12 55 Years of Arab Studies in Romania - Secţia de Arabă

Examples: láh ( = lā ) mā ḫabbértniš c ánnu „No, you didn’t tell me
anything about him.”
lâh lâh mā qẹlnâ-lak mbâręḥ lâh „No, no we didn’t tell you yesterday.
(Feghali, 1928: 218).
In some cases, the particle lā doesn’t negate the nominal clauses that is
preceding, but negates an action or something that already occurred.
Examples: qālét-lé dáḫlak 'aḷḷā bīqāṣéṣnė qẹlt-éllā lā 'áḷḷa γfûr. „She told
me: Do you think God will punish me? I told her: No, God is merciful.”
ḫáįyak ba c du nâyęm lā qâm mẹn zmân. „Your brother is still sleeping? No,
he woke up a while ago.” (Feghali, 1928: 219).
1.2. Particle mā
The particle mā is very used in Lebanon, it can be heard both before an
imperfective verb and before a perfective one. Thus, it can negate both a past
action, a present one or a future one. Furthermore, the particle mā can be
combined with suffix pronouns revealing quasi-verbal traits and expressing, in the
Lebanese dialect, the verb “to be” at its negative form. But, contrary to the
synonym particle lā, mā can never be joined directly to a pronoun. Subsenquently,
we can say that mā is mainly a verbal particle, whilst lā is a nominal one. For this
reason, the negative element š(i) 4 , which is usually attached to a negated verb,
cannot appear along with a verb preceded by the particle lā, the only exception to
this being the verbs at the imperative mood: lā tǧîš “don’t come”. However, the
particle lā in most modern dialects is replaced by mā, even in the case of a verb at
the negative imperative. (Feghali, 1928: 220)
As shown above, the particle mā precedes an imperfective or a perfective
verb to negate the action expressed by it, the verb, in its turn, is sometimes
followed by the adverb š(i):
'ánā mā c am bḥǟkîk. „I’m not speaking to you.”
mā 'ékęl ḫόbz ulā tîn. „He doesn’t eat nor bread, nor figs.”
mā šefnákš. „I didn’t see you for a while.” (Feghali, 1928: 221).
Often, the first phonetic element of mā disappears as a consequence of a
dissimilation, under the influence of another labial consonant, b or m:
qâl 'a będduš iǧí. „It seemed like he didn’t want to come.”
4 Inhabitants of big cities, such as Beirut, along with most of the educated people avoid using the
element š(i), that they find particularly vulgar and characteristic to the inhabitants of the mountain
regions and for the fẹllâḥ. (Feghali, 1928: 221)
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