Medieval Grammarians Research Articles

The Morphosyntax of Objects to Participles in the Qurʾān

Abstract This paper examines how Quranic text treats the construction of a participle in predicative position when it is followed by a direct object. While the medieval grammarians typically say that the participle may be either followed by the object in the accusative or form a construct phrase with it regardless of the definiteness of the object, close examination of the behaviour of participles in predicative positions in the Quranic text shows that a clear correlation presents itself. Indefinite objects are marked with the accusative, whereas definite objects are formed through a genitive construction. This thus means that the linguistic register of the Qurʾān, different from other forms of Classical Arabic, represents a kind of differential object marking on the objects of predicative participles, differentiating between indefinite and definite objects.

Are these Nothing but Sorcerers? – A linguistic analysis of Q Ṭā-Hā 20:63 using intra-Qurʾānic parallels

Abstract The seemingly ungrammatical wording of Q Ṭā-Hā 20:63 ʾinna hādhāni la-sāḥirāni has been cause for much debate, both in traditional Muslim sources as well as in modern discussion. This paper sets out to reevaluate the grammar of the various reading that are present by comparing them not against the normative grammar as it is established by the medieval grammarians, but rather by comparing its grammar to other, comparable construction in the Qurʾān. By analyzing this Qurʾānic verse within its intra-Qurʾānic parallels it is argued that the minority reading ʾin hadhāni la-sāḥirāni is the original intended reading of the ʿUthmānic text, while the grammatically problematic majority reading ʾinna hādhāni la-sāḥirāni is to be understood as an approximation to popular non-ʿUthmānic readings. Through the comparison with other verses, it is also shown that we may gain deeper understanding into verses of constructions of the type found in Q al-Ṭāriq 86:4 (wa-ʾin kullu nafsin la-mā ʿalayhā ḥāfiẓun) and shed light on some of the competing canonical readings in these verses.

Birds in Medieval English Poetry: Metaphors, Realities, Transformations

Birds in Medieval English Poetry: Metaphors, Realities, Transformations

The Description of Syntax in Medieval Hebrew Grammars

Abstract: The study of Hebrew grammar by medieval Jewish scholars concentrates on phonological and morphological issues with much lower attention paid to Hebrew syntax. While the majority of medieval Hebrew grammars only contain scattered incidental remarks on topics related to the latter, some discuss syntactical themes at greater length. This paper examines the work of the four medieval grammarians who probably paid the most attention to Hebrew syntax – Abū Alfaraj Hārūn, Yonah ibn Janāḥ, Profiat Duran, and Abraham Debalmes. Surveying the relevant passages, it explores the primary issues they address and the insights they offer, hereby revealing with the nature and scope of medieval Jewish engagement with Hebrew syntax.

How many verbal patterns are there in Hebrew? From Sibawayh to Judah Ḥayyūj and Abraham ibn Ezra

In the introduction to his dictionary, considered to be the first scientific Hebrew dictionary based on the principle of the triconsonantal root, medieval grammarian Judah Ḥayyūj enumerates the conventional verbal patterns presently accepted, and in addition po‘ēl . However, Ḥayyūj’s identification of this latter pattern was not accepted by all medieval grammarians. Abraham ibn Ezra in particular disputed the existence of this pattern among the strong verbs. This article suggests that the difference between Ḥayyūj’s and ibn Ezra’s views is a result of their different historical contexts. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the science of Hebrew linguistics, and especially grammar, followed the Arabic model. Accordingly, Ḥayyūj created the pattern po‘ēl as the parallel to fā‘ala , one of the four basic forms of the Arabic verb. By the twelfth century, however, ibn Ezra revaluated the issue using the data of Hebrew itself, and found no evidence for this form.

