Arabic Linguistic Tradition Research Articles

Разум, язык, культура: как сегодня прочитывать концепцию «арабского разума» ал-Джа̄бири

In his four-volume Critique of Arab Reason the late Moroccan philosopher Muḥammad ‘Ābid al-Jābirī (1935–2010) argues that human history witnessed “Greco-European” and “Arab” variants of reason, and not the single one. He challenges the confidence of philosophers in the universality of reason which disclosed itself in the course of European history. Reading al-Jābirī’s theory in Kantian optics will prove fruitful in view of significant number of observations accumulated in Arabic philosophical studies and directly related to the question of the type of rationality that grounds Arab-Muslim culture. The Arabic linguistic tradition bases itself not on the being of substance but on the flux of action. The indivisible segment of the Arabic speech is the flow of sound between the two “sides” (ḥ arf, pl. ḥ urūf). The copulative function ensures the gluing of the subject and predicate into a single statement due to the action of “leaning” (isnād) between them, which excludes the use of the “to be”-like copula and removes “being” from the list of the fundamental metaphysical categories. All Arabic words, with few exceptions, are “branches” growing from “roots” represented by names of actions. The “root – branches” (’aṣl – furū‘) model, developed by the representatives of the Arabic linguistic tradition and Islamic jurists, explains the diversity of Islamic culture which allows for direct contradictions, legitimizing them by tracing down to a single “root”, which contrasts with the law of contradiction fundamental to European rationality. Islamic ethics is concerned not with the moral perfection of a single substantial individual, but with maintaining a network of interactions between human being and God and between members of society, constituting society not as a hierarchy of strata and classes, but as multiple networks of interactions. The concept of the “Arab reason” by al-Jābirī, read in Kantian optics on the basis of the achievements of philosophical Arabic studies, allows to substantiate the hypothesis of the plurality of types of rationality developed through the history of humankind.

Interrelated Complexities in The Arabic Structural Reposition

Abstract: This article mainly discusses the case of structural reposition in the Arabic language and the interrelated complexities occur within the case. Technically, the case of structural reposition, to some extent, is closely similar to the terms of at-taqdīm wa at-ta’khīr in Arabic linguistic tradition. Several studies as well as researches concerning this issue have been done, mainly to describe structural elements of this case. There are mainly three elements that this article focusses on: linguistic style (deviation), linguistic structure (relation), and the implied meaning (implication). The result of this article shows that there are at least three linguistic elements (style, structure, and meaning) occur within the case of structural reposition. Those three elements have a close interrelated function that operate simultaneously (mutazāmin wa mutaẓāfir) in each linguistic unit within the case. In this sense, the structural reposition of linguistic units represents deviation, while the connection occurs between the existing units represents relation, whereas both deviation and relation can provide direct implication in producing certain meaning

Does Ellipsis Really Exist in the Qurʾān?

Departing from Systemic Functional Linguistics, this study, which represents preliminary findings, asserts that ellipsis in the Qurʾān, as a grammatical cohesive device, does not tend to occur more frequently. Arabic linguistics, for its part, has approached ellipsis and continues from exclusive intra-sentence relations governed by syntactic rules. Understood as such, ellipsis doesn’t contribute to the cohesiveness of text― a notion absent in the Arabic linguistic tradition. To compensate for the ellipsis’s contribution to text, the Qurʾān employs two other strategies; the cohesive relationship of Reference, and stylistic techniques. The study shows that SFL-based ellipsis analysis is more productive and useful for understanding the mechanisms of text building elements than the syntactic approach. However, more research is required to get a more thorough knowledge of ellipsis in the Qurʾān, which will eventually contribute to the ellipsis theory in the Arabic language.

BEATA SHEYHATOVITCH, ALMOG KASHER, (eds.): From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition. 2020

BEATA SHEYHATOVITCH, ALMOG KASHER, (eds.): From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition. 2020

BEATA SHEYHATOVITCH, ALMOG KASHER, (eds.): From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition. 2020

BEATA SHEYHATOVITCH, ALMOG KASHER, (eds.): From Sībawayhi to ʾAḥmad Ḥasan al-Zayyāt: New Angles on the Arabic Linguistic Tradition. 2020

Classification of the Parts of Speech in Arabic

Abstract In the Arabic linguistic tradition, the classification of the parts of speech (ism ‘noun’, fiʿl ‘verb’, ḥarf ‘particle’) is first introduced by Sībawayhi, who presents the three key elements in his Kitāb (I:1). The section at issue includes the presentation of the elements but does not provide much in terms of grammatical explanation. Nouns are in fact not introduced with their grammatical characteristics, but rather with examples: fa-l-ism: raǧul, wa-faras, wa-ḥāʾiṭ (“and the noun is ‘man’, and ‘horse’, and ‘wall’”) (Kitāb I:1). In addition to nouns, verbs and particles, Arabic grammar further recognized a number of other categories that are not considered as parts of speech but rather fall into the main three. This contribution aims to present relevant classifications of the parts of speech in the Greek and Arabic traditions, with the aim to account for possible external influences on the Arabic formulations, and foster further discussion on the development of the Arabic grammatical disciplines.

