The Arabic Linguistic Tradition

Description

The importance and richness of the Arabic linguistic tradition, largely neglected by Western literature, is amply demonstrated by this book, first published in 1990. Written by three experts in the field, it provides us with a comprehensive survey of the historical constitution and theoretical structure of the Arabic linguistic tradition from its beginnings in the eighth century to its mature state around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Besides grammar, the book covers such fields as rhetoric, grammatical semantics, and methodological issues, and pays particular attention to the most representative works of the classical period. It also has the unique benefit of containing the historical background. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Original Title Page Original Copyright Page Table of Contents Preface Transcription system 1 General Introduction The Growth of the Arabic Linguistic Tradition: a Historical Survey Early grammatical thinking to the end of the second/eighth century From Sībawayhi to al-Mubarrad The codification of grammar in the fourth/tenth century Maturity and decline (fifth/eleventh-tenth/fifteenth centuries) Facts, Rules, and Arguments Data The integrative logic of qiyās Grammar and reality 2 Sībawayhi's Kitāb: an Enunciative Approach to Syntax Problems and Hypotheses Interpreting the Kitāb The enunciative hypothesis Predication and Enunciation: Sībawayhi's Theory of the Utterance 3 The Canonical Theory of Grammar: Syntax (Naḥw) Basic Concepts Parts of speech I'rāb and binā' Sentence and utterance The Theory of Government General principles The governing operators Abstractness in the theory of government Government and Predication The two models Two models or just one? 4 The Canonical Theory of Grammar: Morphology, Phonology, and Phonetics (Taṣrīf) Morphology Verbal morphology Derived nominal morphology Phonology Substitution (badal) Erasure (ḥaḏf) Mutation (qalb) Transfer (naql) Gemination (idḡām) The late phonological processes Phonetics The phonetics of the grammarians The phonetics of the reciters The phonetics of the physiologists Notes 5 Major Trends in the Study of Texts Literary Criticism 'Greek' Rhetoric (Xaṭāba) The Foundations of Jurisprudence Arabo-Islamic Rhetoric (Balāḡa) 6 Rhetoric and Grammatical Semantics The General Organization of Grammatical Semantics Some Basic Tenets Utterance Analysis Types of Predications General Operations on Nominals Informative Predication Performative Predication The Scope of Predications Inter-utterance Relationships Proper and Figurative Meaning 7 Metrics Preliminaries Observations The Xalīlian Circles The Ziḥāfāt Overgeneration in the Xalīlian System The Orientalists and the Xalīlian System Bibliography A Selection References Primary Sources Secondary Sources Indexes