Negation in Arabic
overview about negation in Arabic
Negation in Arabic (Arabic: ٱلنَّفْي, romanized: al-nafy 'the negative') is the array of approaches used in Arabic grammar to express grammatical negation. These strategies correspond to words in English like no and not.
Modern Standard Arabic
Negation in the present tense
Negating present-tense verbs
Present-tense verbs are negated by adding لا lā "not" before the verb:
Negation of sentences with no verb
If a sentence would, in the affirmative, have no verb (this can only happen in the present tense), then the negative verb لَيْسَ laysa "is not" is used. laysa is inflected like a past-tense verb, but is used to negate present-tense sentences. As with كانَ kāna "was", the complement of laysa must be in the accusative case. Before consonantal endings, the diphthong -ay- is reduced to a short -a-.
Here is an example sentence saying that something is not big in all possible persons and numbers:
Negation of past-tense verbs
In Modern Standard Arabic, the main way to negate past-tense verbs is to add the negative particle لَمْ lam "not" before the verb, and to put the verb in the jussive mood. In more colloquial usage, it is possible to give the verb in the present indicative mood (which is largely identical in form to the jussive).
It is also possible to use the negative particle ما mā before the verb, giving the verb in the past tense.
Negation of verbs in the future tense
Negating a proposition in the future is done by placing the negative particle لَنْ lan before the verb in the subjunctive mood.
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