The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics iii

Studies in
Semitic Languages
and Linguistics

Editorial Board

Aaron D. Rubin and Ahmad Al-Jallad

volume 94

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 The Foundations of
Arabic Linguistics iii
The Development of a Tradition:
Continuity and Change

Edited by

Georgine Ayoub
Kees Versteegh

leiden | boston
Cover illustration: Miniature illustrating the 17th maqāma of Ḥarīrī (11th century). Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale, Ms Ar. 5847, fol. 51.

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Contents

List of Contributors vii

Introduction 1
Georgine Ayoub and Kees Versteegh

Case and Reference

The Theory of mā yanṣarif wa-mā lā yanṣarif in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb 11
Georgine Ayoub

The Grammatical and Lexicographical Traditions

Mutual Foundations, Divergent Paths of Development 50
Ramzi Baalbaki

A Twelfth Century League Table of Arab Grammarians 76

Michael G. Carter

Blind Spots in Raḍī l-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s Grammar of Numerals 96

Jean N. Druel

Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics in al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā 115

Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Wilfrid Hodges

Early Pedagogical Grammars of Arabic 146

Almog Kasher

What is Meant by al-ḥāl al-muqaddara? 167

Aryeh Levin

Demonstratives in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb 178

Arik Sadan

How Have the Descriptions of taḥḏīr Changed? 190

Haruko Sakaedani
vi contents

Origin and Conceptual Evolution of the Term taḫṣīṣ in Arabic

Grammar 203
Manuel Sartori

The Classification of the Verb in the Arab Grammatical Tradition

From Sībawayhi to al-Jurjānī 229
Zeinab A. Taha

Learning Arabic in the Islamic World 245

Kees Versteegh

Index 269
List of Contributors

Georgine Ayoub
is professor of Arabic linguistics at the Institut national des langues et civil-
isations orientales (inalco), Paris, France, and a researcher at Cermom in
the same university. Her fields of research include theoretical linguistics, the
history of the Arabic language, Arabic linguistic thought, and ancient Ara-
bic poetry. Her books include Prédicat, figures, catégories: La question de la
phrase nominale en arabe littéraire (Lille, 1996). She has published widely on
Sībawayhi’s Kitāb and on syntax and semantics in Arabic linguistic theory.

Ramzi Baalbaki
is the Margaret Weyerhaeuser Jewett Chair of Arabic at the American Univer-
sity of Beirut and the Head of the Academic Council of the Doha Historical
Dictionary of the Arabic Language. He has published extensively on Arabic
grammatical theory and Arabic lexicography. His books include The legacy of
the Kitāb: Sībawayhi’s analytical methods within the context of the Arabic gram-
matical theory (Leiden, 2008) and The Arabic lexicographical tradition from the
2nd/8th to the 12th/18th century (Leiden, 2014). He has also produced critical edi-
tions of numerous Classical Arabic texts and co-authored with his late father
Mounir Baalbaki the famous English-Arabic dictionary al-Mawrid and its com-
prehensive counterpart, al-Mawrid al-ʾakbar (Beirut, 2005).

Michael G. Carter
after a D.Phil. (Oxon) taught at Sydney University (1968–1985), then Duke
(1985–1986), New York University (1986–1996) and Oslo University (1996–2004)
until retirement. His research interests are Sībawayhi and early Arabic gram-
matical theory, and the relationship between grammar, law and philosophy in
Medieval Islam.

Jean N. Druel
is a researcher in the history of Arabic grammar; since October 2014, he has
been the director of ideo (Institut dominicain des études orientales) in Cairo.
After a Master’s degree in theology and Coptic patristics (Institut catholique
de Paris, 2002), he obtained a Master’s degree in teaching Arabic as a foreign
language (American University in Cairo, 2006), and in 2012 he obtained his
Ph.D. at the University of Nijmegen with a thesis on the Arabic grammarians’
theories about the syntax of numerals.
viii list of contributors

Manuela E.B. Giolfo

was lecturer in Arabic at the University of Exeter (2008–2013). In 2013 she
moved to the University of Genoa, where she is researcher in Arabic language
and literature and lecturer in Arabic language and philology. From 2014 she is
also chercheuse associée at the Institut de recherches et d’ études sur le monde
arabe et musulman (iremam)—cnrs—Aix-Marseille Université. She holds
an m.a. in philosophy from the University of Milan, and a Ph.D. in Arabic lin-
guistics from Aix-Marseille University. She edited Arab and Arabic linguistics:
Traditional and new theoretical approaches ( Journal of Semitic Studies, Suppl.
34, 2014) and, with M. Sartori and Ph. Cassuto, Approaches to the history and
dialectology of Arabic in honor of Pierre Larcher (Leiden, 2016).

Wilfrid Hodges
taught at London University (Bedford College and then Queen Mary) from 1968
to 2006, researching in mathematical logic, and writing five textbooks of logic
at different levels (one joint-authored). Since his retirement in 2006 he has
worked mainly in history of logic, concentrating on the logic and semantics of
Ibn Sīnā in comparison with other Arabic writers. He is a Fellow of the British
Academy (Philosophy section).

Almog Kasher
has a Ph.D. degree (2007) in Arabic; he is lecturer in Bar-Ilan University. His
main field of study is the Medieval Arabic grammatical tradition, with the
emphasis on its early history, Sībawayhi’s commentaries, and pedagogical
grammars.

Aryeh Levin
was born in Israel in 1937. He is professor emeritus of Arabic at The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on The ʾimāla in the Arabic
dialects (The Hebrew University of jerusalem, 1971). His main fields of research
are: Arabic Medieval grammatical thought and terminology, history of the Ara-
bic language, and modern Arabic dialects. He was the Head of the Department
of Arabic Language and Literature, 1987–1992, and the Head of the Institute of
Asian and African Studies of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1992–1998.
In 2010 he was awarded the prestigious “Israel Prize in General Linguistics” for
his achievements in the field of Arabic linguistics.

Arik Sadan
holds a b.a. in linguistics and Arabic language and literature (2001) and an
m.a. (2004) and Ph.D. (2010) in Arabic language and literature, all from The
list of contributors ix

Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research fields are Arabic grammatical

thought, Arab grammarians, Classical, Modern and Colloquial Arabic linguis-
tics, manuscripts in Arabic grammar and other fields. He teaches various
courses in various academic institutions in these fields. After the publication
of several articles, he published two books: A critical edition of the grammatical
treatise Taḏkirat jawāmiʿ al-ʾadawāt by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd (Wies-
baden, 2012) and The subjunctive mood in Arabic grammatical thought (Leiden,
2012), the latter being a revised English version of his Ph.D. thesis.

Haruko Sakaedani
is part-time lecturer in Arabic at Keio University, the University of Tokyo, Tokai
University and Waseda University. She holds an m.a. in Teaching Arabic as a
Foreign Language from the American University in Cairo and a PhD in Arabic
linguistics from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Manuel Sartori
became, after graduating in Comparative Politics at the Institut d’ études poli-
tiques (Aix-en-Provence, 1999) and in Arabic studies at Aix-Marseille Univer-
sity (2004), senior teacher (professeur agrégé) in Arabic (2009). He completed
his Ph.D. in Arabic language and linguistics at Aix-Marseille University (2012).
During his study, he spent several years in the Arab world, in Cairo and mainly
in Damascus. He is now lecturer and head of Arabic teaching at the Institut
d’ études politiques (iep/ScPo) in Aix-en-Provence and researcher at the Insti-
tut de recherches et d’études sur le monde arabe et musulman (iremam). His
research interests include Arabic grammar and linguistics (diachronic and syn-
chronic, Medieval and contemporary) and the history of the Arabic language.

Zeinab A. Taha
is associate professor of Arabic language and linguistics at the tafl Masters
program at the American University in Cairo. She received her Ph.D. from
Georgetown University in 1995. Her research interests are Medieval grammat-
ical theory and language variation and change. Her recent publications are
Development of Arabic grammatical thought (Cairo, 2011; in Arabic) and “Syn-
tactic variation in Modern Written Arabic” in the Handbook for Arabic language
teaching professionals in the 21st century, ii (2017).

Kees Versteegh
is emeritus professor of Arabic and Islam at the University of Nijmegen (The
Netherlands). He specializes in historical linguistics and the history of linguis-
tics, focusing on processes of language change, language contact, and pidgin
x list of contributors

and creole languages. His books include The Arabic linguistic tradition (London,
1997), and The Arabic language (Edinburgh, 1997, revised ed. 2014). He was the
editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics (Leiden,
2006–2009).
Introduction
Georgine Ayoub and Kees Versteegh

The present volume brings together a number of papers that were presented
at the Third Conference on the Foundations of Arabic Linguistics, hosted by
Georgine Ayoub in Paris at the Fondation Singer-Polignac, on October 23 and
24, 2014. The conference constituted a sequel to the first two conferences on
the same topic that had been organized by Amal Marogy at the University of
Cambridge in 2010 and 2012 (for the proceedings of the first two conferences
see Marogy 2012a and Marogy and Versteegh 2015).1
The original aim of this series of conferences was to focus on the first
major grammarian in the Arabic grammatical tradition, ʾAbū Bišr ʿAmr ibn
ʿUṯmān Sībawayhi (d. 177/793?). The analysis of the Arabic language in his Kitāb
remains the most frequently cited source within this tradition, and his lin-
guistic legacy in the Arabic grammatical tradition is unparalleled. The topic
of the conferences also included the reception of the Kitāb in modern schol-
arship, because, as Marogy (2012:x) formulates it, “the study of the Kitāb in the
West over the last one hundred and twenty years (from de Sacy’s Anthologie
grammaticale arabe of 1829) has been a continuous application of prevail-
ing Western linguistic theories as they successively emerge, with no end in
sight”.
The original aim of concentrating on Sībawayhi was indeed realized in the
sense that out of a total of thirty-four papers published in the proceedings
of the three conferences, twenty-seven dealt with the early period of Arabic
grammar, in particular with the theories contained in the Kitāb Sībawayhi,
whereas the remaining seven were concerned with its impact in the later
tradition. Sībawayhi’s figure continues to loom large in this field, not only in the

1 In the present volume, we have followed more or less the same editorial guidelines as in
the previous volumes. The transcription of Arabic follows the system of the Encyclopedia of
Arabic Language and Linguistics (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006–2009), with one major difference,
ḫ instead of x. Initial hamza is transcribed when it is morphological, but not when it is
merely phonetic (thus: wa-ktub ‘and write!’, but wa-ʾaktib ‘and make write!’). Declensional
and inflectional endings are represented fully in Qurʾānic and poetic quotations and in
grammatical examples; in other quotations and book titles we have opted mostly for a
simplified system, in which pausal rather than contextual forms are used. Yet, in some papers,
we have allowed authors to use full representation throughout.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_002

2 ayoub and versteegh

historical period, when to some extent all grammarians followed his footsteps
and considered themselves to be his successors, at least since the times of al-
Mubarrad (d. 285/898), but also among modern scholars working in the field of
the history of linguistics.
This is not to say that the study of the Arabic grammatical tradition has
remained the same. As a matter of fact, one of the fascinating developments
is precisely that there are so many new discoveries in the field, ranging from
the discovery of new texts to the study of ‘forgotten’ grammarians. What is
more, this field continues to attract young scholars who are putting their
mark by bringing in entirely new insights. Looking at this development from
the point of view of a historian of linguistics, one cannot help but notice
that the field went through a revival at the end of the 1970s and through the
1980s, with the publication of such works as Michael Carter’s Arab linguis-
tics (1981), Georges Bohas and Jean-Patrick Guillaume’s Etudes des théories des
grammairiens arabes (1984) and Jonathan Owens’ (1988) study of the theoreti-
cal foundations of Arabic grammatical theory. The 1980s also saw the establish-
ment of the field in the form of workshops that were organized, among other
places, in Nijmegen, Haifa, Budapest, Bucharest, and Paris.
This revival was also manifest in the role Arabic grammar began to play
in the general field of the history of linguistics, for instance in the new jour-
nal Historiographia linguistica (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins), and in the interna-
tional conferences on the history of linguistics, organized by Konrad Koerner
(the first one of which took place in Ottawa in 1978). Large scholarly enter-
prises, such as the Histoire des idées linguistiques, edited by Sylvain Auroux et al.
(Liège: Mardaga, 1989–1992) and the Handbuch für die Geschichte der Sprach-
und Kommunikationswissenschaft, edited by Sylvain Auroux, Konrad Koerner,
Hans-Josef Niederehe and Kees Versteegh (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000–
2006), paid due attention to Arabic grammar within the growing field of the
history of linguistics. These projects also marked a new development in the
cooperation between scholars working at Western universities and those work-
ing at universities in the Arab world, which has grown slowly but steadily,
in spite of political and cultural differences. In the field of the history of the
Arabic grammatical tradition, this cooperation was imperative, if only for the
immense work done by scholars working at Arab universities in editing and
publishing new manuscripts. At the beginning of the 1980s, many works that
were either unknown or existed only in manuscript form were edited, such as
Ibn al-Sarrāj’s (d. 316/928) Kitāb al-ʾuṣūl by ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn al-Fatlī in 1985, and
the edition of al-Sīrāfī’s (d. 368/978) commentary on the Kitāb by Ramaḍān
ʿAbd al-Tawwāb and Maḥmūd Fahmī Ḥigāzī, which started in 1986, to mention
only two of them.
introduction 3

At the end of the 20th century, the focus of research in the Arabic grammati-
cal tradition shifted to longer periods. The historical development was outlined
in studies like The Arabic linguistic tradition (1990) by Georges Bohas, Jean-
Patrick Guillaume, and Djamel-Eddine Kouloughli and, for the first period,
Early Arabic grammatical theory: Heterogeneity and standardization (1990) by
Jonathan Owens. Multiple answers have been given concerning the underlying
trends of the grammatical tradition through the centuries of its development.
The renewed interest in Sībawayhi’s work in the 2010s, as demonstrated by the
first three volumes of Foundations of Arabic linguistics appears to be an eter-
nal return to the first source of this tradition. To what deeper trend does this
correspond?
One might say that by scrutinizing the founding principles of Sībawayhi’s
Kitāb, researchers themselves contribute to shaping its history from a differ-
ent perspective. The tension between continuity and innovation in the his-
tory of the Arabic grammatical tradition is a complicated issue, because, to
some extent, all later grammarians acknowledge their indebtedness to early
grammatical theory, sometimes even to the point of preserving its terminology,
while assigning to the inherited terms a different meaning. In other words, the
tradition itself tends to emphasize continuities in its development. Centuries
of grammatical theories seem, at first sight, to be centuries of continuity and
stability. Yet, beneath this stability, there are hidden changes, constant readjust-
ments, imperceptible movements, which the researcher has to learn to discern.
The only way to become aware of these imperceptible movements and to grasp
the innovations, is by a meticulous study of the concepts and the theories,
starting with the first and most authoritative one, the Kitāb. The number of dis-
tinguished scholars in the Arabic tradition, who for centuries have scrutinized
the work of Sībawayhi in all its aspects, is so large that modern researchers can-
not avoid seeing Sībawayhi’s Kitāb through the eyes of his successors. And, if
we let ourselves be led uncritically along this path, any chance of perceiving
change and transformation in the linguistic theories is doomed to fail.
The analysis of Sībawayhi’s Kitāb by meticulous attention to the text is a huge
task in itself. The Kitāb employs a mass of concepts that have to be classified
and placed in relation to one another in order to form a systematic network.
These concepts and systems resonate with those of later grammarians’ theo-
ries, with which they must be compared. Only then does one have a chance of
seeing significant changes emerge. When linked to their context, these changes
allow us to better understand the shifts in language views and to appreciate
the impact of the cultural and historical context on Arabic grammar. Continu-
ities and changes through long periods cannot be apprehended without this
painstaking labor. Understanding diachrony requires a study of synchrony, as
4 ayoub and versteegh

already emphasized by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1916 and by Roman Jakobson

in 1928 in his address to the Premier Congrès International de Linguistes.2
To this work researchers bring tools that are partly inherited and partly
of their own making. Some of these necessarily derive from modern linguis-
tic theories. One cannot take the measure of a theory taking as its object a
particular language without reflecting on languages and on the notion of lan-
guage. More generally, one cannot take the measure of a theory without having
other measures to grasp the scope of the theory studied. This necessity explains
the continued use of prevailing Western linguistic notions in the study of the
major texts of the Arabic tradition. Failing to do so would mean reducing the
analysis to a naive literalism, by which a concept is ignored as concept and
understood and translated from its current lexical meaning alone. This leads
to another possible pitfall, that of rephrasing the theory without understand-
ing its true explanatory power as to the phenomena studied. The principles of
Arabic grammatical theories have indisputably gained in intelligibility by being
interpreted within a framework of general linguistic principles.
Yet, this approach itself brings new dangers, in the first place the teleological
trap of precursorism, which regards ancient theories as a prefiguration of
modern ones. Old texts are then interpreted exclusively within the framework
of modern theories. All that exceeds these theories, is passed over in silence or
even condemned as unscientific. A second danger is to identify single notions
within the old theory fully with single notions in contemporary linguistics. If
the traditional notion corresponds to a universal property of language, it ought
to have parallels in more than one modern theory, in different forms and with
different names. What is more, the traditional notion could be larger than the
modern one. It could have multiple facets, each of which could be compared
pertinently with more than one modern theoretical notion.
Even such a cautious approach is not always sufficient in the historical
analysis, since old grammatical theories may well go beyond the domain of
linguistics and form part of the cultural context and the common episteme of
the time. To miss such links is tantamount to missing the specificity of the old
theory. In short, researchers are forced to forge their own epistemological tools
in order to establish networks of notions, to determine cultural influences, to
establish continuities or discontinuities, and to study the internal coherence of
old theories.

2 We thankfully acknowledge the input of an anonymous referee, to whom we owe this last
reference.
introduction 5

The papers in the present volume are a representative sample of old and new
perspectives on the study of the Arabic grammatical tradition. Their central
issue is precisely the tension between continuity and innovation in the history
of the tradition. Three papers focus on the terminology used by the grammar-
ians, taking as their point of departure a term that is infrequent (or even non-
existing) in early grammar, but more common in later grammar. Aryeh Levin
studies the ḥāl al-muqaddara, which as a technical term, does not occur until
the 8th/14th century. Yet, the concept of a ḥāl that must be interpreted by the
grammarian occurs much earlier, and so does the standard example of this kind
of construction, marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan ‘I passed
by a man who had a hawk with him, intending to hunt with it tomorrow’, in
which the accusative of ṣāʾidan is explained by an underlying meaning muqad-
diran al-ṣayda ‘intending to hunt’. This example goes back to Sībawayhi, who
uses it, however, in a different context. This example shows how material bor-
rowed from older grammarians may be put to a different use in later grammar.
In Haruko Sakaedani’s paper the point of departure is the term taḥḏīr ‘warning’,
which is not a frequent term in Arabic grammar, but one that often occurs in
the analysis of expressions of the type ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-ʾasada ‘Keep away from the
lion!’. In Austin’s framework of speech act theory, such an expression would
be called a ‘primary performative’. Sakaedani shows that later grammarians
borrowed a great deal of their material from Sībawayhi, but added numerous
new examples, sometimes shifting their focus to the syntactic features of these
expressions. Manuel Sartori investigates the development of the term taḫṣīṣ,
usually translated as ‘particularization’ and equated with partial determina-
tion. The term is infrequently mentioned in the secondary literature on the
Arabic linguistic tradition, and ofen ignored completely. In the first three cen-
turies of the Arabic tradition, taḫṣīṣ is hardly used at all, and it is not until the
4th/10th century that it starts to be used in the work of authors such as Ibn
Jinnī (d. 392/1002) and especially al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078). Sartori traces the evo-
lution of the term and its numerous related or complementary notions, such
as tankīr, taʿrīf, tamyīz, tawḍīḥ, making clear that specification and determina-
tion are primarily semantic and pragmatic notions, which became much more
popular in the literature on ʾuṣūl al-fiqh.
Three other papers in the present volume take as their point of departure
a grammatical category or topic and investigate how this category is analyzed
in the Kitāb and in later grammar. Jean Druel looks into the treatment of the
grammar of numerals by three grammarians, Sībawayhi, al-Mubarrad, and Ibn
al-Sarrāj and compares their approach to later developments of the theory in
the work of al-ʾAstarābāḏī (d. ca. 700/1300) by exploring the blind spots in
each theory. He concludes that whereas the blind spots in earlier grammar
6 ayoub and versteegh

concerned the presumed consistency and logical coherence in the structure of

numeral constructions, al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s blind spot had to do with the axiomatic
belief in the native speaker’s competence. Arik Sadan deals with the many
variants of deictic elements in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, which, as he demonstrates,
belonged to the category of ʾasmāʾ mubhama lit. ‘vague, ambiguous nouns’. One
of the interesting aspects of some of the demonstratives is that as non-verbal
elements they still exihibit verblike properties, because of their relationship
with imperatives meaning ‘see!’ or ‘behold!’. Georgine Ayoub’s paper addresses
the thorny question of full (mā yanṣarif ) and partial (mā lā yanṣarif ) inflection
as part of a discussion about the relationship between case and reference.
This relationship has been studied earlier on from the point of view of the
verb’s valency (the assignment of accusative to objects on account of the verb’s
semantics), and that of the mubtadaʾ in assertive and non-assertive utterances
(in the latter it has accusative marking, see Ayoub 2015). In the present article,
Ayoub approaches this question from a new perspective, the use of proper
names to study the variation in declension when the reference of the noun
varies, either referring to a specific individual identified by the listener, or
referring to a specific individual not identified by the listener. It turns out that
it is not reference that determines ṣarf, i.e. the presence of tanwīn, but the
internal criteria of the system of the language within a scale of hierarchies that
reminds us of markedness theory.3
The interplay between continuity and innovation is the central issue of two
other contributions. Michael Carter takes as his point of departure a list drawn
by al-Baṭalyawsī (d. 521/1127) of grammarians’ views on the meaning of the
word rubba. The debate about rubba concerned the question of whether it
meant ‘how many!’ or ‘how few!’, or perhaps both. Carter’s most interesting
conclusion is that al-Baṭalyawsī is almost exclusively interested in the semantic
aspect of the matter: apparently, he found the syntactic construction of rubba
much less fascinating (or perhaps less problematic). Zeinab Taha looks at the
classificatory schemes for verbs in early grammatical theory, specifically in the
work of Sībawayhi, al-Mubarrad and Ibn al-Sarrāj, and compares these schemes
with those found in two later grammarians, al-Zajjājī (d. 337/949) and al-Jurjānī
(d. 471/1078). Taha shows that there was an increasing effort to distinguish
between the syntactic and the semantic aspects of the relationship between
the verb and other sentence constituents. The main change came with al-

3 The use of proper names as a testing device for morphological rules is, of course, a tool that
is well-known after the classic article by Carter (1983; see also Marogy 2012b).
introduction 7

Jurjānī, who took into account the meaning of the whole utterance, rather than
concentrating exclusively on the verbal element.
The relationship between grammar and other disciplines is studied in two
papers in the present volume. Ramzi Baalbaki, who recently published an
authoritative handbook of Arabic lexicography (Baalbaki 2014), focuses on the
differences between the two disciplines of grammar and lexicography. Alhough
the two were closely connected and often combined in one person, there are
some basic differences. Baalbaki mentions, for instance, the use of Ḥadīṯ mate-
rial in lexicographical works, which contrasts with the reluctance in grammar
to use this material (see also Sadan 2015). Perhaps, the most telling difference
was that lexicography was not theory-driven in the way grammar was. As a
result, no semantic theories were developed in this discipline, a task left to
later theoreticians in ʿilm al-balāġa and ʿilm al-waḍʿ. Manuela Giolfo and Wilfrid
Hodges engage in a search for the relationship between logic and grammar. In
their contribution they compare the approach of the grammarian al-Sīrāfī and
the logician Ibn Sīnā (d. 427/1037) to such topics as negation and definiteness. It
should be understood that they do not assume any direct contact or influence
between the logician and the grammarian: their aim is to explain the under-
lying grounds for their views, which include a shared criticism of Peripatetic
logic. A major conclusion is that if there was Greek philosophical influence, it
may have come to Arabic logic through the linguists rather than the other way
round. At any rate, both al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā use a linguistic assessment of the
data in their analysis of such notions as definiteness and the scope of negation.
Finally, two studies are concerned with the pedagogical side of Arabic gram-
mar addressing the question of how students used the grammatical texts in
order to learn Arabic. Recent dissertations by Sartori (2013) and Viain (2014)
have shown how important the study of the propagation and dispersion of
elementary treatises is for understanding the context in which Arabic was stud-
ied, showing, among other things, that there was a certain extent of regional
diversification in the popularity of the treatises. Viain makes the important
observation that a treatise like the famous ʾAlfiyya by Ibn Mālik (d. 672/1274),
which tends to be regarded as the elementary treatise par excellence, is actually
a kind of graduation test, the last treatise to be memorized by those who do not
specialize in grammar, but proceed to other disciplines.
In the present volume, Almog Kasher deals with pedagogical grammars from
an original point of view. He wishes to find out when grammatical doctrine
was developed with a special pedagogical purpose, and he does so on the basis
of a comparison of the treatment of two terms, ḥurūf al-jarr and ḥurūf al-rafʿ,
in a corpus of pedagogical grammars from the early period, including Luġda’s
(3rd/9th century) Kitāb al-naḥw, al-Naḥḥās’ (d. 338/950) Tuffāḥa, al-Zajjājī’s
8 ayoub and versteegh

Jumal, and a few others. He concludes that we may discern a difference between
the treatment of these terms in pedagogical and mainstream grammars, up
till the 4th/10th century. After this period, grammar went through a phase of
canonization, in which the special approach of pedagogical grammar gave way
to the mainstream treatment. This means that later pedagogical grammars
still differ from the mainstream, but mainly in their structure, rather than
their content. Of a more general nature is the study by Kees Versteegh on
learning Arabic grammar outside the Arabic-speaking world, in which the later
pedagogical treatises play a central role. His paper provides information on
the canon of textbooks of Arabic grammar available in different parts of the
Islamic world and shows that the curriculum for second language learners
of Arabic was remarkably similar to that for native speakers in the Arabic-
speaking world. In both cases, memorization served to familiarize students
with the language, and at the same time helped to preserve the canon of texts.
Discussions on internet forums show that in modern times young Muslims all
over the world still continue to use these methods to learn Arabic.
Within the present collection of studies on continuity and innovation in
the Arabic linguistic tradition, there is one notion that springs to mind, which
binds together the scholarly interests of the contributors, that of (in)definite-
ness, which is central to at least five of the papers in this volume. The same
notion was also discussed in a number of contributions to the first two confer-
ences on the Foundations of Arabic Linguistics, and it was the central issue of
several contributions to the Fourth Foundations of Arabic Linguistics Confer-
ence, organized by Manuela Giolfo at the University of Genova in September
2016. The interest in the notions of definiteness and determination is a striking
innovation, compared to the scant interest in them in earlier literature. Two
early exceptions are Helmut Gätje’s article (1970) on determination and inde-
termination, and Nadia Anghelescu’s article (1983) on the notions of general
and particular in a treatise by al-Marzūqī (d. 421/1030), but apart from these,
only a few publications, mainly in the field of ʾuṣūl al-fiqh, seem to have picked
up this interest. It is gratifying to see that the present series of conferences has
rekindled this topic, contributing in this way to both continuity and innovation
in our field.
The editors wish to express their thanks to André Miquel for his invalu-
able help in organizing the Third Conference on the Foundations of Arabic
Linguistics and the Singer-Polignac Foundation for its wonderful hospitality.
The editorial staff at Brill’s, in particular Maarten Frieswijk and Pieter te Velde,
deserve our thanks for their support in publishing the proceedings.
introduction 9

Bibliographical References

Anghelescu, Nadia. 1983. “Observations sur la genèse de la signification générale et

particulière dans une épître de al-Marzuqi”. The history of linguistics in the Near East,
ed. by Konrad Koerner, Hans-Josef Niederehe, and Kees Versteegh, 1–12. Amsterdam
and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
Ayoub, Georgine. 2015. “Some aspects of the relation between enunciation and utter-
ance in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb: A modal category, wājib/ġayr wājib”. Marogy and Ver-
steegh (2015:6–35).
Baalbaki, Ramzi. 2014. The Arabic lexicographical tradition from the 2nd/8th to the
12th/18th century. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Bohas, Georges and Jean-Patrick Guillaume. 1984. Etude des théories des grammairiens
arabes. i. Morphologie et phonologie. Damascus: Institut français de Damas.
Bohas, Georges, Jean-Patrick Guillaume, and Djamel Eddine Kouloughli. 1990. The
Arabic linguistic tradition. London and New York: Routledge.
Carter, Michael G. 1981. Arab linguistics: An introductory classical text with translation
and notes. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
Carter, Michael G. 1983. “The use of proper names as a testing device in Sībawayhi’s
Kitāb”. The history of linguistics in the Near East, ed. by Konrad Koerner, Hans-Josef
Niederehe, and Kees Versteegh, 109–120. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
Gätje, Helmut. 1970. “Zum Begriff der Determination und Indetermination im Arabis-
chen”. Arabica 17.225–251.
Jakobson, Roman. 1928. “Proposition au Premier Congrès International de Linguistes:
Quelles sont les méthodes les mieux appropriées à un exposé complet et pratique
de la phonologie d’une langue quelconque?”. Actes du Premier Congrès International
de Linguistes tenu à La Haye du 10–15 avril 1928, 33–36. Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff.
Marogy, Amal Elesha, ed. 2012a. The foundations of Arabic linguistics: Sībawayhi and
early Arabic grammatical theory. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Marogy, Amal Elesha. 2012b. “Zayd, ʿAmr and ʿAbdullāhi: Theory of proper names and
reference in early Arabic grammatical tradition”. Marogy (2012a:119–134).
Marogy, Amal Elesha, and Kees Versteegh, eds. 2015. The foundations of Arabic linguis-
tics. ii. Kitāb Sībawayhi: Interpretation and transmission. Leiden: E. Brill.
Owens, Jonathan. 1988. The foundations of grammar: An introduction to Medieval Arabic
grammatical thought. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
Owens, Jonathan. 1990. Early Arabic grammatical theory: Heterogeneity and standard-
ization. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
Sadan, Arik. 2015. “Sībawayhi’s and later grammarians’ usage of ḥadīṯs as a grammatical
tool”. Marogy and Versteegh (2015:171–183).
Sartori, Manuel. 2013. Le Šarḥ al-Kāfiyat de Ibn al-Ḥāǧib: Edition critique d’un manuscrit
grammatical arabe du viie/xiiie siècle. Thèse de doctorat, Université de Provence.
10 ayoub and versteegh

Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale, ed. by Charles Bailly and
Albert Séchehaye. Lausanne and Paris: Payot.
Viain, Marie. 2014. La taxinomie des traités de grammaire arabe médiévaux (ive/xe–
viiie/xive siècle), entre représentation de l’articulation conceptuelle de la théorie et
visée pratique: Enjeux théoriques, polémiques et pédagogiques des modélisations for-
melles et sémantiques du marquage casuel. Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris-3.
Case and Reference
The Theory of mā yanṣarif wa-mā lā yanṣarif in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Georgine Ayoub

In Greco-Latin grammar and in our present general linguistic paradigm, the sta-
tus of nominal and verbal syntactic declensions is not the same. The nominal
declension refers to case, the verbal one to mood. Mood is an enunciative cate-
gory linking the utterance with the attitude of the speaker and the listener, that
is to say with the extralinguistic situation. Case describes the internal relations
between the elements of the utterance.1
As we know, in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, and after him, in the Arabic linguistic tra-
dition, the same set of notions, those of the theory of ʿamal, is used to describe
formally the way syntactic declension is assigned, regardless of whether it is a
mood or a case. Nevertheless, we can argue plausibly that the verb’s syntactic
declensions are analyzed in the Kitāb as having a tight link with reference, more
precisely with the reference of the verb and of the utterance, through notions
like wājib/ġayr wājib, waqaʿa/lam yaqaʿ.2
The analyses of ambiguous contexts with fāʾ, ʾiḏan, ḥattā prove this link.
For instance, in ambiguous contexts with the fāʾ, Sībawayhi argues that if the
event expressed by the verb following the fāʾ has effectively taken place, i.e. if
this event is factual (qad waqaʿa), there is only one declension possible for the
verb: the -u declension (rafʿ). Conversely, if the event is virtual (ġayr wāqiʿ), the
declension has to be the -a declension (naṣb):

You say ḥasibtu-hu šatama-nī fa-ʾaṯiba ʿalayhi ‘I thought he had insulted

me, so that I wanted to leap on him’, if the leap did not take place. This
means: ‘If he had insulted me I would have leapt on him’. But if the leap
has taken place, there is no other possibility than the rafʿ (wa-taqūlu
ḥasibtu-hu šatama-nī fa-ʾaṯiba ʿalay-hi ʾiḏā lam yakun-i l-wuṯūbu wāqiʿan
wa-maʿnā-hu ʾan law šatama-nī la-waṯabtu ʿalayhi wa-ʾin kāna l-wuṯūbu
qad waqaʿa fa-laysa ʾillā l-rafʿu)
Kitāb i, 376.7f.