An analytical study of word-order patterns in Standard Arabic simple sentence

The main focus of the study is to analyze the simple sentence structure and its word-order patterns of Standard Arabic syntactically. Main methods concern description and comparison of word-order patterns observed. Primarily the current study deals with some differentiations of the terms on sentence types and word-order patterns described by both medieval grammarians and modern linguists. Moreover, the so called Sībawayhian theory of ʿamil’ also provides some explanations of sentence structures and word-order patterns in Standard Arabic. Simple sentences are highlighted to examine the occasions for using different patterns and where they are commonly found, along with examples to facilitate the explanation and use of these patterns. It is essential to point out that Standard Arabic is considered to be a language with a flexible word-order, which is why there exist word-order patterns of both VOS and SVO languages, though the latter is more frequently used.

Problematic Terminology of the Manna Pericope (Exod 16:14-15) in the Light of Medieval Jewish Commentators and Biblical Hebrew Philology

In this article, I shall discuss the adjective מחוספס and the word מן in the phrase מן-הוא, which both appear in the manna pericope in Exod 16:1415. I will present the different interpretations suggested by medieval Jewish commentators as well as modern scholars and dictionaries, and I shall attempt to show which one of the medieval interpretations is the most appropriate in the light of modern biblical philology. Medieval Jewish commentators suggested four different interpretations of the word מחוספס, two of which, "rounded" and "uncovered", have also been supported by the findings of modern biblical philology. Two medieval commentators rightly interpreted the word מן in the phrase מן-הוא as an interrogative pronoun. This is also the commonly accepted interpretation in contemporary modern biblical philology. Keywords: Exod 16:14-15; Manna pericope; Jewish medieval commentators; Jewish medieval grammarians; modern biblical Hebrew philology; etymological equivalent; semantic equivalent; interrogative pronoun

Declension of the Latin present participle in connection with its syntactico-semantic use

AbstractThis paper deals with the declension of the Latin present active participle (ppa), which shows several inconsistencies: the ablative singular for instance may end in -eor in -i(sapiente, sapienti) and the genitive plural may end in -umor -ium(sapientum, sapientium). Some grammarians, notably modern ones, assume that there are syntactico-semantic considerations or circumstances, leading to ablative -eending when verbal force is intended (such as in the ablative absolute) or substantival force, and to -iending when there is nominal, notably adjectival force. I have investigated whether ancient, medieval and modern grammarians treat such a phenomenon. In addition, I looked for inconsistencies in the grammarian’s own ppa declension from this syntactico-semantic point of view. It turns out that ancient and medieval grammarians do not formulate declension of the ppa according to its syntactico-semantic function, with the exception of the anonymous author of theArs Ambrosiana, nor do they decline their own ppa’s according to a conventional rule of this kind. This calls for other explanations regarding the declensional inconsistencies observed. Some of the ppa forms may reflect a temporary phenomenon which would have disappeared in due course through diachronic evolution and paradigm leveling. Some forms may have persisted because of their frequency and idiomatic force or because of the compelling analogy with other words and phrases. But these ppa declensional variations do not appear to conform to a syntactico-semantic rule.

Radical reform, inevitable debts

Summary In a letter to his friend Joan Serra, Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) shows his contempt for medieval grammars, describing Alexander de Villa-Dei, Evrard de Béthune, Giovanni Balbi, and others as faex hominum. Many traces of Valla’s polemics against medieval authors are woven into his linguistic works, in primis in his Elegantie lingue latine. The Elegantie represent a monumental attempt to restore Latin to its original splendour after the so-called barbarities of the Middle Ages. Starting from its structure, this work adopts a completely different form compared with the systematic grammatical syntheses of the previous period. It functions as a series of thematic chapters united in the goal of denouncing earlier grammatical, lexical, syntactic, and interpretive usage and decisions. The chapters are built entirely on an expertly assembled collection of quotations. For Valla, only through consulting the best authors can a scholar reach the latine loqui. In practical terms, however, is Valla truly able to reach this goal and break from the medieval tradition? Beginning with this question, this paper focuses on Valla’s linguistic works, showing both their innovative and traditional facets. The most significant changes Valla proposes in his linguistic analysis – often presented by the author as a strong attack on medieval grammarians – are illustrated. Also, the paper clarifies the humanist’s inevitable debt to the tradition he scorns, particularly evident when considering his use of grammatical terminology.

