# Palestinian Arabic: ماقصديش



## oopqoo

مرحبا يا جماعة 
I think I have heard this word, قصديش, obviously قصدي + ش, when saying "[that's] not what I meant"/"I didn't mean to" (translates better to Hebrew: לא כוונתי/לא בכוונה). Maybe there was a ما before it which I missed.
Is it common in PA to add ش to negate words that are just nouns? If so, what are those words?

Thank you in advance!


----------



## elroy

It's ماقصديش or مش قصدي.


----------



## apricots

Other examples are بد as in بديش etc and محداش


----------



## raful

The combination ما بدّيش sounds reasonable since the basis of بد  is a verb (ب+ودّ)
How did we get ما حداش or ما قصديش?


----------



## apricots

محداش I think is more curious than مقصديش since 2uzdi functions like a verb. Also interesting is the arbitrariness of when ma is necessary and when it's not. For instance, we have to say معنديش but we can say معيش. We can say بديش but not قصديش and محداش works but not حداش.


----------



## elroy

apricots said:


> 2uzdi


 It's 2azdi. 

This is totally intuitive for me so I'm not sure what the rules are, if there are any, but here are some thoughts:

بديش makes sense because this is a verb even though etymologically it's not.

معيش may have arisen to avoid the "mama" in مامعيش, i.e. this may have been a process of phonological reduction to facilitate pronunciation. 

In all other cases, ما is required.  While ماعنديش, ماقصديش, and مانفسيش function as verbs (like بديش), the fact that بديش is possible may mean that بدي is farther along in the grammaticalization process (from nominal to verbal) than the others. 

If my analysis is correct, that only leaves ماحداش in need of an explanation.  For now, I'll chalk it up as an "exception."


----------



## apricots

I think قصدي is the only one of the group that can take مش with the same meaning. Whereas if you say مش بدك instead of بدكاش it implies you thought they wanted something.


----------



## elroy

I feel the need to post a follow-up post because I think my last post may have been confusing since I was addressing two separate things in a perhaps not-so-clear way.

The two things are:

1.) words that are etymologically not verbs that take ما...ش as opposed to مش
2.) within that group, which ones can take just ش

This all has to do with grammaticalization.  Etymologically, these words are not verbs, but all of them, except for ماحداش, are used verbally, so they are undergoing a process of grammaticalization from non-verbal forms to verbal forms, and they are at different stages.

One stage is represented by the use of ما...ش instead of مش.  A further stage is representing by the admissibility of ش without ما.  Another stage, occurring either before or after the second, would be the ungrammaticality of مش (if the same meaning is to be maintained).

(A) ماقصديش / مش قصدي: This is perhaps the least grammaticalized because it doesn't allow bare ش AND it continues to allow مش, so its only "verbal" characteristic (of the ones discussed here) is that it allows ما...ش.

(B) ماعنديش / مانفسيش: These are more grammaticalized because not only do they take ما...ش, but مش is not allowed without changing the meaning.  However, they don't allow bare ش.

(In case you're curious, مش نفسي would mean "It's not that I desire" as opposed to "I don't desire," and مش عندي would mean "It's not at my place," i.e. عندي is used here in a non-verbal sense.) 

(C) بديش: This is even more grammaticalized because it allows bare ش, in addition to allowing ما...ش and disallowing مش (if the same meaning is to be maintained).

On the surface, معيش looks like it falls under (C), but as I said in my previous post, I think the reason this one allows bare ش is phonological and not morphological.  In other words, I think معيش probably "really" falls under (B) although it looks like it should fall under (C).

(By the way, مش بدي would mean "It's not that I want" and مش عندي would mean "It's not with me.") 

As I said, that leaves ماحداش as an oddball since it's not used verbally yet it takes ما...ش, and in fact مش حدا is not grammatical, so this one overlaps with (B).  This could be a simple case of a paradigm being spread, through the vicissitudes of language change, to a form outside the group in question.


----------



## oopqoo

Thank you for the thorough analysis guys! I am glad to hear about مانفسيش too because I've never heard it before.
What I'm curious about too is whether people are comfortable saying these expressions for all pronouns: ماقصدهنش for example. Or would they be more inclined to say مش قصدهن instead? The reason I'd think that is because to my untrained ears the هن suffix sounds a little awkward when adding a ش to it - but maybe I just need to get used to it.

