3.12 There Is / I Have — Epoché
What you will be able to do Say that somebody has something, using a preposition and an ending instead of a verb. Choose among the three prepositions that do the work of English have. Say that something exists, with هُنَاكَ and a following indefinite noun. Negate both constructions using the defective verb of 3.11. Explain why the thing possessed is indefinite and why the construction has no subject in the English sense. Prerequisites : 3.11 and the five negatives Arabic has no verb meaning to have. That is not a shortage; a great many languages manage without one, and the construction Arabic uses instead is shorter than the English. The idea is to say that a thing is at somebody, or with somebody, or belonging to somebody. The preposition takes a pronoun ending from 3.6, the thing possessed follows, and there is no verb anywhere. You have been reading these sentences since 3.3, and this lesson sets out the three prepositions used and the differences between them. The pattern Three ways to have Preposition With the ending meaning my Literally When it is used عِنْدَ عِنْدِي at me the everyday word, for anything you hold or possess لَدَى لَدَيَّ in my keeping a little more formal; commoner in writing than in speech لِ لِي to me, belonging to me for permanent belonging: family, parts of the body, rights The first two are close to interchangeable and a learner may use either. The third is different in sense and worth keeping separate: it says that something belongs to you rather than that you have it about you. So a person says with the first that he has a pen, and with the third that he has two daughters. That distinction is real but not sharp, and native usage varies. What is certain is that the first is the safe everyday choice and the one to use if you are unsure. Why the thing possessed is indefinite Look at the fourth to ninth sentences below. In every one, the thing possessed has no article: a house, brothers, an orange, a new car, two books, two daughters. The reason is grammatical rather than stylistic. The construction is a two-part sentence of 3.1 turned round: the prepositional phrase is the statement and the thing possessed is the subject, and an Arabic sentence of that kind needs one definite part and one indefinite part. The prepositional phrase is definite, because it contains a pronoun. So the other part must be indefinite. What follows is a limitation worth knowing. This construction cannot easily say I have the book, with a definite object. To say that, Arabic uses a different sentence: the book is at me, with the definite noun first. English speakers reach for the first pattern and produce something ungrammatical, and the remedy is to turn the sentence round. There is To say that something exists, Arabic puts the word meaning there in front of an indefinite noun. The construction is the same as the English there is, and the resemblance is close enough that nothing has to be explained. Two things are worth noticing. The first is that the same word means there in the ordinary sense of place, so a sentence can contain it twice; the first sentence below has the existential word at the front and an ordinary word meaning here at the end. The second is that, as with have, the noun is indefinite. There is also an older and more formal way of saying it, with a verb meaning to be found, and you will meet it in the reading volume. It means the same thing. Negating both Both constructions are verbless, so both are negated with the defective verb of 3.11. It goes at the front and the rest is unchanged: it is not at me; there is not a page missing. The tenth sentence below is the simplest possible example and is worth memorising as a unit. It is two words long and it uses a possessive noun rather than a preposition, but the grammar is the same: a verbless statement with the negative verb in front of it. How English says it English has a verb have, and it is one of the commonest words in the language. It also has got, which duplicates it, and an existential there is which is not a possession at all but is built from the same materials. The English speaker's work is to stop looking for the verb. There is no Arabic word for have, and no Arabic word for got, and an attempt to translate them one for one produces nothing. What the learner has to do is reach for a preposition instead, and the reflex takes a few weeks to build. The gain is a shorter sentence. I have a house is three words in English and two in Arabic; I have two daughters is four in English and two in Arabic, because the dual does the work of the numeral as well. English also uses have as an auxiliary, in I have written. That has nothing to do with this lesson and no Arabic counterpart at all: as 3.9 said, the plain past covers I wrote and I have written alike. Speakers of Russian and of Irish will recognise the Arabic construction at once, because both languages say at me a house in the same way. If you have either, this lesson is a formality. Real sentences Eleven sentences. For each, say which construction it uses and where the definiteness falls. As printed With the vowels supplied English هناك كتاب هنا. [1] هُنَاكَ كِتَاب هُنَا. There's a book here. هناك عوامل كثيرة. [2] هُنَاكَ عَوَامِل كَثِيرَة. There are many factors. هناك صفحة ناقصة. [3] هُنَاكَ صَفْحَة نَاقِصَة. There is a page missing. عندي بيت. [4] عِنْدِي بَيْتٌ. I have a house. عندي أخوة. [5] عِنْدِي إِخْوَة. I have brothers. عندي برتقالة. [6] عِنْدِي بُرْتُقَالَة. I've got an orange. لدي سيارة جديدة. [7] لَدَيَّ سَيَّارَة جَدِيدَة. I have a new car. لديك كتابان [8] لَدَيْك كِتَابَان You have two books. لي بنتان. [9] لِي بِنْتَان. I have two daughters. ليس ملكي. [10] لَيْسَ مِلْكِي. It isn't mine. أعندك قلم؟ [11] أَعِنْدَك قَلَمٌ؟ Do you have a pen? The first three are the existential construction, and the first has the same root twice over: the existential word at the front and the ordinary word for here at the end. Read it aloud and hear that they are not the s