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

Tamara: mira halla' manna hōn. “Mira is not here now.”
mā, in the last two examples, is joined to the suffix pronoun for the 3 rd
feminine singular, resulting in manna.
Furthermore, the particle mā can be combined with other particles to form
verbs that express negative actions, or rather, verbal expressions with a negative
meaning.
Examples:
- With particles that render possession: - c ənd:
Faraḥ: mā c əndī šī bi'ulu. I don’t have anything to say.” / ktīr mabsūṭa bi-
ḥayaty mā c əndī mašākəl. „I’m very happy with my life, I don’t have any
problems.” /
Rola: 'inta c ārif min a l-'awwal 'anā wa-yek mā c annā musta'bal sawā.
„You know from the beginning that me and you have no future together.”
- With particles that initially express a locative meaning, such as fī
that can render both the verb “to be able to”:
Faraḥ: ṣadd'īnī mā ba'a fiye. „Believe me, I can’t anymore.” / mā fiye
unṭur. „I can’t wait.” / mā fiye tḥamal ḫəsara tenye'. „.I can’t stand a second
loss.”, or the verb “to be”:
Aḥmad: mā fī muškle. „No problem.” / 'iltilak mā fī məḫayyam. „I
(already) told you, going to the camp is out of the question (lit. there is no camp).”
- With particles that initially carry an instrumental meaning, such as
bi- :
Theo: mā biha ši bass neset telefona c əndī. „Nothing is wrong with her;
she only forgot her telephone at my place.”
Abrīl: mā bi'a 9 ši tante rita. “Nothing is wrong with Mrs. Rita.”
Serje: mā bini šī. “Nothing is wrong with me”.
- With particles that express a wish, such as badd:
kəzēb, huwe mā baddu walad. “Lier, he doesn’t want any child.”
2.1.3. Particle mīš
As shown in the first part of our study, the particle mīš is the result of the
particle mā that gets attached, without any intermediary particles, to the suffix
pronouns of the 3 rd pers. sing. masc. and fem., and thus obtaining the following
forms maṷš and, respectively, maiš. Form which have been subsequently replaced
9 We can observe here the almost total dissappearance of –h, resulting in what may seem a
glottal stop, as stated by Hassan el-Hajje. (el-Hajje, 1954: 7).
27