1 See Chomsky (1981) for a theory of abstract Case and its relation to morphological cases in
language; for a general theory of mood and modality in language, see Palmer (2001).
2 We have tried to prove this thesis by an extensive study of these notions. See Ayoub (1991:72–
81), and especially Ayoub (2010:22–42). See also Carter (2015:208).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_003

12 ayoub

We have argued elsewhere that waqaʿa/lam yaqaʿ, which is always applied

to events or actions (ḥadaṯ, fiʿl), can be reasonably translated by the fac-
tual/virtual pair of modal studies. The meaning of wājib/ġayr wājib is very close
to waqaʿa/lam yaqaʿ when it qualifies fiʿl ( fiʿl wājib/ġayr wājib). But when it
qualifies kalām (kalām wājib/ġayr wājib), it can be reasonably translated by
assertive/non assertive. These categories are general. They apply not only to
verbal declension. But we can say that every time we have an -a declension
(naṣb) or a -ø declension ( jazm) on a verb, the event is analyzed in the Kitāb
as not having taken place in the speaker’s view, at the moment of enunciation
(lam yaqaʿ/ġayr wāqiʿ; laysa fī ḥāli ḥadīṯika fîʿlun ṯābitun), confirming the link
between verbal declension and reference in Sībawayhi’s view. That is the case
for the action expressed by the verb after ʾan and kay:

For the verb which follows them [refers to an action which] does not take
place and does not refer to a well-established action in the speech situ-
ation (li-ʾanna l-fiʿla baʿdahumā ġayru wāqiʿin wa-laysa fī ḥāli ḥadīṯika
fîʿlun ṯābitun).
Kitāb i, 366.20–23

If we are correct to assume that the verbal declension is linked with reference,3
the question is: does Sībawayhi link case with reference and if so, how? Several
answers could be found in the Kitāb. Some of them have already been explored.
A first answer concerns the case of the nouns that are in the first position of the
utterance. As we know, this case could be the nominative (an -u declension;
rafʿ), assigned in the Kitāb by ibtidāʾ (Kitāb i, 52.18),4 if the noun is a mubtadaʾ;
or it could be the accusative (an -a declension; naṣb), if the noun is the object of
an elided verb, which assigned it its case, if ištiġāl is involved. The crucial point
is that, in ambiguous contexts, the choice between the two cases depends on
the assertive or non-assertive status of the utterance, in other words it depends
on the referential value of the utterance. In interrogation, injunction, order,
prohibition, and other forms which are kalām ġayr wājib, the accusative has to
be chosen.5

3 This link is not the reason why the ‘assimilated verb’ (muḍāriʿ) bears a syntactic declension,
neither for Sībawayhi nor for the later grammarians. On this issue, see the appendix.
4 It will be reinterpreted later as assigned ‘by default’, depending on the absence of any formal
ʿāmil, al-tajarrud min al-ʿawāmil al-lafẓiyya, as Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (Inṣāf 44) states.
5 See references of note 1 and Ayoub (2015), who tries to establish that the case of the fronted
noun in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb depends on the modality of the speech.
case and reference 13

Another important answer concerns the complements of the verb. We know

that, in the Kitāb, the verb governs a direct object because of its semantic
properties, assigning to it the accusative case.6 This is also the reason why it
assigns the accusative to the adverbials of time and place.7 The task of the
present study is to investigate a third answer, still unexplored, linking case with
reference in the Kitāb, the one provided by the theory of mā yanṣarif wa-mā
lā yanṣarif, i.e. of fully and partially inflected nouns. As is well known, nouns
with three case endings are fully inflected. Nouns which take only two syntactic
declensional endings and lack, when non-definite, a distinct genitive form, as
well as the ‘syntactically, non-definite’ suffix -n (tanwīn) are partially inflected.
For the sake of clarity, I will call ‘non-definite’ a noun bearing the suffix -n, when
this noun is out of discourse, as it can be indefinite and inherently definite
as well, as will be shown below. I will reserve the term ‘indefinite’ for those
contexts in which the noun has indeed an indefinite reference.
We shall see below that the question of tanwīn is at the center of the
chapter of mā yanṣarif wa-mā lā yanṣarif in the Kitāb. We have dealt with
the question of tanwīn elsewhere, from two distinct points of view, that of
modern linguistics (Ayoub 1991, 1996), and that of the Arabic grammatical
tradition (Ayoub 2009). However, these analyses have left aside the question
of the proper name. The present study, which focuses only on the grammatical
tradition, aims to account for the analysis of the Kitāb, and will be carried out
on the basis of the relation between case and reference in Sībawayhi’s book.
It will largely integrate the question of proper names, which has remained
marginal in our earlier studies, but which is central in the analysis of the Kitāb.
The Kitāb of Sībawayhi devotes thirty-two chapters to the question of mā
yanṣarif wa-mā lā yanṣarif. Although it exhibits a proliferation of morpholog-

6 The object is literally a ‘thing done’ (mafʿūl). It “is assigned the accusative by the verb because
it is a thing done [an object] affected by the act of an agent [a subject]” (intaṣaba zaydun li-
ʾannahu mafʿūlun bihi taʿaddā ʾilayhi fiʿlu l-fāʿil; Kitāb i, 11.1). More explicitly, some verbs are
“actions that go accross you to someone else and make it happen to him” (al-ʾafʿālu llatī hiya
ʾaʿmālun taʿaddāka ʾilā ġayrika wa-tūqiʿuhā bihi; Kitāb ii, 224.14). Nevertheless, the term mafʿūl
and the justification of the accusative, which literally refers to the transfer of the action from
a certain subject to a certain object, seem in most cases a metonymy where a denomination
characterizing some cases, is applied to all the cases. See Levin (1979), who shows that in most
cases taʿaddā refers to the grammatical/syntactic effect of the verb and not the semantic one;
see also Carter (2004:88f.). But even if the term taʿaddā is used by metonymy for a lot of cases,
its proper use as a semantic term is the main argument presented by Sībawayhi to justify the
accusative. The term ʾawqaʿa in particular, which refers to the inscription of an action in the
world is, in this respect, very significant.
7 Cf. Ayoub (2010:4f.).
14 ayoub

ical and lexical data, and is often considered to be ‘complex’ in its reasoning,
Sībawayhi’s approach through all these chapters can nevertheless be summed
up in one question: What kind of declensional and/or morphological variation
would a given linguistic unit x go through, if used in the discourse as indefinite
(nakira) or inherently definite (maʿrifa), that is to say as a proper name? For
instance, what happens to the words ʾabyaḍ ‘white’, or ʾarbaʿ ‘four’, if they are
used as indefinite in an utterance, and what happens if a man is called ʾAbyaḍ
or ʾArbaʿ, in which case these words become inherently definite?
The general task of these chapters pertains to the interface between mor-
phology on the one hand, and syntax, semantics and pragmatics, on the other
hand. In order to define accurately the general principles which give the the-
ory developed by Sībawayhi its conceptual homogeneity, I will seek to answer
three questions in what follows:

i. According to which criteria is the linguistic unit x selected?

ii. Why is the indefinite/inherently definite pair taken as the variation pa-
rameter through all the chapters?
iii. What is the general structure of these thirty-two chapters?

1 The Notions of ṣarf and tanwīn

I will start with the third question, after clarifying the terminology. As usual in
Sībawayhi’s terminology, mā yanṣarif wa-mā lā yanṣarif functions as an oppo-
sitional pair with the same notion having two values, positive and negative. The
notion inṣarafa and its derivates inṣirāf and munṣarif are used exclusively for
one single syntactic category, that of nouns, and they are introduced as early as
the second chapter of the Risāla without any definition, as is often the case in
the Kitāb.
As for its general lexical meaning in the common language of the 2nd/7th
century, inṣarafa is used as the medio-passive of ṣarafa and includes the idea
of being shifted from one state, considered as the usual or the canonical state,
to another, and then the idea of change. The word ṣarafa itself includes among
its meanings the idea of changing something from its way.8 In the Kitāb, both

8 The Lisān al-ʿArab has, s.v. ṣarafa: qalaba-hu ʿan wajhi-hi: ṣarafa-hu; and ṣarafa-hu yaṣrifu-
hu fa-nṣarafa wa-l-ṣarf raddu l-šayʾ ʿan wajhi-hi. The same idea is attested in Kitāb al-ʿayn (vii,
109): ṣayrafiyyāt al-ʾumūr: mutaṣarrifātuhā ʾay tataqallabu bi-l-nās; taṣrīf al-riyāḥ; taṣarrufuhā
min wajhin ʾilā wajhin wa-min ḥālin ʾilā ḥālin. The editor of the Kitāb al-ʿayn (vii, 110) adds from
al-ʾAzharī’s Tahḏīb: al-ṣarf ʾan taṣrifa ʾinsānān ʿalā wajhin yurīduhu ʾilā maṣrifin ġayri ḏālika.
case and reference 15

ṣarafa and inṣarafa9 are used as early as the Risāla. The verb ṣarafa/yaṣrif
has the speaker—hum—as its subject: “Then, they [the speakers] did not
fully decline what is plural” (ṯumma lam yaṣrifū mā jāʾa mina l-jamīʿ; Kitāb i,
5.22). The verb inṣarafa/yanṣarif has a particular stem or word as its subject:
“ʾafkal ‘tremor’ and ʾaklub ‘dogs’ are declinable if indefinite” (ʾafkal wa-ʾaklub
yanṣarifāni fī l-nakira; Kitāb i, 5.19)
In the terminology of the Kitāb, mā yanṣarif seems, at first glance, to des-
ignate the property of being fully inflected for a noun, i.e. of having the three
cases and the tanwīn. This technical meaning is in accordance with the lexical
meaning of the term. Actually, if we consider this lexical meaning, we would
expect lā yanṣarif to designate the nouns which are not inflected at all. But
this is not the case. In fact, lā yanṣarif refers to partially inflected nouns. This is
surprising, since these nouns, which receive two cases only without tanwīn, still
change their vowel endings even if they do not go through the entire change.
So, how can we explain this terminology?
The Kitāb al-ʿayn, a dictionary which is approximately contemporaneous to
the Kitāb and which is said to have been conceived by al-Ḫalīl (d. 175/791), the
teacher of Sībawayhi, helps us to understand the logic of the denomination.
Even at this early time, it gives a technical definition of ṣarf, defining ṣarf al-
kalima as ʾijrāʾuhā bi-l-tanwīn, which means “to make the word fully declinable
by assigning it the suffix -n after the case marker” (ʿAyn vii, 109).10 Interestingly,
the term ʾijrāʾ used in this definition is the causative form of the term used by
Sībawayhi in the Kitāb to describe the syntactic variation of the end of the
word.11 This common terminology suggests a connection between the Kitāb
and the Kitāb al-ʿayn. But it is not only this term that makes this definition
significant. Several arguments lead to the conclusion that in the Kitāb, just
as this is the case in the definition of the Kitāb al-ʿayn, the denomination
yanṣarif/lā yanṣarif only refers to the presence or absence of the tanwīn as a
criterion of full or partial declinability, respectively:

9 According to Troupeau (1976:123f.), ṣarafa, in this morphological meaning, has 192 occur-
rences in the Kitāb; inṣarafa has 122 occurrences. If we include inṣirāf and munṣarif with
inṣarafa, we count 150 occurrences.
10 The Lisān s.v. ṣ-r-f gives exactly the same definition.
11 See for instance Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 1.9f.: hāḏā bābu majārī ʾawāḫiri l-kalimi min al-ʿarabiy-
yati wa-hiya tajrī ʿalā ṯamāniyati majārin. In the chapters studied in the present article we
find ʾinna hāḏā l-miṯāla [i.e. ʾafʿal] mā kāna ʿalayhi min al-waṣfi lam yajri fa-ʾin kāna sman
wa-laysa bi-waṣfin jarā (ii, 5.7f.), and in the causative form ʾujriya lafẓuhu (i, 5.12).
16 ayoub

i. in several passages of the Kitāb, tanwīn and ṣarf [yuṣrafū] seem inter-
changeable, as in the following quotation: “As for [the word] miʿzan
(‘goat’), it has only one form [in all dialects]. It takes the tanwīn (tunaw-
wan) when it is indefinite. The same for [the word] ʾarṭā ‘a kind of tree’.
All these words are fully declinable ( yuṣraf )” (wa-ʾammā miʿzan fa-laysa
fīhā ʾillā luġatun wāḥidatun tunawwanu fī l-nakirati wa-kaḏālika l-ʾarṭā
kulluhum yuṣrafu; Kitāb ii, 8.14f.).
ii. Conversely, the avoidance of the tanwīn is seen, explicitly and repeatedly
in the Kitāb, as the only criterion of mā lā yanṣarif. Several passages state
there is no problem, for a partially inflected noun, to be assigned the -i
declension of the genitive when the definite article is prefixed to it (al-
ʾabyaḍi), or when it is annexed to a term (ʾabyaḍi l-yadi), because the
speakers avoid the tanwīn: “You should know that each partially declin-
able (lā yanṣarif ) noun is marked [notwithstanding] for the genitive case
when it is the first noun of an annexion, or when it is prefixed by the def-
inite article al-. The essential thing for them [the speakers] is to avoid the
tanwīn” (wa-ʿlam ʾanna kulla smin lā yanṣarifu fa-ʾinna l-jarra yadḫuluhu
ʾiḏā ʾaḍaftahu ʾaw ʾadḫalta ʿalayhi l-ʾalifa wa-l-lāma wa-ḏālika ʾannahum
ʾaminū l-tanwīn; Kitāb ii, 13.12f.)

This thesis (ʾaminū l-tanwīn) is asserted in the Risāla as well as in the thirty-
two chapters devoted to declinability. In sum, yanṣarif/lā yanṣarif already
has a technical meaning in the Kitāb: only the tanwīn is referred to in this
denomination as a criterion of full or restricted syntactic declension. This
terminology goes back at least to al-Ḫalīl, and may even be earlier than al-
Ḫalīl since Sībawayhi also mentions in these chapters, apart from al-Ḫalīl and
Yūnus (d. 182/798), the analyses of ʾAbū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ (d. 154/770), and
[ʿAbdallah Ibn] ʾAbī ʾIsḥāq (d. 117/735) (Kitāb ii 22.11 f.). If only the tanwīn is
criterial, we understand why it is said of the partially inflected noun that it
lā yanṣarif, even though it still changes its vowel endings: after all, such a
noun never displays tanwīn at its end. On the other hand, the i-declension
of the genitive is not selected as a criterion because the partially inflected
noun is assigned this declension in some contexts, as we have just seen. As for
the nouns that do not change their vowel endings, such as ʾayna, which are
called in later grammar mabnī, they are called in the Kitāb (i, 2.18) ʾasmāʾ ġayr
mutamakkina. Sībawayhi’s approach, which considers only the criterial feature
for the denomination of lā yanṣarif, is slightly different from al-Mubarrad’s
definition (Muqtaḍab iii, 309) of lā yanṣarif, which is more descriptive and
refers to both characteristics of the partially inflected noun: lā yanṣarif, for him,
describes a noun that is not assigned either the -i inflection or the tanwīn (lā
yanṣarif ʾay lā yadḫuluhu ḫafḍ wa-lā tanwīn).
case and reference 17

Yet, some of Sībawayhi’s approach seems to have been retained in the later
tradition. Versteegh (1995:173) in his commentary on al-Zajjājī’s (d. 340/950)
ʾĪḍāḥ observes that “ṣarf and tanwīn are sometimes very close in meaning”.
An even later grammarian than al-Zajjājī, al-Širbīnī (11th/17th century), in his
commentary on the ʾĀjurrūmiyya, speaks of “the noun […] munṣarif ” which “is
called munṣarif because it bears the tanwīn al-ṣarf, also known as tanwīn al-
tamkīn” (Carter 1981b:72f.).
In sum, if we are correct, yanṣarif, for a noun x, means ‘to bear the tanwīn’ as
a criterion of being fully declinable; conversely, lā yanṣarif means ‘not to bear
the tanwīn’ as a criterion of being partially declinable.12 The definition of the
Kitāb is the same as the one in the Kitāb al-ʿayn. But what is the value of the
tanwīn in the Kitāb, and what is the value of full or partial declinability?

2 The Notions of tanwīn, tamakkun, ʾawwal

As early as the Risāla, the tanwīn is linked with a theory about the hierarchi-
cal organization of grammatical categories, according to which one value of a
binary grammatical category is considered to be ‘first’ (ʾawwal) compared to
the other. This applies to the noun compared to the verb, indefinite (nakira)
to definite (maʿrifa), masculine to feminine, and singular to plural. Conse-
quently, these ‘first’ categories are ‘lighter’ (ʾaḫaff ) and ‘more firmly established’
(ʾašaddu tamakkunan),13 with the tanwīn serving as the sign (ʿalāma) of this
tamakkun, and its dropping as the sign of something the Arabs perceive as
‘heavy’:

You should know that some parts of speech are heavier than others. Verbs
are heavier than nouns because nouns are first and they are more firmly
established (ʾašaddu tamakkunan) […] The noun is before the qualifier
(ṣifa) and it is before the verb […], the indefinite is lighter for them [the
speakers] than the definite and it is more firmly established because
the indefinite is first, […] the singular is more firmly established than
the plural because the singular is first, […] the masculine is lighter than

12 Our conclusion is similar to that of Baalbaki (1979:16), who believes yanṣarif/lā yanṣarif to
refer to a restricted aspect of declinability, namely tanwīn, as a criterion of full or partial
declinability.
13 We borrow this translation from Carter (2004). We will come back below to the notion
of tamakkun, its different translations in the literature and its theoretical meaning, i.e. to
what kind of characteristics the notion refers exactly.
18 ayoub

the feminine because the masculine is first and it is more firmly estab-
lished (wa-ʿlam ʾanna baʿḍa l-kalāmi ʾaṯqalu min baʿḍin fa-l-ʾafʿālu ʾaṯqalu
mina l-ʾasmāʾi li-ʾanna l-ʾasmāʾa hiya l-ʾawwalu wa-hiya ʾašaddu tamakku-
nan […] al-isma qabla l-ṣifati kamā ʾannahu qabla l-fiʿli […] wa-ʿlam ʾanna l-
nakirata ʾaḫaffu ʿalayhim min al-maʿrifati wa-hiya ʾašaddu tamakkunan li-
ʾanna l-nakirata ʾawwalu […] wa-ʿlam ʾanna l-wāḥida ʾašaddu tamakkunan
mina l-jamīʿi li-ʾanna l-wāḥida l-ʾawwalu […] wa-ʿlam ʾanna l-muḏakkara
ʾaḫaffu ʿalayhim mina l-muʾannaṯi li-ʾanna l-muḏakkara ʾawwalu wa-huwa
ʾašaddu tamakkunan)
Kitāb i, 5.8

Linked with these hierarchies, the tanwīn suffix is considered to be the mark
of what is the ‘most firmly established’ or the most powerful (al-ʾamkan) and
the lightest for them (al-tanwīn ʿalāmatun li-l-ʾamkani ʿindahum wa-l-ʾaḫaffi
ʿalayhim; Kitāb i, 6.1). The same statement is repeated several times in the
Kitāb: “The tanwīn is the mark of what is firmly established” (al-tanwīn ʿalāmatu
l-mutamakkin; Kitāb ii, 157). Note that the Kitāb first uses the elative form
(al-ʾamkan) and then, the active participle (al-mutamakkin). They seem to be
synonymous in these assertions.
These hierarchies were noted first by Baalbaki (1979), and have been dis-
cussed extensively in recent literature.14 As we have noted elsewhere (Ayoub
2009:442), there is a hierarchical order between the three notions themselves,
tamakkun, ḫiffa/ṯiqal and ʾawwal. Actually, tamakkun and ḫiffa/ṯiqal are, in the
passage cited above, a consequence of being ʾawwal.15 For each category, the
li-ʾanna statement invokes this status of being ʾawwal: li-ʾanna l-ʾasmāʾa hiya
l-ʾawwalu; li-ʾanna l-nakirata ʾawwalu; li-ʾanna l-muḏakkara ʾawwalu; li-ʾanna l-
wāḥida l-ʾawwalu. This statement is later made explicitly: “The first is more
firmly established for them” ( fa-l-ʾawwal huwa ʾašaddu tamakkunan ʿindahum;
Kitāb i, 22.6f.).
This means that the status of being ʾawwal will be the fundamental notion
to understand. But before we go into this, we need to look at the question of
how exactly these hierarchies are linked to the theory of mā yanṣarif wa-mā lā
yanṣarif.

14 See, among other studies, Owens (1988:204–206, 218–220); Carter (2004:65–69); Baalbaki
(2008:113ff.), Ayoub (2009), and recently Marogy (2015).
15 We shall not examine the categories ḫiffa/ṯiqal in this study. These notions, closely linked
to tamakkun in the Kitāb, are commonly considered to be synonymous with it.
case and reference 19

3 The Structure of the Chapters

While the thirty-two chapters in the Kitāb dealing with this topic have been
deemed “complex and often obscure”16 in their argumentation, and do seem,
at first glance, to be difficult to classify and confusingly rich in content, they
acquire an immediate intelligibility in the light of these hierarchies. For their
first part, the thirty-two chapters are structured in the same order as the hier-
archies announced in the Risāla, showing the coherence of the Kitāb. They
complete these hierarchies in a second part, adding new categories. The fol-
lowing list presents a rough skeleton of the structure:

i. noun/verb/ṣifa ch. 285–290

ii. masculine/feminine ch. 291–296
iii. singular/plural ch. 297–299
iv. actual proper names (foreign names, proper names ch. 300–306
masc./fem, toponyms, names of tribes, suras)
v. particles as proper names ch. 307
vi. indeclinable locatives (ẓurūf ) as proper names ch. 308
vii. ʿadl (pattern modified from another pattern with the ch. 309
same meaning)
viii. demonstratives, relatives and temporal locatives as ch. 310–312
proper names
ix. surnames ch. 313
x. compound names ch. 314
xi. proper names with final /y/ and /w/ ch. 315
xii. proper names composed of a syllable or a phoneme ch. 316
xiii. verbatim quotation (ḥikāya) as a proper name ch. 317

Chapters i. to iv. are devoted to three of the grammatical categories mentioned

in the hierarchies of the Risāla (syntactic categories, number and gender).
Chapters v. to xiii. deal with other linguistic elements, largely in connection
with nomination. Following Lyons, we use this term to refer to the act of assign-
ing a name hitherto not assumed (cf. below). These last chapters introduce
new priorities expressed in terms of ʾawwal or ʾaṣl. The latter term seems to be
synonymous to ʾawwal since ʾaṣl, just like ʾawwal, leads to tamakkun: a morpho-
logically simple pattern is an ʾaṣl and, consequently, more mutamakkin than a

16 Carter (2004:118).
20 ayoub

compound one;17 an Arabic name is ʾawwal compared to a non-Arabic one; a

morphologically regular pattern is ʾaṣl compared to a modified one (maʿdūl).18
Finally, it should be noted that the definite/indefinite category is absent as a
particular chapter in the list. The reason for this is simple: this grammatical
category structures each chapter, as we shall explain in the next paragraph.
The grammatical categories of the Risāla are not the only key to the struc-
ture. But the thesis developed in the Risāla regarding hierarchy and tamakkun
is repeated at the end of several chapters with the same set of concepts as in
the Risāla: mutamakkin/ʾaḫaff /ʾawwal, where ʾawwal, ʾaṣl and qablu are inter-
changeable:

The masculine is first and better established, in the same way that the
indefinite is more firmly established than the definite […]. Therefore, the
masculine is first and more firmly established. So, for them [i.e. the speak-
ers], the first is more firmly established ( fa-l-taḏkīru ʾawwalu wa-huwa
ʾašaddu tamakkunan kamā ʾanna l-nakirata ʾašaddu tamakkunan min al-
maʿrifati […] fa-l-taḏkīru qablu wa-huwa ʾašaddu tamakkunan ʿindahum
fa-l-ʾawwalu huwa ʾašaddu tamakkunan ʿindahum).
Kitāb ii, 22.6–10

In addition, explicit cross-reference to the Risāla is made, as in the following

quotation: “I have explained this question in more detail, at the beginning of
the book” (wa-qad ʾawḍaḥtuhu fī ʾawwali l-kitābi bi-ʾakṯara min hāḏā; Kitāb ii,
13.3). In sum, the treatment of the question of declinability is very coherent.
But the parameters that organize this coherence are not the same as those
developed after Sībawayhi.

4 The Notions of Non-definite and Indefinite

As noted above, there is an important point in these thirty-two chapters which

deserves attention: the presence of the pair indefinite/inherently definite (na-
kira/maʿrifa) throughout these chapters, constituting an always relevant pa-

17 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 46.19–21: laysa šayʾun yajtamiʿu min šayʾayn fa-yujʿalu sman sum-
miya bihi wāḥidun ʾillā lam yuṣraf … li-ʾannahu laysa ʾaṣla bināʾi l-ʾasmāʾ … lam yakun hāḏā
l-bināʾu ʾaṣlan wa-lā mutamakkinan.
18 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii 14.9f.: wa-ʾammā ʿumaru wa-zufaru … humā maḥdūdāni ʿani l-bināʾi
llaḏī huwa ʾawlā bi-himā wa-huwa bināʾuhumā fī l-ʾaṣli fa-lammā ḫālafā bināʾahumā fī l-
ʾaṣli tarakū ṣarfahumā.
case and reference 21

rameter to test the inṣirāf of the linguistic unit x examined, even though whole
sections are devoted, in addition, to actual proper names, i.e. to inherently
definite nouns. What exactly does this mean?
A first immediate ‘meaning’ is negative: if we have to examine each noun
to determine if it is assigned tanwīn, in its definite and indefinite values, this
means that for Sībawayhi, tanwīn is not the marker of indefiniteness. Other-
wise, the question would engender no debate.19 Indeed, we would say, with
modern terminology, that tanwīn is neutral as to definiteness and indefinite-
ness. This is the reason why the noun suffixed by tanwīn must be considered
to be outside of discourse, not indefinite, but non-definite (in fact syntactically
non-definite), in the sense that for Sībawayhi, a noun suffixed by -n has in this
case both values.
For a positive answer to the question, it should be noted that an interesting
way to link the thirty-two chapters together consists in relating their structure,
as indicated by the headings cited above, to the basic syntactic, morphological,
and phonological units, as well as to the different word classes. Each of these
units is studied systematically in the course of one or more chapters, in the light
of the definiteness parameter, or, more exactly, its morphological variation is
studied systematically in this light.
The general question addressed throughout these chapters may be subdi-
vided into two parts. Firstly, if x belongs to the category of nouns, morphosyn-
tactic variation has to do with full or partial declinability resumed by the pres-
ence or absence of the tanwīn. What is ʾawwal and consequently mutamakkin
bears the tanwīn. Secondly, if the term x belongs to another syntactic category
(i.e., a verb, such as daḥraja, or a particle, ‘which is neither noun nor verb’, such
as law), or if the term x is a mere morphological or phonological unit, such as a
syllable or a phoneme, it has to go to a wider morphological variation. The rules
under debate then are the rules of transposition from one category to another.
Actually, the definiteness parameter, as it is linked with nouns, applies in
two different orders through the chapters, as a corollary to the kind of reference
that the linguistic unit studied has. In chapters examining nouns, the indefinite
value of the noun is studied before its definite form, as the indefinite is prior to
the definite. But verbs and particles do not refer like nouns do. Phonemes do
not refer at all. So all these elements have to be transposed to nouns by nomi-
nation. They will be examined, at first, as proper names inherently definite, and

19 As we know, this question is hotly disputed in modern linguistics, a common analysis

being that this suffix is the marker of indefiniteness. The same idea is found in some stud-
ies analysing tanwīn in the grammarians’ theories, to the extent that it impossible to know
whether it is the researchers’ analysis or the analysis they attribute to the grammarians.
22 ayoub

then they could be examined as indefinite, referring to the class of individuals

bearing this name. However, in both cases, the definiteness parameter is the
variation parameter adopted. Why is this so?
Note that chapters i. to iii. and the definiteness parameter not only link these
chapters with the hierarchies indicated in the Risāla, but these grammatical
categories are essential, in modern linguistic terms, in building up the reference
of a term. The syntactic categories of chapter i. (noun/verb/qualifier), build up
a part of the meaning of a term. This meaning, defined by Lyons (1977:159)
as “the set of essential properties which determines the applicability of a
term to an object or to a class of objects”, allows the reference to an object,
without being itself a real reference. It is a potentiality of reference, a ‘virtual
reference’.20 When we say ‘table’, we cannot refer to a specific table in the world.
It lacks determination. This virtual reference, given in Arabic by the lexical
meaning of the root and the pattern of the word, becomes an ‘actual’ or real
reference, referring to a real object in the world, when it is actualized totally
or partially by the value of different grammatical categories in the discourse:
mood, tense for verbs, definiteness, gender, number and case for nouns. This is
the difference between ‘table’ and ‘[I see] the table in the hall’. Only ‘the table
in the hall’ has an actual reference, i.e. refers to an object in the world.
Some of the grammatical categories that actualize the reference of nouns
are precisely the headings of chapters ii. and iii. (gender and number), but the
principal category of this actualization is the parameter determining the exam-
ination of the linguistic elements throughout all chapters. It is definiteness.
For example, the inherently definite noun, the proper name, is equivalent to
a deictic category in the Kitāb. It is fully actualized and has a deictic value. For
Sībawayhi, saying zayd is equivalent to saying hāḏā l-rajulu, when the speaker
means a specific individual identified by the listener, as we will see below in
section 6.
If we follow the development of the chapters, and relate it to our categories,
we can easily see why the definite/indefinite parameter is a constant one,
throughout these chapters. As noted above, Sībawayhi takes the syntactic,
morphological, and phonological units as subject of his examination, namely
the parts of speech, the patterns of morphology, the syllables or phonemes.
In the first chapters of the section, the linguistic units x examined are of two
types: on the one hand, there are patterns marked by their structure for the non-
ʾawwal value of the grammatical category selected: mafāʿil inherently marked

20 The notion of virtual reference, inspired by the work of Bally (1932), was introduced by
Milner (1978). It has been widely adopted in semantic studies.
case and reference 23

for the plural, or faʿlāʾ inherently marked for the feminine with the augment
(ziyāda) [-āʾ] analyzed as part of the noun, vs. faʿīl-at, where the suffix [-at]
(called hāʾ al-taʾnīṯ) is not part of the structure of the stem and has the same
status for Sībawayhi as “a morpheme joined to another morpheme, so that they
become as if they are one single morpheme” (ismun ḍumma ʾilā smin fa-juʿilā
sman wāḥidan; Kitāb ii, 12.19). On the other hand, there are word classes or
patterns not marked for any value of the grammatical category examined, such
as the first pattern discussed, ʾafʿal, which is not inherently marked for any
syntactic category: ʾafʿal can be a verb ʾaḏhab; a substantive ʾarbaʿ; a qualifier
ʾaḥmar. The same can be said for some names of tribes, as well as toponyms (e.g.
dābiq, minan, hajar) or names of suras, which can be regarded as masculine or
feminine. All of these ambiguous items are treated in detail by Sībawayhi.
Moreover, the value of each grammatical category of the Risāla hierarchy is
first investigated in these chapters in the morphological pattern or the word
class, as inherently shown by it. But if patterns in Arabic can be inherently
marked for number, gender, and sometimes plural (ʾafʿal for instance is inher-
ently masculine, singular, mafāʿil is inherently plural), definiteness is not inher-
ently marked in the pattern. Only the discourse can distinguish between the
definite and indefinite value of a term. This means that, outside of discourse,
they are both present. Outside of discourse, kilābun is (syntactically) non-
definite. It can refer to a set of individuals of an undetermined number (a set of
dogs) or to a specific individual uniquely identified (a tribe called Kilāb). This is
the reason why this parameter is always present in every chapter. Its presence
is founded on two implicit postulates: i. outside discourse, every word can have
an indefinite or an inherently definite reference; and ii. proper names are inher-
ently definite. The latter postulate is formulated explicitly

zayd does not have the same status as [the article] al-. One of the things
showing that it does not have the same status as al- is its being inherently
definite. It is not rendered definite by some [morpheme] affixed to it or
by what it follows it ( fa-laysa zaydun bi-manzilati l-ʾalifi wa-l-lāmi wa-
mimmā yadulluka ʿalā ʾannahu laysa bi-manzilati l-ʾalifi wa-l-lāmi ʾanna-hu
maʿrifatun bi-nafsihi lā bi-šayʾin daḫala fīhi wa-lā bi-mā baʿdahu)
Kitāb i, 268.2–4

When a noun is inherently definite, it refers to “a specific man known to the

addressee”. Contrariwise, when a noun is nakira, it refers to “someone among
those denoted by this noun, and you do not intend [then] a specific man known
to the addressee” (wāḥidun mimmā yaqaʿu ʿalayhi l-ismu lā turīdu rajulan bi-
ʿaynihi yaʿrifuhu l-muḫāṭabu; Kitāb i, 187.20–21).
24 ayoub

We may therefore conclude, with respect to our purpose in this study, that by
adopting definiteness in these chapters as the main parameter to examine the
morpho-phonological variation of a term, but also by considering its syntactic
categories and the grammatical categories of number and gender, the Kitāb
postulates that tanwīn—and declinability—have something to do, in some
way, with reference. But in what way precisely? And can the reference explain
all usages of tanwīn?

5 Nomination

Between nakira and maʿrifa, there is a discrepancy. Only nouns can be nakira,
i.e. they can refer, according to Sībawayhi, to an unidentified individual, “some-
one among those denoted by this noun”. But if definiteness is a parameter
linked with nouns, the following question may be asked: are elements inher-
ently maʿrifa (i.e., proper names) always nouns?
Sībawayhi’s methodology leads him in these chapters to further questions
pertaining to what Lyons (1977), and modern linguists studying proper names
after him, called ‘nomination’, more precisely performative nomination. With
respect to the functions of proper names, Lyons distinguishes between voca-
tive, (performative and didactic) nomination, and reference. For the first two
functions, the differences are summarized by Colman (2014:70):

With vocatives, prior nomination is assumed: they identify the person

addressed by their name; whereas nominations assign identity. Lyon’s
performative nomination assigns a name hitherto not assumed while
didactic nomination informs of a name known at least to the informer.21

In his study of mā yanṣarif and mā lā yanṣarif, Sībawayhi studies what would

happen to hundreds of words if they become proper names, being aware that
they are not actually used as proper names and “never became ones”, as Carter
(1981a:109) remarks. In other words, Sībawayhi is led to the grammar of per-
formative nomination, as nomination produces inherently definite nouns. The
following implicit questions are answered: What is the stock of nomination,
i.e. the stock from which the proper name is selected? What happens to a word

21 Cf. also Lyons (1977:217): “By the vocative function of names is meant their being used to
attract the attention of the person being called or summoned”, and Langendonck (2007):
“Roughly performative nomination is when you assign a name hitherto not assumed”.
case and reference 25

when it is used as a proper name, i.e. when it is inherently maʿrifa? What kind
of declensional and morphological changes does it go through?
The answer to the first question is simply that the entire language serves
as the stock. All syntactic categories can be proper names, even the most
implausible nouns such as plurals; the demonstrative hāḏā; the relatives allaḏī,
allatī, ʾūlāʾi; verbs in their different conjugations (the imperatives irmi, iḍrib,
the passive ḍuriba, etc.); particles such as lā, law, layta; prepositions such as
min, etc., as well as utterances like lam yaḍrib. The procedure is not limited to
meaningful linguistic units, but even miṯāls, prototypical words invented by the
grammarian and not used in speech (later to be called wazn), such as fuʿal, or
fuʿūl, ʾafʿal are examined as proper names, as well as any syllable taken from a
word (the ḍa of ḍaraba, or the ḍu of ḍuriba) or every single phoneme of Arabic.
Carter (1981a), in a classic study investigating these chapters, pointed out this
enormous mass of data of highly fictitious names in the Kitāb and assigned
them an epistemological function: they are a testing device. They “test noun
behaviour”22 for morphological rules. Carter also points out that “nearly all
the examples are either attributed to him [al-Ḫalīl] or elicited from him”.23 It
should be stressed that nowhere else—in syntax or semantics at least—, does
Sibawayhi, by this speculative methodology, approximate the doctrine of his
teacher al-Ḫalīl in the Kitāb al-ʿayn as closely as here: just like al-Ḫalīl seeks to
cover not only the attested words of the language, but also all virtual words
derived by any possible combination of consonants, Sībawayhi’s systematic
approach to nomination does not restrict itself to attested proper names, but
he seeks to cover all virtual names as well, by studying the possibility of using
any linguistic unit of the language as a name.
Before examining the grammatical processes that nomination implies, its
semantic and referential aspects should be highlighted. This approach implic-
itly asserts important properties of language. To transform every sound into
a name by nomination, is tantamount to asserting that any sound or combi-
nation of sounds, even the ones that have no meaning, can be linked to the
world immediately. Sounds can become instantly referential when used as the
name of a specific, uniquely identified individual.24 This approach by itself
offers a masterful way to link language and reference, as well as linking syntac-
tic declensions to reference and pragmatics. So, what is the reference of proper
names, according to the Kitāb?

22 Carter (1981a:115).
23 Carter (1981a:116).
24 A similar thesis exists in modern linguistics, cf. Wilmet (1995:5): “La dénomination propre
attache un signifié à un référent”.
26 ayoub

6 Proper Names Have Actual Reference. Do They Have Lexical

Meaning?

As Langendonck (2007:20) notes, the referential and the semantic status of

proper names has been for the last century “a question of hot debate”: in what
way do proper names refer? Do proper names have lexical meaning or only
pragmatic meaning or both?25
Sībawayhi’s Kitāb seems to have addressed this fundamental problem. Its
approach, assuming that any sound of the language could be a proper name,
may suggest that proper names have no lexical meaning. This does not seem
to be the case. What the Kitāb explicitly asserts is that a proper name has
no predicative meaning which would permit it to be an attribute (lā yakūnu
ṣifatan): a proper name cannot be a ṣifa since it is not a quality (ḥilya), like
al-tawīl, a relational noun denoting relationship (qarāba), like ʾaḫūka, or a
deictic demonstrative (mubham), like hāḏā.26 It is uniquely identified by the
speaker and the listener by a general ‘meaning’ added to pragmatic crite-
ria:

When you say hāḏā zaydun ‘This is Zayd’, zaydun is the denomination of
what you are referring to when you say hāḏā l-rajulu ‘this man’, if you
intend an individual (šayʾ) itself, whom the interlocutor knows by his
qualities or by something heard about him, which singles him out from
among all the persons the interlocutor knows (ʾiḏā qulta hāḏā zaydun fa-
zaydun ismun li-maʿnā qawli-ka hāḏā l-rajulu ʾiḏā ʾaradta šayʾan bi-ʿaynihi
qad ʿarafahu l-muḫāṭabu bi-ḥilyatihi ʾaw bi-ʾamrin qad balaġahu ʿanhu qad
iḫtaṣṣa bihi dūna man yaʿrifu)
Kitāb i, 224f.

25 Cf. Langendonck (2007:23): “Mill accorded denotation (referential status) to proper

names, but no lexical meaning, and Frege also assigned a Sinn, which seems to com-
prehend both lexical and associative (pragmatic) meaning. Husserl argued for a one-to-
one correspondence between extension (reference) and intension (meaning). For Russell,
Wittgenstein and Searle, proper names could not be understood or retrieved without
some description(s). Then come Kripke and Donnellan with their radical view that proper
names function without any contribution of meaning or descriptions, in whatever way
these are to be understood”. See also Wilmet (1995).
26 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 190:12 for these examples.
case and reference 27

The function of the proper name in the utterance hāḏā zaydun seems to be
referential here: you inform your listener that Zayd is coming.27 The general
‘meaning’ of the proper name is a deictic one. It is the meaning of the demon-
strative: saying zayd is equivalent to saying ‘this man’. But with this deictic
reference, there is some ‘description’ involved, description resulting from prag-
matic criteria: this individual is uniquely identified by his qualities (ḥilyatuhu)
or by some matters that identify him excluding any other person.

