Some Aspects of the Relation between Enunciation and Utterance in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. A Modal Category: al-wājib/ġayr al-wājib

Abstract

The present paper examines a modal notion in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, the notion of wājib/ġayr wājib, and its role in determining the word order of the sentence and the inflections of the noun in some contexts. To explore this notion means to explore how enunciation and utterance are articulated in the Kitāb, and to identify the ways in which the communicative intention of the speaker, as well as the other elements of the speech situation, determine the form of utterances and their syntax. This identification—a topic that has been addressed in a variety of ways in recent studies—remains a major issue in determining the specificity of Sībawayhi’s linguistic thinking. Even though it is well known in general linguistics that word order is one of the grammaticalized ways to express modality, we still do not know precisely how this issue is treated in the Kitāb.