Reificações da descriptio pulchritudinis puellae na Crónica Troiana

In this brief article, I aim to show how the depiction of women in the Crónica troiana (the Galician version of Benoît de Sainte Maure’s Roman de Troie) are built according to the topos of the descriptio pulchritudinis puellae. Within this focus, then, the principal characteristics of this topos as defined by medieval grammarians (i.e., Matthieu de Vendôme and Geoffroi de Vinsauf) are sketched; this is followed by a study of the image of women in the Crónica troiana, in particular that of Polixena. A further support for the study of this image and its assimilation to rhetorical principles is found in a diachronic and comparative analysis of the Priam’s youngest daughter in the epitome of Dares Phrygius, in the Roman de Troie and in the Crónica troiana.

“It would be the time to discuss the optatives.” Understanding the Syntax of the Optative from Protagoras to Planudes

AbstractThis paper uses the Greeks' understanding of the optative mood over many centuries to enlarge our knowledge of the origins of formal grammar, of the vernacular Greek language in post-classical times, and of the limitations which imitative Atticism faced when it tried to give new life to a verbal form which had virtually disappeared from the spoken language. Starting with the very beginnings of grammar as a discipline, it argues that Protagoras' contribution to the study of verbal mood has been overlooked, and the Stoics given too much credit. This observation has implications for the larger issue of whether the origin of formal grammar is to be found amongst students of literature or of philosophy. The rest of the paper works through the standard uses of the optative found in Attic and Homeric Greek, examining the explanations and paraphrases of these usages found in ancient and medieval grammarians and scholiasts, and arguing that this material confirms the evidence for the vernacular suggested by the New Testament and papyri, and can also explain some non-classical uses of the optative found in Atticising writers.

The idea of comedy: history, theory, critique

One of the few constants in Western critical though for over two millennia has been the inexhaustible fascination with comedy: what it is and how it works. Yet comedy has eluded every definition. Why have so many of the leading critics and philosophers of the West proposed theories and counter-theories of comedy while often admitting that it enthralls and baffles the mind in equal measure? Idea of Comedy: A Critique assembles a rich corpus of materials from different languages and eras to construct a history of the commentaries and reflections, the theoretical postulates and conjectures, and the often acrimonious debates about comedy through the centuries from Plato and Aristotle to our contemporaries. The aim is dual: to situate comic theories in their historical moment, as participants in the wider intellectual currents of their time, and to trace underlying types of consensus and dispute running through different theories and intellectual generations. The book brings into view the full landscape of comic theory as a field of ideas, a terrain of thought extending from antique to recent conceptions. Disengaging unstated premises to show how the theoretical discourse about comedy often enacts the intellectual disputes of its time, Idea of Comedy tracks the history of comic theories along two principle axes. The first is historical, showing how the Hellenistic ethical conception devolves into social superiority and then into populist assertions, ending on the question of whether contemporary comic theory is still populist today. It thus traces the intellectual lineage of the idea of comedy as it is inherited and reconfigured in changing intellectual and social contexts, and in response to new generations of comic writers. The second axis is conceptual, sorting theories by types of agreement and dispute. Whether comedy improves the citizen or threatens political stability, whether it insults or enacts moral standards, whether it serves God and the integrated superego or the devil and the anarchic id, are some of the questions addressed by theorists such as Cicero, Maggi, Dryden, Kant, Schopenhauer, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and Genette. Idea of Comedy traces the arc from ethical to social conceptions by advancing from Greek and Roman commentators and medieval grammarians to the Renaissance construction of social norms as the engine of comedy. Many subsequent theories echo and reconfigure that legacy, even as dissident voices arise among Augustans and Romantics. In modernism, the dominant twentieth-century theory adapts Aristotle and more immediate predecessors to recast the age-old satiric view in ritualist, archetypal, and psychoanalytic terms. A counter-discourse ultimately inverts that model to supplant comic butt with comic hero. Both types of modernist theories share the social nexus and neglect certain literary forms, while quarreling over others. Another arc in this history is the long neglect of Attic forms in comic theory, and the longstanding erasure of the Middle Ages in the idea of comedy. Postmodernist theories mark a brief interlude in the critical discourse, yet they open the way to several striking developments since 1990. Contemporary comic theorists continue the venerable tradition of quarreling with their predecessors, contesting the critical legacy in order to construct new theoretical models for the experience of comedy.