7 Rules of Transposition of Word Classes

As for the second question concerning the morphosyntactic variation of the

element x, we are introduced, as Carter (1981a) points out, to the entire set of
morphological rules: triliteralism, nominal and verbal patterns, the status of
nominal and verbal affixes, and so on. According to Carter (1981a), the function
of this approach, as noted above, is to use proper names as a testing device
to check the validity of the rules. But to use proper names as a testing device
presupposes knowing exactly what a proper name means: what is its definition,
its syntactic category, its reference? So, the procedure itself, if it is rigorous,
presupposes a careful study of the grammatical and referential status of proper
names.28 Moreover, to use proper names as a testing device to check the validity
of the rules works indeed for real names. The grammarian can verify if his
rules generate the right form of the proper name in actual use. But this is
less valid for fictitious names. For these names, usage cannot serve as a test
of the validity of the rules. Accordingly, a different function of Sībawayhi’s
approach seems to use the morphological and phonological rules to determine
the rules of transposition from one category or word class to another, that of
proper names, which is what the heading of ch. 310 literally says: “This is the
chapter of the modifications the demonstratives go through if they become
proper names” (hāḏā bābu taġyīri l-ʾasmāʾi l-mubhamati ʾiḏā ṣārat ʿalāmāt
ḫāṣṣa).29 Numerous other chapters are devoted to rules of transposition, from
a verbal stem to a proper name, or from a verbal syntagm to a proper name,
etc. Langendonck (2007:7) points out that it is widely admitted “that linguists

27 The proper name could also be a didactic nomination in this utterance. But in that case,
the addressee would not know the qualities or the particular events related to this person.
28 This statement is similar to that by Carter (1981a:110): “Both he [Sībawayhi] and al-Ḫalīl
make such a self-conscious and technically fruitful use of proper names that we cannot
doubt that they fully understood the peculiar status of proper names.”
29 Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 38.
28 ayoub

have hardly discussed the status of proper names, or, more generally, the so-
called transposition of word classes”. In the light of these chapters, we can say
that by and large in the 2nd/8th century, these questions were discussed in the
Kitāb.
We have seen above that a proper name has a peculiar semantic status.
As for its grammatical status, a proper name is a noun and it is declined like
a noun. This may seem to be evident to us, after more than 1,200 years of
grammatical tradition. But it is not, as there is at least one alternative choice
possible: a proper name could retain its original status, remain a sentence, a
syllable, or a phoneme, and behave in accordance with this status, without
any sound change, since it is possible for proper names not to have a lexical
meaning. Indeed, all proper names are transposed as nouns, according to
the Kitāb, but some proper names, even nominals, are verbatim quotations,
without any sound change. This is the case of names taken from utterances,
for example, taʾabbaṭa šarran ‘he bore evil under his arm’, which produces
some amazing forms in the vocative. For a man named al-rajulu munṭaliqun
‘the man is leaving’, the vocative would be yā l-rajulu munṭaliqun, which is
surprising because yā l-rajulu is not possible in Arabic. This vocative proves
that the sequence al-rajulu munṭaliqun has been reanalyzed as a single noun,
rather than a noun preceded by the article al-. The role of the theory is to
determine when the proper name has to be a verbatim quotation,30 and when
it has to be declined. Al-Ḫalīl determined the case of verbatim quotations in
terms of the theory of ‘government’ or ‘operation’ (ʿamal) with a very general
rule that ultimately pertained to the principle of locality in the application of
rules.31 In general linguistics, this principle asserts that the application of rules
involving two elements in the same minimal domain (a ‘local’ domain, such as
a minimal sentence) takes precedence over rules that imply distant elements.
Sībawayhi, following al-Ḫalīl, asserts that no sequence of words linked by
relations of ʿamal, which are by definition relations between elements in a
minimal domain, changes its form when used as a proper name. In modern
linguistic terms, one might say that relations of locality inside the name have
precedence on any other relations of ʿamal involving the sentence where this
name is mentioned:

30 Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 59.18: al-ḥikāyatu llatī lā tuġayyaru fīhā l-ʾasmāʾu ʿan ḥālihā fī l-kalām.
31 The principle of locality is an important notion in Generative Grammar. In this frame-
work, the ‘local’ or minimal domain that constrains the application of rules for a category
x is generally constituted by the minimal sentence containing x and the governor of x. See
Chomsky (1981:5, 211, 1986:2, 19).
case and reference 29

This is the usage of the Arabs when they call a man Taʾabbaṭa šarran
‘He bore evil under his arm’. They say ‘This is Taʾabbaṭa šarran’, and they
say ‘This is Baraqa naḥruhu [‘His chest gleaned’],32 and ‘I saw Baraqa
naḥruhu’. [All] this does not change the form it had before becoming a
name […] and so it is for everything in which one term is already operating
syntactically on the other (wa-ḏālika qawlu l-ʿArabi fī rajulin yusammā
taʾabbaṭa šarran hāḏā taʾabbaṭa šarran wa-qālū hāḏā baraqa naḥruhu wa-
raʾaytu baraqa naḥruhu fa-hāḏā lā yataġayyaru ʿan ḥālihi llatī kāna ʿalayhā
qabla ʾan yakūna sman […] wa-kullu šayʾin ʿamila baʿḍuhu fī baʿḍin fa-
huwa ʿalā hāḏihi l-ḥāl)
Kitāb ii, 59.18

The exercise of trying to know what happens in others cases, which seems to
be an academic or pedagogical exercise, is in fact of great heuristic value: it
is really an investigation of rules of transposition to names, which determine
what happens to a sound, an expression, an utterance, a word, a verb, when
it becomes a noun. What happens next, when it becomes a name, in other
words a noun whose reference is uniquely identified? Let us take an example
to illustrate what is involved in the debate. If you wish to call a man by the
consonant ḍ of ḍaraba, the ḍ of ḍirābi, or the ḍ of ḍuḥan, what do you have
to do? Sībawayhi gives us the answer of al-Ḫalīl: your man will be called
ḍāʾun, ḍuwwun, ḍiyyun, respectively.33 But, first, Sībawayhi gives us the rules
involved.34 Since names are nouns, you start by transforming the phoneme into
a nominal stem. There are no nouns of less than three consonants,35 therefore
the resulting noun has its second and third consonant elided. These second and
third consonants must be a /y/ or /w/, as those are the consonants that can be
elided.36 Taking into account the vowel /a/ after the /ḍ/ in ḍaraba, you twice
add the related glide ʾalif, the first being realized as [ā], the second37 as hamza,
so you end up with ḍāʾ. Since the intended name is masculine, which is prior
to feminine and more powerful, it receives declension. Eventually, your man

32 The translation of the two proper names is borrowed from Carter (1981a:115).
33 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 59.14–16 wa-ʾin sammayta rajulan bi-l-ḍādi min ḍaraba qulta ḍāʾun
wa-ʾin sammaytahu bihā min ḍirābi qulta ḍiyyun wa-ʾin sammaytahu bihā min ḍuḥan qulta
ḍuwwun wa-kaḏālika hāḏā l-bābu kulluhu.
34 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 57f.
35 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 57.15 laysa fī l-dunyā smun ʾaqallu ʿadadan min smin ʿalā ṯalāṯati
ʾaḥrufin.
36 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 57.17–19.
37 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 58.6–8.
30 ayoub

will be called ḍāʾun. If you wish to call him with the ḍ of ḍirābi, you say ḍiyyun
for similar reasons. And if you wish to call him with the ḍ of ḍuḥan, you say
ḍuwwun, again for similar reasons.38
The investigation addresses questions in a systematic fashion. When I call
someone rajulāni, do I say hāḏā rajulānu or hāḏā rajulāni? And when I call him
ṯamma or lā or law, do I say hāḏā ṯamma or hāḏā ṯammun, hāḏā law or hāḏā
lawwun?
The investigation of the rules of transposition does not limit itself to only
one shift. From a category or element x (state 1 = s1) to a proper name (s2)
represents one shift, but when it is possible, the transposition may shift from
x to a proper name, and then to a common name (s3), as in the case of
yazīd (as a verb: s1) to Yazīd as a proper name (s2), referring to a person
uniquely identified, and then to Yazīd, as referring to a class of persons whose
name is Yazīd (nakira: s3). In the latter case, Yazīd is inflected completely:
jāʾa yazīdu wa-yazīdun ʾāḫaru ‘Yazīd came, and then another [person called]
Yazīd’. The same reasoning applies to ʾaḥmar ‘red’ with a first state partially
declined, as its form resembles that of a verb (ʾaḥmar is like ʾaḏhab) and it
is a qualifier (ṣifa), qualifiers being less powerful and less well-established
than nouns. In s2, ʾAḥmar, which becomes a proper name, retains partial
declension since definite is less powerful than indefinite. And in s3, ʾaḥmar also
retains its partial declension: jāʾa ʾaḥmaru wa-ʾaḥmaru ʾāḫaru ‘ʾAḥmar came,
and then another [person called] ʾAḥmar’. Contrariwise, ʾafʿal minka is fully
inflected in s3 and behaves differently from ʾaḥmar, if minka is omitted from
the name. One has to say jāʾa ʾAkbaru wa-ʾAkbarun ʾāḫaru ‘ʾAkbar came, and
then another [person called] ʾAkbar’, since declension depends on the history
of the category. According to Sībawayhi, it is not ʾakbar which is a ṣifa but
ʾakbar minka.39 So when ʾakbar refers to a class (of persons named ʾAkbar),
it is fully declined like a noun. On the contrary, ʾaḥmar is by itself a ṣifa and
when it is indefinite, referring to a class of proper names, it remains partially
declined, since it returns to its first state s1.40 We suppose that this difference
between ʾakbar and ʾaḥmar is due to their syntactic use and semantic value:
ʾakbar is an elative by its form and it is used in discourse as a predicate. In
this case, it is accompanied by an—explicit or implicit—minka. It needs min
to express the comparison of the quality. Otherwise it is used as the first term
of a qualificative annexion, or with the article. In these two cases, it is fully

38 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 57.20–58.1 and Kitāb ii, 58.1–4.

39 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 4.21 wa-ʾinnamā yakūnu hāḏā ṣifatan bi-minka. Cf. Kitāb ii, 4.21.
40 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 4f.
case and reference 31

declinable. Conversely, ʾaḥmar refers to the quality by itself. But if ʾakbaru

minka is used as a proper name, it remains partially inflected in s3: jāʾa ʾakbaru
minka wa-ʾakbaru minka ʾāḫaru ‘ʾAkbar minka came, and then another [person
called] ʾAkbar minka’.41 This kind of investigation is carried out for almost every
term considered.

8 Regularities and Analogies in Grammar

The analyses mentioned in the preceding section, which are founded on rules
obtained by analogy, raise heuristic questions. Inevitably, they raise the ques-
tion of what is regularity in grammar and how to deduce analogies. Let us
return to the proper names constructed with ḍ (ḍāʾun; ḍiyyun; ḍuwwun). Actu-
ally, the rules that give these names follow al-Ḫalīl’s theory (wa-hāḏā qiyāsu
qawli l-Ḫalīl; Kitāb ii, 59.16). But other grammarians make another first hypoth-
esis, restituting the consonant, and not only the vowel after ḍ (wa-man ḫālafahu
radda l-ḥarfa llaḏī yalīhi; Kitāb ii, 59.16f.). This results in totally different proper
names, presumably ḍarun; ḍirun; ḍuḥun.
Divergent analogies are also the heart of a debate between Yūnus and al-
Ḫalīl in ch. 315, in which Sībawayhi reports Yūnus’ views to al-Ḫalīl. The ques-
tion is: what analogy has to be applied if we call a woman jawārin ‘slave girls’,
a word which ends in a weak consonant /y/? Yūnus treats the word as if it
consisted of three sound radical consonants. The analogy for him is inside the
category of the (inherently) definite and it goes from the definite sound form
to the definite weak form, from fawāʿil with sound consonants to fawāʿil with
a weak final consonant.42 One says fawāʿila in the accusative and the geni-
tive, this pattern being partially declinable since it is exclusive for the plurals,
and plurals are known to be less powerful than singulars. So, one should say
marartu bi-jawāriya, when a woman is called jawārin. In other words, Yūnus’
view restores the diptotic pattern in jawārin as a proper name, disregarding
the fact that jawārin as a common noun, although it has the pattern jawāriyu,
has a genitive jawāriyin > jawārin. These relations may be represented as fol-
lows:

41 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 4f. fa-ʾin sammaytahu ʾafḍala minka lam taṣrifhu ʿalā ḥālin.
42 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 53.13 ʾammā Yūnus fa-kāna yanẓuru ʾilā kulli šayʾin min hāḏā ʾiḏā
kāna maʿrifatan kayfa ḥālu naẓīrihi min ġayri l-muʿtalli maʿrifatan.
32 ayoub

definite (maʿrifa)
sound final consonant (ġayr muʿtall) → weak final consonant (muʿtall)
fawāʿila jawāriya

As for al-Ḫalīl, he assigns to this word a specific morpho-phonological sta-

tus with its final /y/, setting up the analogy inside the category of the weak
nouns, and going from the indefinite to the definite. Since the common noun
is jawārin (marartu bi- jawārin), when a woman is called jawārin, one should
also say marartu bi-jawārin.43 The analogy in this case is as follows:

noun with a glide in final position (muʿtall)

indefinite (nakira) → definite (maʿrifa)

In other words, one might say that the prior category for Yūnus is seman-
tic and referential (definiteness). For al-Ḫalīl, the prior category is morpho-
phonological (noun with a final glide), as the rule discussed is a morpho-
syntactic one.
This debate proves that there are no grammatical (morphosyntactic) prop-
erties that could be said to be unique to proper names, at least according to the
Kitāb. The rules of transposition lead to the conclusion that proper names, i.e.
nouns that refer to unique individual entities identified by the listener, do not
imply, by their referential status, a unique and exclusive grammatical behav-
ior or case behavior. Some proper names have a particular behavior they share
with other categories that are marked, by their form or/and their signification.
They do not bear the tanwīn after the case marker. So, what is the key to this
particular grammatical behavior?
In sum, if the reference of nouns, through the parameter of definiteness, is
the key to understand the debate of these thirty-two chapters, and to under-
stand why some grammatical categories (such as syntactic categories, num-
ber, gender, and definiteness, proper names being included in this last cate-
gory), but not others, are selected to be examined, reference, whether virtual
or actual, does not directly provide the key to the morphosyntactic behavior

43 Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 52.18f. huwa fī ḥāli l-jarri wa-l-rafʿi bi-manzilatihi qabla ʾan yakūna
sman wa-law kāna min šaʾnihim ʾan yadaʿū ṣarfahu fī l-maʿrifati la-tarakū ṣarfahu qabla
ʾan yakūna maʿrifatan. Actually, as Kees Versteegh pointed out to me, the ending -n in this
class of words is not an ordinary tanwīn but a compensatory tanwīn. This is the analysis
of al-Ḫalīl (Kitāb ii, 52.22) and of the tradition after him (see Versteegh 1995:169ff.). So,
everything happens as if the shift to the category of proper names is not strong enough to
override the special rules for words in -iyun.
case and reference 33

of nouns known as mā lā yanṣarif. Actually, mā lā yanṣarif includes at least

two opposite types of nouns in terms of reference: nouns referring to the best
known and identified individual for the speaker and the listener, the proper
name, on the one hand, and nouns referring to the most unidentified specific
individual, “someone among those denoted by this noun”, the indefinite noun,
on the other hand.
In order to find the key to the interface between morphology and syntax,
semantics and pragmatics, and the reason for the presence or absence of
tanwīn, we need to return to the Risāla and to the notion of tamakkun, as
“tanwīn is the mark of mutamakkin” (al-tanwīn ʿalāmatu l-mutamakkin; Kitāb
ii, 157).

9 Tamakkun

Tamakkun is a rather well-known category in the literature. Though well stud-

ied, this notion has been interpreted differently by researchers.44 For the pur-
pose of the present article, namely the relation between case and reference,
we will focus on certain distinctive properties of the notion in the Kitāb, that
makes its acceptation different from the one developed in the later tradition.
The word, as we know, refers to both power and space: tamakkana min X
means ‘to become possessed of mastery’,45 or ‘power, strength, proficiency, over
a thing’; tamakkana bi- X means also ‘to become settled, established in a place’.
Is the first acceptation a figurative meaning, obtained by metaphor from the
second one? In the Classical Arabic dictionaries, only the first acceptation

44 Baalbaki (1979:16, 2008:113) translates tamakkun in the Kitāb as ‘declinability’, ʿadam ta-
makkun as ‘indeclinability’, and ʾašadd tamakkun as ‘more declinable’ (2008:118). Owens
(1988:134ff.) studied this notion together with other notions that have been connected
with it throughout the tradition. Although he deals with the general model rather than
with the individual notions, his analysis may be useful to understand ʾawwal in the Kitāb
(cf. below, section 11 11). Versteegh (1995:179), in his commentary on al-Zajjājī’s ʾĪḍāḥ, and
Carter (2004:115) translate tamakkun with ‘flexibility’. We will come back to this translation
below. We have studied this notion in its relation with tanwīn briefly in Ayoub (1996) and
in Ayoub (2009:442–446). Our present study of tamakkun is along the same line as Ayoub
(2009), and congruous with Danecki (2009:429–432) in many points (cf. infra). Cf also
Chairet (2000) and finally, see Talmon (2003:287f.) who surveys in a note all the different
translations of this notion in the Arabist literature.
45 The Lisān al-ʿArab s.v. says: tamakkana minhu: ẓafira. The simple form of the verb, too,
refers to strength and power: tamakkana ka-makuna.
34 ayoub

is attested or underlined.46 And, even in the second acceptation, the seme

of power, strength, is present, as tamakkana means ‘to be firmly established
[somewhere]’. By this metaphor of firm settlement, power, vigor and strength,
a grammatical concept is built which designates a property of the language.
What property—or properties—does it designate in the Kitāb?
The grammatical notion functions as a binary pair, mutamakkin/ġayr muta-
makkin, but unlike munṣarif/ġayr munṣarif, mutamakkin admits degrees and
comparison, as noted by Owens (1988:134). This comparison would be positive:
x is more mutamakkin (ʾašaddu tamakkunan) than y. For instance, nouns are
more mutamakkin than verbs, as we hve seen above;47 temporal adverbials are
more mutamakkin than spatial ones.48 The comparison could be negative as
well (Kitāb i, 28.7): “mā ʾaḥsana ʿabdallāhi ‘how good ʿAbdallāh is!’ functions as
a verb although it is not as mutamakkin as the verb” (mā ʾaḥsana ʿabdallāhi yajrī
majrā l-fiʿli wa-lam yatamakkan tamakkunahu).
As already noted,49 there is a difference between the acceptation of tamak-
kun in Sībawayhi and in late grammatical treatises. In late grammarians’ work,
tamakkun means declinability, ġayr mutamakkin being at that point equivalent
to mabnī, that is to say uninflected or invariable in case form. So it is for al-
ʾAstarābāḏī (d. 686/1287), who claims (Šarḥ i, 13) that tamakkun designates
the mere fact that the noun is declinable (kawnu l-ismi muʿraban). But it is
difficult to assume that tamakkun in the Kitāb means declinability, for both
indeclinable nouns (ʾayna, matā, etc.) and partially declinable nouns (dajājatu
as the proper name of a man) are described as lā yatamakkan: “ʾayna, matā,
kayfa, ḥayṯu, and similar words do not have a diminutive form […]. These nouns
are not firmly established” (wa-lā yuḥaqqaru ʾayna wa-matā wa-lā kayfa wa-lā
ḥayṯu wa-naḥwuhunna […] wa-laysat ʾasmāʾa tamakkanu; Kitāb ii, 137.18–20).

46 The word is absent from the Kitāb al- ʿayn. Ibn Durayd ( Jamhara 983) gives only tamakka-
na minhu. Lisān presents incidentally tamakkana bi-l-makān but underlines tamakkana
minhu. As for the later grammarians, Ibn Yaʿīš (Šarḥ ix, 30), for instance, associates
tanwīn al-tamakkun once with makāna ‘high rank or standing, an honorable place in
the estimation of a king’ (makāna min al-ṣultān), and then with makān: al-dāllu ʿalā-l-
makānati ʾay ʾanna-hu bāqin ʿalā makāni-hi mina l-ismiyyati. Recent studies by Arabists
have argued for a reinterpretation of the relation between makān and tamakkana (see
Larcher 1999:108).
47 Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 5.8 fa-l-ʾafʿālu ʾaṯqalu mina l-ʾasmāʾi li-ʾanna l-ʾasmāʾa hiya l-ʾawwalu wa-
hiya ʾašaddu tamakkunan.
48 Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 177.7: wa-ʿlam ʾanna ẓurūfa l-dahri ʾašaddu tamakkunan fī l-ʾasmāʾi min
al-ʾamākini.
49 Cf. Chairet (2000:218), Danecki (2009:431f.), Ayoub (2009:442 f.).
case and reference 35

Likewise, Sībawayhi says: “Any noun not firmly established cannot bear the
tanwīn when it is definite; it bears it when it is indefinite” (kullu smin laysa
yatamakkanu lā yadḫuluhu l-tanwīnu fī l-maʿrifati wa-yadḫuluhu fī l-nakirati;
Kitāb i, 351.20).50
Moreover, tamakkun is not always associated with declinability and, to take
a few examples, in all the following contexts, tamakkun cannot be translated
at all by declinability: ġayr, which is fully declinable, is nevertheless ġayr
mutamakkin.51 Temporal adverbials (ẓurūf al-dahr) are more mutamakkin than
spatial ones, as we have seen above,52 but some of them are fully declinable and
some indeclinable. Lāta resembles laysa, but does not have the same tamakkun,
while both of them are indeclinable.53 Thus, the notion of tamakkun is wider
than declinability in the Kitāb. In syntax and semantics, it affects all the basic
word classes and grammatical categories. Besides this usage, tamakkun is a
notion used in morphology and phonology as well. It applies to all the basic
units of grammar. The following list is far from being exhaustive:

– the triliteral consonantal root is mutamakkin in the language, as if this root

were ‘the first’ (kaʾannahu huwa l-ʾawwalu; Kitāb ii, 336 f.). In this context,
mutamakkin seems to mean ‘the most frequent in the language’ (ʾakṯar al-
kalām).54
– similarly, the semi-consonants /w/, /y/ and the long vowel /ā/ (represented
by the ʾalif ) are mutamakkin fī l-kalām (Kitāb ii, 384.4). The criteria here are
the frequency and the multiplicity of their phonological and morphosyn-

50 At first sight, Sībawayhi’s reasoning seems very strange in this last quotation; it presents
a generalization that seems to be the opposite of what we know from the later tradition
about the partially declinable nouns. We know that these nouns are partially declinable
if they are indefinite, and that they become fully declinable when definite. But definite,
in this last presentation, means morphologically definite with the article al-, while Sīb-
awayhi, when he says definite, always means ‘inherently definite’. A simple illustration of
his generalization is presented by the nouns to which -at is suffixed. As this suffix is a
marker of feminine gender, and, as feminine is not powerful like masculine, every noun
which has this -at, like dajāj-at or qarqar-at, will be fully declinable when indefinite (dajā-
jatun, qarqaratun) and will be partially declinable if a man is called like that (dajājatu,
qarqaratu). Cf. Kitāb ii, 12f.
51 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 138.4: ġayr ʾayḍan laysa bi-smin mutamakkinin.
52 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 177.7.
53 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 22.3–5.
54 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 336f. wa-ʾammā mā jāʾa ʿalā ṯalāṯati ʾaḥrufin fa-huwa ʾakṯaru l-
kalāmi fī kulli šayʾin min al-ʾasmāʾi wa-l-ʾafʿāli wa-ġayrihimā […] wa-ḏālika kaʾannahu huwa
l-ʾawwalu fa-min ṯamma tamakkana fī l-kalāmi.
36 ayoub

tactic values: as long vowels, as markers of plurals (for /y/ and /w/): /ā/ is a
marker of the feminine, /y/ is an augment in diminutives and ʾiḍāfa, etc.
– the amṯila ‘patterns’ of morphology themselves could be mutamakkin for
some category, for instance fiʿāli, which is mutamakkin in words whose root
does not include glides.55

Does the notion of mutamakkin relate to reference when applied in syntax?

10 Tamakkun, Analogy (muḍāraʿa) and Syntactic Categories

The notion of tamakkun seems indeed to involve referential properties. In

the following quotation, the Arabicized words, lijām ‘bridle’ and dībāj ‘silk
brocade’ are said to be firmly established in the discourse (tamakkana fī l-
kalāmi) because they perform one of the referential properties of nouns, to be
definite and indefinite:

Any foreign noun which is Arabicized and which becomes firmly estab-
lished in the discourse, bearing the definite article al- and being indefi-
nite, will have the tanwīn if it becomes a proper name for a man […], such
as al-lijām and al-dībāj (ʾinna kulla smin ʾaʿjamiyyin ʾuʿriba wa-tamakkana
fī l-kalāmi fa-daḫalathu l-ʾalifu wa-l-lāmu wa-ṣāra nakiratan, fa-ʾinnaka
ʾiḏā sammayta bihi rajulan ṣaraftahu […] naḥwu l-lijāmi wa-l-dībāji).
Kitāb ii, 18f.

Along the same lines, the noun ġayr, mentioned above, is not mutamakkin
since it is always indefinite in its interpretation. It cannot be pluralized and
does not accept the definite article prefix al-.56 The words ʾayna, matā, kayfa,
ḥayṯu are not mutamakkin, either, since they cannot be definite, do not receive
the article, and cannot be qualified.57
In all of these cases, tamakkun denotes the referential properties of nouns.
The ability to be both definite and indefinite for a noun means a much wider
and more precise referential applicability than for nouns that can only be def-
inite or indefinite. For Sībawayhi, this is a sign of tamakkun. It is interesting
to compare this argument with the one presented by al-Zajjājī, two centuries

55 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 191.2: fiʿāl […] mutamakkinatun fī ġayri l-muʿtalli.
56 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb, ii, 138.4.
57 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb, ii, 137.18.
case and reference 37

later, and attributed by him to the Basran school. This argument was meant
to justify flexibility within the category of nouns itself. Indefinite nouns, says
al-Zajjājī, are lighter than definite ones as they signify an underlying referent
“and there is no need to think about the question which individual is meant.
But when a definite noun is mentioned, it is necessary to single it out as an
individual from among the other individuals who share the same name” (Ver-
steegh 1995:177). The argument seems to relate to the process of cognition—the
effort to identify the referent. More generally, the definite nouns, as noted by
Versteegh (1995:179), are seen to be heavier than the indefinite, because they
are “more restricted in their referential applicability and, hence, in their flex-
ibility”. Although the arguments of the Kitāb and of the ‘Basrans’ seem very
similar, Sībawayhi’s argument is different in scope: it is the ability of the noun
to be definite and indefinite, i.e. to adapt to the different needs of communica-
tion, that makes it mutamakkin.
But tamakkun is not limited to reference only, and it is not only a mor-
phosyntactic notion like munṣarif/ġayr munṣarif, either. When applied to parts
of speech, its comprehension is complex and involves the syntactic, semantic,
morphological and phonological properties of the syntactic category exam-
ined. In more than one context, ḫiffa and tamakkun seem synonymous as they
indicate this same grammatical property of an element, its ability to perform
all the properties expected of the syntactic category. These properties are pre-
sented as mawāḍiʿ, i.e. functions or grammatical contexts. For instance, the ʾalif
al-waṣl in the nouns ʾaym and ʾaymun, which enter in the oath formula ʾaymu
llāh and ʾaymun llāh, is prefixed to a noun less mutamakkin than ibn or ism
because it is used in only one context, i.e. the context of oath (wa-ʾinnamā hiya
fī smin lā yustaʿmalu ʾillā fī mawḍiʿin wāḥidin; Kitāb ii, 296.16–19).58 The same
relation is found between tamakkun and the restriction of mawāḍiʿ in the anal-
ysis of the interrogative pronouns matā, ʾayna, etc.: “They are not nouns that are
firmly established […]. They have grammatical functions they do not exceed”
(wa-laysat ʾasmāʾ tamakkanu […] ʾinnamā lahunna mawāḍiʿu lā yujāwiznahā;
Kitāb ii,137.18); and “[ḥayṯu and ʾayna are] words that are not firmly established
in discourse. They have limited grammatical functions in discourse” (ḥurūfun
lam tatamakkan fī l-kalām ʾinnamā lahā mawāḍiʿu talzamuhā fī l-kalāmi; Kitāb
i, 250.15).

58 Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 296.16–19: al-ʾalifu llatī fī ‘aym’ wa-‘aymun’ lammā kānat fī smin lā
yatamakkan tamakkuna l-ʾasmāʾi llatī fīhā ʾalifu l-waṣli naḥwa ‘bnin’ wa-‘smin’ wa-‘mriʾin’
wa-ʾinnamā hiya fī smin lā yustaʿmalu ʾillā fī mawḍiʿin wāḥidin.
38 ayoub

This argumentation often recurs in the Kitāb. As is well known, in syntax

and semantics, nouns are more mutamakkin than verbs but they are also lighter
as they have a wider syntactic distribution and wider referential properties: to
make an utterance, a verb needs a noun, but a noun does not need a verb.59 If
temporal adverbials (ẓurūf al-dahr) are more mutamakkin than spatial ones,
this is because of their ability to have different grammatical functions: in
addition to their circumstantial function, they may be subject and object, and
so on.60 Thus, their wider syntactic distribution, linked to their referential
properties, is the criterion of their tamakkun. If lāta is less mutamakkin than
laysa, this is because laysa has a personal inflection marking the speaker and
the addressee, and you can use laysa to inform about someone who is absent
from the situation of enunciation. So you can ‘build’ it on a mubtadaʾ as in
ʿabdullāhi laysa ḏāhiban ‘ʿAbdallāh is not going’. It is not the same for lāta which
is more restricted in its usage and does not bear the persons’ markers (Kitāb i,
22.3–5).
A non-mutamakkin element displays distributional restrictions in its syntac-
tic functions. Its referential and semantic functions can also be restricted and
it does not necessarily admit all the morphological derivations of the noun.
This is the case of the noun ġayr, the interrogative pronouns ʾayna, matā and
kayfa already mentioned. The noun ġayr is always indefinite in its interpreta-
tion; it does not accept the definite article prefix al-; it cannot be pluralized
(Kitāb ii, 138.4). Likewise, the interrogative pronouns ʾayna, matā and kayfa do
not accept the morphology of diminutives; they cannot be qualified, and they
do not accept the definite article prefix al-(Kitāb ii, 137.18).
These examples and many others link tamakkun with an underlying theory
of syntactic categories. These syntactic categories are not a monolithic block:
they are constituted by a conjunction of referential, semantic, syntactic, mor-
phological, and phonetic properties. It is this conception which makes it pos-
sible to set up an analogy, one category resembling another by one property
and not resembling it by another property. It is this conception, too, which is at
the origin of the tamakkun. The more an element x performs these properties
or these mawāḍiʿ, the more it is mutamakkin. Conversely, less a term performs
these properties and is restricted in its properties, less it is mutamakkin.
The notion of tamakkun refers to mobility in syntactic position, semantic
mobility, morphological flexibility, and wide referential capability. These prop-

59 As noted by Versteegh (1995:137), the same argument is used by al-Zajjājī in the discussion
about the lightness of the nouns as compared to the heaviness of the verbs.
60 Cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 177.7.
case and reference 39

erties constitute, in fact, flexibility, but the kind of flexibility that ultimately
allows what modern linguists interested in language activity and cognition con-
sider to be one of the most important properties of language, its malleability or
its plasticity, which permits communication, adjustment, and correction, both
integral parts of language activity.61
The more flexible a word is, i.e. the more taṣarruf it has, the lighter it is, and
the more it allows communication and adjustment. Some modern linguistic
theories study this plasticity mostly in the lexicon, but it is not implausible to
consider that what Sībawayhi points out as the tamakkun of linguistic terms
falls under the general property of plasticity.
The terms flexibility and plasticity have a long history in Arabic studies.
Plasticity was already used in the 19th century in tandem with aplasticity in
Howell’s Grammar of the Classical Arabic language to translate the term taṣar-
ruf and ʿadam taṣarruf in morphology, phonology, and syntax.62 It was taken
up by Baalbaki (1979:16, 18) following Howell, for taṣarruf. Baalbaki points out
that taṣarruf and tamakkun are sometimes synonymous in the Kitāb. The two
terms taṣarruf and tamakkun come, indeed, very close to each other semanti-
cally, and they refer to the same properties. Sometimes the two terms seems to
be interchangeable in the Kitāb, as in the following quotation, the second part
of which we have cited above: ḥayṯu wa-ʾayna lā yataṣarrafāni taṣarrufa taḥtaka
wa-ḫalfaka […] ġayra ʾannahumā ḥurūfun lam tatamakkan fī l-kalām (Kitāb
i, 250.15). So, taṣarruf is a general concept in grammar, and has to be distin-
guished carefully from yanṣarif/lā yanṣarif, which is only a morpho-syntactic
notion, limited in its applicability to nouns. It is also the notion of flexibility
which was chosen by Versteegh (1995:179) to translate tamakkun.63 The theoret-
ical notions of plasticity and flexibility were taken up by Chairet (2000:217f.) to

61 See for instance Antoine Culioli’s theoretical frame who developed a theory of malleability
of human language founded on the lexicon and the usage. This theory is different from
what we are discussing here, but emphasizes the same properties, as we can see in
the following quotation: “Stability should not be confused with rigidity or immutability.
Linguistic phenomena form dynamic systems which are regular but which have a margin
of variation due to a great variety of factors: they are phenomena which are both stable
and malleable […] Deformation is a transformation that modifies a configuration so that
some properties remain invariant throughout while others vary. In order for there to be
deformability, there has to be a schematic form (such that there may be both modification
and invariance), and deforming factors as well as a margin of flexibility” (translated from
Culioli 1990:129f., in French-English glossary of linguistic terms).
62 See Howell (1883, Part i, xxxviii, lii) and the index of Howell (1911, iv, Part 2, xxxviii), for
the occurrences of plasticity/aplasticity in the grammar.
63 And accessory ‘mobility’ (Versteegh 1995:174).
40 ayoub

translate tamakkun. Carter (2004:115) adopts for tamakkun the notion of flexi-
bility, presenting the tanwīn in the Kitāb as “the mark of syntactic flexibility”.
Our analysis is, therefore, consistent with previous analyses about this notion.
In sum, clear conceptual differences can be seen between tamakkun and
yanṣarif/lā yanṣarif in the Kitāb. Tamakkun, just like taṣarruf, designates a
general property of the language, its flexibility and ultimately its plasticity,
as realized by some of its elements. Yanṣarif/lā yanṣarif is a morphosyntactic
property referring to declinability, summarized by the presence or the absence
of the tanwīn. But tanwīn is the sign of tamakkun, in other words of the general
property as it applies to nouns. It is not only a morphosyntactic property of
nouns. So, going back now to the thesis asserted repeatedly in the Kitāb that
“tanwīn is the mark of mutamakkin”, we may say that tanwīn is the mark of the
plasticity of nouns, when this property is fully achieved by the noun.
As we have observed above, the reason why a linguistic element x is muta-
makkin is the fact that it is ʾawwal. The li-ʾanna statement of tamakkun invokes
this status of ʾawwal for more than one category, as this quotation, trans-
lated above, reminds us (Kitāb ii, 22.6–10): wa-ʿlam ʾanna l-nakirata […]ʾašaddu
tamakkunan li-ʾanna l-nakirata ʾawwalu […] wa-ʿlam ʾanna l-wāḥida ʾašaddu
tamakkunan mina l-jamīʿi li-ʾanna l-wāḥida l-ʾawwalu […]. Thus, the plasticity
of nouns is due to the fact that nouns are ʾawwal. But what about ʾawwal? What
exactly does this notion mean?

