# لم + المضارع



## chaalbaz

Hi. Is there a difference between لم followed by مضارع and ما followed by ماضي? For example,

lam yamurru
maa marra

Do they both mean "He did not pass by."?

Thank you.


----------



## Abu Talha

This post may answer your query:
negation: ما / لا


----------



## Aliph

@ Abu Taha, I read the other thread and found it interesting. However I continue to ask myself if there is a small difference of meaning between the negation of past verbs with lam+imperfect and maa+ perfect.


----------



## Amirali1383koohi

لَمْ  is used to negate the present form of the verb, but it changes its tense to past. Contrary to مَا, which is used to negate an action in the past , لَمْ  indicates that negation continued from the past until the present moment. For example, if you say لَمْ أَكْتُبْ الدَّرْس, it means that action of ‘not writing’ started in the past and continued to the present. Therefore, لَمْ أَكْتُبْ الدَّرْس means ‘I have not written the lesson.’ As to the form of the verb, it changes a bit. That is, if the verb is in singular form, its final diacritical mark changes from dhammah to sukoon. If it is dual or plural, the final ن is dropped. If it is irregular, it loses its final or medial weak letter. Here are more examples:
لَمْ يَتَغَدَّ أَحْمَد. ‘Ahmed hasn’t eaten lunch.’

لَمْ يُغَادِرِ الضُّيُوف. ‘the guests have not left.’

لَمْ تُرْقُصِ البَنَات. ‘the girls have not danced.’

اللَّاعِبُون لَم يَخْرُجُوا مِنَ المَلْعَب. ‘the players have not left the playground.’

مُحَمَّد وأَخُوْه لَمْ يَذْهَبَا إِلى السُّوْق. ‘Mohammed and his brother have not gone to the market.
In fact, the word (لم) must be in conjunction with the verb(المضارع المجزوم)
But unfortunately I don't know the difference between لم and لم یکد.


----------



## chaalbaz

Amir Ali: I believe "indicating that the negation continued from the past until the present moment" is the meaning of لَمّا.

For example, قَالَتِ الْأَعْرَابُ آمَنَّا ۖ قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَلَٰكِن قُولُوا أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ الْإِيمَانُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ
I think this means "Faith has not entered into your hearts *yet*."


----------



## Amirali1383koohi

Chaalbaz:
You should not translate the word (لم) into (yet)
The word (لم) only represents the negation of the past until now (or close to the present time).
Its translation is similar to the phrase ( لم یکد)
That's my opinion, 
But it is better to wait for the Arab people to come to our aid.


----------



## chaalbaz

I didn't translate the word لم as "yet".


----------



## analeeh

Amirali1383koohi said:


> لَمْ  is used to negate the present form of the verb, but it changes its tense to past. Contrary to مَا, which is used to negate an action in the past , لَمْ  indicates that negation continued from the past until the present moment. For example, if you say لَمْ أَكْتُبْ الدَّرْس, it means that action of ‘not writing’ started in the past and continued to the present. Therefore, لَمْ أَكْتُبْ الدَّرْس means ‘I have not written the lesson.’



No, this is the imposition of an English distinction onto Arabic. I think you've been misled by the fact that _lam_ is followed by a verb that looks like it's present.. In contemporary Arabic at least - and I've never seen any suggestion that this was different in classical - لم and ما are more or less synonymous as past negators, with _lam_ far more common. There may be a nuance in Classical Arabic, when the two were both in more common usage, but it's not the nuance you describe: Arab linguistics forums seem to suggest that _maa _is more emphatic and general (maybe 'has never' would be correct).

 ما is used considerably less in modern writing, perhaps because it's felt to be too similar to colloquial (there's a tendency to avoid forms that are also possible in dialect in favour of uniquely fuS7a ones, at least in some writers).


----------



## Amirali1383koohi

chaalbaz said:


> I didn't translate the word لم as "yet".


Sorry


----------



## chaalbaz

No problem.


----------



## Amirali1383koohi

analeeh said:


> ما is used considerably less in modern writing, perhaps because it's felt to be too similar to colloquial (there's a tendency to avoid forms that are also possible in dialect in favour of uniquely fuS7a ones, at least in some writers).


I read elsewhere that:
In English, we can translate ما with: not at all (if we want to put stress on the negation). In German we could use one of the following translations: gar nicht or überhaupt nicht.

1    I didn’t get thirsty at all.    ما عَطِشْتُ
1    I wasn’t thirsty.    لَمْ أَعْطَشْ
2    He can’t see you at all.    ما يَراكَ
2    He can’t see you.    لا يَراكَ

What do you think ?


