Modern Standard Arabic negation

Modern Standard Arabic negates a verb with a particle chosen by tense: laa for the present, lam for the past with the verb in the jussive, and lan for the future with the verb in the subjunctive. The particle maa negates a verb that keeps its own tense. The verb lays-a 'not be' takes the person markers of the past tense but negates the present, and gives a verbless clause a finite verb whose predicate is in the accusative.

Main definitions

• laa, lam, lan, maa: the negative particles.
• laysa, laysaForms: the negative verb lays-a and its forms by person, number and gender.

Implementation notes

Benmamoun's verbal pairs and Ryding's equational pairs are rows of Data.Examples.Benmamoun2000 and Data.Examples.Ryding2005. Ryding gives maa only with a past-tense verb and finds it rare in writing. Benmamoun also gives it with a present-tense verb, and gives lays-a negating a present-tense verbal clause in free variation with laa.

TODO

Benmamoun derives the distribution of the negatives from a single negative head: lam and lan are laa carrying past and future tense, and lays-a is laa carrying agreement. That analysis belongs in a study, which would also check that each negative equational row of Ryding's begins with a form of laysaForms. An imperfective paradigm with its moods would let the moods the particles govern be read off the verb forms.

References

• [Ben00]
• [Ryd05]

def Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.laa : Negation.Marker

The particle laa negates a present-tense verb, which stays in the indicative ([Ryd05] p. 644). It also negates the second person of the jussive in a prohibition (p. 645) and a noun in categorical negation (pp. 645–646).

Equations

• Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.laa = { pieces := [[Morphology.Morph.free "laa"]] }

def Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.lam : Negation.Marker

The particle lam negates the past, with the verb in the jussive ([Ryd05] p. 647).

Equations

• Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.lam = { pieces := [[Morphology.Morph.free "lam"]] }

def Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.lan : Negation.Marker

The particle lan negates the future, with the verb in the subjunctive ([Ryd05] p. 648).

Equations

• Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.lan = { pieces := [[Morphology.Morph.free "lan"]] }

def Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.maa : Negation.Marker

The particle maa negates a verb that keeps its tense, a past ([Ryd05] p. 647) or a present ([Ben00] (41), pp. 107–108).

Equations

• Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.maa = { pieces := [[Morphology.Morph.free "maa"]] }

def Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.laysa : Negation.Marker

The negative verb lays-a 'not be', cited by its long stem ([Ryd05] p. 641).

Equations

• Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.laysa = { pieces := [[Morphology.Morph.root "lays"]] }

def Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.laysaStem (s : Morphology.Morph) : Morphology.Morph

The stem lays-a takes before a person marker is las- when the marker starts with a consonant and lays- when it starts with a vowel ([Ryd05] p. 641).

Equations

• Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.laysaStem s = if s.form.front ∈ ['a', 'i', 'u'] then Morphology.Morph.root "lays" else Morphology.Morph.root "las"

def Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.laysaForms : Agreement.Paradigm (List Morphology.Morph)

The forms of lays-a are its stem with the person markers of the past tense ([Ryd05] p. 641).

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

theorem Arabic.ModernStandard.Negation.cells_laysaForms : laysaForms.cells = pastSuffix.cells

lays-a has a form in exactly the cells of the past tense.