11 The Notion of ʾawwal

So far we have studied grammatical categories, their relations to the theory

of declinability and nomination, their role in the construction of reference,
while attempting to see the link between case and reference. But ʾawwal seems
to pertain to a hierarchy inside the language rather than to its relation to the
world. What is the property of language behind it? It would be very delicate to
assimilate completely such a general notion as ʾawwal to only one contempo-
rary theoretical notion. This would be difficult for several reasons: first, if this
notion really corresponds to a universal property of language, it will be noted
by more than one modern theory. We know, indeed, that the notion of hier-
archy as a universal property of language is present under different forms in
many contemporary syntactic and lexical models and linguistic theories.
The second reason is that general notions have multiple facets, and may
be compared to more than one model; besides, some of its aspects may be
compared to a specific notion of one model, and other aspects to another
notion from another model. Despite these reservations, the resemblance of
case and reference 41

Sībawayhi’s hierarchies to the theory of markedness is striking, as pointed out

by Owens (1988:199–226) and helps to understand it. When we take a look at the
list of categories that Owens (1988:209) established on the basis of Sībawayhi’s
Risāla and completed from the works of later grammarians, we find that in each
oppositional pair, regarded as ʾaṣl and farʿ in the work of later grammarians,
only the first term is called ʾawwal by Sībawayhi:

ʾaṣl farʿ

noun verb
noun ṣifa
indefinite definite
masculine feminine
singular plural
Arabic names foreign names
simple compound [morphologically]
regular modified pattern without change of meaning (ʿadl)

The first striking observation is that the selected categories of this table, if they
seem more complete than the categories involved in the hierarchies of the
Kitāb’s Risāla, match the headings of the chapters of the theory of mā yanṣarif
wa-mā lā yanṣarif in the Kitāb as seen above. Not only are the grammatical
categories selected with their oppositional pairs the same, but the correlation
between the non-ʾawwal/non-ʾaṣl status of a category and restrictions of distri-
bution are also the same. This means that the later grammarians identified their
categories on the basis of an in-depth study of the structure of the chapters of
the Kitāb, especially those dealing with mā yanṣarif wa-mā lā yanṣarif. What
reinforces this hypothesis is that, first, the terminology of Sībawayhi (ʾawwal,
qabl) sometimes reappears in the writings of the later grammarians,64 and, sec-
ondly, the most important domain dealt with by this theory, is the question of
declinability of nouns and verbs, i.e. the issue for which these categories with
their hierarchies are developed in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb.
Owens (1988) correlates the ʾaṣl/farʿ distinction and the hierarchies of the
Kitāb’s Risāla with the categories unmarked/marked in modern linguistics, as
described by Greenberg (1966). The theory of markedness, developed in the

64 Cf. Owens (1988:204f.).

42 ayoub

realm of phonology and morphology by structuralism, considers that between

two members of an oppositional pair, one of them is more basic, or unmarked,
on the basis of different types of characteristics, morphological, phonological
or syntactic. These characteristics can be summarized by a wider syntactic
distribution, a wider development of morphological forms, a higher degree
of irregularity. Without going into the details of the analysis, it is easy to see
that these characteristics correspond to what Sībawayhi describes in terms of
tamakkun and ḫiffa, which we correlate with the capacity of a category to be
altered and to adapt to different contexts, i.e. with a general property of the
language, its malleability or flexibility.
The comparison with markedness theory remains interesting, because it
allows us to compare Arabic linguistic thought with modern linguistic theory,
with attested correlations between marked elements and restrictions of distri-
bution. The notion of malleability is more general, but it too grants a better
comprehension and provides a unifying thread to what otherwise appear to be
erratic facts in the Arabic theory itself. More precisely, it helps us to interpret
the categories considered as ʾawwal without inconsistency by bringing together
two sets of facts under the same notion of markedness. On the one hand, there
are semantic and pragmatic categories and facts like the ones discussed ear-
lier on. On the other, there are purely morphological categories and facts like
the ones discussed in sections vii. and x. of the list above (p. 19), in particu-
lar marked patterns, called ʿadl, compound names, like ḥaḍramawt, and mor-
phophonological and even phonetic facts and categories, which seem at first
glance very different from the semantic and pragmatic ones.
In addition, markedness theory, as understood by Jakobson (1973:i, 185)
among others, helps us to understand the logic of the typical denominations
in the Kitāb: in markedness theory, each pair has one element asserting a
positive property a, which is the marked element. The other element asserts
nothing about a, but is mainly used to indicate the absence of a. This is
exactly the logic of the denomination of pairs like mā maḍā wa-mā lam yamḍi;
waqaʿa/lam yaqaʿ; munqaṭiʿ/ġayr munqaṭiʿ; mustaqīm/ġayr mustaqīm; mun-
ṣarif/ġayr munṣarif, and so on. The negative element here is more general
than the positive one. It encompasses all those cases that are not covered by
the positive property. But, contrary to the theory of markedness, it does not
encompass the positive property itself, in the way masculine includes both
masculine and feminine.
Yet, there are also significant divergences between the Medieval and the
modern theory. Sībawayhi, and Arabic grammarians after him, linked their
hierarchies, ordered them or, more exactly, reduced them to only one. Indeed,
the double declensions of nouns concerns case and case is a syntactic phe-
case and reference 43

nomenon presupposing speech and discourse. But, from all the grammatical
categories listed by Sībawayhi, only the first pair enumerates discourse ele-
ments, i.e. the two parts of speech, verbs and nouns. Thus, the ultimate model
of all hierarchical categories, with respect to their syntactic behavior, is that of
the noun and the verb:

Every [category] where the ṣarf has been dropped (mā turika ṣarfuhu)
is likened to the verb,65 insofar as it is not as firmly established as other
[categories], following the example of the verb which is not as firmly
established as the noun ( fa-jamīʿu mā yutraku ṣarfu-hu muḍāraʿun bihi l-
fiʿlu li-ʾanna-hu laysa lahu tamakkunu ġayrihi kamā ʾanna l-fiʿla laysa lahu
tamakkunu l-ismi).
Kitāb i, 6.5f.

The inflectional restrictions on the noun are ultimately intelligible by the fact
that the noun has (taken over some of) the behavior of the verb. The link
between case and reference in this domain is partial and indirect. Some of
the marked values of grammatical categories—some referential, others not—
make the noun lose some of its declensional properties and retain only the
same declensional markers as the verb.
As we have seen above, this statement of the Kitāb, which is followed by the
entire Arabic grammatical tradition, encounters a universal property of lan-
guages. Actually, the link between case and grammatical categories is known
to exist in many languages. In some languages, definiteness and case are inter-
dependent. An interdependence between gender and case can be noted in
Indo-European languages.66
In sum, in Arabic, according to Sībawayhi, if a noun is unmarked for all cat-
egories (is ʾawwal), it has more flexibility and more plasticity (tamakkun) than
nouns marked for some category and it will be suffixed with the tanwīn after
the case marker. Just as the theory of government, which is a formal theory,
includes case and mood without inconsistency and without excluding subtle
semantic analysis of the verb, the theory of elements ʾawwal includes seman-
tic and pragmatic facts, together with morphological and phonological facts,
without inconsistency and without excluding a subtle analysis of reference.
The formal character of the theory gives it more explanatory power.

65 Lit. “the verb is likened to it” (muḍāraʿun bihi l-fiʿl); but the following sentence of the
quotation gives the verb as the model.
66 Cf. Lyons (1970:226f.).
44 ayoub

12 Conclusion

What about the changes after Sībawayhi concerning the theory of mā yanṣarif
wa-mā lā yanṣarif, and the notions correlated to it? At first glance, there appears
to be only a redistribution of the terminology, with the change being a matter
of notational variation rather than of conceptual difference, since we find the
same hierarchies and the same theory of markedness formulated in other terms
(ʾaṣl/farʿ). This continuity, together with other continuities, provides content to
the notion of tradition.
Actually, in the later grammatical tradition there is a shift to normative gram-
mar. In this regard, the denomination mamnūʿ mina l-ṣarf is significant, where
the term mamnūʿ ‘prohibited’ resonates with the norm of the grammarian, as
opposed to the purely descriptive term mā lā yanṣarif. Moreover, the approach
of later grammarians tends to be more taxonomical, classifying the reasons
for partial declinability into two types, those partially inflected for one rea-
son, and those for two reasons. Thus, this approach loses the heuristic value of
Sībawayhi’s approach, with the definiteness parameter adopted as a variation
parameter and the implications of this approach for the analysis of language
in its relation to the world.
The most important shift remains the value of the tanwīn. As noted above,
there is a shift in the terminology from ʾawwal, qablu, and marginally, ʾaṣl
in Sībawayhi, to an elaborated terminology of ʾaṣl/farʿ. The notion of farʿ
is almost non-existent in the Kitāb. According to Troupeau (1976:159), the
term farʿ occurs only twice in the Kitāb, in phonology and phonetics. The
second occurrence of farʿ comes in opposition to ʾaṣl: there are twenty-nine
consonants (ḥurūf ) in Arabic, but this number could be increased to thirty-five,
if we add those consonants that are furūʿ wa-ʾaṣluhā min al-tisʿati wa-ʿišrīn,67
i.e. allophones of the twenty-nine. In Sībawayhi’s terminology, the properties
of the ʾawwal categories are tamakkun, as we have seen above, and ḫiffa. These
properties are summarized by a marker, the tanwīn. What is striking in later
theory is the dissociation between tamakkun and ʾaṣl/farʿ, as tamakkun is only
understood as full or partial declinability, i.e is reduced to ṣarf.
Understanding mutamakkin as declinability amounts to asserting that tan-
wīn is the sign of full declinability and not of what we call the plasticity of
nouns. A real difference exists between the two assertions, the first one being
more formalistic, and the second one being founded on the properties of syn-
tactic categories, referring ultimately, if we are right, to a universal property of

67 Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 452.8f.

case and reference 45

languages. In the former case, the link between tanwīn and the properties of
syntactic categories is blurred.
In sum, in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, the theory of mā lā yanṣarif is at the heart of
the grammar and its principles are at the crossroads of important subtheories
and postulates of the Kitāb, i.e. hierarchy, definiteness, the theory of grammat-
ical categories, the theory of syntactic categories, the theory of case or, more
exactly, of syntactic declension, and the analysis of proper names. Not just
one parameter, definite/indefinite, is included, but a subtle scale of param-
eters relates the theory of mā lā yanṣarif to reference. This theory gives us
the key to the value of the tanwīn for Sībawayhi. No wonder then that Sīb-
awayhi placed such an amazing emphasis and energy on finding out which
declension the most implausible and fictitious proper names in Arabic would
have!

Appendix

Actually, the analysis linking verbal declension with reference in the Kitāb is both
semantic and enunciative, and answers the following implicit question: According to
the Kitāb, what is the reference of the ‘assimilated verb’ (muḍāriʿ), when it bears its
declension? As a matter of fact, the answer coincides with two other analyses that have
been present in the tradition ever since Sībawayhi, providing an answer to two other
questions: Why does the assimilated verb bear declension? And when does it bear each
of its declensional endings?
The answers to these two last questions differ between the Kūfan and Baṣran
tradition, and even within the Baṣran tradition. The debate seems to have taken place
at the end of the 2nd/8th century. We have tried to resume it in Ayoub (2007), basing
ourselves on al-ʾAstarābāḏī (Kāfiya ii, 223–232). In the Baṣran tradition, the answer to
the first question is: the assimilated verb bears declension by analogy with the noun.
This is identical with Sībawayhi’s answer in the Kitāb and it is followed by the Baṣran
grammarians. The arguments given by Sībawayhi and by the later tradition in order
to justify this analogy are not the same, yet, in both cases, the analogy is essentially
referential, rather than formal. The first argument is well-known, the similarity of the
assimilated verb to the active participle. This similarity is aspectual for Sībawayhi,
whereas it is temporal for the later tradition. A second argument is added by the later
tradition: without context, the assimilated verb is indeterminate (mubham) as it is
polysemic (muštarak), referring to both present and future, like the noun which is
outside context indeterminate. Thus, in the same way that the noun needs the article
al- to have a univocal reference to a specific individual, the verb needs particles (sa-,
sawfa) to have a univocal reference to the future.
46 ayoub

For the Kūfan school, the verb bears its declension by principle and not by analogy.
Since the particles governing the verb are polyvalent—lā for instance could be pro-
hibitive or negative—, verbal declension serves to disambiguate the particle. So, this
declension has different maʿānī.
As for the second question—when does the muḍāriʿ bear each of its declensional
endings—the Baṣran answer seems at first view purely structural, based on the position
of this assimilated verb. It has, for instance, -a declension when it is governed by ʾan.
But, as we have just seen, ʾan with the verb has a referential value, and in the entire
tradition, the semantic and enunciative analysis is transferred to these particles in their
relation with the verb, rather than to the declension of the verb, because the particles
are specialized, either operating on the verb or on the noun. Al-Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/114),
known as a good semantician, asserts that the verbal declensions have no maʿānī
like the nominal ones (see Ermers 1999:74f.). Presenting the different declensions
of the verb, (wujūh ʾiʿrāb al-fiʿl), he asserts: wa-laysat hāḏihi l-wujūhu bi-ʾaʿlāmin ʿalā
maʿānin ka-wujūhi ʾiʿrābi l-ismi (Mufaṣṣal 244f.). He justifies this absence of maʿānī, and
after him, his commentator, Ibn Yaʿīš does the same, by arguing that the verb has its
declension only by analogy with the noun (Šarḥ vii, 10). Al-Zamaḫšarī’s assertion is
very significant. It allows us to measure the distance between his analysis—and that
of his commentator, Ibn Yaʿīš—, and Sībawayhi’s analysis. It is beyond the present
paper to examine here all consequences of this discrepancy. Two observations are
important at this point. In the first place, the notion of wājib/ġayr wājib was little used
after Sībawayhi. Secondly, the linguistic situation itself could explain the discrepancy.
Speakers of Arabic spoke a language from which syntactic declension had disappeared.
As a result, they were increasingly distant from the variety of Arabic described by
the Arabic grammarians, hence, the value of verbal endings was no longer felt by
them.

Bibliographical References

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The Grammatical and Lexicographical Traditions
Mutual Foundations, Divergent Paths of Development

Ramzi Baalbaki

1 The Emergence of the Study of luġa (Philology) and naḥw (Syntax)

The Arabic linguistic sciences have been traditionally classified in the sources
into four types: ṣarf (morphology/morphophonology), naḥw (syntax), balāġa
(rhetoric) and ʿarūḍ (metrics). All four are included, for example, in al-Sakkākī’s
(d. 626/1229) Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm, a work generally regarded as a synopsis of the
main norms set by scholars of these types for more than four centuries. Apart
from ʿarūḍ—which naturally has a much narrower scope than the other three
types—ṣarf and naḥw were closely linked ever since Sībawayhi (d. 180/796)
authored his Kitāb. Although there are early works exclusively devoted to
ṣarf—most notably al-Māzinīʾs (d. 249/863) al-Taṣrīf—both fields were jointly
studied in most works throughout the tradition, and the terms naḥw and
naḥwiyyūn could refer to both fields. As for balāġa, some of its most fundamen-
tal topics are syntactic in nature, e.g. issues related to the musnad (predicate)
and musnad ʾilayhi (mostly referring to the subject of a nominal sentence, but
also to the agent in a verbal sentence), and the rules that govern the omission
of the verb. In fact, al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078) asserts that the semantic and syn-
tactic interrelationships among the constituents of the utterance, or what he
calls naẓm (lit. organization of the elements of the utterance), is nothing other
than the proper adherence to the discipline of grammar (laysa l-naẓm ʾillā ʾan
taḍaʿa kalāmaka al-waḍʿ allaḏī yaqtaḍīhi ʿilm al-naḥw).1 Furthermore, he iden-
tifies the study of naẓm with the seeking of what he calls syntactic meanings
(al-naẓm huwa tawaḫḫī maʿānī l-naḥw).2 Accordingly, this syntactic dimension
of balāġa may well be considered an offshoot of what is usually referred to as
the Arabic grammatical tradition, whose two main components are ṣarf and
naḥw.

1 Jurjānī, Dalāʾil 64; cf. 282, 403.

2 Jurjānī, Dalāʾil 276, 282, 310, 403f.; cf. Jurjānī, ʾAsrār 65. See also Baalbaki (1983:7–23;
2008:282f.).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_004

the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 51

The sources use the term luġa to refer to the field that studies word mean-
ings in the attested material amassed in the process of collecting linguistic
data ( jamʿ al-luġa) as well as the dialectal variations particularly in the realm
of ‘strange usage’ (ġarīb). The term luġawiyyūn may be translated as ‘philol-
ogists’ or preferably ‘lexicographers’ in order to account for authors of both
mubawwab and mujannas lexica (see section 3 below). As of the 4th/10th cen-
tury, authors refer to the study of luġa as fiqh al-luġa, ʿilm al-lisān, or ʿilm al-
luġa.3 Accordingly, the Arabic grammatical tradition is paralleled by the Arabic
lexicographical tradition. Boundaries between naḥw (which includes ṣarf ) and
luġa are obviously difficult to draw for the early stages of linguistic enquiry as of
the 2nd/8th century. In this respect, one would question the accuracy of some
of the biographical sources (the earliest monographs of which were authored
in the 4th/10th century) in their sharp distinction between naḥwiyyūn and
luġawiyyūn. The most obvious example is al-Zubaydī’s (d. 379/989) Ṭabaqāt al-
naḥwiyyīn wa-l-luġawiyyīn, which is structured on the basis of this distinction.
Indeed in certain cases al-Zubaydī himself seems undetermined in classifying
his entries, as in the case of the Basran scholar ʾAbū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ (d. 154/771),
whom he lists with both groups.4 At times, his inclusion of a certain scholar
in one group seems to contradict evidence from primary sources. For exam-
ple, he lists ʾAbū l-Ḫaṭṭāb al-ʾAḫfaš al-Kabīr (d. 177?/793?) with the naḥwiyyūn,
whereas each of the fifty-eight instances in which he is quoted in the Kitāb
has to do with luġa, not naḥw.5 That the boundaries between naḥw and luġa
were often blurred in the early stages of linguistic enquiry is also corroborated
by the fact that some of the most influential scholars of the period were stu-
dents of naḥwiyyūn and luġawiyyūn alike. For instance, ʾAbū l-Ṭayyib al-Luġawī
(d. 351/962) describes ʾAbū Zayd al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 215/830), ʾAbū ʿUbayda Maʿmar
ibn al-Muṯannā (d. 209/824) and al-ʾAṣmaʿī (d. 216/831) as the three masters
of luġa. In addition to ʾAbū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, from whom they acquired luġa,
naḥw and šiʿr (poetry), their teachers included two of the most prominent
naḥwiyyūn of the time, namely, ʿĪsā ibn ʿUmar (d. 149/766) and Yūnus ibn Ḥabīb
(d. 182/798).6

3 The first term occurs in the title of Ibn Fāris’s (d. 395/1004) book al-Ṣāḥibī; the second in Ibn
Sīda’s (d. 458/1066) al-Muḫaṣṣaṣ i, 14; and the third in Ibn Ḫaldūn’s (d. 808/1406) Muqaddima
1055.
4 Zubaydī, Ṭabaqāt 35, 159.
5 Zubaydī, Ṭabaqāt 61. Note also that the only majlis in which al-Zajjājī (d. 337/949) mentions
ʾAbū l-Ḫaṭṭāb (Majālis 124) is related to luġa. See also Baalbaki (2008:14).
6 ʾAbū l-Ṭayyib, Marātib 70.
52 baalbaki

2 Foundations Common to Both Disciplines

The lack of a clear distinction between the naḥwiyyūn and the luġawiyyūn in
the early stages is far from surprising. Both naḥw and luġa are closely related
to other linguistically oriented sciences, such as qirāʾāt (Qurʾānic readings),
Ḥadīṯ (Prophetic tradition), fiqh (jurisprudence), and tafsīr (exegesis), but
their similitude to each other obviously sets them apart from the other do-
mains. Not only is this dictated by the proximity of their subject matter, but
it is promoted by several factors which emerged at a very early stage of their
development and which may be regarded as foundations common to both
fields. The most substantive factors may be summed up as follows:

i. Both naḥw and luġa owe much of their material to the process of data col-
lection (referred to above), which took place mainly in the second half of the
2nd/8th century and the first few decades of the 3rd/9th. Most of the major
linguists of that period took part in this activity and are reported either to
have transmitted and commented on dialectal usage or made the journey to
the desert (bādiya) in order to record data directly from the ʾAʿrāb (Bedouins).
Among these scholars are ʿĪsā ibn ʿUmar (d. 149/766), ʾAbū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ
(d. 154/770), al-Ḫalīl ibn ʾAḥmad (d. 175/791), Yūnus ibn Ḥabīb (d. 182/798), al-
Kisāʾī (d. 189/805), Yaḥyā ibn al-Mubārak al-Yazīdī (d. 202/818), al-Naḍr ibn
Šumayl (d. 203/819), ʾAbū ʿAmr al-Šaybānī (d. 206/821), al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822),
ʾAbū Zayd al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 215/830), al-ʾAṣmaʿī (d. 216/831), ʾAbū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim
ibn Sallām (d. 224/838), and Ibn al-ʾAʿrābī (d. 231/845).7 The list may be fur-
ther expanded, but it is sufficient to demonstrate that scholars who are more
closely identified with either of the two domains were active participants in
the collection of linguistic data. As a result, grammatical works and lexica
contain a sizable amount of common šawāhid8 or attested material cited as
evidence, whether in specific lexical items, lines of poetry, Qurʾānic verses or
proverbs. A particularly telling example is Ibn Manẓūr’s (d. 711/1311) Lisān al-
ʿArab, particularly because its author incorporated into it five earlier lexica.
A cursory look at the indices that list the sources in which the grammati-
cal šawāhid are cited9 readily reveals that the Lisān is frequently mentioned
among these sources. Moreover, the Lisān is replete with discussions pertain-

7 For more details and for Sībawayhi’s contact with the Bedouins, see Baalbaki (2008:24–26).
8 For a study of šawāhid, see Gilliot (1996).
9 Cf. Hārūn (1972); Ḥaddād (1984); Yaʿqūb (1992, 1996).
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 53

ing almost to the entire scope of the subject matter of grammar books, as is
evident in the classification of its grammatical data prepared by R. Samāra
(1995–1996).
In both naḥw and luġa, the reliable Bedouins, who were the source of the
collected data, are referred to as fuṣaḥāʾ (pl. of faṣīḥ ‘eloquent’), and their
language is consistently characterized by purity, clarity, precision and freedom
from error.10 Given the reliance on fuṣaḥāʾ, the two domains share several of
their fundamental principles. For example, in both domains these fuṣaḥāʾ were
considered arbiters in linguistic controversies due to the perceived purity of
their form of Arabic.11 Moreover, scholars of both disciplines were in agreement
concerning the duration of ʿuṣūr al-iḥtijāj, or epochs of reliable usage (but see
section 3 below), which in prose were open roughly up to the 2nd/8th century
in urban areas (ʾamṣār) and the 4th/10th century for the ʾAʿrāb.12

ii. As early as the first stages of linguistic enquiry, the naḥwiyyūn and the
luġawiyyūn, in addition to recording and commenting on widespread usage,
were greatly interested in strange (ġarīb) and rare, uncommon (nādir) mate-
rial—an interest that is primarily the result of their focus on dialectal usage
and poetry. It is evident that much of the ġarīb (which hereafter refers to both
ġarīb and nādir) occurs in dialectal variants recorded during the period of data
collection. Dialects cited in the Kitāb, for example, include in addition to the
two major dialects, the Ḥijāzī and the Tamīmī, those of ʾAsad, Bakr ibn Wāʾil,
Fazāra, Ġaniyy, Ḫaṯʿam, Huḏayl, Kaʿb, Qays, Rabīʿa, Saʿd, Sulaym, and Ṭayyiʾ.13 It
is also a well established fact that the grammarians, throughout the tradition,
were largely preoccupied with rare and irregular dialectal usage derived mainly
from poetry, and also from prose (kalām) and proverbs, and they painstakingly
tried to interpret it in accordance with their analytical methods. In lexicogra-
phy, early monographs on plants, animals, human body, natural phenomena,
abodes, saddle and bridle, etc. are replete with lexical items that occur in spe-
cific dialects and require explanation by the authors of these monographs.
Similarly, early lexica that are arranged according to form (i.e. root) rather
than theme include a vast body of dialectal material, as in al-Ḫalīl’s (d. 175/791)
Kitāb al-ʿayn, ʾAbū ʿAmr al-Šaybānī’s (d. 206/821) Kitāb al-jīm, and Ibn Durayd’s
(d. 321/933) Jamharat al-luġa. The last author in particular frequently cites the

10 See Baalbaki (2014:7–16) for a detailed study of the characteristics of Bedouin speech as
portrayed by the luġawiyyūn.
11 Cf. Blau (1963:42–51).
12 Baalbaki (2008:40f.; 2011:102).
13 Cf. Baalbaki (2008:38–40).
54 baalbaki

Yamānī dialect (217 times in all, more than any other dialect),14 as well as other
non-standard ones, such as the Šaʾāmī and ʾAzdī dialects.15 Ibn Durayd was crit-
icized for the inclusion of the ġarīb material which these dialects contained.
A few decades later, al-ʾAzharī (d. 370/981) even questioned the authenticity
of some of Ibn Durayd’s quadriliterals and quinqueliterals, such as ḥardama
‘wrangling’, ḥurqūf ‘small reptile’, ḥubaqbīq ‘ill-tempered’, and qalaḥdam ‘light
and swift’.16 Al-ʾAzharī’s assertion that he could not find confirmation in other
sources that some of Ibn Durayd’s lexical items were actually used attests to
their ġarīb status, although al-ʾAzharī concludes that Ibn Durayd was in the
habit of falsifying Arabic and introducing neologisms (iftiʿāl al-ʿArabiyya wa-
tawlīd al-ʾalfāẓ).17 In fact, the lexical items uniquely reported by Ibn Durayd
should come as no surprise, given that there is evidence that a number of lexi-
cal items found their way into the lexica although they were attested only once
in the speech of the Arabs. For example, Ibn Durayd himself reports that an
ʾAʿrābī used the word al-qiṣāṣāʾ in appealing to an Iraqi prince for retaliation.18
This account is mentioned by al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), who describes the word
qiṣāṣāʾ/quṣāṣāʾ as rare and anomalous (nādir šāḏḏ).19 Yet in spite of al-Suyūṭī’s
assertion that a word attested in the speech of one ʾAʿrābī should be viewed
with caution, qiṣāṣāʾ (also cited as quṣāṣāʾ and qaṣāṣāʾ) is recorded in several
later lexica, obviously based on Ibn Durayd’s riwāya.20 Another example is the
word buḫduq (also reported as buḥduq), which a well known ʾAʿrābiyya, ʾUmm
al-Hayṯam, used when asked by ʾAbū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī (d. 255/869) about a cer-
tain seed. In spite of ʾAbū Ḥātim’s assertion that he never heard this word from
anyone other than ʾUmm al-Hayṯam, Ibn Durayd includes it in the Jamhara, as
do several later lexicographers.21 A large number of rare lexical items are also
cited by Sībawayhi, as will be noted in section 3 below.

14 Ibn Durayd, Jamhara, index, iii, 1742.

15 Cited twenty-four and fourteen times respectively; index, iii, 1741.
16 ʾAzharī, Tahḏīb v, 334, 338.
17 ʾAzharī, Tahḏīb v, i, 31. See also Asad (1996:42–45) for al-ʾAzharī’s quotations from and
comments on al-Jamhara. Note, however, that al-ʾAzharī at times simply cites, without
comment, words of Yamānī origin reported by Ibn Durayd, as in Tahḏīb (ġ-d-n; viii, 74)
and (ġ-d-f ; viii, 76).
18 Ibn Durayd, Jamhara iii, 1230.
19 Suyūṭī, Muzhir i, 254. Al-Suyūṭī supports his description of the word as rare and anomalous
by noting that the pattern fuʿālāʾ does not occur in the Kitāb.
20 Cf. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān (q-ṣ-ṣ); Fīrūzābādī, Qāmūs (q-ṣ-ṣ). Al-Zabīdī, Tāj (q-ṣ-ṣ) mentions
that the word is reported by Ibn Durayd and is šāḏḏ.
21 Ibn Durayd, Jamhara ii, 1116; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān (b-ḫ-d-q); Fīrūzābādī, Qāmūs (b-ḥ-d-q);
Zabīdī, Tāj (b-ḫ-d-q). See also Suyūṭī, Muzhir i, 252.
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 55

The second source of ġarīb material in both naḥw and luġa is poetry, whose
centrality to linguistic sciences in general is indisputable. In commenting on
the saying al-šiʿr dīwān al-ʿArab ‘Poetry is the register of the Arabs’, Ibn Fāris
(d. 395/1004) says that poetry is the channel through which language was com-
prehended (wa-minhu tuʿullimat al-luġa), and that it is the authoritative source
(ḥujja) in the problematic ġarīb of the Qurʾān and the Ḥadīṯ of the Prophet,
his Companions (Ṣaḥāba) and those next in the order of time (Tābiʿūn).22 In
spite of certain differences between the naḥwiyyūn and the luġawiyyūn in deal-
ing with poetry material (see section 3 below), both groups of scholars viewed
poetry as the main source of šawāhid, which naturally included a lot of ġarīb.
For example, the number of poetry šawāhid in the Kitāb exceeds the number
of šawāhid drawn from all other types put together. Furthermore, the term
šawāhid is often used by later grammarians to refer to poetic šawāhid exclu-
sively.23 In luġa, the link between poetry and ġarīb is perhaps nowhere more
evident than in Ibn Ḫālawayhi’s (d. 370/980) Laysa fī kalām al-ʿArab, which
deals mainly with morphological patterns and phenomena which are so rare
that the lexical items representing them can be classified within a closed set.
The book abounds with expressions that limit the occurrence of a certain word,
pattern, etc. to a single line of poetry—e.g. the dual of waḥdahu appears only
in a line of poetry by ʿUmāra (i.e. ibn ʿAqīl; d. 239/835).24
Among the sixteen meters, rajaz is the one most closely identified with ġarīb,
probably because of its strong association with subjects related to desert life
and hence with the uncommon words and structures that are often used in
connection with these subjects.25 Asked about the vast amount of rajaz he
memorized, al-ʾAṣmaʿī (d. 216/831) firmly declared that rajaz “was what we were
most after and we most cared for” (ʾinnahu kāna hammanā wa-sadamanā).26
Statements of this type attest to the fact that rajaz was for the early scholars
the embodiment of the Bedouinsʾ linguistic ‘purity’. It is therefore not unex-
pected that the number of rajaz lines in the Kitāb is 294, whereas that of all

22 Ibn Fāris, Ṣāḥibī 275.

23 Note, for example, the numerous works that are devoted solely to poetry šawāhid, yet
whose titles simply mention šawāhid without any further specification; e.g. Ibn Hišām’s
(d. 761/1360) Taḫlīṣ al-šawāhid wa-talḫīṣ al-fawāʾid and al-Suyūṭī’s (d. 911/1505) Šarḥ šawā-
hid al-Muġnī. See Baalbaki (2008:44).
24 Ibn Ḫālawayhi, Laysa 231; cf. also 294, 375, 380. See also Baalbaki (2014:43 f., 93f.). For a
similar phenomenon in the Kitāb, see Baalbaki (2011:114, n. 47).
25 See Kaššāš (1995:172–195) and ʿUbaydī (1970:134–143) for the various characteristics of
rajaz, both in form and content.
26 ʾAbū l-Ṭayyib, Marātib 95.
56 baalbaki

other meters put together is 937.27 In grammatical controversies, rajaz fea-

tures strongly in the šawāhid that illustrate dialectal usage in conflict with the
norm.28 Similarly in luġa, there is a disproportionately high ratio of rajaz com-
pared to šiʿr, for example, in Ibn Durayd’s (d. 321/933) Jamharat al-luġa, which
is famous for the inclusion of unfamiliar usage in spite of its author’s claim to
the contrary.29 The total number of poetry šawāhid in the Jamhara is 5,605, out
of which 2,603 alone are in the rajaz meter.30 Another example in luġa is ʾAbū
Zayd al-ʾAnṣārī’s (d. 215/830) al-Nawādir fī l-luġa, whose title indicates that it
is devoted to rare and unfamiliar usage. It consists of fifteen chapters, two of
which are on šiʿr, seven on rajaz, and six on nawādir, which in turn contain a
large amount of rajaz. The rajaz šawāhid in al-Nawādir amount to two thirds
of those in all other meters.31

iii. During the earliest stages of linguistic activity in the 2nd/8th and 3rd/9th
centuries, many scholars straddled both disciplines. Among these, al-Ḫalīl
(d. 175/791) is undoubtedly the most influential. The numerous technical terms,
axioms and tools of analysis which Sībawayhi borrowed from al-Ḫalīl in gram-
mar need no proof. In luġa, as has been argued elsewhere by the author, Kitāb
al-ʿAyn is most probably the result of al-Ḫalīl’s probing intellect—particularly
in devising the lexicon’s plan as detailed in its introduction—and his ‘intuitive’
approach to the phonetic traits of the language, as reflected, for instance, in
the lively discussions which took place between him and his disciples con-
cerning the sampling (ḏawāq) of letters based on his Sprachgefühl.32 Al-Ḫalīl’s
profound influence on the founding principles of both disciplines obviously
contributed to their common grounds. Although it is not within the present
scope to dwell on these, we can mention for the sake of illustration the mutual
interest of Sībawayhi and al-Ḫalīl in determining the characteristics of Arabic
in order to detect forgery and recognize words of non-Arabic origin. Sībawayhi
regularly accuses the group he calls naḥwiyyūn, whom he mentions twenty-

27 See Hārūn’s index to the Kitāb v, 44–102.

28 See, for example, the šawāhid adduced by the Kufans (Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, ʾInṣāf i, 341–343)
in support of the permissibility of the construction yā ʾAllāhumma (O Lord!), which is
contrary to standard usage.
29 See my introduction to Jamhara i, 25–27.
30 Jamhara’s indices, iii, 1381–1508.
31 ʾAbū Zayd, Nawādir’s indices, 648–738.
32 Baalbaki (2014:54–58, 282f.). For further discussion of the authorship of al-ʿAyn, see Schoe-
ler (2006).
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 57

one times,33 of using analogy (qiyās) in a purely speculative manner in order to

invent forms and utterances that do resemble actual usage, but do not occur
in the speech of the Arabs. The same principle of examining data to deter-
mine its conformity with the characteristics of Arabic is evident in al-ʿAyn’s
introduction. Other than the aim of discovering the criteria for differentiating
between Arabic and borrowed words (li-yuʿraf ṣaḥīḥ bināʾ kalām al-ʿArab min al-
daḫīl),34 al-Ḫalīl attacks a group called naḥārīr (pl. of niḥrīr ‘skillful or learned’)
on grounds similar to Sībawayhi’s attack on the naḥwiyyūn. He accuses them of
creating neologisms (muwalladāt) which, despite their resemblance to other
words and patterns (ʾašbaha lafẓahum wa-taʾlīfahum) are impermissible in the
speech of the Arabs.35 Just as the rules of syntax and analogy described by Sīb-
awayhi reveal the violations of the naḥwiyyūn—e.g. the analogy they establish
between wayḥ and tabb (both: ‘woe unto’)36—the rules of word composition
and phonotactics described by al-Ḫalīl reveal those of the naḥārīr—e.g. quin-
queliterals such as kašaʿṯaj, which they invent in violation of the rules stipulat-
ing that no Arabic quadriliteral or quinqueliteral could be devoid of liquids or
labials, with the exception of some ten anomalous words.37
The profound influence of Sībawayhi and al-Ḫalīl on the grammatical tra-
dition, and the latter on the lexicographical tradition (through the method he
devised in al-ʿAyn’s introduction for exhausting Arabic roots, be they used or
not) is one of the prime reasons for continuity in both traditions. Sībawayhi was
often challenged by later grammarians concerning specific views or interpre-
tations, and some Kufan grammarians did have views that differed from those
of Sībawayhi and other Basran grammarians.38 Yet throughout the grammati-
cal tradition, the basic notions, axioms, syntactic function and tools of analy-
sis utilized in the Kitāb have not been seriously challenged, with the possible
exception of Ibn Maḍāʾ’s (d. 592/1196) attempt at discrediting the grammari-
ans’ views on cause (ʿilla) and suppletive insertion (taqdīr) in his al-Radd ʿalā
l-nuḥāt, which attempt made little impact on subsequent authors. A similar
picture vis-à-vis continuity and change emerges in lexicography. The Kitāb al-

33 Carter (1972:76, n. 1); cf. Talmon (1982:14f.; 2003:12)—where twenty-eight loci of contro-
versy with the naḥwiyyūn are identified in the Kitāb—and Baalbaki (2008:18–20).
34 Ḫalīl, ʿAyn i, 54.
35 Ḫalīl, ʿAyn i, 52f.; cf. ii, 286.
36 Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 334.
37 Ḫalīl, ʿAyn i, 52f.
38 Baalbaki (1981) identified thirty-seven controversial issues in Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s (d. 577/1181)
al-ʾInṣāf fī masāʾil al-ḫilāf in which the reported differences between Basrans and Kufans
can be authenticated from the extant sources of the 2nd/8th and 3rd/9th centuries.
58 baalbaki

ʿayn remained for several centuries the source of inspiration for prominent
lexicographers: al-Ḫalīl’s method of phonetic arrangement and root permuta-
tions (taqālīb) was almost entirely adopted by al-Qālī (d. 356/967) in al-Bāriʿ,
al-ʾAzharī (370/981) in al-Tahḏīb, al-Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād (d. 385/995) in al-Muḥīṭ,
and Ibn Sīda (d. 458/1066) in al-Muḥkam. Even 4th/10th century authors who
gave up al-Ḫalīl’s phonetic arrangement in favor of the alphabetical system
still preserved his method of permutations—e.g. Ibn Durayd (d. 321/933) in al-
Jamhara—or of dividing the material into chapters based on the number of
radicals—e.g. Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004) in al-Maqāyīs and al-Mujmal. In fact, all
subsequent authors of mujannas lexica (see section 3 below) are indebted to
al-Ḫalīl for his scheme that achieves exhaustiveness based on three basic prin-
ciples: (a) that the letters of the alphabet form a closed set; (b) that the number
of radicals in words ranges from two to five; and (c) that root permutations
of biliteral and triliteral roots is two and six respectively. True, modifications
were introduced to mujannas lexica authored after al-ʿAyn—e.g. in matters
related to arrangement of roots, divisions of chapters, extent of šawāhid, veri-
fication of data, etc.—but no alternative scheme needed to be invented from
scratch.