Speculations about thePotestas Litterarumin medieval grammar (11th through 13th centuries)

SummaryThe aim of this paper is to study the concept ofpotestas, one of the three ‘accidents’ of ‘letters’ in the Roman tradition. More specifically, it intends to examine the way in which the speculative grammarians from the 11th to the 13th centuries dealt with speech sounds and which issues were attached to it. The commentators of the beginning of this period mapped out the route to be followed in the attempt at a thorough explanation and systematization of Prisician’s adumbrations. To that purpose, they forged the successful termmodus pronunciandiand classified thepotestasinto five types. This chapter was granted as much discussion as any other: some concepts and terminology of the Aristotelian universe were employed in it (e.g., the opposition substantial/accidental, potentiality/act). Nevertheless, some remarkable differences between the points of view of the 12th-century grammarians and those of the 13th-century have been observed, among them the interest on the part of the latter in the generation of sound. In this century, two works, the anonymousTractatus de grammaticaand John Dacus’s modisticSumma, held for different reasons a very particular position in the evolution of the doctrine on thepotestas. In this respect, the influence of the former on the latter has been noticed. With their speculations all these medieval grammarians succeded in differentiating two levels within the realm of speech sounds.

物語の順序と初期の聖書注解

Muqdam (u) Meuhar is a technique of rabbinic interpretation, which suggests the reversal of the textual order as a solution to exegetical difficulties. The technique was first attested to as an exegetical principle in the Mishnah of Rabbi Eliezer, and later, was used by medieval grammarians, such as Jonah Ibn Janah, Solomon Parchon, and David Kimhi, to resolve syntactical, lexical difficulties of the biblical text.A noteworthy development was, however, that the technique was originally perceived in the Mishnah of R. Eliezer as a solution to problems in the chronological order of biblical narratives. Furthermore, the term, Muqdam Meuhar, was not really attested in Tannaitic and Amoraic sources, despite the fact that the sages frequently discussed among themselves on problems in the order of text.To explain the uniqueness of this exegetical tradition, the present paper will compare the technique of Muqdam Meuhar with the practice of Hysteron Proteron- a similar rule of Roman literary critics-as found in Servius' commentary on Virgil's Aeneid, regarding that Muqdam Meuhar was the rabbinic calque of Hysteron Proteron. In particular, the paper will focus on controversial aspects of the technique as applied to chronological problems in the order of the biblical narratives.

The Recent Study of Hebrew: A Survey of the Literature with Selected Bibliography (review)