----------



## Pussykat

Lam yamurru is wrong. It should be lam yamurr because it is majzoom. Or maybe it can be lam yamurra/i. In fact, maybe even lam yamrur, though no Arab actually says lam yamrur.


----------



## chaalbaz

No, I don't think lam yamurru is wrong.
But lam yamurr (with a sukoon) is definitely wrong.


----------



## Amirali1383koohi

chaalbaz said:


> No, I don't think lam yamurru is wrong.
> But lam yamurr (with a sukoon) is definitely wrong.


No,You should say ْلَمْ يَمُرَّ / لَمْ يَمْرُر
( لَمْ یَمُرُّ / لَمْ یَمُرْ are wrong )


----------



## analeeh

Amirali1383koohi said:


> I read elsewhere that:
> In English, we can translate ما with: not at all (if we want to put stress on the negation). In German we could use one of the following translations: gar nicht or überhaupt nicht.
> 
> 1    I didn’t get thirsty at all.    ما عَطِشْتُ
> 1    I wasn’t thirsty.    لَمْ أَعْطَشْ
> 2    He can’t see you at all.    ما يَراكَ
> 2    He can’t see you.    لا يَراكَ
> 
> What do you think ?



You'd need to ask a native, but I don't think this distinction is maintained by anyone today except artificially. It's rare to see ما in the past and almost unheard of to see it in the present even in quite elevated literature, I would say.


----------



## Abu Talha

Aliph said:


> @ Abu Taha, I read the other thread and found it interesting. However I continue to ask myself if there is a small difference of meaning between the negation of past verbs with lam+imperfect and maa+ perfect.


The linked post mentions a difference in emphasis. As for a difference in tense, I have not found anything conclusive.


----------



## Amirali1383koohi

analeeh said:


> You'd need to ask a native, but I don't think this distinction is maintained by anyone today except artificially. It's rare to see ما in the past and almost unheard of to see it in the present even in quite elevated literature, I would say.


Thanks for your help


----------



## Qureshpor

Abu Talha said:


> The linked post mentions a difference in emphasis. As for a difference in tense, I have not found anything conclusive.


I was reading an article entitled "Tense and Text in Classical Arabic by Michal Marmostein and came across the following on page 178...

"The Arab grammarians defined the negated verbal forms in contrast to their affirmative counterparts. Thus Sibawayhi presents a neat correspondence between فعل and its negation لم یفعل and between لقد فعل and its negation ما فعل............"

So, if we translate these pairs as...

فعل He did do لم یفعل He did not do

لقد فعل He has done ما فعل He has not done

we can see the difference in meaning, at least in Sibawayhi's time.


----------



## S1234

But sometimes adding لم to a مضارع verb does not put it in the past. Look at this from al-Noor 6:

وَٱلَّذِينَ يَرْمُونَ أَزْوَٰجَهُمْ وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُمْ شُهَدَآءُ إِلَّآ أَنفُسُهُمْ فَشَهَٰدَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ أَرْبَعُ شَهَٰدَٰتٍ بِٱللَّهِ ۙ إِنَّهُۥ لَمِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ


----------



## Romeel

S1234 said:


> But sometimes adding لم to a مضارع verb does not put it in the past. Look at this from al-Noor 6:
> 
> وَٱلَّذِينَ يَرْمُونَ أَزْوَٰجَهُمْ *وَلَمْ يَكُن* لَّهُمْ شُهَدَآءُ إِلَّآ أَنفُسُهُمْ فَشَهَٰدَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ أَرْبَعُ شَهَٰدَٰتٍ بِٱللَّهِ ۙ إِنَّهُۥ لَمِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ


It is in the past! How do you understand it?


----------



## WadiH

S1234 said:


> But sometimes adding لم to a مضارع verb does not put it in the past. Look at this from al-Noor 6:
> 
> وَٱلَّذِينَ يَرْمُونَ أَزْوَٰجَهُمْ وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُمْ شُهَدَآءُ إِلَّآ أَنفُسُهُمْ فَشَهَٰدَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ أَرْبَعُ شَهَٰدَٰتٍ بِٱللَّهِ ۙ إِنَّهُۥ لَمِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ



Yes there are cases where it expresses a 'subjunctive mood', i.e. a hypothetical situation, similar to English ("If I were to do it again, I would do it differently").


----------



## Ali Smith

WadiH said:


> Yes there are cases where it expresses a 'subjunctive mood', i.e. a hypothetical situation, similar to English ("If I were to do it again, I would do it differently").


I've never heard of this mood in Arabic before. Where did you read about it?