3 Divergence of the Two Disciplines

The two independent, but related disciplines of naḥw and luġa emerged in
the earliest period of linguistic writing—witness Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, Kitāb al-
ʿayn (for mujannas lexica), and monographs restricted to a specific theme (for
mubawwab lexica). By mujannas—a term borrowed from Ibn Sīda’s (d. 458/
1066) introduction to al-Muḫaṣṣaṣ39—is meant the semasiological type, that
is, lexica in which sign leads to meaning since material is arranged according to
principles related to form (lafẓ) and not meaning (maʿnā). Such lexica normally
aim at listing all lexical items of the language and thus are not specialized
dictionaries. On the other hand, the onomasiological type—which Ibn Sīda
calls mubawwab—refers to lexica or thesauri in which meaning leads to sign
since they deal with one or several topic areas, although some works in certain
genres—such as Arabized words (muʿarrab) and words with two contradictory
meanings (ʾaḍdād)—may be arranged based on form, e.g. alphabetically. It
is in mubawwab lexica in particular that one finds a considerable amount of
material which they share with books on naḥw. This common material is largely

39 Ibn Sīda, Muḫaṣṣaṣ i, 10, 12.

the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 59

attributable to the mutual foundations discussed in section 2 above, and the

following three examples demonstrate the close affinity between naḥw and
some genres of the mubawwab type:

i. Masculine and feminine (al-muḏakkar wa-l-muʾannaṯ): There are more than

thirty independent monographs on the subject, most of which are lost.40 The
extant ones were authored by scholars who were either better known as naḥ-
wiyyūn or as luġawiyyūn, including al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822), ʾAbū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī
(d. 255/869), al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898), al-Mufaḍḍal ibn Salama (d. 290/903 or
300/913), ʾAbū Bakr Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (d. 328/940), Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), Ibn Fāris
(d. 395/1004), and ʾAbū l-Barakāt Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (d. 577/1181). In comparing the
topics discussed by authors of the 3rd/9th century with those in contemporary
grammar works, the congruity between the two fields is readily recognizable.
Among the common topics are: feminine markers; the suffix -h in masculine
nouns (e.g. ʿallāma ‘a very learned person’); patterns that are used with both
masculine and feminine (e.g. faʿīl, as in qatīl ‘murdered’); words that can be
treated either as masculine or feminine (e.g. ʿunuq ‘neck’); adjectives that are
only used with the feminine and hence have no marker (e.g. ṭāliq ‘divorced’);
feminine nouns that are diptotes; etc.41

ii. Abbreviated and prolonged patterns (al-maqṣūr wa-l-mamdūd): Out of fifty

or so works referred to in the sources,42 about a dozen survived. As in the
genre of masculine and feminine, monographs were authored throughout the
tradition, and the earliest go back to the 3rd/9th century. The genre covers most
of the material available in grammatical works, beginning with the earliest
works, but the authors’ focus shifted visibly to the patterns of the maqṣūr and
mamdūd words and to the distinction between the two types in form, meaning
and writing conventions.

iii. Patterns (al-ʾabniya): Most independent monographs that deal with mor-
phological patterns share their notions and much of their subject matter with
works on naḥw. The bulk of issues which Sībawayhi discusses in that part of the
Kitāb which deals with morphology also features in these monographs. As far
as morphological patterns are concerned, they amount in the Kitāb to 342, out

40 See ʿAbd al-Tawwāb’s introduction to Mufaḍḍal, Muḫtaṣar 23–31 and ʾIqbāl (2011:271).
41 For further detail, see Baalbaki (2014:239ff.).
42 See a full list in Harīdī’s introduction to Qālī, Maqṣūr 36–77; cf. ʿAbd al-Tawwāb’s list in his
introduction to al-Waššāʾ, Mamdūd 15–23; ʾIqbāl (2011:272–279); Baalbaki (2014:241 ff.).
60 baalbaki

of which 308 are for nouns and 34 for verbs.43 Al-Zubaydī (d. 379/989) notes
that the grammarians believe that, except for three patterns overlooked by Sīb-
awayhi, his list exhausts all Arabic patterns.44 This notwithstanding, al-Zubaydī
found the number of patterns ignored by Sībawayhi to be about eighty.45 There
are also monographs that deal with specific patterns or morphological notions
and share much of their material with grammar works. These include works on
the verbal patterns faʿala and ʾafʿala, the earliest extant one of which is ʾAbū
Ḥātim al-Sijistānī’s (d. 255/869) Faʿaltu wa-ʾafʿaltu, and works that deal with
diminutives (taṣġīr), dual (taṯniya), plural ( jamʿ), and blending (naḥt).46

Yet in spite of the closeness of the mubawwab lexica in certain genres to

grammar works, in several other genres the two disciplines followed divergent
paths of development, resulting at times in a relationship of complementarity.
It has already been noted in Section 3ii above that there was a visible shift in
the focus of authors of mubawwab lexica in their study of maqṣūr and mamdūd,
and in 3iii that they expanded the scope of morphological patterns by adding
those patterns which seem to have been ignored by the grammarians. One
is strongly reminded in this respect of the complementarity between naḥw
and balāġa, as the balāġiyyūn—most notably in the pioneering works of al-
Jurjānī (d. 471/1078)—discuss several topics that belong to naḥw and often
use the same šawāhid cited by the grammarians, but they concentrate on the
meaning of the utterance in contrast to the predominant concern of most
grammarians with formal considerations such as case-endings or uttered and
elided operants.47 As early as the first half of the 3rd/9th century, al-Jāḥiẓ
(d. 255/869) accuses the grammarians of being interested in poetry only from
the perspective of ʾiʿrāb, that is, the justification of case inflection (wa-lam
ʾara ġāyat al-naḥwiyyīn ʾillā kull šiʿr fīhi ʾiʿrāb).48 Although this statement is

43 See a detailed list of the types of these patterns in ʿUmar (1995:12f., 69–75); cf. Ibn al-Qaṭṭāʿ,
ʾAbniya 89.
44 Zubaydī, Istidrāk i.
45 Cf. ʿUmar (1995:70), who specifies this number as eighty-eight. See also a list of patterns
alleged to be ignored by Sībawayhi in Sīrāfī, Fawāʾit 67–99.
46 For a discussion of these types, see Baalbaki (2014:237 f., 254–258).
47 The difference in approach between the naḥwiyyūn and the balāġiyyūn is discussed in
Baalbaki (1983, 1991). See also Baalbaki (2008:231ff.) for a study of how Sībawayhi’s vivid
analysis of speech and the delicate balance he establishes between form and meaning
gradually gave way to an increasing interest by the grammarians in formal considerations
at the expense of meaning.
48 Jāḥiẓ, Bayān iv, 24.
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 61

evidently exaggerated and oversimplified, it ingeniously captures the essence

of the approach of the naḥwiyyūn. Turning to poetry narrators—who surely
include those whom we refer to as philologists or lexicographers—al-Jāḥiẓ’s
judgment is similarly overgeneralized, but equally true in essence. He asserts
that they are interested merely in strange use and difficult meanings (wa-lam
ʾara ġāyat ruwāt al-ʾašʿār ʾillā kull šiʿr fīhi ġarīb ʾaw maʿnā ṣaʿb).
As argued above, ġarīb is one of the most fundamental notions in both naḥw
and luġa, but the discussion to follow will try to demonstrate—among other
things—how the authors of mubawwab lexica developed new perspectives in
their study of ġarīb. The distinctive characteristics of naḥw and luġa which will
be established later with regards to ġarīb may be considered part of a wider
divergence between the two disciplines in the field of semantics. We propose
to address the core issues of this intricate subject in the following three points:

i. In the Risāla of the Kitāb, i.e. its introductory part, Sībawayhi briefly mentions
three types of semantic relationships, namely, divergence of form and meaning
(iḫtilāf al-lafẓayn li-ḫtilāf al-maʿnayayn), divergence of form and coincidence
of meaning (iḫtilāf al-lafẓayn wa-l-maʿnā wāḥid), and coincidence of form and
divergence of meaning (ittifāq al-lafẓayn wa-ḫtilāf al-maʿnayayn).49 Given that
these three types are not further developed by Sībawayhi to become part of his
grammatical analysis, their mention in the Risāla is most probably intended to
demarcate the boundaries between them and the syntactical and morphologi-
cal issues which he analyzes. The impact of this position on both the grammat-
ical and lexicographical traditions was far-reaching: grammarians followed in
the footsteps of Sībawayhi,50 whereas lexicographers introduced genres specif-
ically devoted to the semantic dimension excluded by Sībawayhi. Accordingly,
the genres that deal with synonyms (mutarādif ) and homonyms (muštarak)
correspond to Sībawayhi’s second and third types of semantic relationships,
respectively. Furthermore, a third genre, words with two contradictory mean-
ings (ʾaḍdād), is related to muštarak since it examines a specific branch of
homonymous polysemic words. From a chronological perspective, muštarak,
ʾaḍdād and mutarādif became independent genres at a very early stage, and
extant works in all three types go back to the beginning of the 3rd/9th century.
Examples from that century and the first few decades of the 4th/10th include:
(a) in muštarak, al-ʾAjnās min kalām al-ʿArab wa-mā štabaha fī l-lafẓ wa-ḫtalafa

49 Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 24.

50 Al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898), for instance, adopts Sībawayhi’s position and even cites some
of his examples; cf. Mā ttafaqa 3.
62 baalbaki

fī l-maʿnā, claimed by an anonymous author to be compiled from ʾAbū ʿUbayd’s

(d. 224/838) Ġarīb al-Ḥadīṯ; Mā ttafaqa lafẓuhu wa-ḫtalafa maʿnāhu by ʾAbū l-
ʿAmayṯal (d. 240/854); al-Munajjad fī l-luġa by Kurāʿ al-Naml (d. 310/922); and
al-Malāḥin by Ibn Durayd (d. 321/933); (b) in al-ʾaḍdād, books by the title al-
ʾAḍdād by Quṭrub (d. 206/821), al-ʾAṣmaʿī (d. 216/831), ʾAbū ʿUbayd, al-Tawwazī
(d. 233/847), Ibn al-Sikkīt (d. 244/858), and ʾAbū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī (d. 255/869);
and (c) in mutarādif, Mā ḫtalafat ʾalfāẓuhu wa-ttafaqat maʿānīhi by al-ʾAṣmaʿī;
al-ʾAlfāẓ by Ibn al-Sikkīt; al-ʾAlfāẓ al-kitābiyya by al-Hamaḏānī (d. c. 320/932);
al-ʾAlfāẓ, al-kitāba wa-l-taʿbīr by Ibn al-Marzubān al-Bāḥiṯ (d. c. 330/941); and
Jawāhir al-ʾalfāẓ by Qudāma ibn Jaʿfar (d. 337/948). Moreover, multithematic
works of the 3rd/9th century, such as al-Ġarīb al-muṣannaf by ʾAbū ʿUbayd and
ʾAdab al-kātib by Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), include some material on these gen-
res.51
Data on ġarīb feature prominently in several genres of lexicographical writ-
ing developed by the luġawiyyūn. In the realm of muštarak, for example, Kurāʿ’s
al-Munajjad contains a large number of words which have one or more mean-
ings that obviously belong to ġarīb. These account for the strikingly high num-
ber of supporting šawāhid which this relatively short work embraces—a total
of 709, many of which consist of more than one line.52 Furthermore, there are
a number of works that form a subgenre within the study of muštarak and by
virtue of their subject matter are largely devoted to ġarīb. These are known
as ʿašarāt since they are divided into chapters that normally contain a group
of ten, mostly unfamiliar words that share a common feature (e.g. pattern or
rhyme) or one word that has numerous meanings. The first extant book of this
genre is by ʾAbū ʿUmar al-Zāhid (i.e. Ġulām Ṯaʿlab; d. 345/957) al-ʿAšarāt fī ġarīb
al-luġa, whose very title highlights the link between ʿašarāt and ġarīb. In his al-
ʿAšarāt fī l-luġa, al-Qazzāz al-Qayrawānī (d. 412/1021) considerably expands one
of al-Zāhid’s chapters and divides the rest of the book into 167 alphabetically
arranged words, to each of which he ascribes ten different meanings. Another
subgenre related to ġarīb is the one known as mušajjar (branched), or mudāḫal
(intertwined), or musalsal (serialized). Primarily aiming at demonstrating the
extensive vocabulary of Arabic, particularly in the domain of ġarīb, chapters
in monographs of this subgenre consist of chains that typically begin with a
word which is explained by another, itself explained by a third, and so on. Ġarīb
words in the beginning of each chapter are usually explained by familiar ones,

51 See, for example, ʾAbū ʿUbayd, Ġarīb ii, 616–618; iii, 971 (naʿāma), 999 (lawā); Ibn Qutayba,
ʾAdab 177–181.
52 Kurāʿ, Munajjad, index 389–404.
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 63

which in turn have ġarīb meanings that maintain the chain further. The earliest
extant monograph of this subgenre is, as in the ʿašarāt, al-Zāhid’s al-Mudāḫal fī
l-luġa, but much more extensive is ʾAbū l-Ṭayyib al-Luġawī’s (d. 351/962) Šajar
al-durr fī tadāḫul al-kalām bi-l-maʿānī l-muḫtalifa.

ii. Sībawayhi does not normally provide any explanation of the meanings of
the words that he cites, even if they occur extremely rarely and clearly belong to
ġarīb. Examples include qahbalis ‘huge woman’, jaḥmariš ‘old woman’, ṣahṣaliq
‘vehement voice’, bulaʿbīs ‘wonder, marvel’, duraḫmīl ‘calamity’, qarṭabūs ‘ca-
lamity’, hammariš ‘old woman’ and hammaqiʿ ‘fruit of a thorny tree’.53 Sīb-
awayhi’s practice was followed by other grammarians, such as al-Mubarrad
(d. 285/898) in al-Muqtaḍab and, to a lesser extent, Ibn al-Sarrāj (d. 316/929) in
al-ʾUṣūl fī l-naḥw,54 although later grammarians, such as Ibn Yaʿīš (d. 643/1245)
and al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), give the meaning of ġarīb words cited in their
study of patterns more regularly.55 The ġarīb words cited but not explained
by Sībawayhi were assembled by Ibn al-Dahhān (d. 569/1164) in the form of
an alphabetically arranged lexicon, Kitāb šarḥ ʾabniyat Sībawayhi. We are also
in possession of a similar work by al-Jawālīqī (d. 540/1145) titled Šarḥ ʾamṯi-
lat Sībawayhi—an abridgement of a book by Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn ʿUṯmān
al-ʿAṭṭār, whose dates are not known, but who was a student of al-Sīrāfī’s
(d. 368/979).56 Moreover, most of the lexica that specialize in morphologi-
cal patterns (e.g. faʿala and ʾafʿala) normally explain cited words, particularly
ġarīb—yet another instance of the complementarity of the grammatical and
lexicographical traditions. In this respect, it is highly significant that as early
as the second half of the 2nd/8th century, ʾAbū ʿAmr al-Šaybānī (d. 206/821),
one of Sībawayhi’s contemporaries,57 authored Kitāb al-jīm, a mujannas lexi-
con that essentially belongs to the genre of ġarīb.58 ʾAbū ʿAmr arranges words
in alphabetical order, based on their first radicals, and consistently explains

53 Sībawayhi, Kitāb iv, 302–303, 330.

54 Cf. Mubarrad, Muqtaḍab i, 66–68; ii, 107–109; Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl iii, 184–210.
55 Cf. Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ vi, 136–143; Suyūṭī, Hamʿ ii, 158–160.
56 Suyūṭī, Buġya i, 206.
57 Although ʾAbū ʿAmr died about a quarter century earlier than Sībawayhi, he is said to have
lived up to the age of ninety (or 119 in one riwāya; cf. Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, Nuzha 80), and might
well have been older than Sībawayhi, who died (in 180/796 according to most sources)
when he was about forty (Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 57).
58 Note al-Qifṭī’s comment (ʾInbāh i, 261) that ʾAbū ʿAmr’s aim in the Jīm was to collect
unfamiliar words and not those that are commonly used ( jamaʿa fīhi l-ḥūšī wa-lam yaqṣid
al-mustaʿmal).
64 baalbaki

them. Accordingly, one of the main distinctive features between the grammat-
ical and lexicographical traditions is evident from the earliest available sources:
the semantic component of ġarīb, which was almost totally ignored by Sīb-
awayhi, was the focus of lexical works that were fully devoted to it.
A more specific genre related to meanings of words is the one that deals
with the etymology of proper nouns. Mubawwab lexica of this genre belong
to the earliest stage of lexical writing. From this stage is extant al-ʾAṣmaʿī’s
(d. 216/831) Kitāb ištiqāq al-ʾasmāʾ, in which are discussed the etymologies and
meanings of 133 names. Kurāʿ al-Naml’s (d. 310/922) lengthy chapter on ištiqāq
in al-Muntaḫab min ġarīb kalām al-ʿArab is mostly devoted to proper nouns and
place names,59 but the most extensive work in the early period is Ibn Durayd’s
(d. 321/933) Kitāb al-ištiqāq—also referred to as Kitāb ištiqāq al-ʾasmāʾ60—
which systematically lists proper nouns, beginning with the Prophet’s name,
Muḥammad, followed by the names of his ancestry and the various other
tribes.61 Also noteworthy is al-Zajjājī’s (d. 337/949) Kitāb ištiqāq ʾasmāʾ ʾAllāh,
which discusses the names (ʾasmāʾ) and attributes (ṣifāt) of God.

iii. Qurʾānic material is one of the main sources of data in the grammati-
cal tradition. Sībawayhi quotes 447 Qurʾānic verses in the Kitāb62 and mainly
comments on their syntactic characteristics. There are also a number of early,
linguistically oriented exegetical works that belong to the grammatical tra-
dition, most notably al-Farrāʾ’s (d. 207/822) Maʿānī l-Qurʾān, ʾAbū ʿUbayda’s
(d. 209/824) Majāz al-Qurʾān, and al-ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ’s (d. 215/830) Maʿānī l-
Qurʾān. The meanings of Qurʾānic words, however, are largely outside the scope
of such works. In contrast, the genre ġarīb al-Qurʾān embraces a number of
mubawwab lexica whose primary purpose is to explain Qurʾānic words which
are judged to be ġarīb or which acquire a specific meaning in a Qurʾānic con-
text.63 The genre spans the whole duration of the lexicographical tradition,
and among its earliest extant monographs are Ġarīb al-Qurʾān wa-tafsīruhu by
ʿAbdallāh ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Mubārak al-Yazīdī (d. 237/851), Tafsīr Ġarīb al-Qurʾān
by Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889), Ġarīb al-Qurʾān or Nuzhat al-qulūb by Muḥammad

59 Kurāʿ, Muntaḫab ii, 661–678; see also ii, 740–762.

60 ʾAzharī, Tahḏīb i, 31.
61 Note also that several hundred entries in the Jamhara (see index, iii, 1699–1722) contain
proper nouns derived from the roots under discussion.
62 See Hārūn’s index to the Kitāb v, 44–102.
63 For example, Ibn Qutayba includes in Tafsīr 47 the word ṣabr ‘patience’, obviously because
he believes that, in the verse wa-staʿīnū bi-l-ṣabri wa-l-ṣalāti ‘Seek [God’s] help with
patience and prayer’ (q. 2/45), it means ‘fasting’ (ṣawm).
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 65

ibn ʿUzayr (or ʿUzayz) al-Sijistānī (d. 330/941), Yāqūtat al-ṣirāṭ fī tafsīr ġarīb al-
Qurʾān by ʾAbū ʿUmar al-Zāhid (d. 345/957), and Kitāb al-Ġarībayn fī l-Qurʾān
wa-l-Ḥadīṯ by ʾAbū ʿUbayd al-Harawī (d. 401/1011).
Unlike the Qurʾān, early grammarians quote Ḥadīṯ very sparingly. For exam-
ple, the Kitāb contains only seven or eight ḥadīṯs,64 and Ibn al-Sarrāj’s al-ʾUṣūl
no more than three.65 As part of the mubawwab lexicographical tradition, the
genre of Ġarīb al-Ḥadīṯ is primarily concerned with explaining ġarīb words in
Prophetic ḥadīṯ. Among the earliest works are ʾAbū ʿUbayd’s (d. 224/838) Ġarīb
al-Ḥaḏīṯ and Ibn Qutayba’s (d. 276/889) and ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq al-Ḥarbī’s (d. 285/898)
books by the same title. Compared with ġarīb al-Qurʾān, the ġarīb material in
these works is much more extensive, and the most comprehensive book in the
genre is Ibn al-ʾAṯīr’s (d. 606/1210) al-Nihāya fī ġarīb al-Ḥadīṯ wa-l-ʾAṯar, one of
the five lexica that make up Ibn Manẓūr’s (d. 711/1311) Lisān al-ʿArab.
The degree of the use of Ḥadīṯ is one of the most prominent issues on which
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions deeply differ, particularly in
the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries since most later grammarians seem to have
given up their predecessors’ reservations about citing Ḥadīṯ.66 The discrepancy
between the two traditions is not restricted to mubawwab lexica, since authors
of mujannas lexica obviously had no qualms about using Ḥadīṯ as linguistic
testimony. In sharp contrast to Sībawayhi’s seven or eight citations of Ḥadīṯ,
the number of ḥadīṯs and ʾaṯars (i.e. sayings of the Prophet’s Companions
or Successors) in Kitāb al-ʿayn is stunningly 428.67 Continuing this approach,
al-Bandanījī (d. 284/897) cites 121 ḥadīṯs and ʾaṯars in al-Taqfiya, Ibn Durayd
(d. 321/933) 508 in al-Jamhara, and al-Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/1144) 495 in ʾAsās
al-balāġa.68 Unlike the early grammarians, who did not find it appropriate
to cite Ḥadīṯ as linguistic testimony on syntactical matters given that it was
not always transmitted verbatim and some of its transmitters were not even
native speakers of Arabic,69 the lexicographers did not hesitate to cite and
explain words in Ḥadīṯ most probably on the assumption that for this specific
purpose it made little difference whether the Ḥadīṯ was transmitted verbatim
or paraphrased. In other words, they might have assumed that if Ḥadīṯ was

64 Note that one ḥadīṯ is quoted in two different versions in the Kitāb, hence the two different
possible enumerations; see Hārūn’s index, v, 32.
65 Cf. Ṭanāḥī (1986:35).
66 Baġdādī, Ḫizāna i, 9–15; cf. Ḥadīṯī (1981:13–29); Fajjāl (1997:99–136).
67 See ʾĀl ʿUṣfūr’s index of K. al-ʿayn 23–46.
68 Cf. the indices of Taqfiya 725–730 and Jamhara iii, 1359–1374. For the number in ʾAsās al-
balāġa, see Jubūrī (2004:100).
69 Suyūṭī, Iqtirāḥ 53f.; Baġdādī, Ḫizāna i, 11f.
66 baalbaki

not transmitted in its original form, this would primarily affect its structure,
whereas the transmitter is more likely to preserve the lexical items, particularly
those which constitute the šawāhid.
The lexicographers also differ with the grammarians concerning the citing
of poetry from the period following ʿuṣūr al-iḥtijāj or epochs of reliable usage,
albeit to a lesser degree than in the case of Ḥadīṯ. Ibn Harma (d. 176/792) is
said to be the last poet in those epochs,70 and grammar works hardly ever
cite šawāhid by later poets, such as ʾAbū Nuwās (d. 198/814), ʾAbū l-ʿAtāhiya
(d. 211/826), ʾAbū Tammām (d. 231/846), Ibn al-Rūmī (d. 283/896), al-Buḥturī
(d. 284/898), al-Mutanabbī (d. 345/965), and al-Maʿarrī (d. 449/1057). In the
lexicographical tradition, as in grammar works, the vast majority of šawāhid
are by pre- or early Islamic poets such as al-ʾAʿšā, Umruʾ al-Qays, ʾAws ibn
Ḥajar, Dū l-Rumma, Ruʾba, Zuhayr, al-Šammāḫ, Ṭarafa, al-Ṭirimmāḥ, al-ʿAjjāj,
al-Kumayt, al-Nābiġa al-Jaʿdī, al-Nābiġa al-Ḏubyānī and ʾAbū l-Najm al-ʿIjlī.71
Yet, the lexicographers were somewhat more tolerant than the grammarians
in citing later poets and thus disregarding the generally accepted temporal
limitations imposed on poetry after ʿuṣūr al-iḥtijāj. Among authors of mujannas
lexica, for example, Ibn Manẓūr attributes three šawāhid to ʾAbū Nuwās, eight
to ʾAbū Tammām, one to al-Buḥturī, eleven to al-Mutanabbī, and three to al-
Maʿarrī.72 It is also noteworthy that al-Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/1144), who in ʾAsās
al-balāġa cites šawāhid in support of metaphorical and extended meanings,
does not link faṣāḥa exclusively to the early epochs, but often cites verses by
ʾAbū Nuwās, ʾAbū Tammām, al-Mutanabbī and al-Maʿarrī.73
Another difference between the grammatical and lexicographical traditions
is that the latter is largely free from the partisan divide between the Basrans
and Kufans, which by the 4th/10th century was evident in the former. Obvi-
ously, the theoretical differences pertaining to syntactical analysis—in partic-
ular concerning not just the validity of, but the extent to which notions such
as analogy (qiyās), cause (ʿilla), operant (ʿāmil), suppletive insertion (taqdīr),
and origin (ʾaṣl) may be utilized—were hardly applicable to the question of
the inclusion or otherwise of certain lexical items within the corpus. Although
early Kufan lexicographers were primarily interested in including in the corpus
lexical items derived from dialectal material and poetry of the various tribes,

70 See Baġdādī, Ḫizāna i, 425: wa-Ibn Harma ʾāḫir al-šuʿarāʾ allaḏīna yuḥtajj bi-šiʿrihim.
71 The order of the names of these poets follows that in the indices of ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ and
ʿAmāyira (1987, iii); cf. also ʾAyyūbī (1980:90, 290, 370, 433).
72 ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ and ʿAmāyira (1987: iii, 721ff.); cf. Ḥamza (2011:60–62).
73 Cf. Zamaḫšarī, ʾAsās (ʾ-h-b, s-r-w, s-ʿ-ṭ, n-ʿ-d, n-b-ṭ); for other muwallad poets cited in the
ʾAsās, see ʿUbaydī (1990:297–299).
the grammatical and lexicographical traditions 67

as is evident in the works of ʾAbū ʿAmr al-Šaybānī (d. 206/821), ʾAbū ʿUbayd
(d. 224/838), and Ibn al-Sikkīt (d. 244/858), their non-Kufan contemporaries,
such as al-Ḫalīl (d. 175/791), al-ʾAṣmaʿī (d. 216/831), al-Bandanījī (d. 284/897),
and Ibn Durayd (d. 321/933), were equally keen on recording dialectal data
and adducing supporting poetry šawāhid. In the case of mujannas lexica, the
fact that most authors aimed at exhausting the roots and derivatives of the
language may have made it necessary for them to include lexical items from
all available sources of riwāya. For example, al-Qālī (d. 356/967) in al-Bāriʿ
derives the bulk of his material from both Basran and Kufan scholars. His
main sources (in order of frequency) are al-Ḫalīl, ʾAbū Zayd al-ʾAnṣārī, Ibn
al-Sikkīt, al-ʾAṣmaʿī, ʾAbū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī, ʾAbū ʿUbayda, Ibn Durayd, ʾAbū
ʿAmr al-Šaybānī, ʾAbū ʿUbayd, al-Farrāʾ, al-Kisāʾī, and Ibn Kaysān.74 In later
extensive works, such as Ibn Sīda’s (d. 458/1066) al-Muḥkam and Ibn Manẓūr’s
(d. 711/1311) Lisān al-ʿArab, the ultimate aim of including all the previously
available data meant that there was hardly any room for partisan inclina-
tion.
On a broader scale, the existence of an Arabic grammatical theory—which
has its own technical terms, notions, methods of analysis, etc. cannot be de-
nied. Works which examine the fundamental principles of grammar (ʾuṣūl al-
naḥw) and the methodological and epistemological issues it embraces also
strongly point in that direction. The same statement, however, cannot be made
of the lexicographical tradition. The very question of the existence of a dis-
cernible theory may be irrelevant in the case of the mubawwab lexica since
they comprise a wide variety of themes, ranging from words that pertain to
a particular topic (e.g. plants, animals, human body) to Arabized words, sole-
cisms and morphological patterns. As far as the mujannas lexica are concerned,
lexicographers had to deal with a number of theoretical issues, including ques-
tions of authenticity and correctness of lexical items, the principles that govern
the internal arrangement of the data, and the extent of the inclusion of proper
nouns, new notions, technical terms, and even vernacular usage not recorded
in earlier lexica. There was little agreement on those issues, more importantly
a remarkable absence of the elements that are vital for a clear and precise def-
inition of cited words, and of a template that determines the order in which
patterns and derivatives are to be included in each lemma and assigns the role
which semantic relationships should have in the structuring of the lemmata. In
spite of certain basic principles that were commonly applied—for instance, the
adoption of ‘root’ in the arrangement of the lemmata and the citing of šawāhid

74 Cf. al-Bāriʿ’s indices, 745–752.

68 baalbaki

as evidence of correct usage—the lexicographers did not develop a theory that

would resolve the semantic issues posed by the nature of their field. This is
particularly unfortunate because, apart from the interest of some grammari-
ans in demonstrating the interrelatedness between form and meaning in the
constructions under analysis, the grammatical tradition itself did not develop
a semantic theory in any meaningful way. Accordingly, semantic issues were
more profoundly discussed by the balāġiyyūn and, at a later stage, by the branch
of study known as ʿilm al-waḍʿ.

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Ibn al-Marzubān, ʾAlfāẓ = ʾAbū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Sahl Ibn al-Marzubān al-Bāḥiṯ,
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72 baalbaki

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Yāqūtat al-ṣirāṭ fī tafsīr ġarīb al-Qurʾān. Ed. by Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Turkistānī.
Medina: Maktabat al-ʿUlūm wa-l-Ḥikam, 2002.
Zajjājī, Ištiqāq = ʾAbū l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʾIsḥāq al-Zajjājī, Ištiqāq ʾasmāʾ Allāh.
Ed. by ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn al-Mubārak. 2nd ed. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1986.
74 baalbaki

Zajjājī, Majālis = ʾAbū l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʾIsḥāq al-Zajjājī, Majālis al-ʿulamāʾ.
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Zamaḫšarī, ʾAsās = ʾAbū l-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿUmar al-Zamaḫšarī, ʾAsās al-balāġa.
Beirut: Dār Ṣādir and Dār Bayrūt, 1965.
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Istidrāk ʿalā Sībawayhi fī Kitāb al-ʾabniya wa-l-ziyādāt ʿalā mā ʾawradahu fīhi muhaḏ-
ḏaban. Ed. by Ignazio Guidi. Rome: Reale Accademia dei Lincei, 1890.
Zubaydī, Ṭabaqāt = ʾAbū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Zubaydī al-ʾAndalusī, Ṭaba-
qāt al-naḥwiyyīn wa-l-luġawiyyīn. Ed. by Muḥammad ʾAbū l-Faḍl ʾIbrāhīm. 2nd ed.
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ʾAbū l-Hayjāʾ, ʾAḥmad and Ḫalīl ʾAḥmad ʿAmāyira. 1987. Fahāris Lisān al-ʿArab. 7 vols.
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ʾĀl ʿUṣfūr, Muḥsin. 1410 a.h. Fahāris al-ʿAyn. Tehran: Muʾassasat Dār al-Hijra.
ʾAsad, Nāṣir al-Dīn. 1996. “Kitāb al-Jamhara li-bn Durayd wa-ʾaṯaruhu fī l-luġa”. Buḥūṯ
ʿArabiyya muhdāt ʾilā l-daktūr Maḥmūd al-Samra, ed. by Ḥusayn ʿAṭwān and Mu-
ḥammad ʾIbrāhīm Ḥuwwar, 29–59. Amman: Jāmiʿat al-Banāt al-ʾUrduniyya.
ʾAyyūbī, Yāsīn. 1980. Muʿjam al-šuʿarāʾ fī Lisān al-ʿArab. Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li-l-Malāyīn.
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versity of Beirut.
Baalbaki, Ramzi. 1983. “The relation between naḥw and balāġa: A comparative study of
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Baalbaki, Ramzi. 1991. “A balāġī approach to some grammatical šawāhid”. Proceedings
of the Colloquium on Arabic Grammar, ed. by Kinga Dévényi and Tamás Iványi, 89–
100. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University and Csoma de Kőrös Society.
Baalbaki, Ramzi. 2008. The legacy of the Kitāb: Sībawayhi’s analytical methods within the
context of the Arabic grammatical theory. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Baalbaki, Ramzi. 2011. “The historic relevance of poetry in the Arab grammatical tra-
dition”. Poetry and history: The value of poetry in reconstructing Arab history, ed. by
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versity of Beirut.
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12th/18th century. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
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Fajjāl, Maḥmūd. 1997. al-Ḥadīṯ al-nabawī fī l-naḥw al-ʿArabī. Riyadh: ʾAḍwāʾ al-Salaf.
Gilliot, Claude. 1996. “Les citations probantes (šawāhid) en langue”. Arabica 43.297–
356.
Ḥaddād, Ḥannā Jamīl. 1984. Muʿjam šawāhid al-naḥw al-šiʿriyya. Riyadh: Dār al-ʿUlūm.
Ḥadīṯī, Ḫadīja. 1981. Mawqif al-nuḥāt min al-iḥtijāj bi-l-Ḥadīṯ al-šarīf. Baghdad: Dār al-
Rašīd.
Ḥamza, Ḥasan. 2011. “al-Mudawwana al-qāmūsiyya al-ʿArabiyya al-ḥadīṯa bayna l-luġa
wa-l-ḫiṭāb”. Majallat al-Muʿjamiyya 27.53–79.
Hārūn, ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad. 1991. Fahāris al-Muḫaṣṣaṣ li-l-ʾImām Ibn Sīda al-
Luġawī. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl.
ʾIqbāl, ʾAḥmad al-Šarqāwī. 2011. Muʿjam al-maʿājim: Taʿrīf bi-naḥw ʾalf wa-niṣf ʾalf min
al-maʿājim al-ʿArabiyya al-turāṯiyya. 3rd ed. Beirut: Dār al-Ġarb al-ʾIslāmī.
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Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya.
A Twelfth Century League Table of Arab
Grammarians

Michael G. Carter

This paper is divided into three parts, an introduction to al-Baṭalyawsī, an

examination of his League Table of grammarians, and a discussion of the
grammatical issue for which they are mentioned, namely whether the word
rubba signifies ‘how many …!’ (hereafter takṯīr) or ‘how few …!’ (taqlīl).