Interdisciplinary Approach to Studying the Text of the Qur’ān

The article examines the language of the Qur’ān as an object of interdisciplinary study. Based on the research of the periods of the formation of the text of the Qur’ān and the available approaches to its description, the authors compare history and modernity, determining the prospects for the development of the Qur’ānic studies. As an example of particular areas of scholar research, the paper considers Qur’ān manuscript as an object of separate research. The authors cite both classical methods of codicological research and available solutions for digital processing of Arabographic manuscripts. Attention is also paid to the study of the language of the Qur’ān in a historical perspective through the development of the Arabic linguistic tradition. Another example of the application of an interdisciplinary approach was the study of the possibilities of carrying out linguistic analysis of the text of the Qur’ān using methods of automatic data processing. The effectiveness of methods of sentiment analysis was also considered. The use of Information and Communication Technologies in humanities in general, and the possibilities of processing Arabographic text in particular, have created new methods and perspectives for the development of the Qur’ānic Studies. An analysis of the Qur’ānic corpus, the use of artificial intelligence methods in conducting textual research will make it possible to verify some facts related to the historical development of the Arabic language, to reconstruct certain features of the linguistic situation on the Arabian Peninsula in the pre-Islamic period, as well as in the first centuries of Islam. In this regard, it is necessary to consider the Qur’ānic text in all its diversity using both traditional and innovative research methodologies, including taking into account the latest achievements of the humanities and natural sciences.

The notion of ẓarf in the Arabic linguistic tradition

The notion of ẓarf in the Arabic linguistic tradition

The "Kitāb Sībawayhi" Project

The Kitāb Sībawayhi Project aims at a new English translation and analysis of the Kitāb Sībawayhi, with an innovative approach that will shed light on the way the linguistic system of Arabic has been described by the most prominent figure of the Arabic linguistic tradition.

Эвфемизмы в арабском языке и их репрезентация в арабской лингвистической традиции

Эвфемизмы в арабском языке и их репрезентация в арабской лингвистической традиции

Eighth-century Iraqi grammar: A critical exploration of pre-Halilian Arabic linguistics

This learned work is the accumulated harvest of more than twenty years of profound research, as shown by the inclusion in the book's bibliography of numerous publications on the subject by the author, Rafael Talmon. The subject at hand is the reconstruction of the Arabic grammatical tradition in its earliest phase up to the time of the most famous grammarian of Arabic, Sibawayh (d. ca. A.D. 796), author of al-Kitab, “the Book,” and his teacher al-Khalil ibn Ahmad (d. between 777 and 791), author of the lexicographical Kitab al-Ayn. The discussion was triggered by Michael G. Carter in a few thought-provoking publications dating from the 1970s in which he identified Sibawayh and his immediate teachers (besides al-Khalil, Yunus ibn Habib [d. 798]) as the first real systematic grammarians of Arabic. In Carter's view, Sibawayh had a group of enthusiastic but still amateurish grammarians in mind when reference was made, twenty-two times, to naḥwiyyūn in his Kitab. Talmon could not and would not accept the idea of a sudden creation of Arabic grammar in free space and became engrossed in approaching this subject matter from various angles, analyzing both grammatical and historiographical aspects of the early history of the Arabic grammatical tradition. In his previous monograph, the voluminous Arabic Grammar in its Formative Age (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), originally intended to be a mere chapter of the book under review here, Talmon deals exclusively with al-Khalil's role in the genesis and early development of the Arabic linguistic tradition. This was basically done to determine which parts of Kitab al-Ayn can be positively attributed to al-Khalil in order to compare al-Khalil's views with Sibawayh's and with those of other early grammarians from both the Basran and the Kufan schools to support the “Old Iraqi School” hypothesis, which is central in the present work.

Subject and Predicate in Arabic Linguistics and Logic

This paper examines the role of the subject and the predicate in the Arabic linguistic tradition and analyzes these terms referring to different concepts in the logical theory.

