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

As seen above, mīš expressing the negation of the verb “to be” can precede
many prepositions, with different meaning, la- “for” or expressing possession,
ma c “with”, bi- “in”.
The particle mīš similar to the particle mā can sometimes add to the
sentence an interrogatory meaning, as in the following examples:
Mira: mīš məberiḥ sa'alt-lī hāda s-su'al? wa 'awwal məberiḥ? wa 'awwal
'awwal məberiḥ? „Didn’t you ask me the same thing yesterday? And the day
before yesterday? And the day before that?”
Serge: mīš 'inti llī c āyše ma c a ahla bi-l-qaṭaṛ? „Aren’t you the one who
lives with her parents in Qatar?”
Inās: mīš 'ilti-l-nā innu c am biyštiġil bi-'afri'iya? „Didn’t you tell us that
he’s been working in Africa?”, in all the examples shown above mīš never
actually expresses a negation, but actually has an interrogatory meaning.
Although less often than the particle mā, mīš can also negate a verbal
clause, usually when there is a present continuous verb, but not only:
- With a present continuous verb:
Serge: mīš c am ṣaddi' šū c am biṣēr ma c i. “I can’t believe what is
happening to me.”
Layla: bint mitel l-'amaṛ c omṛa tnēn wa c išrīn sene bidda rijēl akbar minna
wa-mīš c am biy'bal?. „A very beautiful girl (lit. a girl like the moon), who is
twenty two years wants a man that is older than her and he doesn’t accept?”
- With a verb that expresses a future action:
Rola: mīš raḥ ridd ba'a c ā telefonēt. „I won’t answer the phone anymore.”
We’d like to draw attention that this last meaning of mīš, rendering the
negation in a verbal clause, is not mentioned in the consulted resources, most of
their authors point out that mīš is just a nominal particle.
2.1.4. Particle mū
This particle, as we can see from the consulted works is not a particle
characteristic of the Lebanese dialect, thus it only appeared in one line, in the
analyzed episodes of the Lebanese series 'ajyāl. We may only assume that the
particle appeared under the influence of another dialect, that the actor or the
screenwriter is familiar to.
In our only example mū appeared as a nominal particle:
Theo: mū mumkin i'bal lā šī wu-lā ḥada yəsabib lī 'iḥbāṭ. “I can’t let
anyone or anything affect me.”
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