we had a nominal sentence, with al-mudarris as the mubtada and tawilyun as the khabr. When we added inna, the names of these things change–the mubtada becomes ismu inna, and the khabr becomes khabru inna. So in the second sentence, al-mudarris is ismu inna, and tawilyun is khabru inna.
What’s more, the rules of grammar state that ismu inna is always mansoob. So al-Mudarrisu becomes al-mudarrisa.
The sisters of inna all follow the same grammatical pattern–except ismu inna and khabru inna becomes ismu [sister] and khabru [sister] (eg. ismu la’ala and khabru la’ala).
The sisters of inna are:
- لكنّ (lakinna) — but
- لأنّ (li’anna) — because
- كأنّ (ka’anna) — like (when you’re making a resemblance between two things)
- أنَّ (anna) — similar to inna (indeed, verily, etc.)
- لَعَلَّ (la’ala) — in the hope that / in the fear that (meaning depends on the context)
Topics: Beginner, Grammar | 7 Comments »
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
For those who are wondering, regarding the sound feminine plural, adding inna makes them mansoob, which they show with KASRA–eg. إنَّ السََمَاوَاتِ جَمِيلَةٌ (inna as-samaawaatI jamiylatun).
February 3rd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
For those who are also wondering, it’s jamiylatun, not jamiylaatun (sound feminine plural), because the non-human plural acts like feminine singular
February 26th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Classical Arabic, though, does use sound feminine plural adjectives quite often with non-human plurals. One example that comes to mind from the Qur’an is: أياما معدودات , in the verse:
وَقَالُواْ لَن تَمَسَّنَا النَّارُ إِلاَّ أَيَّامًا مَّعْدُودَةً قُلْ أَتَّخَذْتُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ عَهْدًا فَلَن يُخْلِفَ اللَّهُ عَهْدَهُ أَمْ تَقُولُونَ عَلَى اللَّهِ مَا لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ
(Surah al-Baqarah: verse 80).
August 28th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I thought layta was from akhawaatu inna and I didn’t realise li’anna was one of Inna’s sister.
You have a nice blog Mashaa’Allaah, very beneficial, can I add you to my blog?
August 28th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I’m not sure what layta is, but khayr; sure, please do add us to your blog
September 1st, 2008 at 3:22 am
layta is one of the sisters of Inna and is used to express regret(from Ajroomiyyah)
June 24th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Salaam
Inna wa Akhwatuha
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Inna and its sisters are six in total. They are as follows:
Inna
Anna
Kanna
Lakinna
Layta
La3ala