Was, Will Be, and Having

You already know that Arabic, like Hebrew, has no "is" in the present: الْبَيْت كَبِير, הבית גדול. But the moment you move into the past or the future, both languages need a real verb. Hebrew reaches for היה and יהיה; Arabic reaches for كَانَ kāna "was" and يَكُونُ yakūnu "will be." It is the same move in the same place. The verb is built on the root ك-و-ن, which Hebrew knows as כ-ו-ן "to be firm, established": נָכוֹן, כּוֹנֵן, and the Biblical מָכוֹן "fixed place," which matches Arabic مَكَان "place" in both root and shape.

Two things to notice. First, the endings are the past-tense endings you met in The Past Tense: ־tu, ־ta, ־ti, ־nā, ־ū, Hebrew ־תִי, ־תָ, ־ת, ־נוּ, ־וּ. Second, kāna is a hollow verb, so its middle wāw shows up as a long ā. That ā shrinks to u whenever the ending starts with a consonant (kuntu, kunnā), much as Hebrew קָם shrinks in קַמְתִּי. For the future, put sa- in front of the present form: سَيَكُونُ sa-yakūnu, the counterpart of יִהְיֶה. To say "was not," use لَمْ يَكُنْ lam yakun or the simpler مَا كَانَ mā kāna.

The one ending you can see: ‑an

Here is the one real quirk of kāna. In MSA, the predicate after كَانَ goes into the accusative case, which on an indefinite word is the ending ‑an: كَانَ الْجَوُّ جَمِيلًا kāna al-jawwu jamīlan, "the weather was nice." Hebrew has no case endings, so הָיָה leaves its predicate alone. Most Arabic case endings are short vowels that you never see in unvocalized text. This one is different, because ‑an is written with an extra alif: جميلا. That makes it the one case ending you can spot on a street sign. Several verbs work the same way, and the grammar books call them the "sisters of kāna" (أَخَوَاتُ كَانَ). The most useful sister is لَيْسَ laysa "is not": لَيْسَ الْبَيْتُ كَبِيرًا, "the house is not big."

Having: Arabic says "at me"

Neither language has an everyday verb "to have." Hebrew says יֵשׁ לִי, "there is to me." Arabic says عِنْدِي ʿindī, literally "at me," from the preposition عِنْدَ ʿinda, which means "at, chez," much like Hebrew אֵצֶל. Arabic does not even need the יֵשׁ: "at me a question," عِنْدِي سُؤَال, is already a full nominal sentence. The pronoun endings are the same set you attached to لِ and مَعَ in The Little Words Are Cognates Too.

Arabic actually has three ways to say "I have," each with its own shade. عِنْدِي ("at me") is the everyday default for owning things. لِي ("to me") is Hebrew's own לִי. It sounds more formal and suits relatives, rights, and things that "belong." مَعِي ("with me") means you have it on you right now, the way Hebrew says יש עליי or יש איתי.

Not having, and having in the past

To say "I don't have," MSA puts لَيْسَ in front: لَيْسَ عِنْدِي وَقْت, "I don't have time," which is Hebrew אין לי זמן. The spoken dialects use their ordinary negation instead: Levantine mā ʿindi, Egyptian maʿandīsh, Moroccan ma ʿendīsh. For the past and the future, Arabic adds كَانَ or سَيَكُونُ to the possession sentence, exactly as Hebrew adds היה or יהיה to יש לי: كَانَ عِنْدِي كَلْب is היה לי כלב.

Look at the Moroccan "there is" in the last row: kāyn is the participle of kān, so it literally means "being." Darija's version of יש comes from the same root ك-و-ن as كَانَ, and as Hebrew נָכוֹן.