Abstract

Etymological investigation may resort to the semantic field in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the cultural aspects that underlie the origin and historical development of a given word. Modern scholars tend to regard the semantic field as a notion developed in Western linguistic thought around the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, Arabists tend to assume that this notion was already known in the Arabic lexicographical tradition. The present paper empirically grounds this idea in three conceptual steps. First, it clarifies the modern Western notion of semantic field by investigating the theoretical contexts in which such a notion evolved, morphing into different manifestations. Second, it focuses on the dictionaries al-Muḥkam and al-Mukhaṣṣaṣ authored by the Andalusian lexicographer Ibn Sīdah (d. 458/1066) and offers a close reading of some of the passages in which Ibn Sīdah reflects on the notion of bāb. Finally, it draws a narrow parallel between bāb and a mid-nineteenth-century manifestation of the Western notion of semantic field.Key words: bāb, Ibn Sīdah, lexicography, semantic field

Highlights

  • Etymology is the investigation of the origin of a given word, of its historical vicissitudes, as well as of the phonological and semantic changes undergone through them.[1]

  • Modern scholars tend to regard the semantic field as a notion developed in Western linguistic thought around the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century

  • Given the importance of this linguistic concept for culturally-oriented etymological studies, as has just been illustrated, the present paper will provide a thorough epistemological discussion of it, informed by an Arabistic approach. It will take into account the manifestation of the concept in the Arabic lexicographical tradition, in the lexicographical work of Ibn Sīdah (d. 458/1066), in addition to the manifestations of this linguistic phenomenon in Western linguistics

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Summary

Introduction

Etymology is the investigation of the origin of a given word, of its historical vicissitudes, as well as of the phonological and semantic changes undergone through them.[1]. Given the importance of this linguistic concept for culturally-oriented etymological studies, as has just been illustrated, the present paper will provide a thorough epistemological discussion of it, informed by an Arabistic approach. It will take into account the manifestation of the concept in the Arabic lexicographical tradition, in the lexicographical work of Ibn Sīdah In his monograph, published in 1931, a few years after Ipsen’s paper, Trier concretely investigated many sets of German lexemes related to intellectual life, such as the lexical set referring to the German system of school marks (Leistungsbewertung),[10] and gave a more nuanced

IPSEN 1924
12 TRIER 1931
16 TRIER 1931
53 OWENS 1990
60 See CABANELAS 1961:20 and BAALBAKI 2014
66 CABANELAS 1961
67 CABANELAS 1961
Conclusions
72 See ANTTILA 1989
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