In response to the question 「もう昼ご飯を食べましたか。」how do the following replies differ
in meaning?

> いいえ、まだ食べていません。  
>  いいえ、まだ食べません。

I tried to understand the differences through this website where it's written
entirely in Japanese. <http://www.alc.co.jp/jpn/article/soudan/028.html>
Unfortunately I don't understand much of what they're saying and so I've
turned to you guys for help :)
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2016-04-26T10:51:46.023
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question
grammar translation aspect
まだ with verb ending ～ません and ～ていません
From what I understand (which may or may not be correct), the nuance is on the
implied intent.

→ まだ食べません would be "I'm not eating yet". There is some implicit meaning that
you are going to eat next, or very soon. Emphasis is put on the action.

→ まだ食べていません would be "I haven't eaten". In that case, the emphasis is put on
the fact that you have not eaten, but you don't have any information regarding
whether you are going to eat or not, or even if you want to.
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2016-04-26T11:31:24.007
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Apparently the meaning of "まだ…～ない(ません)" differs depending on the type of a
verb.

transitive verbs or intransitive verbs (unergative)：

☆～ていません

```

    もうご飯を食べましたか。
    Have you eaten yet?
    いいえ、まだ食べていません。
    No, I haven't eaten yet.
    
```

☆～ません

```

    今からご飯を食べますか。
    Are you going to eat now?
    いいえ、まだ食べません。
    No, I'm not going to eat yet.
    
```

intransitive verbs (unaccusative)：

☆～ていません／～ません

```

    もう桜は咲きましたか。
    Have the cherry blossoms bloomed yet?
    いいえ、まだ咲いていません。
    いいえ、まだ咲きません。
    No, the cherry blossoms haven't bloomed yet.
    
```

I believe that the answer to the question of "もう...～ましたか" is usually
"まだ..～ていません" in Japanese daily conversation.

あなたは、もうご飯を食べましたか？それともまだ食べていませんか？  
→私はまだ食べていません。  
あなたは、もうご飯を食べましたか？それともまだ食べませんか？  
→ungrammatical sentence

And as an exception, there is a case that the answer of "まだ..～ません" is
possible. I said things that I researched about that as above.
[link](http://ir.library.osaka-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/11094/6499/1/JLC_38_129.pdf)  
Though, I think that an conversation of the website in the question is not
applicable to this case. That sounds strange for me.
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2016-04-27T14:36:57.170
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answer
alc.co.jp seems to be a very nice website that I just bookmarked. There are a
lot of kanjis but they are using simple Japanese.

いいえ、まだ食べていません。Emphasis is put on the current state (of the conversation). Well
at least this is what they want to say by 現在の状態.

いいえ、まだ食べません。Emphasis is put on the fact that whether the action is over or
not, has been accomplished/realized or not.

On the first part they are saying that for this question:

> きのう家にいましたか?
>
> いいえ、いませんでした。

They say that this answer is correct if the answer is talking about a certain
time in the past. For example you could use it to say: I wasn’t there at 7pm:
7時にはいませんでした。

However since the hidden meaning of this question is «You were not back home
YET yesterday». You cannot use いませんでした and have to say いいえ、まだ(帰って)いませんでした。

When asking this question:

> もう読みましたか? _Have you read it yet?_
>
> まだ読みません、後で読みます。  
>  まだ読みません、これから読みます。
>
> まだ読んでいません、後で読みます。  
>  まだ読んでいません、これから読みます。

All those answers are correct and adapted to the situation. But what’s the
difference then ? Well here the difference is whether you want to continue
talking about the fact you read your book or not.  
You could say for example: まだ読んでいないので、ニュースを知らない。  
If you say まだ食べていません, your friend could answer じゃ、おなかがすいたでしょう。

This is a summary of what this article is saying which is true however is that
really helping your understanding? I don’t think so. Here is my version:  
When you are talking in Japanese you are always saying things implicitly, but
Japanese know that so they won’t talk about those implicit meanings.

If your friend asks you もう昼ご飯を食べましたか and you answer まだ食べません, that might be
correct grammatically but that’s rude.  
It’s like: _Have you already eaten lunch? yo I don’t eat yet_ in a polite way
(まだ食べません).  
However if your question is もう昼ご飯を食べる時間ですか? (Is it already time to eat lunch?)
you may answer まだ食べません (We don’t eat yet).  
The important detail to me is the difference between まだ食べていません and まだ食べません
which is 食べていない and 食べない.

食べていない is the negative from of 食べてる. 食べてる means « the fact of being eating »
at the moment which means _I am eating right now_. Well that’s the contrary ?
« the fact of not being eating right now » (I’m not eating right now). If you
add まだ you are basically adding « not yet » to the sentence, _negative +
negative = positive_ so まだ食べてない means _I haven’t eaten yet_. (I haven’t
realized the action of « being eating » yet which means _I haven’t eaten yet_
). This form is like present continuous in English.  
食べる may be used to talk about the present and true facts. For example: It’s a
fact that it’s not the time to eat right now.  
So if you have already eaten you would answer もう食べた because that fact is over
and not もう食べてた.  
If you ask 11時にもう食べてた? (Were you already eating at 11am?) you have to answer
もう食べてた because the fact was not over at 11am, it was still happening.

If you understand the true meanings and differences of 食べる, 食べてる, 食べない, 食べてない,
picking one of those will be obvious.

This is all about context. If a girl asks you at 12am もう昼ご飯を食べましたか? and you
answer まだ食べません. This is about the present and/or true facts: right now I
don’t/won’t eat, it’s a fact I don’t/won’t eat now. She might think for
example you don’t want to eat it / you don’t want to eat with her / you can’t
eat right now.  
However if you answer まだ食べてない there is no misunderstanding possible, you open
the door for her to ask you out for lunch.

About the examples in the article :

> A : いいえ、読みませんでした。: _I didn’t read it._
>
> B : いいえ、まだ読みません。: « _I don’t read it yet_ » (which doesn’t really mean
> anything). Again this is about present or true facts. _Right now I don’t
> read this book_ , _I won’t read this book for some reasons_ so maybe you
> don’t like this book and you don’t want to read it.
>
> C : いいえ、まだ読んでいません。: _I didn’t read_ , but you imply that you are planning to
> read it, so it means you want/have interest to read this book.

Here answer B is fine because you are talking about a book, you are not
answering to a person, you can’t be rude to a book.

So I think you should definitively answer いいえ、まだ食べていません。whether you continue
your sentence or not, that's what people use 99,99% of time.
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answer
まだ食べていない means "I haven't eaten it yet".

まだ食べない means "I won't eat it for the time being".
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answer