1 Al-Baṭalyawsī

ʾAbū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Sīd al-Baṭalyawsī (some-

times referred to as Ibn al-Sīd), was born in Bajadoz (hence his nisba) in
444/1052, and spent most of his career in Valencia, where he died in 521/1127.
Of his private life we know only that he was forced to leave Cordova after com-
posing an indiscreet poem about the three sons of the city governor. Being a
grammarian, al-Baṭalyawsī could not resist making erotic puns on the names
of these young men, ʿAzzūn, Raḥmūn and Ḥassūn,1 which he echoes as verbs in
pleading for forgiveness, ʿazzū-nī ‘console me’ for my love of ʿAzzūn, irḥamū-nī
‘have mercy on me’ for my love of Raḥmūn, and ḥassū-nī ‘give me something
to sip’ to cure my thirst for Ḥassūn.2
About forty titles are credited to al-Baṭalyawsī from various sources, covering
a wide range of topics: he wrote a commentary on the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik ibn
ʾAnas, at least three works of theology and philosophy, commentaries on the
poetry of al-Mutanabbī and al-Maʿarrī, and, the work he is perhaps best known
for in the West, al-Iqtiḍāb fī šarḥ ʾAdab al-kuttāb, a three-part commentary on
the ʾAdab al-kātib of Ibn Qutayba.

1 The origin of this -ūn suffix is disputed: Roman (1996:527) sees it as probably Andalusian, but
cf. Fleisch (1961:i, 453f.) for the possibility that it is South Arabian.
2 The verb ḥassa ‘be tender or compassionate’ is ruled out here, as its imperative would be
ḥissū-nī; the preceding ʾin ẓamiʾat nafsī ʾilā rīqi Ḥassūnin confirms that the intended verb is
ḥassā ‘give someone some broth or soup (ḥasāʾ) to sip’. The editor of Ḥulal (7 f.) refuses to
believe the story.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_005

a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 77

Of his linguistic works the most relevant to us are as follows (i) Masāʾil wa-
ʾajwiba fī l-naḥw, a selection of questions and answers on grammatical themes,
of which the fiftieth Masʾala (henceforth Mas. 50) is a detailed discussion of
rubba occupying pages 137–156 of the printed text; (ii) a two-volume com-
mentary on the famous Jumal of al-Zajjājī, the first, ʾIṣlāḥ al-ḫalal al-wāqiʿ fī
l-Jumal (with variations in the title, henceforth ʾIṣlāḥ) dealing with what al-
Baṭalyawsī calls the deficiency (ḫalal) of the Jumal, the second, al-Ḥulal fī šarḥ
ʾabyāt al-Jumal, being a commentary on the poetic verses quoted as šawāhid;
(iii) al-ʾInṣāf fī l-tanbīh ʿalā l-maʿānī wa-l-ʾasbāb allatī ʾawjabat al-iḫtilāf bayna l-
muslimīn fī ʾārāʾihim, which includes (105–108) a short treatment of rubba; (iv)
Risāla fī l-ism wa-l-musammā, which deals with grammatical matters in a highly
philosophical manner.

2 The League Table of Grammarians

There has always been disagreement about whether rubba denotes takṯīr (‘how
many …!’) or taqlīl (‘how few …!’), and indeed the issue was polarized into one
of the points of dispute between the Baṣrans and the Kūfans (cf. Ibn al-ʾAnbārī,
ʾInṣāf 354f.).
In Mas. 50, 138, al-Baṭalyawsī lists a number of grammarians, classified into
three groups by their status and their position on rubba. In the text the order is
Groups b, a, c but for convenience they are arranged as follows here:

(Group a) Those who hold the correct view that rubba denotes taqlīl
(i) “Major and well-known Baṣrans” (kubarāʾ al-Baṣriyyīn wa-mašāhīruhum)
1. al-Ḫalīl ibn ʾAḥmad (d. 160/776 or 175/791)
2. Sībawayhi (d. 180/796)
3. ʿĪsā ibn ʿUmar (d. 149/766)
4. Yūnus ibn Ḥabīb (d. 182/798)
5. ʾAbū Zayd al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 215/830)
6. ʾAbū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ (d. 154/771 or 157/774)
7. al-ʾAḫfaš [al-ʾAwsaṭ] Saʿīd ibn Masʿada (d. 215/830)
8. al-Māzinī (d. 248/862 or 249/863)
9. ʾAbū ʿAmr al-Jarmī (d. 225/839)
10. ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898 or 286/899)
11. ʾAbū Bakr [ibn] al-Sarrāj (d. 316/928)
12. ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq al-Zajjāj (d. 311/923)
13. ʾAbū ʿAlī al-Fārisī (d. 377/987)
14. ʾAbū l-Ḥasan al-Rummānī (d. 384/994)
78 carter

15. Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002)

16. al-Sīrāfī (d. 368/979)
(ii) “All the Kūfans” ( jumlat al-Kūfiyyīn)3
1. al-Kisāʾi (d. 189/805)
2. al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822)
3. Muʿāḏ al-Ḥarrāʾ (d. 187/804)
4. [Muḥammad] ibn Saʿdān al-Ḍarīr (d. 231/846)
5. Hišām [ibn Muʿāwiya] (d. 209/824)

(Group b) Those who hold the incorrect view that rubba denotes takṯīr
(i) “Minor grammarians” (ṣiġār al-naḥwiyyīn)
1. ʾAbū l-Qāsim al-Zajjājī (d. 337/949 or 339 or 340)
2. ʾAbū Jaʿfar [ibn] al-Naḥḥās (d. 338/950)
3. “Similar minor grammarians” (naḥwuhumā min ṣiġār al-naḥwiyyīn)
(not named)
(ii) “The author of Kitāb al-ʿayn” (ṣāḥib Kitāb al-ʿayn) (also not named)

(Group c) Those who hold that rubba denotes both taqlīl and takṯīr
al-Fārābī (d. 339/950)

The names are listed in approximate chronological order and all are easily
identifiable, though among the “Major Baṣrans” in Group a the name ʿUmar is
misspelt as ʿAmr in (i) 3, and what is printed as Ibn Ḥunayyī in (i) 15 is probably
a mistake, as no such grammarian could be found. The obvious correction is
Ibn Jinnī, especially since he is quoted in other works of al-Baṭalyawsī.
The chronological and geographical constraints of the list are striking: it
contains no grammarians after the end of the 4th/10th century (Ibn Jinnī being
the last),4 and not a single Maġribī grammarian is mentioned, either from North
Africa or Andalus.
The chronological limitation may reflect a prevailing Maġribī view of gram-
mar as a Mašriqī creation, including the traditional division into Baṣrans and
Kūfans, and ending in the 4th/10th century rather in the way that in law and
ḥadīṯ the gate of ijtihād was closed at about the same time to mark the perfec-
tion of the legal system, along with the definitive establishment of the qirāʾāt.

3 The printed text has jullat al-Kūfiyyīn, which is lexically obscure, and jumla is restored from
al-Suyūṭī, Hamʿ ii, 25.
4 The latest grammarian referred to by al-Baṭalyawsī in other works may be Ibn Bābāšāḏ
(d. 469/1070), in Ḥulal 173.
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 79

Many prominent early Mašriqī scholars are missing from the list. But bearing
in mind that al-Baṭalyawsī has told us (Mas. 50, 138) that he searched through
“all the grammarians” ( jumlat al-naḥwiyyīn), it is most likely that he has named
here only the ones who expressed an opinion on rubba.
The geographical limitation, the failure to name a single Maġribī grammar-
ian, tends to confirm that Maġribī grammar was still working towards a sense
of regional autonomy. References to fellow Andalusians are also rare in al-
Baṭalyawsī’s other works. Only one is mentioned, and frequently, in his Iqtiḍāb,
namely ʾAbū ʿAlī al-Qālī (d. 356/967), but that is almost certainly due to the
fact that the adoptive Andalusian al-Qālī (still called al-Baġdādī, as if to remind
everyone of his Mašriqī origins) was the principal transmitter of Ibn Qutayba’s
ʾAdab al-kātib in the Maġrib.5
Turning to the “Minor Grammarians” in Group b, we find the name of one
of the best known of all the Eastern grammarians, ʾAbū l-Qāsim al-Zajjājī. This
is all the more surprising because his pedagogical grammar al-Jumal was so
popular in the Maġrib that it is said to have generated some 120 commentaries
by Maġribī authors alone, and while this figure is undoubtedly exaggerated, it is
nevertheless true that of the fifty or so commentaries listed in Sezgin, no fewer
than thirty-nine are by Maġribīs.6
Among those many commentators al-Baṭalyawsī may be unique in the in-
tense animosity he shows towards al-Zajjājī, which he makes no effort to con-
ceal in his two-part treatise on the Jumal. He begins the first volume (ʾIṣlāḥ
al-ḫalal) by admitting that al-Zajjājī was generally competent, but the exces-
sive brevity of his work left it open to criticism (taʿaqqub al-mutaʿaqqibīn), with
the author often being unaware of his mistakes (ʾIṣlāḥ 57 f.). When not actually
wrong (ġayr ṣaḥīḥ, ʾIṣlāḥ 129; ḫaṭaʾ, ʾIṣlāḥ 1737) his definitions are frequently
not universally valid (lā yaṣiḥḥ ʿalā l-ʾiṭlāq, ʾIṣlāḥ 100) or they are defective
( fīhi ḫtilāl, 98), even “corrupt” ( fāsid, ʾIṣlāḥ 279), and his terminology is sloppy
(sahw, ʾIṣlāḥ 189) and loosely formulated (tasāmuḥ, musāmaḥa, ʾIṣlāḥ 91, 127),
“vague” (mubham, ʾIṣlāḥ 269), or lacking precision (“needs to be be restricted
or straightened up” yaḥtāj ʾilā taqyīd wa-taṯqīf, ʾIṣlāḥ 182), with the result that
al-Zajjājī is often misleading (“creates a false impression” yūhim, ʾIṣlāḥ 204) or
contradictory ( fīhi tanāquḍ, ʾIṣlāḥ 58). On one occasion al-Baṭalyawsī accuses
him of “combining a lie with an error” ( jamaʿ al-kiḏb wa-l-ḫaṭaʾ, ʾIṣlāḥ 223), for
both misreporting Sībawayhi and misinterpreting him.

5 Al-Qālī also supplies a poetic riwāya for al-Baṭalyawsī (Ḥulal 101).

6 See Carter (2011:45f. and notes).
7 References are selective to items which may occur more than once.
80 carter

Typical systematic verdicts of al-Baṭalyawsī are that al-Zajjājī “has done his
best to limit this topic, more than he has before, but is still open to question
for not limiting it enough” (ʾIṣlāḥ 250),8 and one of his statements is dismissed
as “thoughtless” (min ġayr taʾammul, ʾIṣlāḥ 300), while several times we read
that al-Zajjājī has fallen short “as usual” (ʿalā ʿādatihi, ʾIṣlāḥ 338). And in case
we fail to notice just how little al-Baṭalyawsī thinks of al-Zajjājī, he invents for
us the following example to illustrate the use of ʾinnamā to indicate contempt
(taḥqīr), namely (ʾIṣlāḥ 349) “when you hear a man boasting about how much
he has donated to charity you say to him, ʾinnamā ʾaʿṭayta dirhaman ‘all you
have donated is a dirham’, and when you hear him boasting about being a
grammarian you say to him, ʾinnamā qaraʾta Kitāb al-jumal ‘all you have ever
studied is the Jumal’”.
Clearly al-Baṭalyawsī was not impressed by this work, and although he may
be rather isolated in his hostility to al-Zajjājī (a later grammarian, Ibn al-
Ḍāʾiʿ, d. 680/1281, evidently sprang to al-Zajjājī’s defence with a refutation of
al-Baṭalyawsī’s objections),9 we can at least accept that his classification of
al-Zajjājī as a “minor grammarian” has been argued at length and with great
conviction.
For [Ibn] al-Naḥḥās (more commonly simply al-Naḥḥās) it is difficult to
find such an explicit and detailed condemnation. Al-Baṭalyawsī quotes him
frequently enough for us to be sure that he was familiar with his works, and
he does disagree with him as often as not (e.g. ʾIṣlāḥ 126), but there is no overt
polemic, nor even a hint that he assigned him a lower rank than the many other
grammarians in whose company he is named, so we must conclude that this is
a personal view of al-Baṭalyawsī. For what it is worth, al-Naḥḥās does have quite
a lot to say about Sūra 15/2 (ʾIʿrāb al-Qurʾān ii, 375f.) but makes no mention at
all of the taqlīl/takṯīr issue.
As for the unnamed “similar minor grammarians” (naḥwuhumā min ṣiġār
al-naḥwiyyīn) in Group b, we can only guess: they are presumably the same
anonymous group that he refers to in Mas. 50, 138 as “some of the grammarians
of our own time and the time near to that of [al-Fārābī]” (qawm min naḥwiyyī
zamāninā hāḏā wa-min qurb zamānih): these, he says, wrongly believe that
rubba denotes takṯīr, and furthermore they assert that the “older grammarians”
(al-naḥwiyyūn al-mutaqaddimūn) erred in thinking that it denoted taqlīl.10

8 ‘Limiting’ here renders taqyīd, the process of formulating a definition so that it is muṭlaq
‘absolute, unqualified’; al-Baṭalyawsī frequently criticizes al-Zajjājī for offering definitions
which cannot be applied absolutely ʿalā l-ʾiṭlāq.
9 Reported in Sezgin (1984:92 inf.).
10 By “older grammarians” here al-Baṭalyawsī surely means those listed in Group a, but in
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 81

Common sense suggests that these “minor grammarians” should be among

those whose names appear elsewhere in al-Baṭalyawsī’s works, on the grounds
that at least he was directly or indirectly acquainted with their ideas, but this
does not rule out those not named by him, whom he could judge by their
reputation alone. We may never know.
Item (ii) in Group b, Ṣāḥib Kitāb al-ʿayn, may at first seem contradictory,
since the author of the Kitāb al-ʿayn is usually taken to be al-Ḫalīl ibn ʾAḥmad,
the first grammarian to be listed in Group a among those with the correct
understanding of rubba as denoting taqlīl. The answer is fairly simple: al-
Baṭalyawsī must be one of those who did not regard al-Ḫalīl as the author of
the Kitāb al-ʿayn.11 In fact authorship has been ascribed to his close friend al-
Layṯ ibn al-Muẓaffar (d. 190/805), and opinion is still divided on how much they
each contributed to the work: as Sezgin points out (1982:159), some Medieval
writers avoided the issue by saying qāla Ṣāḥib Kitāb al-ʿayn, as al-Baṭalyawsī
does here.
In Group c the solitary authority named by al-Baṭalyawsī is a visitor from a
different universe, the philosopher al-Fārābī, who was of the opinion that rubba
could equally denote both taqlīl and takṯīr. This in itself is unproblematical—
others held a similar view, but there is a difficulty with the source named by
al-Baṭalyawsī, al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-ḥurūf.
The work itself is well known and published, but nowhere does it mention
rubba. The problem is compounded firstly by the fact that the work also bore an
alternative title, Kitāb al-ʾalfāẓ wa-l-ḥurūf, and secondly that it appears to have
circulated in different versions. This has been studied by Larcher, with regard to
discrepancies in the wording of a passage dealing with the relative purity of the
Arabic spoken by the tribes during the period of the Islamic revelation. Larcher
argues that the differences arose when al-Fārābī modified the text for doctrinal
reasons, to give more prominence to Qurayš as speakers of the best Arabic.12
We can perhaps surmise that his view on rubba was known to al-Baṭalyawsī
from some version of the Ḥurūf which has not come to light.

ʾIṣlāḥ 259 he notes a disagreement over ḥattā between al-naḥwiyyūn al-mutaqaddimūn

qabl al-Ḫalīl wa-Sībawayhi, from which we must conclude that even this early group was
not united on every issue.
11 Although al-Baṭalyawsī tells us that the author “states clearly” (ṣarraḥa) that rubba exclu-
sively denotes takṯīr, this does not appear in the lemma for rubba in the printed edition
of Kitāb al-ʿayn, viii, 258.
12 Larcher (2006). Another version of this same text, from a manuscript said to be in al-
Fārābī’s own hand, is given by ʾAbū Ḥayyān al-Ġarnāṭī in Taḏkira 573–575.
82 carter

Al-Fārābī’s views on rubba are quoted by a later Andalusian grammarian,

ʾAbū Ḥayyān al-Ġarnāṭī (d. 754/1344), in his Irtišāf al-ḍarab.13 But it may be that
al-Baṭalyawsī has oversimplified the situation, if we can judge by al-Suyūṭī’s
paraphrase of another work of ʾAbū Ḥayyān,14 which tells us that al-Fārābī
and his school (ṭāʾifa) believed that rubba was predominantly for taqlīl but
rarely (nādiran) for takṯīr, an opinion favoured by al-Suyūṭī over the other seven
possibilities.
As it happens, al-Baṭalyawsī was the first Andalusian to cite al-Fārābī at all,
in a treatise on al-Fārābī’s enumeration of the Categories of Aristotle.15 We also
know that al-Baṭalyawsī was an admirer of al-Fārābī, whom he quotes with
approval in his commentary on the Jumal (ʾIṣlāḥ 65 on nouns, 73 on verbs, 77
on particles). But oddly he does not mention him in his Risāla fī l-ism wa-l-
musammā, which treats the ism and musammā from a markedly philosophical
perspective—perhaps al-Fārābī never dealt with it.

3 The Meaning of rubba

So much for the League Table, now it is time to look at al-Baṭalyawsī’s treatment
of rubba, beginning with some general observations:

13 Larcher (2006:118f.), citing Irtišāf 456. ʾAbū Ḥayyān does not mention al-Fārābī among
the grammarians named in Taḏkira 5–9 during a discussion of rubba, although he is
mentioned once elsewhere in that work (see previous note).
14 His commentary on the Tashīl of Ibn Mālik. I am grateful to my friend and colleague Kees
Versteegh for providing me with a copy of the relevant passage in the Irtišāf, not only for
its reference to al-Fārābī, but also because it contains (455) a list of grammarians which
is almost identical with that of al-Baṭalyawsī (Mas. 50, 138), lacking only the classification
into Major and Minor, and the names of the Baṣran Ibn al-Naḥḥās (!) and the Kūfan Muʿāḏ
al-Ḥarrāʾ. Furthermore al-Suyūṭī in Hamʿ ii, 25 has exactly the same list as the Irtišāf, with
both sources ascribing it to a work entitled al-Basīṭ, which has not yet been identified. The
obvious candidate is the Basīṭ of Ibn ʾAbī Rabīʿ al-ʾIšbīlī (d. 688/1289, see Sezgin 1984:93),
a commentary on the Jumal, where we might expect the author to raise the matter under
the topic of rubba, but he does not (see Basīṭ 859–872). Ironically the editor of the Basīṭ
(p. 859) quotes al-Baṭalyawsi’s own list in a footnote, though he leaves out the two ‘Minor’
grammarians., see Hamʿ ii, 25. In passing it should be noted that the edition of the Irtišāf
is not entirely reliable: p. 455 informs us that rubba denotes taʿlīl, instead of taqlīl, and
implausibly attributes a Kitāb al-ḥurūf to al-Fārisī.
15 Cruz Hernández (1992:784).
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 83

Mas’ala 50 is a virtual monograph, citing no fewer than 55 verses of poetry,

some of them more than once. Such a treatment of rubba is possibly the longest
in the literature.
At no time does al-Baṭalyawsī discuss the syntax or linguistic status of rubba:
his entire concern is the semantics and pragmatics of the word, and again this
may be unique. In passing we have to forget altogether that etymologically
rubba is related to words for very large quantities in other Semitic languages:
this aspect was never considered by the Arab grammarians.
The word rubba does not occur by itself in the Qurʾān, but appears once in
the form rubbamā in Sūrat al-Ḥijr (15), verse 2, rubbamā yawaddu llaḏīna kafarū
law kānū muslimīna, to which we shall return. As is clear from al-Baṭalyawsī’s
analysis, he is far more interested in the rhetorical features of rubbamā than
the eschatology of the verse.
In his handling of evidentiary verses (šawāhid) al-Baṭalyawsī is unusual in
two ways. Firstly he draws on his own repertoire of memorized dīwāns rather
than the inherited corpus of isolated verses found in grammatical works, and
perhaps to assert his independence he even neglects to mention, with one
exception, any of the nine verses involving rubba topics in the Kitāb, which
he must surely have known about.16
Secondly he self-consciously introduces lines from what he calls (Mas. 50,
145, 147) “poems of the moderns” (ʾašʿār al-muḥdaṯīn), among them ʾAbū Tam-
mām, al-Mutanabbī, Ḏū l-Rumma and Ibn al-Rūmī, seldom quoted by the
grammarians, who regarded pre-Islamic poetry as the only authoritative data.
For both these reasons most of the lines quoted by al-Baṭalyawsī are absent
from the standard reference works of šawāhid.
Here follows a summary of the contents of Mas. 50, with minimal citation
of the many examples from prose and poetry.
Al-Baṭalyawsī begins his Masʾala with a conventional Introduction (137),
thanking his questioner for asking, and then proceeds directly to the problem,
the paradox that rubba, which denotes taqlīl, is often used in contexts where
it can only denote takṯīr. He illustrates this by some prose examples and two
pre-Islamic verses, one by Imruʾ l-Qays:

17‫ل‬ ٍ ‫الا رب يـوٍم صا‬

ِ ‫لح لـك مـنـهما ٭ ولا سـيـما يـوٍم بـدارة جـلـجـ‬ [1]
َّ ُ

16 He quotes a verse rhyming in al-bašaru (Mas. 50 139, Kitāb i, 22 Derenbourg/i, 29 Būlāq),

and in Ḥulal 352 he quotes a verse rhyming in al-fami which appears in Kitāb i, 426
Derenbourg/i, 477 Būlāq. Neither of these is a direct šāhid for rubba, however.
17 Evidently a key verse for al-Baṭalyawsī, who quotes it three times in Mas. 50, 137, 150, 155.
84 carter

These, he says, have misled scholars into the false belief that rubba actually
does denote takṯīr, an error compounded by their misinterpretation of Sīb-
awayhi’s statement that “the meaning [of kam] is like the meaning of rubba”
(maʿnāhā ka-maʿnā rubba).18
He now introduces his League Table (138) and also paraphrases the views of
al-Fārābī, and concludes his introductory remarks by showing how Sībawayhi’s
words have been misinterpreted. However, even though the evidence suggests
that rubba was used for both taqlīl and takṯīr, he will not accept al-Fārābī’s
position that they are equivalent ( yataʿādal al-ʾamrāni): instead al-Baṭalyawsī
proposes to explain how takṯīr is a special extension of the original meaning of
taqlīl.
This he does in the form of three chapters (ʾabwāb) of varying length.
Chapter 1 (140–142) briefly asserts that the primary imposition (waḍʿ) of
rubba is to denote taqlīl and that of kam is to denote takṯīr, but, although
kam and rubba are antonyms, they can exchange meanings under certain cir-
cumstances, namely in metaphor, hyperbole, irony, sarcasm and other motifs
(ʾaġrāḍ). Since the purpose of this chapter is only to state the general principle,
al-Baṭalyawsī gives no examples of kam or rubba, but simply illustrates various
kinds of oxymoron, among them the following line of poetry:

19‫ك‬
ِ ‫[ فـلا تحسبوا دمعي لوجد وجدتـه ٭ فقد تدمع العينان من شدة الضح‬2]

Chapter 2 (142–150). On this basis al-Baṭalyawsī now demonstrates at length

the use of rubba in its authentic primary imposition of taqlīl, in quotations
from prose and verse, all chosen because they unambiguously imply taqlīl, for
example:

Several published translations are available. Here we offer a plain and literal version: “Has
there not been many a day which was good for you because of those two [fine ladies],
especially one particular day at Dāra Juljul!?”.
18 What Sībawayhi actually says is maʿnāhā maʿnā rubba (Kitāb i, 250 Derenbourg/i, 291
Būlāq, also i, 252 Derenbourg/i, 293 Būlāq) “the meaning [of kam] is the same as the
meaning of rubba”, but this must be taken in conjunction with Kitāb i, 300 Derenbourg/i,
345 Būlāq, where Sībawayhi says that rubba and kam have the same manzila, i. e. syntactic
status, because both denote an amount or quantity (ʿidda). It does not follow from this that
they are synonyms: the maʿnā they have in common is to denote an unspecified amount
or quantity, i.e. a grammatical, not lexical meaning.
19 Mas. 50, 141. The line may be translated as: “Do not suppose my weeping is for some grief
I feel, for the eyes may well shed tears from intense laughter”.
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 85

20‫ف‬
ُ ‫كـلـ‬ ْ ‫[ إنـي لأعـطـي سائلـي ولر بـما ٭ أ‬3]
ْ ‫كـلـف ما لا يـستـطاع فأ‬

It is no accident that this section contains so many poetic quotations, some

35 verses, because, as al-Baṭalyawsī was doubtless aware, in practice the use of
rubba for takṯīr is far more common than taqlīl, so he is here bombarding us
with heavy artillery in order to distract us from that fact.21
Chapter 3 (150–156) deals with cases where rubba has the meaning of takṯīr
figuratively (ʿalā ṭarīq al-majāz). This happens mostly with boasting, pride
and vaingloriouness (iftiḫār, faḫr, mubāhāh), as it is natural to boast of an
abundance rather than a paucity. Again the examples are chosen carefully,
with takṯīr as the only possible interpretation, and the verse of Imruʾ l-Qays
(quotation [1] above), is repeated (150). The feature is extremely common in
poetry, and it reflects the principle laid down already about the exchange of
meaning between opposites as described in Chapter 1.
Indeed the alternation is so free that either kam or rubba can be used for
takṯīr, and it is a compelling piece of evidence that al-Baṭalyawsī is able to quote
two consecutive lines in which kam and rubba both denote takṯīr:

ِ ‫[ فيا رب يـوم قد شـر بت بمشرب ٭ شفـيت به غيم الصدى بارٍد عذ‬4]

‫ب‬
22‫ب‬
ِ ‫وكـم لـيلـة قد بـتـها غـير آثـم ٭ بساجية الحجلين مفـعمة القـلـ‬

Here (153) al-Baṭalyawsī digresses to answer an objection: how, it is asked,

can rubba be used in such way, when in reality it is the antonym of kam? Al-
Baṭalyawsī’s answer reprises the argument he has already made above (Chap-
ter 1), that in some situations people say the opposite of what they mean. His
examples include laʿanahu llāhu mā ʾafṣaḥahu ‘God curse him, how eloquent
he is!’ (in praise); yā ʿāqilu ‘O, intelligent one!’ (to a stupid person); kam baṭalin
qatala zaydun ‘how many heroes Zayd has killed!’ (actually very few).

20 Mas. 143. “I give [generously] to anyone who asks me. Sometimes I am charged with more
than I can bear, and yet I undertake the task”.
21 Fleisch (1979:110, n. 3) cites this as the view of al-ʾAstarābāḏī (d. between 684–688/1285–
1289), Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 308.
22 Mas. 50, 152. These are lines 2 and 3 of a triplet which is also found in the ʾAmālī of al-Qālī,
2:63 with slight variations. We adopt al-Qālī’s reading sājiyati for šājiyati in the last line
in order to make sense of it, but obviously we must prefer al-Baṭalyawsī’s wa-kam laylatin
over al-Qālī’s wa-min laylatin. The lines may be rendered: “O, how many days there have
been when I have drunk a draught, cold and sweet, which cured me of my raging thirst.
And how many nights which I have spent without sin beside a girl, her [jingling] anklets
quiet and still, her heart filled to overflowing”.
86 carter

This time there is a more subtle development of the idea: by choosing

rubba, a term which properly denotes taqlīl, the speaker is following the same
principle as already defined above in using pejorative terms to praise someone,
because it is more eloquent (ʾablaġ) to use taqlīl to imply that the good qualities
are rare in everybody, than simply to say that those qualities are abundant in a
single person.23 The poetic example

24‫ل‬
ُ ‫كـ‬ ٍ ‫[ يا رب لـيلة هو‬5]
َ َ ‫ل قد سـر يت بها ٭ اذا تـضجـع عنها العاجز الو‬

illustrates this usage: when the poet boasts about how many (rubba) nights of
terror he has spent travelling, he means that what he has done often (takṯīr)
has seldom been done (taqlīl) by anybody else.
This leads al-Baṭalyawsī to some more abstract speculations (154), where
he invokes other dualities (he calls them nisbatān muḫtalifatān) which occur
elsewhere in the language. He compares the double sense of rubba with such
analogous phenomena (naẓīr) as the variation of the definite article in personal
names, where we sometimes (rubbamā!) find al-Ḥasan, treated as a ṣifa, there-
fore requiring formal definiteness, and sometimes (rubbamā) we find Ḥasan,
treated as a proper noun, lacking the article because it is definite by nature,
and, more delicately, the inner contradiction of using the verb ‘to know’ with
indirect questions, qad ʿalimtu ʾa-zaydun ʿindaka ʾam ʿamrun ‘I knew whether
Zayd or ʿAmr was with you’, evidently seeking information already known! In a
poetic example of this phenomenon:

25ُ ‫[ فـإن تـمـس مهجور الفـناء فـر بما ٭ أقام بـه بـعـد الـوفـود وفـود‬6]

he returns to the topic of rubba, here to show that rubbamā, which should
denote infrequency, here denotes frequency, scil. ‘And if [now you are dead]

23 The commentary of al-ʾArdabīlī (active in the 7th/13th century?) on the ʾUnmūḏaj of

al-Zamaḫšarī offers a fine specimen of casuistry in accounting for this: rubba rajulin
karīmin laqītuhu is paraphrased ‘The generous men that I have met, even though they
are numerous, are few by comparison with the [generous] ones I have not met’ (ʾinna l-
rijāla l-kirāma llaḏīna laqītuhum wa-ʾin kānū kaṯīrīna wa-lākinnahum bi-l-qiyāsi ʾilā llaḏīna
mā laqītuhum qalīlūn, Unmūḏaj, Arabic text 101; French translation 243).
24 Mas. 50, 154. “O how many a night of terror there has been, where I have journeyed on
while the sluggardly weakling slept through it”.
25 Mas. 151 and 155. The translation offered is purely ad hoc. Others quote this verse for a
different reason, to illustrate the use of conditional ʾin with a temporal sense ‘when, now
that’, as the translation reproduces.
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 87

your camping ground becomes deserted [of future guests], well, delegations
upon delegations of [past] guests have sometimes (i.e. often) resided there’.26
He concludes his examination of rubba in its secondary function of takṯīr
with an analysis of the psychological advantage of asserting paradoxically that
something is more than it should be by using a word (rubba) which signifies
that it is less than it should be. Thus (155) a man might boast of meeting many
scholars but, out of modesty, will say rubba ʿālimin qad laqītu ‘there are a few
scholars [whom] I have met’, which is more eloquent (ʾablaġ again), because a
person who humbles himself in this way will increase his merit, in the same way
that a person who elevates himself above his station will lose merit when tested
and found wanting. This, says al-Baṭalyawsī, is the general principle behind all
the previous instances of rubba being used to denote takṯīr.
This argument reaches its climax when it is applied (155) to the Qurʾānic rub-
bamā yawaddu llaḏīna kafarū law kānū muslimīna (Sūra 15/2). The rhetorical
status of the verse is compared to one in which a person disobeys a command
and is warned lā tuʿādinī fa-rubbamā nadimta ‘do not oppose me, for you may
well regret it’. Here the expected sense of rubba would be takṯīr, implying much
regret for the disobedience, but the intention is to say that ‘even if the regret
for this [disobedience] would have only been small, it would still be necessary
to refrain from what might lead to [that regret], so how much more [should it
be avoided] when that regret would be very great?’ (ʾanna l-nadāmata ʿalā hāḏā
law kānat qalīlatan la-wajaba ʾan yataḫallafa mā yuʾaddī ʾilayhā fa-kayfa wa-hiya
kaṯīratun?).27 In this way rubbamā still has its formal meaning of taqlīl but the
rhetorical impact is stronger than it would be if an explicit expression of takṯīr
were used. In that light the literal translation of the Qurʾānic verse should be
‘now and then those who disbelieve might wish that they had been Muslims’,
as a kind of veiled threat of something which in reality may happen often.
This a fortiori interpretation of the verse solves the problem for al-Baṭalyaw-
sī, but Western translators of the Qurʾān have had difficulties with it. Some
render rubbamā as ‘perhaps’ or a synonym thereof, ‘perchance, it may come,
it may be’, etc., but these modernisms are anachronistic (see further below).
Those who favour ‘many a time, sometimes, often, more than once’ are surely

26 Al-Baṭalyawsī is not quite so sure, as the interpretation has been disputed. He com-
promises by offering an alternative reading, that the abundance of arriving guests was
crammed into a short lifetime, that is, rubbamā here genuinely means ‘for not very long’.
27 Al-Baṭalyawsī has almost identical wording in his ʾInṣāf 106 (with var. yatajannaba for
yataḫallafa). The main problem for the commentators is the imperfect verb yawaddu, as
the perfect tense is normally required after rubbamā, hence the poem in no. [6] above is
often quoted as the paradigm in this context.
88 carter

closer to the mark, with the original sense of ‘in a few cases’ being intended to
imply ‘very often indeed’, as argued by al-Baṭalyawsī.28
With that al-Baṭalyawsī’s answer to the Masʾala is complete, and he rounds
it off (155) by quoting three poetic verses which have already been used before,
one of them twice (no. [1] above), and repeats his verdict that those who
interpret rubba here as intrinsically denoting takṯīr just because it does so
superficially have missed the point.
In conclusion some general aspects of the syntax of rubba and rubbamā will
be briefly discussed. They are not directly related to al-Baṭalyawsī’s animadver-
sions, but other grammarians found them interesting, and they are still relevant
to rubba today.

(1) It is significant that al-Baṭalyawsī nowhere considers that rubba might

belong to the category of the ʾaḍdād, nor, it seems, does any other grammarian.
This is in the end common sense: for the majority, including al-Baṭalyawsī,
rubba does not have two meanings, it always denotes taqlīl, but, under certain
conditions, it is understood as denoting takṯīr. In this, rubba resembles the
English word ‘few’: normally this means ‘not very many’, as in ‘I have written
a few books’, i.e. not a lot, but when you say, ‘I’ve had a few drinks’, it will be
taken to mean exactly the opposite.

