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Questions and negation

4 min read · 853 words

Questions

Şnúe

"What" questions, not followed with a "to be + Subject" construction, are said in Tunisian as "şnúe..."

  1. What do you want to do?

  • Şnúe tħebb taĝmel?

  1. What did they think of eating?

  • Şnúe ꝁammmo yeeklo?

  1. What will she be studying?

  • Şnúe beeş taqra?

In these environments you can swap şnúe for ş' in casual speech. But beware because in some cases it would sound off very rude (as in you don't think of the person as worthy of the formality of saying the entire question word). For instant onstruction şnúe tħebb is sometimes preferred not to be shortened ş'tħebb.

However, if it's followed by a "to be + Subject" construction, "şnúe" should be declined with gender and number; "feminine singular, masculine singular, plural"

  1. What is this book?

  • Şnúe el kteeb heeđe?

("kteeb" is masculine)

  1. What was the college?

  • Şníe keenet el faac? ("faac" is feminine)

  1. What would the bottles be?

  • Şnoume beeş ykouno ed dbeebez?

However if the subject is not clear, "şnue" is applied again:

  1. What would be in prom?

  • Şnúe beeş ykoun f ed daꝁle

Eene

"Which" questions depend on the following subject:

If it's a "which one(s)" question, use:

  • Eneeho for masculine

  • Eneehi for feminine or unspecified

  • Eneehom for plural

If it's "which [noun]" use "Eene":

  • Nħebb ĝla carhbe ("I'm seeking a car")

  • Eneehi tħebb? ("Which one [car] do you want?")

  • BM, eeme meniiş ĝaaref eene loun ("A BMW, but i don't know which color")

  • W enti eneeho elli keen ĝandek f el qdiime? ("Which one [color] was your old [car] in?")

  • Toqsed eneehom elli keeno ĝandi ("You mean which ONES [colors] I used to have")

Alternatively, if you want to ask "which is..." you may use "eeme...".

Eeme asĝeb? Onglee walle Şenwe? ("Which is harder? English or Chinese?")

Feeş

"Feeş" refers to progressive tense as in "I am going" and "I was talking"

  • Yaqraao math ("They major in math")

  • Yaqraao f el math ("They are majoring in math")

  • Klee ħout ("He ate fish")

  • Keen yeekel f el ħout ("He was eating fish")

Questions are like:

  • Feeş yaqraao? ("What are they majoring in?")

  • Feeş keen yeekel? ("What was he eating?")

Qaddeeş

"Qaddeeş" means "how much", "how many" or "how often"

Questions with "how long/far/heavy" are replaced with contstructions like "how much length/farness/heaviness" or "how much long/far/heavy"

  1. How long is the movie?

  • Qaddeeş toulo el film?

lit: "How much its length [is] the movie?"

  1. How far is the city?

  • Qaddeeş bĝiide el mdiine?

lit: "How much far [is] the city?"

  1. How heavy to not get on?

  • Qaddeeş rozn beeş me tatlaĝş?

lit: "How much heaviness so that it doesn't get on?"

  1. How high is the mountain?

  • Qaddeeş ĝolwo ej jbal?

lit: "How much its highness [is] the mountain?"

  1. How soon can you be here?

  • Qaddeeş aqreb waqt tnejjem tkoun fih hnee?

lit: "How much the soonest time can you be during it here"

There are classical questions like:

  1. How old are you?

  • Qaddeeş ĝomrek?

lit: "How much is your age?"

  1. How tall are you?

  • Qaddeeş toulek?

lit: "How much is your height?"

  1. What time is it?

  • Qaddeeş el waqt? / Qaddeeş waqt?

lit: "How much [is] the time? / "How much time [is it]?"

  1. Have long have you been (living) here?

  • Qaddeeş ĝandek hnee?

lit: "How much/long do you have here?"

Other question words are simple to use, no declensions, no suplementary rules

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Negation

Negation requires you to put your verb or your auxiliary verb, if you had one, in the template "me ...ş":

  1. I eat it - I don't eat it

  • Neekelhe - Me neekelheeş

  1. We love yall - We don't love yall

  • Nħebboukom - Me nħebboukomş

  1. Yall visit him - Yall don't visit him

  • Tzourouh - Me tzourouhouş

  1. I used to love him - I didn't use to love him

  • Kont nħebbo - Me konteş nħebbo

  1. They will carry it - they won't carry it

  • Beeş yhezzouh - Mehomş beeş yhezzouh

as you notice, there happened three phenomena as we did the negative transformation:

  1. Vowel harmony (kinda):

  • Tzourouh - Me tzourouhouş

  1. Vowel lengthening:

  • When a word ending in a vowel is suffixed, the last vowel is lengthened:

  • e -> ee: nħebbhe -> me nħebbheeş

  • o -> ou: yeeklo -> yeekloukom

  1. Supplementary auxiliary:

Because "beeş" blocks the "me" and "-ş" from boxing the verb, it created its own negative auxiliary preceding the whole verb construction; ie: "mehomş"

View attribute "Negative stative" in the chart below:

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Notes:

  • You can use "mouş" as the neuter stative. You don't need to memorize the conjugations

  • Notice how they're constructed as "me [object]-ş"

  • Notice how for "He" the object is considered as "ho": me + ho + ş = mehouş

  • By themselves, they all translate to "[personal pronoun] am/are/is not"

  1. Meniş hnee ("I'm not here")

  2. Mekomş Tweense ("Yall are not Tunisian")

  3. Ĝleeş mekş f el faac? ("Why are you not in college?")