Hebrew Studies 32 (1991) 180 Reviews THE RECENT STUDY OF HEBREW: A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE WITH SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY. By Nahum M. Waldman. Bibliographica Judaica 10. Pp. xxi + 464. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College I Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989. Cloth, $35.00. Dr. Waldman has done us a great service, one that very few researchers anywhere could have carried out. He has gone through thousands of scholarly books and articles dealing with the Hebrew language, which appeared mainly in the forty years up to 1986; and he briefly digests their findings in six long chapters: "Biblical Hebrew," "The Second Commonwealth and Rabbinic Hebrew," "The Masoretes," "Communal Traditions and Jewish Languages," "Medieval Grammarians and Poets," and "Modem and Contemporary Hebrew." The first three chapters overlap to a considerable extent. The book is much more than an annotated bibliography. Any Hebraist who reads through any of the chapters is sure to learn quite a few things about the language that he or she did not know before, and will have directions where to go for further study. I have profited substantially from all the chapters. Nearly all citations in the six chapters are just by the author's surname and the year of publication. Then come the full listings in a huge alphabetical bibliography (pp. 267-448), followed by an index of names (but not of titles). I find a few items in the bibliography that are, perhaps inadvertently , unmentioned elsewhere in the book. Waldman's evident purpose was not to give merely alphabetical and chronological listings, but to place each piece of scholarship in its proper context, so that we can perceive what it contributes to the advancement of knowledge. He does not claim to have included all or even a majority of the relevant publications over these forty years or so. Scholars who have published extensively will notice that some of their articles about Hebrew are not cited here. Unlike the more exhaustive bibliographical quarterly .,gC n'.,p (which arranges all the entries by subject but does not make it a policy to summarize or evaluate their contents beyond that), Waldman has limited his scope to a large but manageable selection so as to comment on each item. He deals at greater length with a few that he considers especially important. He also has the merit of mentioning many unpublished doctoral Hebrew Studies 32 (1991) 181 Reviews dissenations and even masters theses (one minor quirk is that he invariably leaves out the apostrophe in "masters"). Presumably to reduce the expense of printing, Waldman's book restricts Hebrew type to titles in the bibliography, mostly the works of Israelis. He resorts otherwise to transliterations according to the system of the American National Standards Institute. Although this misrepresents many sounds of both Biblical and Modem Hebrew, few readers will have trouble recognizing the Hebrew words in a disguise that has become familiar. Only in the treatment of phonetics-which is no minor topic for Waldman-does the absence of the original characters gravely obscure the argument (e.g., pp. 18-20); some of the authors used better transcriptions than the Institute's, and these deserve to circulate more widely. Apart from that, his discussion does justice to the most intricate and confusing subjects. Even where no reliable conclusion emerges, at least we gain from realizing the need for improved methods of analysis. Most of the fourth chapter deals with other languages: Aramaic, JudeoArabic , -Persian, -Italian, -French, Judezmo (or Ladino), and-above allYiddish . The inclusion of them is justified by their influence upon Hebrew, and vice versa; in any case I call it a bonus, not expected from the title The Recent Study of Hebrew. However, I think Waldman gives too much weight to Wexler's classification of "Jewish languages." There is now a fad among certain scholars to exaggerate the Jewish dialectal modifications of languages adopted from this or that Gentile environment. The Jewish dialects are very interesting in their own right, but none of them diverges from its Gentile source to the point of unintelligibility, as English has really and truly become a separate language from its relatives on the Continent. Waldman has been an active scholar for more than twenty...

Tirso de Molina's Idea of Tragedia

Tirso employs the term tragedia to describe the events in only four of his plays: Los amantes de Teruel, Amazonas en las Indias, Escarmientos para el cuerdo , and La venganza de Tamar . These dramas do not conform at all to the Classical notions of tragedy proffered by Aristotle and Horace and introduced into Spanish criticism via the Italian humanists by Alonso López Pinciano, Francisco Cascales and Jusepe Antonio González de Salas; rather they adhere to the ideas expressed by the early Medieval grammarians Donatus, Diomedes and Evanthius and brought directly into the Golden Age via Dante by Reniassance Spanish dramatists and commentators. The crux of this Medieval notion used by Tirso is the popular phrase Tragoedia est heroicae fortunae in adversis comprehensio , which should not be confused with the structural definitions based on Aristotle and Horace. (DHD)