----------



## 𒍝𒊑𒈾 𒂵𒉿𒀉

Ali Smith said:


> I've never heard of this mood in Arabic before. Where did you read about it?


I don't think it exists. Never heard of it before.


----------



## analeeh

I'm not sure native speakers necessarily have to 'read about' a mood to know that it exists.

I think Wadi is referring to cases where لم is the negative of the ماضي as expressing hypothetical situations (لو لم أذهب and so on).


----------



## Qureshpor

analeeh said:


> I'm not sure native speakers necessarily have to 'read about' a mood to know that it exists.
> 
> I think Wadi is referring to cases where لم is the negative of the ماضي as expressing hypothetical situations (لو لم أذهب and so on).


With due respect, I am afraid even native speakers can be wrong and are not the be all and end all. With regard to #21, I would agree with @Ali Smith. I too have never come across *ل*م + المضارع to convey a "subjunctive mood" in all the grammatical literature I've read by native and non-native grammarians. I may have missed it but I don't think so. There was a difference in the older classical language in negating the past with ما + ماضی and لم + مضارع and although Sibawayh was not a native speaker, his word should have some weight (see #18), don't you think?



WadiH said:


> Yes there are cases where it expresses a 'subjunctive mood', i.e. a hypothetical situation, similar to English ("If I were to do it again, I would do it differently").





analeeh said:


> I think Wadi is referring to cases where لم is the negative of the ماضي as expressing hypothetical situations (لو لم أذهب and so on).


This is not explicit in his response.


----------



## analeeh

I'm sure @WadiH can defend himself, but in a case like this I don't think the fact that it's not mentioned by grammarians is particularly relevant. In Arabic it wouldn't be described as a separate 'mood' because this category doesn't exist in native grammar. In English treatments as well, 'subjunctive' is usually used to mean منصوب (on verbs). But unless I have misunderstood him completely, I immediately knew what Wadi was referring to. It is very, very common - and I'm sure you've come across it yourself - for the _maaDi _and thus the _majzuum_ to refer to hypothetical situations. 

As far as the native speaker point goes, native speakers are generally the best qualified to say whether a particular meaning is common, and it is odd, to say the least, that a non-native speaker feels so confident dismissing an educated and non-linguistically-naïve native speaker's statement as incorrect out of hand simply on the basis that they've never encountered it expressed that way in the secondary literature.


----------



## Qureshpor

analeeh said:


> I'm sure @WadiH can defend himself, but in a case like this I don't think the fact that it's not mentioned by grammarians is particularly relevant.


I believe it's very relevant but we'll agree to disagree.



analeeh said:


> and it is odd, to say the least, that a non-native speaker feels so confident dismissing an educated and non-linguistically-naïve native speaker's statement as incorrect out of hand simply on the basis that they've never encountered it expressed that way in the secondary literature.


Well, all @Ali Smith said was


Ali Smith said:


> I've never heard of this mood in Arabic before. Where did you read about it?


Which is not quite the same as what you are saying. But, we'll leave it here.


----------



## WadiH

Qureshpor said:


> With due respect, I am afraid even native speakers can be wrong and are not the be all and end all.



No one has said otherwise.  The point is rather that native speakers can describe how they think something works in their language without having read about it specifically in a reference work or being able to give the official technical term for it (and this doesn't mean they are always right in what they think of course).



Qureshpor said:


> With regard to #21, I would agree with @Ali Smith. I too have never come across *ل*م + المضارع to convey a "subjunctive mood" in all the grammatical literature I've read by native and non-native grammarians. I may have missed it but I don't think so.



I just used 'subjunctive' in the generic sense of hypothetical, potential, etc. In other words, something that is not indicative, optative or imperative.  I don't know if that is the term used in Arabic reference works.  I suppose you and Ali thought I meant there was an Arabic counterpart to it like مجزوم and منصوب, etc. which might be the reason for the confusion.  The way I understand it, the 'منصوب' mood overlaps with a number of different 'moods' described in western languages but is not identical to any one of them in particular.  Arabic grammar and western grammars conceive of things differently and the best we can do is make approximate correspondences to convey an idea but there is no 1-to-1 correspondence between concepts in each system.  But I didn't learn Arabic grammar from western grammars so you would know better what technical terms are used.



Qureshpor said:


> There was a difference in the older classical language in negating the past with ما + ماضی and لم + مضارع and although Sibawayh was not a native speaker, his word should have some weight (see #18), don't you think?



This is correct but not really what we were talking about.  (As an irrelevant aside, no one knows for sure whether or not Sibawayh acquired Arabic natively, since the surviving information is so slight, but it's quite possible that he did, since we are told he died a young man and had already been a student of hadith and jurisprudence before he turned to grammar.)



