לא

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Aramaic

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Etymology

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From Proto-Semitic *lā.

Adverb

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לָא ()

  1. no, not

Antonyms

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Hebrew

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Etymology

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From Proto-Semitic *lā. Cognate with Arabic لا.

Pronunciation

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Adverb

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לֹא (lo)

  1. Not; used in negating verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Usage notes

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  • לא is not used to negate verbs in the imperative; rather, in ancient texts negative imperatives consist of לא and a verb in the second-person jussive, and in modern use they consist of אל (al) and a verb in the second-person future. However, even in modern use, לא may be used together with a to-infinitive to create what might be called a "general negative imperative", where no specific person is being addressed. (The general negative imperative might be better viewed as a kind of declarative, however, as it can be used in a subordinate clause.)
  • Hebrew does not require a "dummy auxiliary verb" to negate a verb; for example, English "I didn't go" corresponds to Hebrew לא הלכתי (lo halákhti, not went-1ST-PERSON-SINGULAR).
  • לא cannot be used to negate יש (yesh, there is, there are); rather, its negative counterpart אין (ein, there isn't, there aren't) must be used.
  • In formal Hebrew, clauses of the form <subject> לא <verb in present-tense, adjective or noun phrase> (meaning <subject> don't/doesn't <verb> or <subject> isn't/aren't/am not <adjective or noun phrase>) are typically recast using אין (ein) in its inflections.
  • לא can stand in for an entire negative clause, rather like English not or an English auxiliary verb plus not, but a bit more flexibly.

Interjection

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לֹא (lo)

  1. No; used in responding to questions.

See also

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Anagrams

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