הוא לא אמר "לא", כלומר עדיין יש סיכוי שהוא יסכים.

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Breakdown of הוא לא אמר "לא", כלומר עדיין יש סיכוי שהוא יסכים.

• יש: there is
• לא: not
• לומר: to say

Questions & Answers about הוא לא אמר "לא", כלומר עדיין יש סיכוי שהוא יסכים.

Why does לא appear twice in this sentence?

Because the two instances of לא are doing different jobs:

• The first לא is the regular negation word: הוא לא אמר = he did not say
• The second לא is the actual word he supposedly did or did not say: "no"

So:

• הוא לא אמר לא would literally mean he didn’t say “no”
• In writing, quotation marks make that especially clear: הוא לא אמר "לא"

Is אמר "לא" the normal Hebrew way to say said no?

Yes. Hebrew very often expresses this idea as said + the quoted word.

So:

• הוא אמר "כן" = he said “yes”
• הוא אמר "לא" = he said “no”

This is very natural Hebrew. In English we often turn this into the fixed phrase said no, but in Hebrew the quoted-word structure is very common.

What does כלומר mean here?