Arabic-L:LING:summary of responses on unusual negative

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 02 Jan 2009
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:summary of responses on unusual negative

-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------
1)
Date: 02 Jan 2009
From:andyf at u.washington.edu
Subject:summary of responses on unusual negative

Hi everybody,



                 Many thanks to all those who responded to my request   
for
help with the apparently extraneous Laa in my corpus.



                 Here is an example of the phenomenon in question.

'iHna 'awwalan xaa'ifiin min hadhoola l-muxarribiin laa yijuun w  
yxarribuun
il-maHaTTa



                 This is the general consensus.



1)      It is not laa.  It should be transcribed as la.

'iHna 'awwalan xaa'ifiin min hadhoola l-muxarribiin la yijuun w  
yxarribuun
il-maHaTTa

2)      Three people said that it means "lest" or might and it is  
analogous
to the modal "laHsan" which is used in the Egyptian vernacular.

3)      Three people compared it to the li + subjunctive in Standard  
Arabic
that means "that" or "in order to"

4)      Now I'm wondering if it is not related to the "la" that can
introduce a result clause in a hypothetical sentence. For example:

a.       Law kaan fiih xeer,  la ma ramaah aT-Teer. (if it were worth
anything the bird would not have tossed it)

5)      The "we" in this sentence are afraid, but the thing being  
feared has
not happened yet, it only exists in some contrary to fact universe, so  
that
this use of "xaa'if" is forcing some kind of "contrary to fact" modality
that is similar to that produced by using "law"



In any event I am secure in thinking that the correct translation into
idiomatic English is one of the following:



First off we are afraid of those vandals who might come and wreck the
station.

First off we are afraid of those vandals lest they come and wreck the
station.



Once again, thank you to everybody who responded.

Best regards,

Andy



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