(2) The status of the qualifying element after the rubba phrase, e.g. rubba rajulin
karīm (the inflection of karīm is left open for the time being) and rubba rajulin
laqītu/laqītuhu, is disputed by the Medieval grammarians. In fact they would
reject the obvious parsings ‘many a man is noble’ and ‘many a man have I
met’, on the grounds that the qualifying elements karīm and laqītu[hu] cannot
be predicates of rajul, unlike the exclamatory kam in kam ġulāmin laka qad
ḏahaba ‘how many a slave boy of yours has run away!’, kam rajulin ʾafḍalu minka
‘how many a man is more virtuous than you!’.29
The instinct of the Medieval grammarians is perfectly sound, since rubba
is an old exclamatory form,30 with the qualifying elements functioning as
attributive adjectives or asyndetic relative qualifiers (ṣifa) in what are originally
elliptical structures. The literal translation of rubba rajulin karīmin should
therefore be ‘O how many a noble man [there is]!’ with karīmin agreeing with

28 The issue of Qurʾān translation is not central to this paper, so individual translators will
not be identified.
29 These are from Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 252 Derenbourg/i, 293 Būlāq.
30 Some time ago (see Fleischer 1885–1888:i, 419, for early references) it was noted that rubba
is originally a vocative ‘O, how many a … there is!’.
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 89

rajulin, and of rubba rajulin laqītu/laqītuhu ‘O how many a man whom I have
met [there is]!’ with laqītu/laqītuhu as an attributive clause.31
In this regard it is revealing that Kouloughli translates one such sentence
rubba mraʾatin faʿalat kaḏā with such an attributive clause “il y a bien eu
quelque(s) femme(s) qui a/ont fait telle chose”,32 rather than a postposed
verbal predicate ‘many a woman/women has/have done such a thing’.33

(3) It is well known that rubba (unlike rubbamā) has disappeared altogether
from vernacular Arabic, but in contemporary written Arabic it may be that it
has been re-analyzed so that the second element is now indeed regarded as a
predicate, and accordingly we find rubba rajulin karīmun not karīmin. This is
difficult to demonstrate with the unvowelled corpus we usually have to deal
with in modern Arabic, but it happens that three editions of the Kitāb present
three different explicit vocalizations of this construction which indicate very
clearly that the system is now in chaos:

(i) Derenbourg i, 256: rubba tawkīdin lāzimin ḥattā yaṣīra ka-ʾannahu min
al-kalima
(ii) Būlāq i, 298: rubba tawkīdun lāzimun ḥattā yaṣīra ka-ʾannahu min
al-kalima
(iii) Hārūn ii, 171: rubba tawkīdin lāzimun ḥattā yaṣīra ka-ʾannahu min
al-kalima

The editors faced two problems here, whether rubba was in the metalanguage
or not, and what would be the corresponding inflection for each of these
possibilities.
For Derenbourg this is not a statement about rubba, and he has accordingly
vocalized the sentence in the correct Medieval form for the exclamatory sense,
lit. ‘O how many a permanently attached emphatic element there is, so much
so that it becomes like part of the word!’.
The Būlāq editor has read the sentence as a non-exclamatory statement
about rubba, “rubba is a permanently attached emphatic element, so much so

31 The syntactic uncertainty is manifest in the variation laqītu/laqītuhu, but that is a separate
issue which cannot be pursued here.
32 Kouloughli, Unmūḏaj 161 n. 4.
33 There is an interesting syntactical parallel with the categorical negative lā, in the (calque)
structure lā rajula yaqūlu ḏālika, where the verb phrase should be analyzed as a relative
clause “there is no man [in existence] who says that”, rather than as a postposed predicate
“no man says that”. Of course lā yaqūlu ḏālika rajulun is the more traditional pattern.
90 carter

that it becomes like part of the word”, with tawkīdun lāzimun vocalized as a
predicate. Prima facie this is not likely to be what Sībawayhi intended.
Hārūn reads it as a general statement, like Derenbourg, but vocalizes it
according to the modern convention as a subject (rubba tawkīdin) and a pred-
icate (lāzimun), with no exclamatory connotation: we can translate it directly
as “Many an emphatic element is permanently attached, so much so that it
becomes like part of the word”.

(4) Rubbamā has undergone a semantic shift in modern Arabic, written and
spoken, where it now has the dominant meaning of ‘perhaps, maybe’, which
it never had in Classical Arabic.34 Of the twenty three examples in Cantarino
(1974–1975:ii, 207–209, iii, 225–227), twenty are translated as ‘perhaps’ or
‘might’, and of the three remaining, two with the older meaning of ‘sometimes,
at times’ could be deliberate archaisms.35
The nearest we find in Classical Arabic is the meaning ‘occasionally, [only]
sometimes’: al-Baṭalyawsī himself gives us an illustration of rubbamā in that
sense from al-Mubarrad, rubbamā tataqaddamu mraʾatun fī ṣināʿatin wa-qalla-
mā yakūnu ḏālika ‘sometimes a woman excels in an art, but that will be sel-
dom’,36 which admittedly could be rendered ‘might well excel’ in a transitional
sense approaching ‘perhaps’, but a more typical usage is seen in an example
from al-Fārābī (not from Mas. 50, though al-Baṭalyawsī would probably have
been aware of it), rubbamā ʾaḥraqat wa-rubbamā lam tuḥriq, speaking of the
potential effect (quwwa) of fire on straw, ‘sometimes it would burn [the straw]
and sometimes it would not’.37
As an academic exercise this Masʾala exhibits a fully mature Islamic scholas-
ticism. It is a highly structured and coherent treatise which may be entirely
original in its length and in the number and selection of verses quoted.
As for its originality in other aspects, there are two issues to be considered.
Al-Baṭalyawsī may be drawing on an earlier tradition for the notion of the
regret (nadāma) experienced by the unbeliever on Judgment Day, as threat-
ened in Sūra 15/2, rubbamā yawaddu llaḏīna kafarū law kānū muslimīna. There

34 It is not easy to see how the passage referred to by Fleisch (1979:ii, 110, n. 3), demonstrates
that the meaning ‘perhaps’ was already noted by al-Zamaḫšarī, not least because the
passage in question is by al-ʾArdabīlī (see above, n. 23).
35 The final example is translated as an optative, iii, 226, rubbamā mannā llāhu ʿalayya ‘May
God bestow his favors upon me’, but rubbamā probably has the new meaning of ‘perhaps’
here too.
36 Mas. 50, 143. Here qallamā reinforces the taqlīl sense of rubbamā.
37 Kitāb al-Ḥurūf p. 33 (= latter half of §93).
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 91

are two precedents of which he was most likely aware. One is in the com-
mentary on this verse by al-Farrāʾ (Maʿānī ii, 82), who compares it with the
situation of a disobedient person who is told ʾa-mā wa-llāhi la-rubba nadā-
matin laka taḏkuru qawlī fīhā ‘By God, won’t there surely be some little regret
for you [when] you recall what I said about it!?’, because the speaker knows that
there certainly will be regret.38 A second precedent is in the commentary of al-
Zajjāj on this same verse (Maʿānī iii, 172f.), where he explains that it follows
the thinking of the ‘Arabs’ (i.e. Bedouin) when they utter threats (tahaddud):
in the equivalent paraphrase rubbamā nadima l-ʾinsān etc. the person making
the threat knows well that people generally have regrets for what they do, and
that there will be regret in each individual case, especially for serious misdeeds.
This fact is in itself a reason to refrain from the action, says al-Zajjāj, thus rub-
bamā here still denotes taqlīl. Al-Baṭalyawsī’s own argument is an elaboration
(it is perhaps too much to call it a conflation) of these two earlier approaches:
as we have seen above, he formally develops them into an exquisite a fortiori
argument to justify his interpretation of rubbamā.
A second issue of originality is the observation that rubba can be used
for takṯīr in circumstances of boasting or pride (see above in al-Baṭalyawsī’s
chapter 3). This notion is linked to his name by ʾAbū Ḥayyān al-Ġarnāṭī, as
quoted in Hamʿ ii, 25, where al-Suyūṭī tells us that the seventh opinion on rubba
is that “it denotes takṯīr in the situation of vaingloriousness and boasting ( fī
mawḍiʿ al-mubāhāh wa-l-iftiḫār), but taqlīl everywhere else, which is the view
of al-ʾAʿlam and Ibn al-Sīd”, i.e. al-ʾAʿlam al-Šantamarī (d. 476/1083) and our
al-Baṭalyawsī, who died forty-four years later. If we knew what al-Šantamarī’s
position on rubba was, we might be able to determine whether al-Baṭalyawsī
was influenced by it, and if so, how, but a quick check of the available sources
yielded no information, and the question must remain unanswered for the time
being.

4 Postscript

In all the above we have to keep in mind that etymologically rubba must
originally have denoted takṯīr, and that al-Baṭalyawsī’s argument is back to
front. In the words of one Western source, “it is curious to note that ‫ب‬
ّ َ ُ ‫ ر‬has

38 As a Kūfan, al-Farrāʾ would assume that rubba here denoted taqlīl, but he is actually more
concerned about the use of imperfect yawaddu (see n. 27), implying that the speaker
already knows that this is going to happen.
92 carter

passed, like the German manch, the Fr. maint, and Eng. many a …, from its
original signification of multitude, into one which is almost the opposite, viz.
not a great many”.39
This may be so, but the Arab scholars had good reason to disagree on the
sense of rubba. From their perspective the word had always been used in both
meanings, and although we might challenge their interpretation of particu-
lar lines of verse, we must accept the Sprachgefühl of the majority who knew
enough examples of rubba to conclude that it primarily denoted taqlīl, even
though it also occurred in the meaning of takṯīr. But a simple appeal to author-
ity, based on the professional standing of scholars, could not be intellectually
satisfying, and still less could it eliminate the divergent opinions tabulated in
al-Baṭalyawsī’s League Table, which is the starting point of his Masʾala.
What al-Baṭalyawsī did was to bring to bear the techniques of scholastic
argument to account logically for what he (and the majority) believed the
historical process to have been. He was not required to demonstrate what
happened—this is a matter of record—but to explain how and why it came
about. Given his ideological background it is not be expected that he would,
as Western scholars have done, simply note that this change of meaning is
universal (albeit in the other direction), though he does point out that such
complementary phenomena are not limited to rubba within the Arabic lan-
guage itself.
Where he engages with our Western perceptions is in his assumption that
language is an activity of rational speakers, and follows rational principles,
and therefore that the change of meaning in rubba correlates directly with
certain human motives. There is no need to look for modern equivalents to
this approach (terms such as pragmatics, psycholinguistics, discourse analysis
could easily be mapped retrospectively on to his argumentation), as the prin-
ciples of Islamic law provided a framework which had already been applied
in Arabic grammar from the very beginning, in the Kitāb of Sībawayhi, where
the rationality of both the speaker and listener underpins the criteria of cor-
rect speech. As developed explicitly by later grammarians, speech is only valid
when it issues from a speaker capable of forming an intention, thus exclud-
ing from the domain of grammar the irrational utterances of lunatics, minors,
those asleep, parrots and the like. And if this begins to look like a purely juridi-
cal approach to language, let us not forget that al-Baṭalyawsī is styled al-faqīh
(either by himself or the transmitter of the work) in the opening lines of parts 2
and 3 of his philological commentary al-Iqtiḍāb.

39 Wright ii, 216, reproducing Caspari, and adding the English ‘many a’.
a twelfth century league table of arab grammarians 93

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ʿIyyād ibn ʿĪd al-Ṯubaytī, Book 1 Beirut, 1986.
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Qālī, ʾAmālī = ʾAbū ʿAlī ʾIsmāʿīl ibn al-Qāsim al-Qālī al-Baġdādī, Kitāb al-ʾamālī. 3 vols.
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al-hawāmiʿ. Ed. by Badr al-Dīn al-Naʿsānī. 2 vols. Cairo, 1327.
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al-Jalīl ʿAbduh Šalabī. 5 vols. Beirut, 1988.
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Blind Spots in Raḍī l-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s Grammar
of Numerals*

Jean N. Druel

1 Introduction

The grammar of numerals is a fascinating chapter to explore in Arabic gram-

matical treatises because it is at the crossroad of many issues in these treatises.1
This, because numerals should theoretically apply to any other substantive in
the language, and that the nominal group made up of the numeral and its
counted object should be able to be in any nominal syntactic slot in the sen-
tence. The problem is that numerals have very different morphologies (adjec-
tives, substantives, compounds, plural-like) and this is incompatible with the
freedom of behavior that is expected from them.
The blind spot in the eye is the point where the visual nerve connects to
the retina. This point itself is blind but it enables vision. Any theory has their
blind spots, i.e. assumptions that make the theory possible but that are not
questioned per se by the author. They are interesting to unveil because they
reveal what it is that holds the theory together.
Raḍī l-Dīn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-ʾAstarābāḏī (d. 688/1289?) is a gram-
marian of whom little is known except maybe that he was Shiʿi from Tabaris-
tan (Tawfīq 1978:11; Mango 1979:721; Weipert 2009:118). He is the author of two
major commentaries on treatises by the Egyptian grammarian of Kurdish ori-
gin Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249; Fleisch 1979:781), Šarḥ al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw, which is
devoted to syntax (ʾiʿrāb), and Šarḥ al-Šāfiya fī ʿilmay al-taṣrīf wa-l-ḫaṭṭ, which
is devoted to morphology and calligraphy (Larcher 1989:109 f.).

* I am very grateful to Manuel Sartori and to professors Pierre Larcher and Jonathan Owens for
their valuable comments on this paper. To be sure, I am not a specialist of al-ʾAstarābāḏī. The
incentive for my research was to trace the developments of the grammar of numerals in later
grammarians. All mistakes in this paper are only imputable to my impertinence to dare to
deal with such a difficult author as al-ʾAstarābāḏī.
1 For the treatment of the syntax of numerals in the standard reference grammars of Arabic see
Howell (2003: iv, 1423–1501); Wright (1967: i, 253–264; ii, 234–249); Fleisch (1990: i, 506–524).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_006

blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 97

In this article, I will explore Raḍī l-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s grammar of numer-

als in his commentary on al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw, in order to reveal its logic and
its blind spots. Although al-ʾAstarābāḏī is only the author of the commen-
tary, I will mention only his name as source of the views he expresses. It is
however more than obvious that in many cases the paternity of these views
should be attributed to Ibn al-Ḥājib, rather than to al-ʾAstarābāḏī. This is espe-
cially true of the mere outline of the commentary. Moreover, in his commen-
tary, al-ʾAstarābāḏī extensively quotes Ibn al-Ḥājib’s own commentary on his
Kāfiya, as well as Ibn Ḥājib’s commentary on al-Zamaḫšarī’s Mufaṣṣal (Larcher
1991:370).
There are to this day at least nine editions of this commentary:2

i. Two (different?) Iranian editions in Teheran dated 1271/1854–1855 and

1275/1858–1859;3 Sarkīs (1928:i, 941) mentions two (different?) Persian
editions dated 1268/1851–1852 and 1271/1854–1855
ii. An Ottoman edition dated 1275/1858–1859 in Istanbul, reprinted in Istan-
bul in 1305/1887–1888 and 1310/1893, and in Beirut in 1969(?); Sarkīs (1928:
i, 941) mentions a (different?) edition dated 1292/1875–1876, which could
have also been printed in Istanbul, according to Larcher (1989:110)
iii. An Indian edition dated 1282/1865–1866 in Delhi;4 and a (different?) edi-
tion dated 1882 in Lucknow5
iv. An Egyptian edition published in Būlāq in 1299/1881–1882
v. Two (different?) Russian editions published in Kazan in 1885 and 1896
mentioned only by Sarkīs (1928:i, 941)
vi. A Libyan edition by Yūsuf Ḥasan ʿUmar dated 1392–1398/1973–1978, re-
published in Tehran in 1373 sh/1994–1995, and reprinted in 1392 sh/2013–
2014
vii. A Saudi edition by Ḥasan Muḥammad ʾIbrāhīm al-Ḥifẓī and Yaḥyā Bašīr
Miṣrī in Riyadh dated 1414/1993

2 This list is based on Larcher (1989), to which I added the two Iranian re-editions of the Libyan
edition (no. vi) and the three editions published after 1989 (nos. vii, viii, ix).
3 Tawfīq (1978:35f.) says that according to Van Dyke (1896:301) there are two Iranian editions
dated 1271 and 1275. These are mentioned in Brockelmann (1943–1949/1996, si, 532) but not
in Van Dyke (1896).
4 Or dated 1280 in Lucknow, according to Van Dyke (1896:306).
5 Brockelmann (1943–1949/1996, si, 532), Fleisch (1961–1979:ii, 41). Tawfīq (1978:36) says that
this second Indian edition is dated “around 1882” and Sarkīs (1928:i, 941) gives the date of
1880.
98 druel

viii. A Lebanese edition by Émile Badīʿ Yaʿqūb in Beirut dated 1419/1998

ix. An Egyptian edition by ʿAbd al-ʿĀl Sālim Makram dated 2000 in Cairo.

According to Larcher (1989:112), the Libyan edition by Yūsuf Ḥasan ʿUmar is

of very poor quality. He says that the editor has apparently ‘corrected’ the
Ottoman edition, based on his own intuition. As for the Egyptian edition, it
is based on five manuscripts and on both the Ottoman and the Libyan editions
(Gilliot 2004, no. 19, 209f.). In this article, I will quote Makram’s Egyptian
edition. This edition, the Ottoman edition, and the Iranian reprint of the Libyan
edition, are the only three editions I had access to.
Fleisch is probably the first Orientalist to have praised the high level of
sophistication of al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s grammatical thinking, “car souvent il ne se
contente pas de citer les paroles mêmes de ses devanciers, mais repense, ré-
sume les questions et donne des raccourcis vigoureux” (Fleisch 1961–1979:i,
41). He is considered by Bohas, Guillaume, and Kouloughli (1989:260) and Ver-
steegh (1989:259) to be a summit in the Arab scholastic grammatical tradition,
a synthesis of the linguistic reflection, subtle and sophisticated. I will present
al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s theory on numerals after having recalled three different gram-
matical frames in which grammarians have interpreted numerals in Arabic
before him.

2 Three Different Solutions, Three Different Kinds of Problems

In Cambridge in 2012, I presented the three following frames, in which Sīb-

awayhi (d. 180/796?), al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898) and Ibn al-Sarrāj (d. 316/928)
analyze the grammar of numerals. For more details on these three frames, see
Druel (2012), and its summary in Druel (2015).

2.1 Sībawayhi
Sībawayhi is visibly trying to find a unique frame that would account for all
numerals. He chooses the frame of the “adjectives that resemble the active
participles” (al-ṣifāt al-mušabbaha bi-l-fāʿil, Kitāb i, 86.20–21), of which nu-
merals can be considered to be a sub-case. Considered separately, numerals
have very different behaviors, but considered collectively, all numerals behave
like the adjectives that resemble the active participles. Compare for example
ḫamsatu ʾawlādin ‘five boys’ with jamīlu l-wajhi ‘beautiful of face’ (annexa-
tional construction); al-ʾawlādu l-ḫamsatu ‘the five boys’ with al-wajhu l-jamīlu
‘the beautiful face’ (appositional construction); al-ʾawlādu ḫamsatun ‘the boys
are five’ with al-wajhu jamīlun ‘the face is beautiful’ (predicational construc-
blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 99

tion); and ʿišrūna waladan ‘twenty boys’ with jamīlun wajhan ‘beautiful of
face’ (specifying construction).
Not all numerals can be used in all four constructions, but when consid-
ered collectively, they behave like jamīl ‘beautiful’, an adjective resembling the
active participle. More precisely, all numerals can be found in the predicative
and appositional constructions, but the annexational and specifying construc-
tions are in complementary distribution, depending on whether numerals are
annexable or not. Annexable numerals can be found in annexational con-
structions (ṯalāṯatu ʾaṯwābin ‘three garments’; Kitāb i, 86.9), but the specifying
construction ḫamsatun waladan ‘five boys’ is problematic (Kitāb i, 87.8; 232.3;
253.3f.). For non-annexable numerals, the specifying construction (ʿišrūna dir-
haman ‘twenty dirhams’; Kitāb i, 85.5) is compulsory.
This interpretation of Sībawayhi is highly speculative and it is not without
difficulties. The reason is that Sībawayhi believes that the specifying construc-
tion has a verbal origin, whereas the three other constructions have a nom-
inal origin. Numerals are ‘substantives’ (ʾasmāʾ) and some of them, the non-
annexable ones, are found in a verbal-like construction. The main problem can
thus be formulated as follows: where does the residual verbal syntactic strength
in non-annexable numerals come from? Active participles derive their syn-
tactic strength from the verb. This strength gives them freedom to put their
complement in the dependent form, as in ḍāribun zaydan ‘hitting Zayd’ (Kitāb
i, 80.2). They are strong enough to be postponed after their dependent form
complement, as in ʾanta zaydan ḍāribun ‘you are hitting Zayd’ (Kitāb i, 54.8),
and they can bear the definite article, which is considered in this case a shorter
form of the relative pronoun, as in hāḏā l-ḍāribu zaydan ‘this is the one hitting
Zayd’ (Kitāb i, 77.8).
In the case of the adjectives resembling the active participle, their syntac-
tic strength also has a verbal origin, since they analogically correspond to the
active participles of the verbs of the same root, just like ḥasan ‘beautiful’ ana-
logically corresponds to *ḥāsin, the non-existent active participle of the verb
ḥasuna/yaḥsunu ‘to be beautiful’. However, they have less strength than the
active participles, which is clear from the fact that they cannot be postponed
in the specifying construction. It is possible to say ḥasanun wajhan6 ‘beauti-
ful of face’ but not *wajhan ḥasanun. They can also bear the definite article,

6 The expression is not found literally in the Kitāb but it is the axis around which the demon-
stration is built. Carter (1972:486) believes that Sībawayhi considered this expression to be
incorrect in Arabic and analogically replaced by ʿišrūna dirhaman ‘twenty dirhams’ in the
demonstration. I believe this is an over-interpretation of the absence of the expression in the
Kitāb.
100 druel

as in al-ḥasanu wajhan ‘the beautiful of face’ (Kitāb i, 83.18), al-ḥasanu l-wajha

‘the beautiful of face’ (Kitāb i, 84.4) and al-ḥasanu l-wajhi ‘the beautiful of face’
(Kitāb i, 84.9).
In the case of non-annexable numerals, where does their verbal-like syntac-
tic strength come from? Sībawayhi does not mention a verbal origin for numer-
als and leaves us with a comparison between the numerals and the adjectives
resembling the active participle that would be only at a surface level. Numerals
cannot be postponed, as in *dirhaman ʿišrūna, and it is not clear whether they
can bear the definite article, as in al-ʿišrūna dirhaman ‘the twenty dirhams’.
A second problem that Sībawayhi does not address is why it would be
‘lighter’ to put the counted object in the singular above ‘ten’ and not between
‘three’ and ‘ten’? It seems to be obvious for him that above ‘ten’, it would be
‘heavy’ to have a plural counted object, but he does not comment on this any
further (Kitāb i, 85.5–7).

2.2 Al-Mubarrad
The way al-Mubarrad deals with numerals and their counted object is very
different from that of Sībawayhi. He distinguishes between ‘basic’ numerals
(‘three’ to ‘ten’) and ‘subsidiary’ numerals (‘eleven’ to ‘one thousand’) (Muq-
taḍab ii, 165.13f.). Basic numerals do not need a specifier (tamyīz), they are
neither “vague” (mubhama) nor “bearing tanwīn” (munawwana) (Muqtaḍab
ii, 164.4–5). On the contrary, subsidiary numerals (‘eleven’ to ‘one thousand’)
need a tamyīz (Muqtaḍab ii, 144.7; 164.5f.; 165.2; 13; 167.10–12; 169.5–10; iii,
32.6f.; 38.3–5). These subsidiary numerals are themselves subdivided into series
that behave differently: ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’ and decades are mubhama and
munawwana, whereas hundreds and thousands are not munawwana (but are
probably mubhama). Here, munawwana practically means ‘non-annexable’.
The result of this Porphyrian subdivision is that numerals are divided into
three categories: basic numerals (which are all annexable), annexable sub-
sidiary numerals and non-annexable subsidiary numerals. Each category has a
different behavior and the only point they have in common is that they have the
same semantic relationship with their counted object, which can be expressed
by the preposition min as in partitive ḫamsatun min al-kilāb ‘five (of the genus)
dogs’ (Muqtaḍab ii, 158.6–159.1) and ʿišrūna min al-darāhimi ‘twenty (of the
genus) dirhams’ (Muqtaḍab iii, 66.9f.). It is clear that al-Mubarrad only deals
here with the most difficult issue, which is the complementary distribution of
the annexable and specifying constructions.
Although it would have been enough to separate between annexable and
non-annexable numerals, the division that al-Mubarrad introduces between
basic and subsidiary numerals enables him to account for the difference be-
blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 101

tween plural counted objects (after basic numerals) and singular counted ob-
jects (after subsidiary numerals). Only the singular counted object is called a
tamyīz, whether it surfaces in the dependent or in the oblique form. The cate-
gory that relates to tamyīz is that of mubham ‘vague’ substantives, a subcategory
of substantives that are semantically deficient and that need a specifier. Sub-
sidiary numerals need a tamyīz, whereas basic numerals do not. Al-Mubarrad
is not explicit about whether hundreds and thousands are mubhama, but it
would be consistent with his own theory to consider them so since they need
a tamyīz.
Al-Mubarrad’s theory does not need to address Sībawayhi’s difficulty about a
residual verbal syntactic strength in non-annexable numerals. The distinction
between basic and subsidiary numerals also makes it possible to distinguish
between a plural counted object after the former and a singular counted object
after the latter, although this is not a justification. For al-Mubarrad, it is enough
to say that different categories behave differently.7 In the end, this question also
loses its urgency in his theory, if compared to that of Sībawayhi.
But al-Mubarrad’s theory also has its drawbacks. The first one, if compared
with Sībawayhi, is that there is no syntactic consistency among numerals. Each
series behaves differently, and therein lies the consistency: it is consistent for
different series to behave differently. This is so frequent in the grammar of
numerals that it can be called a ‘differentiation principle’.
The second difficulty is that although tamyīz is primarily described as a
dependent form complement, it also surfaces in the oblique form after annex-
able subsidiary numerals, i.e. hundreds and thousands. There is a shift in the
description of tamyīz. In order to maintain some consistency among subsidiary
numerals, al-Mubarrad also calls tamyīz the oblique case of the counted object
after hundreds and thousands. The remaining characteristics of tamyīz is thus
its singular and its meaning (partitive min ‘of, from’).8
If Sībawayhi’s theory could be labelled a speculative one, al-Mubarrad’s
theory could probably be labelled an atomistic one, due to the numerous
examples and counter-examples he gives, and his use of differentiation as an
explanatory tool (the fact that words belong to different categories seems to be
a sufficient justification for their different behavior).

7 See for example the justification for the oblique form tamyīz after hundreds (Muqtaḍab ii,
167.10), or the justification for the fact that, unlike miʾa ‘hundred’, ʾalf ‘thousand’ behaves like
any other counted object (Muqtaḍab ii, 169.9).
8 In the end, the specifying construction and the annexational construction are both cases of
taḫṣīṣ. See Sartori’s contribution in this volume.
102 druel

2.3 Ibn al-Sarrāj

Ibn al-Sarrāj’s grammar is organized according to the parts of speech (verbs,
nouns, particles) and the endings they can take (independent, dependent). He
distinguishes between two types of nouns with a dependent ending (manṣū-
bāt): verbal and non-verbal complements. Tamyīz is one type of dependent
form complement, and it can be of two types, verbal and non-verbal, depending
on the word it specifies (ʾUṣūl i, 222–228). Numerical tamyīz belongs to the
latter type. Unlike al-Mubarrad, Ibn al-Sarrāj says that all numerals are in need
of a specifier (ʾUṣūl i, 311.2). This tamyīz surfaces in the oblique form after
annexable numerals and in the dependent form after non-annexable numerals
(ʾUṣūl i, 311.2–5). This is possible because annexation (ʾiḍāfa) has two meanings,
possession (ʾUṣūl i, 53.8), as in baytu zaydin ‘Zayd’s house’, and species ( jins;
ʾUṣūl i, 53.17), as in raṭlu zaytin ‘a rotl of oil’. The ‘species’ meaning is equivalent
to the particle min (ʾUṣūl i, 315.11–13). This meaning of the relationship between
numerals and their counted object is true for all numerals, which was already
al-Mubarrad’s teaching.
Just like al-Mubarrad, Ibn al-Sarrāj only deals with the complementary dis-
tribution of the annexational and specifying constructions, and not the other
constructions. The difference is that al-Mubarrad would not call tamyīz the
counted object if it is muḍāf ʾilayh after a numeral between ‘three’ to ‘ten’,
but only if it is after hundreds and thousands. Al-Mubarrad had to distinguish
between basic and subsidiary numerals in order to account for the difference
between plural and singular counted objects, since his definition of tamyīz
required the singular. By defining an ad hoc category that applies only to numer-
als, Ibn al-Sarrāj avoids this issue. It is part of the definition of numerical tamyīz
that it surfaces in the plural after three to ten and in the singular above ten.
The definition that Ibn al-Sarrāj gives of tamyīz has clearly no verbal ori-
gin and the dependent form is only there because some numerals cannot be
annexed. The dependent form of this complement is only verbal at a surface
level, but there is no verbal-like strength in the numeral that governs it. He also
explicitly says (ʾUṣūl i, 324.7–9) that numerals cannot be compared to the active
participles.
The main problem of Ibn al-Sarrāj’s theory is the fact that numerical tamyīz
is inserted in a chapter devoted to dependent form complements although
the oblique form is the base-form. It is only because some numerals are not
annexable that their tamyīz has to surface in the dependent form. In a grammar
organized according to the ending forms, there is no place for transversal
categories. This is the case of many issues on which Ibn al-Sarrāj keeps silent:
the gender of numerals, the gender disagreement between numerals and their
counted objects, the gender disagreement between the two parts of compound
blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 103

cardinal between ‘thirteen’ and ‘nineteen’, the verbal value of ordinals. Al-
Mubarrad faced the same problem, but it was less obvious because his grammar
is not organized according to the ending forms. This leaves him more freedom
to deal with a greater number of issues in any part of his Muqtaḍab.
Another point that was implied in al-Mubarrad’s grammar and that becomes
prominent in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s grammar is that there is no one-to-one correspon-
dence between syntax and semantics. For example, annexation has two mean-
ings, possession and species, as mentioned above. And in turn, species can
be expressed by two different constructions, annexational (ḫamsatu awlādin
‘five boys’) and specifying (ʿišrūna waladan ‘twenty boys’). Numerical tamyīz
expresses the species, using either construction. In exactly the same manner,
there is no one-to-one correspondence between morphology and syntax. For
example, -ʿašara ‘–teen’ is compared to a compensatory nūn in some chapters
and to a tāʾ marbūṭa in others, depending on the needs of the demonstration.
Ibn al-Sarrāj simplifies al-Mubarrad’s subdivision by creating an ad hoc
category of numerical tamyīz that avoids two problems met by al-Mubarrad:
the number of the counted object and the fact that some numerals are ‘vague’
(mubham), while others are not. To be sure, these problems are not ‘solved’,
they simply disappear, just like most of Sībawayhi’s problems disappear in al-
Mubarrad’s and in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s theories.

3 Al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s Solution

3.1 Numerals Have an Adjectival Origin, Semantically and Syntactically

In his commentary on Ibn al-Ḥājib’s (d. 646/1249) Kāfiya fī l-naḥw, al-ʾAstarābā-
ḏī presents an original synthesis of the grammar of numerals. Its most striking
characteristic is the fact that al-ʾAstarābāḏī considers that in their relationship
with their counted objects, numerals originally have an adjectival meaning
(maʿnā l-waṣf ), as in ṯalāṯatu rijālin ‘three men’, whose ‘base’ (ʾaṣl)9 is rijālun
ṯalāṯatun, meaning rijālun maʿdūdatun bi-hāḏā l-ʿadad ‘men counted by this
numeral’ (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 239.f.). Al-Mubarrad had already mentioned this

9 Literally ‘origin’, but probably referring here to an underlying structure, both semantic and
syntactic. Larcher (2002–2003:65) translates ʾaṣl by ‘base’, understood as logical rather than
historical. See Larcher (2014) on ʾaṣl in this interpretation. Commenting on Ibn Yaʿīš’ (d. 643/
1245) Šarḥ al-mulūkī fī l-taṣrīf, Bohas (1984:23–31) says that ʾaṣl can refer to two different things:
the root and the phonic representation of the verb. Ibn Yaʿīš thus calls q-w-l the ʾaṣl of *qawala,
which in turn is the ʾaṣl of qāla. In all cases, ʾaṣl refers to an underlying form, not to the surface
form.
104 druel

semantic equivalence (Muqtaḍab iii, 341.6), but for al-ʾAstarābāḏī it seems

to reveal an underlying syntactic and semantic structure (which he probably
refers to when he speaks of ʾaṣl), which has effects at the surface level, in
particular in the gender agreement and disagreement between numerals and
their counted objects. This is probably the most complicated point in his theory
of numerals. Here is the outline of the demonstration.
Understood as adjectives, numerals agree in gender and number with their
counted objects, thus complying with the general rule. However, since all plural
nouns are made feminine singular (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 239.11f.), numerals agree
in the feminine singular, as in rijālun ṯalāṯatun ‘three men’. This is proved by
the fact that it means rijālun maʿdūdatun bi-hāḏā l-ʿadad ‘men counted by this
numeral’ (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 239.16f.). However, masculine nouns in the plu-
ral have been deprived of their tāʾ marbūṭa, as in rijāl ‘men’. Their feminine
marker has been deleted (ḥuḏifat). In exactly the same manner, the plural noun
niswa ‘women’ is a feminine singular with a deleted feminine marker. How-
ever, this deletion is not visible, since niswa actually carries a tāʾ marbūṭa. The
fact that, unlike in rijāl, the deletion of the feminine marker is not visible in
niswa makes it masculine, or in al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s words, “niswa has become like
a masculine because of the hiding of its feminine marker” ( fa-ṣāra ‘niswa’ ka-
ʾannahu muḏakkar li-ḫafāʾ taʾnīṯihi; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 243.9). However, what is
actually hidden is the deletion of the feminine marker, not the marker itself.
The paradoxical consequence is that niswa agrees in the masculine singular,
as in niswatun ṯalāṯun ‘three women’. This behavior is further justified by the
fact that “something is not affected by its equivalent the way it is affected by
its opposite” (li-ʾanna l-šayʾ lā yanfaʿil ʿan miṯlihi infiʿālahu ʿan ḍiddihi; Šarḥ al-
Kāfiya iv, 243.8f.). This rule is very close to the ‘differentiation principle’ we
found in al-Mubarrad’s grammar. Because they are different, rijāl and niswa
should behave differently. This gender ‘agreement’ rule is true for numerals
between ‘three’ and ‘ten’. Other numerals present no difficulty in this matter
(Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 246.9–19): ‘one’ and ‘two’ regularly agree in gender and num-
ber, as do ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’; ‘thirteen’ to ‘nineteen’ display mixed behavior,
partly ‘analogous’ (qiyās) and partly not. Al-ʾAstarābāḏī does not explore this
question any further. As for decades, hundreds and thousands, there is no prob-
lem since they have only one form in the masculine and in the feminine.
An immediate consequence of this behavior is that the ending tāʾ marbūṭa
in numerals in their ‘absolute form’ (muṭlaq al-ʿadad), as when enumerating
‘one, two, three’ or when saying ‘six is the double of three’, is not ‘part of their
pattern’ (lāzima; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 243.1). It is an adjectival feminine marker.
This lengthy demonstration (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 239.6–243.11) is probably the
key to the grammar of numerals in al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s theory. Indeed, once he
blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 105

has proven that all numerals behave like regular ‘derived adjectives’ (ṣifāt muš-
taqqa) at an ‘underlying level’ (ʾaṣl), he can tackle the issue of the complemen-
tary distribution of the specifying and annexational constructions. However, in
order to understand the next demonstration, one needs to refer to his general
syntactic theory.

