Tag Archives: negative
Tense and Negative Affixes in Arabic Dialects and MSA Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on May 8, 2018
Two obvious differences between Arabic dialects and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are the parsing marks and certain affixes. In MSA, the time of the action of the present verb is indicated through the parsing marks. In dialects, it is known through prefixes. Likewise, MSA sentences are negated using separate negative particles. In dialects, the original…
Basic Sentence Structure in Arabic (III) Posted by Ibnulyemen اِبْنُ اليَمَن on Dec 1, 2017
Previously, you were acquainted with the types of sentences in Arabic. Based on the part of speech of the word with which it starts, the sentence is verbal فِعْلِيَّة or nominal اِسْمِيَّة. The verbal must at least have a verb فِعْل and a subject فَاعِل to be meaningful. In this post, you learn the common…
Categorical Negation in Arabic Posted by aziza on Dec 3, 2010
The negative particle (لا) is typically used to negate verbal sentences in the present tense. In this way, it is used before the present tense verb to negate it, e.g. لا أشرب الكحول. “I do not drink alcohol.” There is another use of (لا) for categorical negation (لا النافية للجنس). In this way, (لا) negates…
Negating verbal sentences in Arabic Posted by aziza on Sep 3, 2010
In this post, I explain how to negate verbal sentences, and provide some exercises to practice it. To negate the present tense, we use the particle (لا) immediately before the verb. Remember, nothing should separate (لا) from the verb. Consider the following examples: الولد يحمل حقيبة. “The boy carries a bag.” الولد لا يحمل حقيبة…