lahaa
A Future Viewed from a Past Event
Place the lexical infinitive before an agreeing lahaa auxiliary in the dependent clause.
How It Works
Use an infinitive followed by the auxiliary: qori lahaa ‘would write’, shaqayn lahayd ‘would work’, or booqan lahaayeen ‘would visit’. Agreement is lahaa for I/he, lahayd for singular you/she, lahayn for we, lahaydeen for plural you, and lahaayeen for they.
In a past planning context, Cali wuxuu sheegay in uu warqadda qori lahaa means ‘Cali said that he would write the letter’. Writing follows saying in the reported plan; realization is left open. The weekday example makes the intended sequence explicit without automatically shifting ‘tomorrow’.
Compare dependent qoray ‘had written’: the intended earlier-event reading places writing before reporting. A condition with haddii instead supports a hypothetical reading. Dependent negatives use aan-based negation and reduced lahayn; that spelling also represents affirmative first-person plural agreement.
Examples (5)
- Cali wuxuu sheegay in uu warqadda qori lahaa.
Cali said that he would write the letter.
In the intended planning context, writing follows reporting.
- Isniintii Sahra waxay sheegtay in ay Talaadadii shaqayn lahayd.
On Monday, Sahra said that she would work on Tuesday.
The intended Tuesday is the following day in the past narrative.
- Ardaydu waxay sheegeen in ay matxafka booqan lahaayeen.
The students said that they would visit the museum.
The infinitive precedes the plural auxiliary.
- Cali wuxuu sheegay in uu warqadda qoray.
Cali said that he had written the letter.
Dependent past supplies the intended earlier-event contrast.
- Haddii aan lacag haysan lahaa, waxaan iibsan lahaa baaskiil.
If I had money, I would buy a bicycle.
The imagined condition supports a hypothetical reading.
How It Connects
Learn This First
Recognize the conditional auxiliary and relative time in reported clauses before interpreting a planned later event from a past viewpoint; infinitive and ordinary future foundations are inherited through the conditional prerequisite.
- haddii … lahaaImagined Conditions
Recognize the conditional auxiliary and relative time in reported clauses before interpreting a planned later event from a past viewpoint; infinitive and ordinary future foundations are inherited through the conditional prerequisite.
Level 4 - Time Across Two Clauses
Recognize the conditional auxiliary and relative time in reported clauses before interpreting a planned later event from a past viewpoint; infinitive and ordinary future foundations are inherited through the conditional prerequisite.
Level 6
Related Patterns
Practice lahaa in Bubblegum
Poppy, your AI tutor, writes Somali lessons at your level. Tap any grammar point in a lesson to see its full explanation.
