Arabic-L:LING:Troublesome negation responses
Dilworth Parkinson
dil at BYU.EDU
Tue Dec 30 17:43:29 UTC 2008
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Arabic-L: Tue 30 Dec 2008
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-------------------------Directory------------------------------------
1) Subject:Troublesome negation response
2) Subject:Troublesome negation response
3) Subject:Troublesome negation response
4) Subject:Troublesome negation response
5) Subject:Troublesome negation response
6) Subject:Troublesome negation response
7) Subject:Troublesome negation response
8) Subject:Troublesome negation response
9) Subject:Troublesome negation response
10) Subject:Troublesome negation response
11) Subject:Troublesome negation response
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1)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From:Abbas Al-Tonsi <tons at aucegypt.edu>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
Yes This laa is closer to lest ..should e.g.أنا خايف
لينسى,هي قلقانة ليفوتها المعاد
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2)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: AyoubyK at DEARBORN.K12.MI.US
Subject:Troublesome negation response
This "La" is "li", the prepositional "lam", meaning, "in order to"--I
belie=
ve.
Kenneth K. Ayouby, D.Ed.
Lecturer in Arabic
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3)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: Benjamin Geer <benjamin.geer at gmail.com>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
I don't know Baghdadi dialect, but Egyptian dialect has this, too,
following xaaf, yxaaf, as well as in sentences like this:
اسكت ليسمعك
uskut layisma'ak
Be quiet lest he hear you.
I've seen it written like that, as a single letter lam rather than as
lam alif. It has a synonym, "laHsan"
لحسن
which seems to be a "lam" plus the word "ahsan" (better):
اسكت لحسن يسمعك
uskut laHsan yisma'ak
Be quiet lest he hear you.
Ben
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4)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: Afra Al-Mussawir <afraalmussawir at yahoo.com>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
Dear Andy,
I believe your gloss as "lest they come" is correct, but the speaker
probably said "law" لو not "laa" ... just my guess. When people are
speaking quickly, the two are easily confused for each other. I have
not heard "laa" being used in this manner before.
Afra
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5)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: David Wilmsen <david.wilmsen at gmail.com>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
Your translation is precise.
The لا means 'lest' and is better conceived as لَ.
It happens in Egyptian too. Here is a very recent example from
Shaaban Abdel Rahim's song about Obama, also misconceived as لا here
in the transcription recently sent to me. (an mp3 found here: http://web.me.com/issandr/filechute/Shabaan-OBAMA.mp3)
بلاش من بدري نحلم لا يكون الحلم كابوس
Let's not start dreaming early lest the dream be a nightmare.
Check the entry in Badawi and Hinds.
David
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6)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: Mahmoud Deeky <mmdeeky at hotmail.com>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
"la" in this santansis ="an" or "kay" in standard Arabic
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7)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: rehab eldeeb <r_eldeeb at aucegypt.edu>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
It is used also in Egyptian colloquial .You can also skip it .
أنا خايف أستاذي يدِّيني درجة وحشة
أنا خايف لا أستاذي يدِّيني درجة وحشة
أنا خايف من أستاذي لا يدِّيني درجة وحشة
there is also the wordأحسن giving the same effect as" laa" here :
أنا خايف أحسن يدِّيني درجة وحشة
I would go for b) as you can see it could precede " ustaazi" and
the example given in b) is correct :
another example : هو لو ما شربش قهوة حينام )=
هو شرب قهوة لا ينام)
huwwa shirib ahwa laa yinaam
This is in Egyptian colloquial .
I hope this could help
Rehab El Deeb
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8)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: Taoufiq Ben Amor <tb46 at columbia.edu>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
Dear Andy,
"la" in this case means "lest" and is a conditional particle like "if"
and works with "khayif/Khayfa/ Khayfin". It is used in North African
dialects in exactly the same way. As in Tunisian Arabic, for example,
خايف لا يروح النهار و ما نكملش الخدمة,
which as you see even accommodates another negation particle "ma". For
meaning, I would translate "la" as "that" in English: I am afraid that
the day would pass by without finishing my work.
Best,
t ben amor
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9)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: <eltoukhi at aol.com>
Subject:Troublesome negation response
hello
for my modest information I could answer questions # 2& 4
(La) is usualy preceded with yikhaff /khayif . and it is also in the
Egypyian dialect , it is used in very similar context
خايف لييحي من هنا وأخته تكون سافرت من
هنا
my best regards in your research
Zahra
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10)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: shilmi at GMU.EDU
Subject:Troublesome negation response
Dear Andy,
this Iraqi laa is not the same Laa used for the negation, but it is la
(lam and Fat-ha) which is indeed or what we call it in Arabic "al-
tawkeed"
لام التـوكـيـد- ليـجـئن
which means, indeed they will be coming....
or, for your second sentence,
I'm afraid of my instructor if indeed (or intentionally) he will give
me a bad grade.
Sanaa Hilmi
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11)
Date: 30 Dec 2008
From: fishbein at HUMNET.UCLA.EDU
Subject:Troublesome negation response
Regarding Andy Freeman's question about the use of laa in Baghdadi
Arabic after expressions of fearing, it seems reasonable to see the
usage as descended from a construction common in Classical Arabic. It
is discussed in Wright, II, D (paragraph 162).
"When verbs signifying to forbid, fear, and the like, are followed by
أن with the subjunctive, the negative لا is sometimes inserted
after أن without affecting the meaning." Wright then cites examples
from the Koran: ما منعك ألا تسجد and ما منعك إذ
رأيتهم ضلوا ألا تتبعني ..." One might speculate
about the semantic closeness of fearing and hoping, of "I fear they
may do it," and "I hope they don't do it," so that the construction
appropriate to hoping might come to be used with expressions of fearing.
Skipping ahead to the dialect: if we assume that the ان introducing
the subjunctive falls away in modern dialects, one is left with the
redundant لا after an expression of fearing. The لا would be felt
to be a conjunction, especially since لا as a negative for verbs is
rare in modern dialects. A similar la- (assuming that la- is an
unstressed, proclitic form of of لا) is also common in Egyptian
dialect after the verb xaaf and imperatives -- see Hinds/Badawi p
774. The English translation "lest" usually works, or one can simply
leave the negative untranslated, as Wright suggests.
Michael Fishbein, Lecturer in Arabic
Dept. of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
366 Humanities Building, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1511
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