Qureshpor said:


> This is not explicit in his response.



I thought I was explicit but maybe not.  Again all I meant was that you can use 'past forms' (whether _MaaDi_ or _lam+muDaari'_) in situations where the actions did not actually take place in the past.  For example, in a legal text you would encounter something like this: فلو اشترى كذا وكذا وقال كذا وكذا ولم يدفع الثمن كان البيع فاسداً.  All the verbs here are in a past tense yet none of them describe anything that happened in the past.  I would describe this as a hypothetical (which in western languages is usually classed under 'subjunctive') but if you think another term would be more suitable feel free to suggest one.  Either way, I think it should be clearer now what I meant.


----------



## Qureshpor

WadiH said:


> This is correct but not really what we were talking about. (As an aside, no one knows for sure whether or not Sibawayh acquired Arabic natively, but it's quite possible from his biography that he did, since he died a young man and had been a student of hadith and jurisprudence before he turned to grammar.)


I've read somewhere that Arabs define a "native speaker" as someone whose mother speaks Arabic. In this sence Sibawayh was a non-native speaker.



WadiH said:


> I thought I was explicit but maybe not.



You quoted the below and then commented...



S1234 said:


> But sometimes adding لم to a مضارع verb does not put it in the past. Look at this from al-Noor 6:
> 
> وَٱلَّذِينَ يَرْمُونَ أَزْوَٰجَهُمْ وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُمْ شُهَدَآءُ إِلَّآ أَنفُسُهُمْ فَشَهَٰدَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ أَرْبَعُ شَهَٰدَٰتٍ بِٱللَّهِ ۙ إِنَّهُۥ لَمِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ





WadiH said:


> Yes there are cases where it expresses a 'subjunctive mood', i.e. a hypothetical situation, similar to English ("If I were to do it again, I would do it differently").


There is no way one can assume that you had hypothetical situations in mind involving constructions involving لو. I am not sure if one can deduce constructions such as "If I were to do it again, I would do it differently" with لم + a majzuum verb.


----------



## WadiH

Qureshpor said:


> I've read somewhere that Arabs define a "native speaker" as someone whose mother speaks Arabic. In this sence Sibawayh was a non-native speaker.



Well we are not using 'native speaker' in that sense (which I've never heard of).  We are using it in the sense used in modern times, which is the sense relevant to this discussion, i.e. someone who acquires a language as a child rather than through deliberate study.  We simply don't know how Sibawayh came to know Arabic (though his genealogy contains Arabic names for at least two prior generations so we can't just assume his mother did not speak Arabic).



Qureshpor said:


> You quoted the below and then commented...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is no way one can assume that you had hypothetical situations in mind involving constructions involving لو. I am not sure if one can deduce constructions such as "If I were to do it again, I would do it differently" with لم + a majzuum verb.



I used the word 'hypothetical' didn't I?  The example from English was just to illustrate that a past verb can be used to describe something that didn't happen in the past in other languages.  It was not meant as a translation of the لم يفعل phrases, although I thought we were talking about 'past' verbs in general and لو can be used with past verbs in Arabic (e.g. لو استقبلت من أمري ما استدبرت لأكثرتُ من الخيرات).  Again, maybe my earlier statement wasn't phrased clearly enough, but my last post should have made clear what I meant. You are obviously free to take it or leave it.


----------



## Qureshpor

S1234 said:


> But sometimes adding لم to a مضارع verb does not put it in the past. Look at this from al-Noor 6:
> 
> وَٱلَّذِينَ يَرْمُونَ أَزْوَٰجَهُمْ وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُمْ شُهَدَآءُ إِلَّآ أَنفُسُهُمْ فَشَهَٰدَةُ أَحَدِهِمْ أَرْبَعُ شَهَٰدَٰتٍ بِٱللَّهِ ۙ إِنَّهُۥ لَمِنَ ٱلصَّٰدِقِينَ





Romeel said:


> It is in the past! How do you understand it?


On page 128 of "Arabic Through The Qur'an" by Professor Alan Jones, he says...

In dealing with lam + the jussive*, grammarians normally say something akin to Wright's view that it "invariably has the meaning of maa + the perfect **(Grammar, 2, 24). However, this is not true either of th Qur'an or early Arabic in general, where lam + the jussive usually has a past meaning but sometimes a present meaning..." He then goes onto quote from the Qur'an 2:260, 5:40, 9:78 and 17:111 and provides translations using the present. 

* the majzuun verb
** the maaDhi verb

I hope this answers your query.


----------

