Modality and Negation

The biclausal structure associated with Arabic lexical modal verbs provides two positions for negation, because it can be in the main clause preceding the modal verb (external negation), as in

لحرت نأ بجي لا

lit. It is not neces-sary that you leave, or in the subject clause following

نأ

(internal negation), as in

لحرت لا نأ بجي

lit. It is necessary that you do not leave. The differ-ence in meaning between these two examples is clear; negation in the main clause of a modal of necessity denies obligation, whereas negation in the subject clause expresses prohibition. We see the same semantic distinction in the negation of have to and must, in which do(es) not have to denies obligation, whereas must not expresses prohibition. This functional parallel allows us to translate

لحرت نأ بجي لا

as You do not have to leave and

بجي

لحرت لا نأ

as You must not leave. Although this solution works well in many cases, we should not treat it as a translation rule because when negation precedes a modal verb in Arabic, it is functionally ambiguous because it can encode prohibition as well, as in (34). This ambiguity can only be resolved

by analyzing the context to figure out the intended function of negation in the source sentence. One way of doing this is to look at the affirmative embedded clause and determine the writer’s attitude toward it, which is the motivation for using negation in the first place. If the situation described in the embedded clause is something that the writer would not like to see at all, we have a case of prohibition, and we can translate it using must not. If it is a situation that the writer would not mind seeing sometimes, we are dealing with lack of obligation, which can be translated using do(es) not have to. In this particular example, we need to choose between criminal evidence does not have to be obtained illegally and criminal evidence must not be obtained illegally. The paraphrase in the second sentence in (34) makes it clear that the intended function of negation is prohibition.

.12366 ددعلا ،2010 وينوي 7 ،)تيوكلا( نطولا ةديرج )

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( لجرلا طبض دقف ،عورشم ريغ قيرط نع ءيجي نأ بجي لا ةميرجلا ليلد نإ هطبض نوكي نأ انه يغبني نكلو ىرخأ تاقبوم ضعبو رمخلا برشي وهو .ةعورشم تاءارجلإ اقفو

Criminal evidence must not be obtained illegally. The man was arrested while consuming alcohol and other illegal substances, but his arrest should have followed legal procedures.

Although the negation patterns we just saw with

بجي

apply to all other Arabic lexical modal verbs of necessity, we cannot generalize the transla-tion strategies that work with

بجي

to other such verbs because each one has its own unique semantic properties that interact differently with negation.

For example, we saw earlier that

رطضي

is a modal verb of necessity that expresses yielding to external obligations. In other words, it is functionally equivalent to have to. When negation precedes

رطضي

, we get a construction that denies obligation, and, accordingly, it can be translated as does not have to. The problem is that when

رطضي

takes an embedded negative clause, as in

كراشأ لاأ تررطضا

in (35), we get a construction that encodes the obligation of a negative situation. We cannot translate

كراشأ لاأ تررطضا

as I had to not participate/attend because, though it captures the meaning of the source phrase, its grammaticality is questionable at best. Of course, if we translate it as I did not have to participate/attend, we completely change the mean-ing. Here, we need to apply some of the word- and phrase- level translation strategies we discussed earlier to come up with a translation candidate that preserves the meaning of the source sentence. We can, for example, apply

substitution to get I could not participate/attend, in which we translate a modal of necessity using a modal of possibility because being forced to not do something is equivalent to not being able to do it. Alternatively, we can maintain the modal of obligation had to while substituting the verb in the complement clause in a way that entails the meaning of negation without expressing it overtly, as in I had to miss.

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( .يهللإا سادقلا يف كراشأ لاأ تررطضا اذإ دحلأا موي لماك عايضب رعشأ

I feel completely lost on Sunday if I have to miss the Holy Mass.

Arabic modal verbs of possibility have the same grammatical patterns as modal verbs of necessity; we can have negation in the main clause preced-ing the modal verb, as in

لحرت نأ نكمي لا

It is not possible that you leave, or in the subject clause, as in

لحرت لا نأ نكمي

It is possible that you do not leave. However, there is one critical semantic difference: Externally negated modal verbs of possibility do not display the kind of ambiguity we saw with

بجي

. In other words, when negation precedes a modal verb of possibility, we have a structure that can only deny possibility, meaning it is not possible that. The whole phrase

نأ نكمي لا

can be directly translated using cannot, as in (36), in which possibility is interpreted as probability. We can use a different negated modal of possibility, such as may not and might not, if the negated possibility is interpreted as denying permission.

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( لماوح نحبصي نأ نكمي لا تاعضرملا تاهملأا نأ عساو قاطن ىلع دقتعي .امامت احيحص نوكي لا دق اذه نأ نم نورذحي ءاسنلا ءابطأ نكل

It is widely believed that mothers who are breastfeeding cannot become pregnant, but ob/gyns warn that this might not be completely true.