Essays on Chaucerian Irony by Earle Birney

REVIEWS EARLE BIRNEY. Essays on Chaucerian Irony. Ed., with an Essay on Irony, by Beryl Rowland. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University ofToronto Press, 1985. Pp. xxx, 162. $25.00 cloth; $12.95 paper. Beryl Rowland has here assembled eight essays by Earle Birney on Chaucer's development as an ironist. The essays fall into two groups: the first four are general essays, drawing on Birney's doctoral thesis (University ofToronto, 1936) and were published between 1937 and 1942; the latter four are applied criticism, and were published in1959 and 1960. Birney is now, of course, better known as a venerable Canadian poet; both groups ofessays were written while he was still active as a Chaucerian. Rowland, a more distinguished Chaucerian, was his graduate student in the early 1960s, and the volume is a kind ofhomage. She has prefaced the compilation with an introductory essay of her own and appended to it a set of bibliographies updating scholarship and criticism which reflect an interest in Chaucer's irony, relating these to the subject matter of each of the nine essays respectively. Rowland commences her own excursus with an acknowledgment (or caveat) that "anyone who tries to define irony is looking for trouble" (p. xv). Reviewing late-classical and early-medieval definitions which categorize irony under allegory (e.g., Donatus, Quintillian, and the author ofthe Ad Herrenium), she goes on to observe that irony is to be found in a much wider array of medieval rhetorical figures and tropes. With this medieval disposition towardirony in mind, she then sets out to reveal "Seven Types of Irony," broad general categories which she feels can map most helpfully various approaches to Chaucer's irony: verbal irony; irony arising from narrator-poet discrepancy; dramatic, philosophic, and "structural" irony; irony of values; and irony of theme. While not every reader will be persuaded that she has avoided the trouble she foresaw, Rowland does seem to have improved upon the general schema of her mentor. In his "English Irony Before Chaucer," Birney sets out to give a status quaestionis on the subject for about 1937. He will use the critical term, he warns, "as loosely as the dictionaries allow" (p. 21), and he generalizes his sense ofthe meaning he attachesto it as "indirectsatire," which now seems ratherlikecloaking wool with flannel. His generaltypes are curiously linked to action and theme rather than voice: "battle irony," "proverbirony," "irony offate," "irony ofthe underdog," "parody and burlesque" (pp. 21-30) and, in this early essay, finally lack any real analytic power. One is reminded that medieval grammarians and rhetoricians themselves were better at this sort 181 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER ofthing. Isidore of Seville's identification, in his Etymo/ogiae (1.37.22) of "seven types ofallegory," for example (irony, antiphrasis, aenigma, charien­ tismos, paroemia, sarcasm, astysmos), offers, by comparison, precision instruments; James J. Murphy and others have shown how rigorous the application of such rhetorical distinctions could be. The first group ofBirney'sessays is marked by vestiges ofthe old Empire style; as if written with sherry glass in hand, they exude an informed but casualair,a genteelsavoirfaire. Birney's Chaucer is predictably an epitome ofbrilliant amateurism: No doubt, ofcourse, he was a busy and competent public official. The ironist ofthe Canterbury Talescould not have failed to be an excellent diplomat. And he had the shining versatility peculiar tothe Italian artists ofthe next century. Hewas both poet and forester, philosophical student and courtier, humanist and customs collector, theological scholar and royal carpenter, astronomer and linguist-and a brilliant dabbler in law, medicine, and alchemy. [P. 4] But we should not unkindly dismiss this now dowdy mannerism without observing that often it accents a broad historical literacy which is able to discriminate perceptively among uses and abuses of criticism. In back­ grounding the limitations of modern "discoveries" of irony in Chaucer, Birney points to the (ironic) coarsening and oversimplification ofChaucer's humour by Dryden as an instance ofthe disposition ofthe Enlightenment to misunderstand the moral basis ofChaucer's humour and suggests some­ thing about why it is that Pope proved a more sensitive reader (pp. 42-44). He sees Victorian criticism of Chaucer-grounded, as a reflection of Ger­ man...