ebda / ħadd / xejn

Negative Indefinites

Level 5

Closely associated negative indefinites normally retain ma or m’ and remove verbal -x in declaratives.

How It Works

Ebda, also l-ebda, determines an excluded noun. Ħadd means nobody and xejn nothing in the negative constructions here. These items do not add gender or plural endings to match the excluded referents.

Ma wasal ħadd. means ‘Nobody arrived’, with singular subject agreement. Ma sibna ebda ktieb. means ‘We found no book’. M’għandi xejn. means ‘I have nothing’. Predicate negation and the indefinite cooperate; verbal -x is absent.

Tmiss xejn. means ‘Do not touch anything’. This command omits both ordinary parts of ma ... -x. Particular questions and conditions can give negative items non-negative readings. Beside negative indefinites, copular mhu is more frequent than retained mhux. The latter is attested although many speakers reject it. This variation does not license verbal -x after ma. The indefinite can trigger x-dropping across a subordinate-clause boundary; immediate adjacency is unnecessary.

Examples (4)

  1. Ma wasal ħadd.

    Nobody arrived.

    Ma and ħadd express one negative claim.

  2. Ma sibna ebda ktieb.

    We found no book.

    Ebda determines the excluded noun.

  3. M’għandi xejn.

    I have nothing.

    Negative possession lacks -x beside xejn.

  4. Tmiss xejn.

    Do not touch anything.

    This command has neither ma nor verbal -x.

How It Connects

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ebda / ħadd / xejnLevel 5Negative Indefinites

Learn This First

Introduce the different referents excluded by ebda, ħadd and xejn, then explain how their association with a predicate produces one negative claim. Separate declarative concord, prohibitions and the bounded copular variation.

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Patterns that build on this one.