L’autonymie dans la tradition linguistique arabe

ABSTRACT: In our tradition, metalanguage and autonymy find their roots in Greek thought (Porphyrus, III-IV cent. A. D.). Nevertheless, we encounter them also in the falsafa (e. g. F r b, IV/ X cent.) and, from then onwards, in the Arabic linguistic tradition. The second part of the article will be devoted to this logical-philosophical tradition in the ar al-K fiya by the grammarian Ra al-d n al-Astar b d (VII/ XIII cent.). In the first part of the article, however, starting from the study of •delocutive verbs’, we will deal with the grammatical category of ik ya (‘ citation’), as depicted throughout the chapter that Za (IV/ X cent.) dedicated to this subject in his Kit b al-umal. Finally, we will examine the extent to which these two traditions eventually joined.

RAFAEL TALMON, Eighth-Century Iraqi Grammar: A Critical Exploration of Pre-Halilian Arabic Linguistics, Harvard Semitic Studies, 53 (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2003). Pp. 361. $44.95 cloth

This learned work is the accumulated harvest of more than twenty years of profound research, as shown by the inclusion in the book's bibliography of numerous publications on the subject by the author, Rafael Talmon. The subject at hand is the reconstruction of the Arabic grammatical tradition in its earliest phase up to the time of the most famous grammarian of Arabic, Sibawayh (d. ca. A.D. 796), author of al-Kitab, “the Book,” and his teacher al-Khalil ibn Ahmad (d. between 777 and 791), author of the lexicographical Kitab al-Ayn. The discussion was triggered by Michael G. Carter in a few thought-provoking publications dating from the 1970s in which he identified Sibawayh and his immediate teachers (besides al-Khalil, Yunus ibn Habib [d. 798]) as the first real systematic grammarians of Arabic. In Carter's view, Sibawayh had a group of enthusiastic but still amateurish grammarians in mind when reference was made, twenty-two times, to naḥwiyyūn in his Kitab. Talmon could not and would not accept the idea of a sudden creation of Arabic grammar in free space and became engrossed in approaching this subject matter from various angles, analyzing both grammatical and historiographical aspects of the early history of the Arabic grammatical tradition. In his previous monograph, the voluminous Arabic Grammar in its Formative Age (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), originally intended to be a mere chapter of the book under review here, Talmon deals exclusively with al-Khalil's role in the genesis and early development of the Arabic linguistic tradition. This was basically done to determine which parts of Kitab al-Ayn can be positively attributed to al-Khalil in order to compare al-Khalil's views with Sibawayh's and with those of other early grammarians from both the Basran and the Kufan schools to support the “Old Iraqi School” hypothesis, which is central in the present work.

(c) The "ism" in the Arabic Grammatical Tradition: Reflections on Its Origin and Meanings

This article aims to present an overall reconstruction of the debate on the definition and etymology of Arabic ism (‘noun’, ‘substantive’), by discussing and comparing texts from the Arabic linguistic tradition. The first part deals with the definition of the grammatical element and its functions, while the second is fully dedicated to the examination of the etymological issues, focusing on the two assumed roots of derivation for ism (namely s-m-w and w-s-m). The arguments are presented through the collation of the opinions of the relevant Arabic grammarians, examining both the wider debate between the early grammatical schools of Baṣra and Kūfa (2nd/8th–3rd/9th centuries), and the reports of the arguments as described by later scholars.Key words: Arabic linguistic tradition, Arabic grammar, Arab grammarians, Root, Philosophy of language

What Makes the Qurʾānic Narratives Cohesive? Systemic Functional Linguistics-Based Analysis of Reference Role: Some Reflections

The present study aims to analyse reference, as a cohesive device, in some of the Qurʾānic narratives of Abraham and Moses in ten suras. The study is based on, and limited to, HALLIDAY & HASAN’s concept of cohesion as a semantic relationship realized through grammatical and lexical devices. Such cohesive role of reference is implicitly treated and discussed within the topic of pronouns antecedents in the Arabic linguis-tic tradition. Reference resources in the Qurʾān are diverse but the scope of this study was confined to only the personal and demonstrative components of reference. The analysis showed that personal reference (of the third person forms) was the most frequently used in these narratives. Its salient features, of multiple referents and cumulative effect, contributed to the economy of language use and finally enabled the cohe-sion of the text. The demonstrative reference was less frequent, yet it provided, through its function of connecting various text parts, an additional contribution to the narratives’ cohesion. In general, reference, as one element of the textual metafunction, has played a major role in the text creation in terms of cohesion and coherence.Key words: Reference, Cohesion, Qurʾānic narrative, Systemic Functional Linguistics