Grammar and Logic in Syriac (and Arabic)

Abstract

In order to advance the debate surrounding the origins and background of the Arabic grammatical tradition, we offer an exploration of the Syriac grammatical tradition with a focus on the interdiscipli-narity it shared with the study of logic. The essay demonstrates that the essentialist view of grammar adopted by many Greek thinkers led to the working assumption that logic and grammar were virtually the same discipline, and that the Syrians shared this view of things and transmitted it to Arab scholasticism. A number of philosophers and grammarians are explored with a view to demonstrating this point. Scholasticism in the Late Antique Near East was a cross-linguistic phenomenon which never respected the boundaries we like to draw between Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic worlds. Arabic grammar grew out of this background, while being driven by its own internal genius.