And just to make sure- whenever you have the هنش suffix is it with a shadda on the ن like "hennesh" or is it "hensh"/"henesh"?


----------



## elroy

oopqoo said:


> ماقصدهنش


 Yes, perfectly normal. 


oopqoo said:


> whenever you have the هنش suffix is it with a shadda on the ن like "hennesh" or is it "hensh"/"henesh"?


 I've only ever heard "ma2azdhinneš".


----------



## apricots

elroy said:


> Yes, perfectly normal.
> I've only ever heard "ma2azdhinneš".



Do you mean specifically for قصد? Things like bidhensh are quite common when people are speaking quickly.


----------



## elroy

In case this helps illustrate what I mean by grammaticalization, here is a section from a paper I wrote in which I analyze _bidd-_ as a case of grammaticalization in Palestinian Arabic.


----------



## apricots

Just came across another one of these ماسمهاش which is in the same category as ماقصديش I think with a noun + possessive acting as a verb and negated with ma...sh.


----------



## Eternal student

I think ما عمريش is also possible, no?


----------



## elroy

apricots said:


> ماسمهاش


 What word is this?  What was the whole sentence and the context? 


Eternal student said:


> I think ما عمريش is also possible, no?


----------



## apricots

elroy said:


> What word is this?  What was the whole sentence and the context?



From a tweet: تل ابيب ماسمهاش تل الربيع، الترجمة الحرفية هذه غلط. هي مدينة بناها الاحتلال على اراضي مدينة يافا المهجرة بعد ما اهلها تهجروا وبيوتهم تدمرت


----------



## elroy

Thanks.  Yes, that's very idiomatic.


----------



## elroy

Another one is ما إليش.


----------



## oopqoo

Could you give us an example sentence with that one? Does it just mean "I don't have"/"אין לי"?


----------



## apricots

ماليش خطر I don't feel like (doing something)
ماليش نفس I have no appetite (to eat, to do something)
ماليش دخل بالموضوع I have nothing to do with it
ماليش غيرك I have nobody but you
ماليش قلب اعمل هاد الاشي I don't have the heart to do that


----------



## oopqoo

So that one I've seen in the "Speaking Arabic" book by Yohanan Elihay but I thought it's pronounced maaliiš (like you wrote, ماليش) and not ma-2iliiš like elroy's writing implies. I also asked on here once how ماليش is used and people said it's more Egyptian than Palestinian. So are both pronunciations accepted? What's the conclusion?


----------



## apricots

I don't think I've ever heard it pronounced with a hamze but, of course, Elroy would know better. You may see it written مليش as well.


----------



## apricots

It just occurred to me also that it's a bit odd that we have mafišš, fišš, and fihāš but no mafiyyōš, fiyyōš, or mafihāš at least not that I've ever heard.


----------



## elroy

apricots said:


> ماليش خطر I don't feel like (doing something)


 خاطر* 


apricots said:


> ماليش قلب اعمل هاد الاشي I don't have the heart to do that


 I don't think I've ever heard this one.  Perhaps it's common in certain regions. 

As for the pronunciation, I definitely say ما إليش.  I think some people do say ما ليش, but I'd say ما إليش is more common.

Other examples of ما إليش:

ما إليش إخوة: I don't have siblings (You can also say ما عنديش.)
ما إليش إشي عليك: You don't owe me anything. 

I would say it's only used in certain constructions/expressions, i.e. you can't use productively.


apricots said:


> It just occurred to me also that it's a bit odd that we have mafišš, fišš, and fihāš but no mafiyyōš, fiyyōš, or mafihāš at least not that I've ever heard.


 This is not correct.  All of those exist.


----------



## oopqoo

What about ماشكليش? (I don't look like...)
I've never heard it but it seemed logical and I was able to find results on Google.
Is it used in Palestinian?


----------



## elroy

Yes.


----------



## Hemza

Hello,
This thread makes me think that in urban Moroccan (and in the North more broadly), people tend to put the "ش" at the end of the word instead of the pronoun. For example, Algerians, Tunisians and Libyans would tend to say "ما هو(ش) معيا" while a lot of Moroccans (except in the South and probably not in the East) would say " ما معياش". I think that in the past, it used to be like other Maghrebis and putting the ش after the noun/preposition was an urban phenomenon but today, it seems this has became the "norm" in many places.


----------