In (37), conversely, we have negation in the subject clause. As a result, the sentence expresses possibility rather than the lack thereof, even though it is a possibility of a negated state of affairs. This is a structural gap be-cause English does not have a construction that would be equivalent in this context. The relative clause

ماعلا زواجتت لا نأ نكمي

encodes dynamic modality, and it is interpreted as it is possible that it (the period) does not exceed a year. Because the source sentence is describing possibility, we can consider

may and can as equivalents of

نكمي

, as in a period that cannot/may not exceed a year. The problem here is that using either modal would result in a functional mismatch because these candidates would either deny that probability or add an unwarranted ambiguity by triggering a deontic inter-pretation—namely, that the duration of the project is not allowed to exceed a year. The solution lies somewhere else in the source sentence. The modal clause itself is embedded within the adverbial clause headed by

نيلمآ

hop-ing, which implicitly expresses probability; when we hope for somethhop-ing, we imply that we believe it is possible. In other words, the modal expression is rather redundant, and we can leave it out without causing translation losses or ambiguities. We can also leave out negation if we reconstruct the interim translation does not exceed a year in a way that implicitly expresses negation. We can do this by reconstructing the subject clause as a temporal adverbial phrase using prepositions, as in hoping to complete it (the project) within a year/in less than a year.

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( رهضلا لبج يف ددح عورشملا اذه ةماقلإ ارخآ اناكم ةيدلبلا تراتخا دقو .ماعلا زواجتت لا نأ نكمي ةرتف للاخ هزاجنإ نيلمآ ،ايبصاح يبرغ

The municipality has chosen a different site for this project on Jabal Al- Dahr, west of Hasbia, hoping to complete it within a year.

Having two possible positions for negation means that it is possible to have negation in both. For example, the sentence in (38) has two instances of negation: One is in the main clause preceding the modal verb

نكمي

and the other is in the modal’s subject clause preceding the predicate

ريشتسي

consult.

In semantic terms, this sentence means it is not possible for Al- Khidr not to consult the authorities or Al- Khidr cannot not consult the authorities, which is not permissible. As we saw in our previous discussion of double negation, this is not the kind of construction in which two negations would cancel each other out. Neutralizing negation here would give us Al- Khidr can consult the authorities, which is not what the source sentence means at all. The combination of two negations with a modal of possibility gives us a construction that describes necessity. In this particular sentence, necessity does not describe obligation, but rather probabilistic necessity and the lack of volition. In other words, in every possible situation in which Al- Khidr makes a decision, he is certain to consult the authorities. To maintain this interpretation, we need to keep the negation that denies the modal verb,

while rephrasing the subject clause in a way that does not require negation.

We can do this by using the preposition without, as in Al- Khidr cannot make such decisions without consulting the authorities. This solution takes care of the structural problem, but there is still the unresolved issue of volition, which can be reflected in the translation if we use a negated modal of voli-tion, such as would.

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( ريشتسي لا نأ نكمي لا – اديج هفرعأ يذلا – رضخلا نمحرلا دبع نأ امك .تارارقلا هذه لثم يف تاطلسلا

Besides, Abdel- Rahman Al- Khidr, whom I know very well, would never make such decisions without consulting the authorities.

Double negation works differently with modal verbs of necessity because the negation in the subject clause is blocked. The sentence in (39) has a very similar structure to the one in the previous example; we have a negated modal verb in the main clause, and a subject clause that also includes nega-tion. The subject clause describes the following state of affairs: This is at the expense of our environment, which is negated, resulting in This is not at the expense of our environment. This negated clause is within the scope of the modal verb of necessity

بجي

, which can be translated as should, be-cause the sentence describes deontic moral obligation, yielding It is nec-essary that this not be at the expense of our environment, which can be paraphrased as This should not be at the expense of our environment. Obvi-ously, the problem is that the main modal verb is negated in a construction that would literally mean It is not necessary that this should not be at the expense of our environment or This should not not be at the expense of our environment, neither of which can be considered a valid translation. The two negations do not cancel each other out; otherwise, the sentence would mean This should be at the expense of our environment. What is unique about negated modal verbs of necessity is that they block the semantic function of negation in their subject clauses. Because negation in the subject clause is semantically irrelevant, we can simply ignore it and translate the sentence as if there were only one negative operator.

.232 ددعلا ،2009 ربمفون 2 ،)تاراملإا( ةيداصتقلاا ةيؤرلا ةديرج )

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(

لا نأ بجي لا تقو يف ،ةينقتلا انتاردق نيسحت ىلع لمعلاب امئاد نوبلاطم اننإ

.انتئيب باسح ىلع كلذ نوكي

We are always required to work on improving our technological capabilities, but at the same time, this should not be at the expense of our environment.

In document The Georgetown Guide to Arabic-English Translation.pdf (Page 136-141)