3.2 Numerals Usually Surface in Other Slots Than Their Own

Another striking characteristic of al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s grammar lies in the clear dis-
tinction he draws between the predicative elements (ʿumad, sg. ʿumda ‘support,
main issue’) and the non-predicative ones ( faḍalāt, sg. faḍla ‘remnant, sur-
plus’). They correspond to two ‘grammatical slots’ (maḥall): rafʿ ‘independent
slot’, which is the base-form for ʿumad; and naṣb ‘dependent slot’, which is the
base-form for faḍalāt (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 49.7–19).10
As for the nouns in the oblique form (majrūrāt), they are of two types. The
first type is a faḍla that surfaces in the oblique form because it comes after
a preposition (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 49.20f.), as in marartu bi-zaydin ‘I passed by
Zayd’ (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 264.14). In this case, zayd is a “non-predicative element
introduced by a preposition” ( faḍla bi-wāsiṭat ḥarf ), “in the dependent slot”
(manṣūb al-maḥall). The second type is because a ʿumda or a faḍla has been
annexed to it (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 60.14–16), as in ḍarabanī ġulāmu zaydin ‘Zayd’s
servant hit me’ and ḍarabtu ġulāma zaydin ‘I hit Zayd’s servant’. In the first
example, ġulām ‘servant’ is a ʿumda (the subject) and it is annexed to zayd, and
in the second example, ġulām is a faḍla (direct object) and it is also annexed
to zayd. What is confusing is that Ibn al-Ḥājib calls muḍāf ʾilayh a noun in the
oblique form after a preposition (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 264.6f.), following Sībawayhi
(cf. Kitāb i, 177.10f.), as al-ʾAstarābāḏī reminds us (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 264.8–11). It
is however clear for al-ʾAstarābāḏī that the two constructions are completely
different, since the oblique form after a preposition (al-majrūr bi-ḥarf ) is a
faḍla, whereas the muḍaf ʾilayh (in the modern sense of the second term of
an annexation) has no slot in the sentence, it only completes either a ʿumda or
a faḍla.
Between ‘three’ and ‘ten’, the base form is rijālun ṯalāṯatun ‘three men’, as
mentioned above. The counted object is described (mawṣūf ) by an adjective
and the numeral ‘agrees’ in number and gender (all plural nouns are feminine
singular; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 242.9). For the sake of lightness (taḫfīf ; Šarḥ al-

10 See Bohas, Guillaume, and Kouloughli (2006:64–72) for more insight in the difference
between government and predication, two competing models that account for form
endings in Arabic grammatical theory.
106 druel

Kāfiya iv, 239.20), the numeral has been annexed to its counted object in the
expression ṯalāṯatu rijālin ‘three men’, but nothing changes as far as agreement
is concerned, the numeral still being in the feminine singular and the counted
object in the plural, even though it is now muḍāf ʾilayh. Its syntactic slot has
changed, it cannot be a faḍla any more, it only “completes what precedes it”
(min tamām al-ʾawwal; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 257.2). By resorting to the lightness
argument, al-ʾAstarābāḏī simply avoids further discussion.
Between ‘eleven’ and ‘ninety-nine’, the base form (ʾaṣl) is always the same:
darāhimu ʿišrūna ‘twenty dirhams’ (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 241.11), the counted object
is mawṣūf, but the numeral does not agree in number and gender because
of its specific morphology (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 241.12–17). For these numerals,
annexation is not possible because of their morphology, so when the numeral
was put first it could not be annexed to its counted object. Instead, the counted
object has now the status of a faḍla, it does not simply complete what precedes,
as was the case for the counted object after ‘three’ to ‘ten’, but it has a slot
(maḥall) in the sentence, whose meaning is specification (tamyīz). In this case,
the plural is not necessary any more, it is understood (al-jamʿiyya mafhūma;
Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 257.5). By taking the shape of a faḍla (ṣūrat al-faḍalāt), the
counted object keeps its mawṣūf base ( yurāʿā ʾaṣluhu ḥīna kāna mawṣūfan;
Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 257.7).
The point at stake here is not completely obvious. It seems that al-ʾAstarā-
bāḏī draws a clear distinction between counted objects after numerals from
‘three’ to ‘ten’, which lose their syntactic slot in the sentence by becoming
muḍāf ʾilayh, i.e. merely completing what precedes them, and counted objects
after numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘ninety-nine’, which acquire a new syntactic
slot, namely that of a tamyīz. In other words, the base form is the same for all
counted objects and their numeral (the counted object is mawṣūf, it has a slot
in the sentence, and the numeral is its ṣifa), but when they surface, they come
in two different structures. In ṯalāṯatu rijālin ‘three men’, the counted object
rijāl loses its grammatical slot, whereas in ʿišrūna dirhaman ‘twenty dirhams’,
the counted object dirham keeps a grammatical slot in the sentence.
For hundreds and thousands, their specifier is in the oblique form and in
the singular. Al-ʾAstarābāḏī simply says that the oblique form is the base form
(ʿalā l-ʾaṣl; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 257.17). As for the singular, he says that when
the Arabs realized that the singular was sufficient to express a plural for the
dependent form tamyīz in the numerals that precede hundreds and thousands,
they kept it (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 257.19–258.1). He adds that it is not rare for a
singular to refer to a plural meaning. He then at length comments the Qurʾānic
exceptions of a plural tamyīz in the dependent form (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 258.5–
259.17).
blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 107

In the end, the whole demonstration may not seem very convincing, except
if we understand that the syntactic slots are efficient per se in al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s
theory: the mere change in the position of a word in the sentence has efficient
implications for its declension and behavior. It is as if the slots in the sentence
had an inherent functionality. In the case of the numeral and its counted object,
it seems that his method is first to ensure that numerals fit the general rules of
the language (they can be considered as adjectives at an underlying level), and
then to explain the changes that happen at surface level due to any change in
their position in the sentence.

3.3 Numerals and the Theory of ʿamal

In order to have a better view of al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s grammatical theory of numer-
als, we have to consider his theory of ʿamal, which he presents in a chap-
ter devoted to declension in general (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 39–87), because this is
where the originality of his views resides. These views are presented in Tawfīq
(1978:191–201). As we have mentioned above, al-ʾAstarābāḏī draws a clear dis-
tinction between ʿumad and faḍalāt. In order to be speech (kalām), an utter-
ance needs a minimum of two ʿumdas (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 17.2–8). Faḍalāt can be
added to these core elements, either with or without a preposition. Lastly, each
of these elements, ʿumad and faḍalāt, can be either annexed to one or more
muḍāf ʾilayh, which will surface in the oblique form, or described by a qual-
ificative. This applies to the underlying level. Of course, at the surface level,
these elements can appear in a different form, each element can be implicit, or
it can be represented by a phrase or a full sentence. We will not enter into all
these possible cases.
We have already mentioned what happens to numerals and their counted
object when they are moved from one slot to another, for example, when the
numeral is annexed to its counted object instead of being its qualificative,
or when the numeral cannot be annexed. The question that kept previous
grammarians occupied is that of the ʿamal of numerals, in the specifying
relationship in particular. Al-ʾAstarābāḏī explains that ultimately the ʿāmil is
the speaker (al-mutakallim; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 43.15; see also Peled 1994:151–153).
Words are modified in their endings, the agent (ʿāmil) of this modification is the
speaker and the tool (ʾāla) he uses is declension (ʾiʿrāb). Al-ʾAstarābāḏī adds that
the tool and the agent are like the knife and the person who cuts (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya
i, 43.14), which cannot be separated in their action. But “the grammarians
have equated the agent and the efficient cause, although it is only a sign, not
the cause, this is why they called it ‘agent’” (al-nuḥāt jaʿalū l-ʿāmil ka-l-ʿilla
l-muʾaṯṯira wa-ʾin kāna ʿalāma lā ʿilla wa-li-hāḏā sammawhu ʿāmilan; Šarḥ al-
Kāfiya i, 43.14–16). The result is that he distinguishes between the ‘grammatical
108 druel

agent’ (al-ʿāmil al-naḥwī) and the ‘real agent’ (al-ʿāmil fī l-ḥaqīqa; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya
i, 54.12), the former being only a ‘sign’ (ʿalāma) of the latter, which is the speaker.
See Peled (1994:155f.) for more insight in the difference between the functional
principle and the immediate grammatical ʿāmil. In the case of al-ʾAstarābāḏī,
the functional principle is clearly the enunciation itself.
To summarize, the (grammatical) agent on the subject is the verb, because
the verb transformed the subject in the second part of the speech (Šarḥ al-
Kāfiya i, 50.10f.); the mubtadaʾ and the ḫabar are their mutual (grammatical)
agent (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 50.12f.);11 the (grammatical) agent on the faḍalāt is the
verb and the subject together (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 51.9); and, lastly, the agent on
the muḍāf ʾilayh is the “meaning of annexation” (maʿnā l-ʾiḍāfa) not the muḍāf
itself (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 61.12–14). For al-ʾAstarābāḏī, the ʿāmil of the dependent
form tamyīz, just like all other faḍalāt, is the completeness of the speech that
precedes, not a particular word in the sentence. In al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s words:

Their completeness [of the noun or of the speech] is the reason for the
dependent form of the tamyīz, by resemblance with the complement,
which comes after the completeness of the speech that is achieved by
the subject (ʾanna tamāmahumā [tamām al-ism wa-l-kalām] sababun li-
ntiṣāb al-tamyīz tašbīhan la-hu bi-l-mafʿūl allaḏī yajīʾu baʿda tamām al-
kalām bi-l-fāʿil).
Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 99.1–3

As for the oblique form tamyīz, its ʿāmil is the meaning intended by annexation
as mentioned above (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 61.12–14).

3.4 The Category of tamyīz

Al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw and its commentary are organized according to the parts
of speech (the noun, parts i–iv; the verb, part v; the particle, part vi). The
part dealing with nouns consists of two sections. The first one is devoted to
declension (declension, diptotes, independent form nouns, dependent form
nouns, oblique form nouns, al-tawābiʿ and indeclinable nouns), and the second

11 Although this looks like the theory of tarāfuʿ (“mutual assignment of the independent
case”), which is traditionally linked to Kūfan grammarians, things are probably more
subtle for al-ʾAstarābāḏī, who explicitly says elsewhere that the theory of tarāfuʿ is ‘weak’
(ḍaʿīf ; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya v, 166.19–20). In the passage we are quoting here, al-ʾAstarābāḏī
does not mention tarāfuʿ. More research should be done on the difference between al-
ʾAstarābāḏī’s view and that of the Kūfan grammarians. On tarāfuʿ, see Tawfīq (1978:199)
and Bohas, Guillaume, and Kouloughli (1990:68–72).
blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 109

part is devoted to specific issues in syntax and morphology (definiteness and

indefiniteness, numerals, masculine and feminine, dual, plural, al-maṣdar, ism
al-fāʿil, ism al-mafʿūl, al-ṣifa al-mušabbaha bi-sm al-fāʿil, ism al-tafḍīl).
Tamyīz is mainly dealt with in two places in the commentary, in the section
devoted to dependent form complements (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 96–118) and in the
section devoted to numerals (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya iv, 252–266). Although tamyīz is
primarily introduced as a dependent form complement (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 96–
98; 100.10), it can also surface in the same meaning, but in the oblique form, if
it is lighter (Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 97.2–5). Its meaning is to lift the ambiguity of a
word or a phrase that would otherwise be vague (mubham), i.e. “applicable to
all categories” (ṣāliḥ li-kull nawʿ; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 97.12), just like all numerals,
which are ‘intrinsically vague’ (mubham mustaqirr; Šarḥ al-Kāfiya ii, 97.11–
13). As Peled (2003:62) puts it, the word tamyīz “cannot really be described as
technical term[s] in the modern scientific sense, given [its] close affinity to
underlying homonymous extralinguistic concepts”, namely the extralinguistic
concept tamyīz ‘discrimination, specification’.
As mentioned above, the two different shapes that numerical tamyīz can
take imply very different syntactic categories, faḍla (the dependent form) vs
muḍāf ʾilayh (the oblique form). Al-ʾAstarābāḏī draws the consequences of
this marked difference in terms of ʿamal and in terms of surface form. This
enables him to maintain consistency within his grammatical frame. He calls
tamyīz the numerical complement in both forms, because they have the same
meaning, but he does not avoid the syntactic differences between them and
their implications.

3.5 Comparison with Sībawayhi, al-Mubarrad and Ibn al-Sarrāj

The most obvious difference between al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals
and that of his predecessors is that the autonomy of this chapter is pushed a
step further in his commentary. Just like in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s treatise, numerals
appear first in the section devoted to dependent form complements, but only
to present their dependent form tamyīz. All other issues linked to numerals
are dealt with in great detail outside the frame of any particular case ending,
along with other transversal issues (such as definiteness and indefiniteness,
masculine and feminine, dual, plural). Ibn al-Sarrāj also dealt with a few issues
related to numerals, but he inserted them in the same chapter devoted to
dependent form complements (ʾUṣūl i, 321–328). Separating the chapter on
numerals from all particular case endings enables al-ʾAstarābāḏī to deal with
many more issues than Ibn al-Sarrāj without giving the impression that he
is bound by the mere outline of his commentary, which is also organized
according to case endings.
110 druel

Al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s commentary thus constitutes a compromise between al-

Mubarrad’s thematic organization and Ibn al-Sarrāj’s declensional subdivided
system. In the section devoted to nouns, al-ʾAstarābāḏī first presents the differ-
ent endings, including the invariable nouns, and then adds lengthy sections on
transversal issues, which are thus not connected to any particular form, as was
the case in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s treatise. The best example for this is the treatment
of definiteness. It is almost impossible to fathom from the Kitāb all the possi-
ble behaviors of numerals in terms of definiteness. In the Muqtaḍab it is made
easier by the multiplication of examples and in the ʾUṣūl fī l-naḥw this issue is
partially dealt with in the ‘issues’ (masāʾil) related to definiteness, but it is far
from being as systematic as in al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s Šarḥ, where one finds a specific
chapter devoted to the behavior of numerals in terms of definiteness.
Another great difference between al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s theory and that of his
predecessors lies in his ʿamal theory. According to Baalbaki (2008:59), post-
Sībawayhi grammarians have a more theoretical approach to grammar, which
might give the impression that grammatical causes (ʿilal) tend to have an
autonomous life, less and less connected with grammatical phenomena. A
great deal of Sībawayhi’s grammar is devoted to the comparison of the ‘strength’
(quwwa) that words have in interaction with one another. In al-Mubarrad’s
Muqtaḍab and even more in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s ʾUṣūl the concept of quwwa loses
its relevance in the grammatical analysis of declension at the profit of the
concept of ‘slot’ (maḥall) that words occupy. In al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s commentary,
this trend is taken a step further: the ‘agent’ (ʿāmil) of declension is neither a
strength that words would have, nor the slot as such that they occupy in the
sentence, but the speaker who utters the sentence. The speaker puts words in
particular slots, but the agent of declension is ultimately the intended meaning.
By doing this, al-ʾAstarābāḏī avoids all questions linking syntactic strength to
morphology in numerals. Numerals have very different morphological patterns
(such as fāʿil, compounds, plural-like ending -ūna) and they occupy different
slots. Previous grammarians had trouble describing them in one single frame,
but al-ʾAstarābāḏī avoids the issue as such by considering that the syntactic
agent is neither linked to the actual words (their inner strength, stemming from
their pattern or from their status as a part of speech), nor to their slot in the
sentence but to the utterance as a whole and, ultimately, to the intention of
the speaker. However, the comparison I am drawing here is clearly rooted in
categories that are not used by al-ʾAstarābāḏī. Rather, his commentary pulls Ibn
al-Ḥājib’s text towards an analysis of ‘performative utterances’ (ʾinšāʾ; Larcher
2013:204–207), rather than towards the search of syntactic causes. It is in this
sense that Larcher labels his commentary a rhetoric integrated into syntax, “a
balāgha integrated into naḥw” (Larcher 2013:204).
blind spots in raḍī l-dīn al-ʾastarābāḏī’s grammar of numerals 111

A third difference between the four theories can be detected in the way these
grammarians compare numerals with adjectives. Sībawayhi links his grammar
of numerals to al-ṣifāt al-mušabbaha bi-l-fāʿil (because of the residual verbal
strength they have), but he is not followed by al-Mubarrad and Ibn al-Sarrāj,
who bring in the category of tamyīz that numerals would need because of their
‘vagueness’ (a concept not absent from Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, but not exploited any
further). Ibn al-Sarrāj even explicitly says that numerals cannot be compared to
ṣifāt mušabbaha. His point is to definitively break with the issue of a syntactic
strength in numerals. The category of tamyīz is only governed by morphological
and semantic rules, not by a syntactic agent that would be in numerals. The way
al-ʾAstarābāḏī reintroduces the issue of the agent enables him to cut it loose
from the morphology of numerals, without losing its efficiency at the syntactic
level.
As far as numerals are concerned, al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s commentary may be re-
garded as a synthesis of Sībawayhi’s search for consistency at a wider level,
al-Mubarrad’s endeavor to describe as many issues as possible, and Ibn al-
Sarrāj’s systematic subdivisions. These three characteristics are indeed found in
his grammar of numerals, organized in the new frame of his pragmatic theory
of ʾinšāʾ.

4 Conclusion

In Sībawayhi’s grammar, the main assumption is clearly that language is thor-

oughly consistent and that the grammarian can reveal this consistency. As we
have mentioned, another assumption is that words have strength in themselves
and that this strength interacts between words. In al-Mubarrad’s grammar, the
main assumption is that the grammarian can be exhaustive in describing the
language. Another assumption is that to merely describe grammatical phe-
nomena is to explain them. And in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s grammar, the main assump-
tion is that language is a completely logical phenomenon that can be entirely
described through Porphyrian subdivisions. In each theory, these assumptions
function as blind spots: they are not discussed by the grammarians, but they
hold each theory together as a whole.
In al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s grammar we can probably infer, although more research
is obviously needed, that the main assumption, or the main undiscussed blind
spot, is that syntactic slots are efficient per se and that the grammarian only has
to understand what these slots are, or, in other words, what the intention of the
speaker is. This is ultimately linked to the speaker’s ability to build meaningful
utterances, which can also be seen as a major blind spot in his theory, because it
112 druel

poses again the question of the definition of who is a native speaker of Arabic,
a question which has triggered much research, especially in the earlier stages
of Arabic grammar.12 More research should be done about how al-ʾAstarābāḏī
and later grammarians would define a ‘native speaker’, if they do, or whether
the speaker as the agent of declension and source of meaningful utterances is
only a useful fiction.13

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Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics in al-Sīrāfī and
Ibn Sīnā*

Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Wilfrid Hodges

1 Comparing a Linguist and a Logician

The two authors of this paper are a linguist and a logician, collaborating in a
study of interrelations between linguistics and logic in 10th and 11th century
Arabic scholarship. The project is more precisely to examine the views of the
linguist ʾAbū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī (d. 368/979) and the logician ʾAbū ʿAlī Ibn Sīnā
(c. 370/980–428/1037) in areas of common interest to these scholars. This is
not a study of historical influences—no direct influence from al-Sīrāfī to Ibn
Sīnā is known, and obviously there was no influence in the other direction.
Rather, these are two scholars whose work has a substantial overlap in terms
of questions and assumptions, and they were both working within the same
general culture. Our aim is to describe this common ground, in as much depth
as the facts allow.
The reason for choosing these two scholars was that al-Sīrāfī is known to
have been aware of logical issues, and likewise Ibn Sīnā frequently comments
on issues of language, particularly on the semantic side. Moreover we know
(and will illustrate below) that al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā had similar criticisms of
the Arabic-speaking tradition of Peripatetic logic.
There are other scholars that we might have chosen to study. If we wanted
the linguist and the logician to be closer in time, we could have compared al-
Sīrāfī with the logician ʾAbū Naṣr al-Fārābī (257/870–339/950), or compared Ibn

* This chapter is an expanded version of a talk that we gave in 2014 to the Third Foundations
of Arabic Linguistics Conference in Paris. A number of people at that conference made
helpful comments. We are grateful for all those comments, including a few that are still on
our list of Work To Do. We also thank the editors of the present volume for guidance and
encouragement well beyond the course of duty. Although the ideas of this paper come from
a joint research project of both authors, in the present article Manuela E.B. Giolfo is to be
held responsible for paragraphs 1, 2.1, 4, 5 and 8, and Wilfrid Hodges for paragraphs 2.2, 3, 6
and 7.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_007

116 giolfo and hodges

Sīnā with the linguist Ibn Jinnī (c. 320/932–392/1005). A fuller picture would
certainly include these comparisons. But we chose Ibn Sīnā because in our view
he is deeper than al-Fārābī across the board. With Ibn Jinnī there is of course
no lack of depth, but our present impression is that he is less concerned with
issues that also matter to logicians. In any event we will mention other scholars
when their work is relevant to our discussion.
Taking al-Sīrāfī gives us Sībawayhi too, since we will work almost entirely
from al-Sīrāfī’s commentary on Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. Likewise we will use Ibn
Sīnā’s Šifāʾ, which is strongly indebted to Aristotle and the Peripatetic logical
tradition. Almost certainly some of the things that we attribute to al-Sīrāfī or
to Ibn Sīnā were derived from earlier scholars in these two traditions.

2 Linguistics and Logic

2.1 Al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā on Deficiencies of Peripatetic logic

Besides the broad similarities between al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā, we can sometimes
find detailed correlations. Some examples come to light if we look closely at
what is attributed to al-Sīrāfī in a report by ʾAbū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (Muqābasāt
68–87) of a confrontation between al-Sīrāfī and the Syriac logician ʾAbū Bišr
Mattā at a majlis of the vizier Ibn al-Furāt in 320/932 (see Elamrani-Jamal 1983
for a translation and discussion). Mattā had translated logical works of Aristotle
into Arabic and done propaganda for them; al-Sīrāfī was invited to reply to this
propaganda.
The debate is sometimes represented as a conflict between linguistics and
logic. We can see that this view of it must be wrong if we observe how close
al-Sīrāfī’s criticisms of Peripatetic logic (i.e. the logic of Aristotle and his suc-
cessors) are to ones that the logician Ibn Sīnā made a century or so later. There
is no reason to suppose that Ibn Sīnā was relying on al-Sīrāfī, since the criti-
cisms that both authors make are substantially true and are likely to occur to
any outside observer.
First, al-Sīrāfī criticizes Mattā for exaggerating the pre-eminence of the
classical Greek logicians. This is a criticism which Ibn Sīnā addresses to the
Baghdad logicians who were Mattā’s pupils and heirs. Thus:

Al-Sīrāfī:

It is as if you were saying next that there is no proof except by Greek

intellects, and no demonstration except what they laid down, and no
truth except what they promulgated?! (ʾa-ka-ʾinnaka taqūlu baʿda hāḏā:
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 117

lā ḥujjata ʾillā ʿuqūlun yūnāniyyūn wa-lā burhāna ʾillā mā waḍaʿūhu, wa-lā

ḥaqīqata ʾillā mā ʾabrazūhu)
Muqābasāt 72.10f.

Ibn Sīnā:

[Aristotle’s] successors were unable to free themselves of the guardian-

ship of what they inherited from him, and they spent their lives trying
to understand what he did best and in partisanship to some outcomes of
his inadequacy […] ( fa-mā qadara min baʿdihi ʿalā ʾan yufarriġa [yufriġa?]
nafsahu ʿan ʿuhdati mā wariṯahu minhu wa-ḏahaba ʿumruhu fī tafahhumi
mā ʾaḥsana fīhi wa-l-taʿaṣṣubi li-baʿḍi mā faraṭa min taqṣīrihi […]).1
ibn sīnā, Mašriqiyyūn 3.1–3

Second and more specifically, al-Sīrāfī criticizes Mattā for presenting a load
of Greek philosophical baggage as if it was useful for logic, when it isn’t. He
illustrates the point with a list of Aristotelian categories:

Al-Sīrāfī:

You say: whetherness, whereness, whatness, howness, howmuchness,

essenceness, accidentness, substanceness, elementness, formness, …
Then you stretch it out and say: It brings us magic in the formula […] (wa-
taqūlūna: al-haliyyatu wa-l-ʾayniyyatu wa-l-māhiyyatu wa-l-kayfiyyatu wa-
l-kamiyyatu wa-l-ḏātiyyatu wa-l-ʿaraḍiyyatu wa-l-jawhariyyatu wa-l-hayū-
liyyatu wa-l-ṣūriyyatu … ṯumma tatamaṭṭaṭūna wa-taqūlūna: jiʾnā bi-l-siḥri
fī qawlinā […])
Muqābasāt 82.5–8

Ibn Sīnā likewise often criticizes his predecessors for burdening logic with
philosophical material that is no help for it:

It is customary to prolong [the discussion on] the first principles of logic

with material that does not belong to logic but only to the philosophical

1 Gutas (2014:36f.), who had access to a better text, translates: “[Aristotle’s] successors were
unable to free themselves of the imperfections of what they inherited from him, and they
spent their lives in efforts to understand what he accomplished best and in Partisan Adher-
ence to some defective theories he originated”.
118 giolfo and hodges

discipline (wa-qad jarat al-ʿādatu bi-ʾan tuṭawwala mabādiʾu l-manṭiqi bi-

ʾašyāʾa laysat manṭiqiyyatan wa-ʾinnamā hiya li-l-ṣināʿati l-ḥikmiyyati).
Madḫal 10.5f., transl. gutas 2014:43

Ibn Sīnā has the Aristotelian categories in his sights here, and dotted through
his commentary on the Categories (Maqūlāt) there are remarks about how the
material doesn’t belong to logic (see Gutas 2014:300–303 for a discussion of
these remarks).
Third, al-Sīrāfī criticizes Mattā for ignoring the traditions and practices of
the language in which he claims to work. Ibn Sīnā several times makes similar
criticisms of his Peripatetic predecessors, and of Aristotle in particular for
setting a bad example:

Ibn Sīnā:

It is a black mark against the First Teacher that he mentions among the
simple expressions the noun and the verb, but ignores the particles and
[other] expressions that are noun-like or verb-like ( fa-min al-qabīḥi bi-
l-muʿallimi l-ʾawwali ʾan yaḏkura min basāʾiṭi l-ʾalfāẓi l-isma wa-l-kalimata
wa-yatruka l-ʾadāta wa-mā yušākiluhumā)
ʿIbāra 29.15f.

Al-Sīrāfī:

I ask you about a single particle which is current in Arabic speech, and
whose meanings are distinguished by intelligent people, for you to work
out its meanings from the viewpoint of the logic of Aristotle which you
use for your demonstrations, boasting of your respect for it. The particle
is wāw. What are its rules, where is it used, and does it have one or
several senses? (ʾasʾaluka ʿan ḥarfin wāḥidin huwa dāʾirun fī kalāmi l-ʿArabi,
wa-maʿānīhi mutamayyizatun ʿinda ʾahli l-ʿaqli, fa-staḫriǧ ʾanta maʿānīhi
min nāḥiyati manṭiqi ʾarisṭāṭālīs [sic!] allaḏī tadullu bihi wa-tubāhī bi-
tafḫīmihi? wa-huwa l-wāw wa-mā ʾaḥkāmuhu wa-kayfa mawāqiʿuhu wa-hal
huwa ʿalā wajhin wāḥidin ʾaw wujūhin)
Muqābasāt 74.8–11

This challenge to Mattā by al-Sīrāfī merits some further comments. When

Mattā fails the task, the Vizier invites al-Sīrāfī to answer his own challenge. Al-
Sīrāfī does so (Tawḥīdī, Muqābasāt 77.11–78.4), and his answer consists of a list
of usages of wāw as they might be listed in a dictionary.
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 119

This move by al-Sīrāfī is strangely shallow. Obviously one cannot use a

language without knowing what the words of the language mean. The point
that al-Sīrāfī should have made here is that the particles of a language generate
logical relationships between those sentences of the language which contain
them, and one needs to have some understanding of the language in order to
keep track of these relationships.
However, if we turn from the dialogue with Mattā to al-Sīrāfī’s Commentary
on Sībawayhi, we do find him discussing precisely the logical relationships
between sentences containing the particle wāw, and hence making the kind
of point that he should have made against Mattā.

2.2 Linguistics and Logic on Negating Sentences

One telling passage is in al-Sīrāfī’s comments on Sībawayhi’s Chapter 102. In this
chapter Sībawayhi considers several statements of the general form ‘I passed x
and y’, and says what would count as a denial (nafy) of them. Since Sībawayhi
presumably has in mind a conversational situation where one person makes a
statement and then another person contradicts it, we are vowelling the verbs
so that the first speaker says ‘I’ and the second says ‘you’. Sībawayhi observes
that if a person says

(1) marartu bi-zaydin wa-ʿamrin

I passed Zayd and ʿAmr
Kitāb i, 185

the sentence can be read either as implying that Zayd and ʿAmr were passed on
the same occasion, or as allowing that Zayd and ʿAmr were passed on different
occasions. Sībawayhi comments that if the latter is meant, then it can be denied
by saying

(2) mā mararta bi-zaydin wa-mā-mararta bi-ʿamrin

You did not pass Zayd and you did not pass ʿAmr
Kitāb i, 186.1

If Mattā had heard this, he could well have objected that Sībawayhi has made a
logical error. The contradictory negation (naqīḍ) of a statement s is a statement
t that is true if and only if s is not true (Ibn Sīnā, Maqūlāt 258.15 f.). But it could
happen that the first speaker passed Zayd and not ʿAmr; in this case both (1)
(under the present reading) and its supposed denial (2) are false. (This has
nothing to do with any difference between nafy and naqīḍ; Sībawayhi himself
makes these two notions equivalent at Kitāb i, 377.21.)
120 giolfo and hodges

Instead of Mattā, the jurist al-Muzanī (on whom see Heffening 2012) stepped
forward and made the same charge. The denial of (1), he said, is not (2) but

(3) mā mararta bi-zaydin wa-ʿamrin

You did not pass Zayd and ʿAmr
Sīrāfī, Šarḥ ii, 336.2

(Al-Muzanī’s intervention illustrates how Islamic legal debates helped to create

fertile soil for logic.) And at this point al-Sīrāfī enters the discussion. No, he
says, (3) is not a correct denial of (1). To show this, it suffices to note that (3) is
compatible with the fuller statement

(4) You did not pass Zayd and ʿAmr on a single occasion.

But if (1) allows two occasions, then (4) does not contradict it (lā yakūnu
mukaḏḏiban, Sīrāfī, Šarḥ ii, 336.9). Al-Sīrāfī concludes that Sībawayhi’s denial
is more correct (ʾaṣaḥḥu wa-ʾajwadu, Šarḥ ii, 336.5) than al-Muzanī’s.
Al-Sīrāfī’s comment on al-Muzanī is certainly correct in the sense that if the
statement (1) is taken as allowing two occasions, then its denial has to be taken
likewise, and it would be better to make that explicit rather than using the
ambiguous (3). Nevertheless making (2) the denial of (1) still looks like a logical
error, for the reason given above. What does al-Sīrāfī have in mind?
One of the very few logical errors that Ibn Sīnā can safely be convicted of
is curiously similar to this example from Sībawayhi and al-Sīrāfī. Faḫr al-Dīn
al-Rāzī (Mulaḫḫaṣ 150.2–4) pointed it out in the 4th/12th century, and it was
recently analyzed by Chatti (2016:54). Ibn Sīnā writes a sentence form and then
says what he takes to be its contradictory negation. Chatti translates Ibn Sīnā’s
form and his claimed negation of it as follows:

(5) Some Js are sometimes b and sometimes not b.

(6) Either every j is always b or no j is ever b.

As Chatti points out, Ibn Sīnā gets the negation wrong. It should be:

(7) Every j is either always b or never b.

(It is not true that some numbers are sometimes even and sometimes not
even; but also it is not true that either every number is always even or no
number is ever even. In this case both the statement (5) and Ibn Sīnā’s supposed
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 121

negation of it (6) are false.) We note that both al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā have stated
supposed contradictory negations that are stronger than they should be by
logic.
The fact that Sībawayhi and al-Sīrāfī are both coming at their example
from a linguistic point of view suggests a common explanation both of their
claims and of Ibn Sīnā’s. The key point is that the denial of (1) takes place in
some imagined conversation. If you want to challenge something that I have
said in a conversation, you can do it by stating something stronger than the
contradictory negation of what I said—as long as you are prepared to stand
by your stronger statement, of course. Your reason for contradicting (1) may
be that you know that on the day in question I was incapacitated after a fight,
so I could not have passed either Zayd or ʿAmr; then you can freely use (2) to
deny my statement. With appropriate reservations, the same applies to the use
of contradiction in logical proofs. This freedom to increase the strength of a
denial becomes a practical convenience when the stronger denial is simpler
to state or handle than the contradictory negation. In al-Sīrāfī’s case the strict
negation of (1), read as allowing two occasions, is

Either you did not pass Zayd, or you did not pass ʿAmr, or you did not pass
either of them.

And this is clearly more of a mouthful than (2). Ibn Sīnā’s (6) is not noticeably
easier to state than (7), but it does have the logical convenience that it can
be analyzed into two component propositions without having to remove the
initial quantifier.
In sum: the debate between al-Sīrāfī and Mattā brings to light a number of
issues relating logic to language where al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā are on the same
side. We examined one case (in al-Sīrāfī’s Commentary, not in the debate)
where al-Sīrāfī’s discussion illustrates why an appreciation of language is in
practice highly valuable for a logician, even granting Mattā’s claim that the
laws of the science of logic are not concerned with linguistic issues. Al-Sīrāfī’s
discussion of this case may even throw light on a prima facie unsatisfactory
feature of Ibn Sīnā’s logic.

3 Communicative Discourse

A well-known fact about Sībawayhi’s linguistic theory is the major importance

that he gives to situations in which people talk to each other. He frequently
refers to ‘the speaker’ (al-mutakallim), and much of his theory is expressed in
122 giolfo and hodges

terms of what a speaker should or can do. Carter (2004:57) lists several words
that Sībawayhi uses for the interlocutor, including al-muḫāṭab, al-muḥaddaṯ,
al-masʾūl, al-sāʾil. The first two of these four expressions just mean ‘the person
addressed’; but the last two mean ‘the person asked’ and ‘the person who asks’,
both of which imply that the addressee is not purely passive. All of this passes
down to al-Sīrāfī.
Sībawayhi’s two main sources of linguistic evidence are the Qurʾān and
early Arabic poetry. Neither of these sources gives any opportunity for the
listener to make an active response to the speaker. So Sībawayhi’s evidence for
conversational usage depends mainly on what Carter (2004:48) describes as
“made-up material”. This consists largely of sentences spoken by an imaginary
speaker to give information to an imaginary listener. (A typical example: ‘I
passed a she-camel at midday’.) Among these imagined utterances Sībawayhi
includes a number of short conversations. (‘I passed two men’. ‘What two men?’.
‘A Muslim and an unbeliever’.)
Turning to Ibn Sīnā, we note that he also discusses conversations. This
is because he does his logic in the tradition of Aristotle, and this tradition
includes logical dialogues. These dialogues are always asymmetrical, though
Ibn Sīnā allows the two participants to exchange roles (Safsaṭa 74.12). One per-
son, ‘the questioner’ (al-sāʾil), asks the question, and the other person attempts
to give logically satisfactory answers. The second person is often called al-
muḫāṭab, but he is also ‘the answerer’ (al-mujīb). Ibn Sīnā’s dialogues are rule-
bound events; for example, a speaker loses the debate by being shown to have
contradicted himself. Ibn Sīnā discusses separately the rules that apply to the
questioner and the answerer.
There is a common convention among logicians that the two participants in
a debate are male and female; this allows use of ‘he’ and ‘she’. We will assume
below that the speaker is male and the listener is female. In the Medieval
communities of Arabic logicians and Arabic linguists the listener will nearly
always have been male; no matter.
Logical dialogues give Ibn Sīnā some motivation to discuss a feature of con-
versations which we haven’t noticed in Sībawayhi. This is the use of language to
deceive the listener. There are subtler questions here than how to lie and keep
a straight face. For example, the speaker can use linguistic devices to draw the
listener’s attention towards some points and away from others. One of the ques-
tions that Ibn Sīnā discusses is how, in a rational debate, to get the listener to
agree to the premises of a logical argument without her realizing what follows
from the things she has committed herself to. This involves taking the premises
in the wrong order. (For more on the ‘right order’ and the effects of following it
or failing to follow it, see Hodges 2016.)
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 123

Outside the context of dialogues Ibn Sīnā has some things to say about
conversation more generally, and in these looser discussions there is sometimes
a ‘listener’ (sāmiʿ).
For Ibn Sīnā it is important that we use language for reasoning in general,
even when we are on our own. In this sense we can use language to pass new
information to ourselves, by putting together two or more facts that we already
knew. Or at least we can bring to mind in this way some facts that had never
occurred to us before, even if we knew them potentially. For Ibn Sīnā this fact
is one of the main justifications of logic:

This science indicates all the ways and means by which the mind moves
from what it [already] knows to what it does not [yet] know ( yakūnu hāḏā
l-ʿilmu mušīran ʾilā jamīʿi l-ʾanḥāʾi wa-l-jihāti llatī tanaqqala al-ḏihnu min
al-maʿlūmi ʾilā l-majhūli)
Mašriqiyyūn 5.21f.

So as the logician reasons silently with his mind, the state of information
changes. We know of nothing comparable in Sībawayhi and al-Sīrāfī.
Carter (2004:142) lists fāʾida/ʾifāda ‘information/conveying information’ (his
translations) as a notion that came into linguistics later than Sībawayhi. He
adds that its appearance “symbolizes the shift from a concern with language
as behaviour to a preoccupation with its meaning, reflecting the influence of
Greek ideas as the Arabs became acquainted with logic”.
The comparison of al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā provides plenty of material to
illustrate the ‘preoccupation with meaning’, but we are doubtful how far this
reflects any influence from Ancient Greece. The facts below suggest that the
main influence was more likely from the Arabic linguists to the logicians, not
the other way round.
Ibn al-Sikkit, who died in around 244/858, wrote (Manṭiq 265.10): “One
says ‘he provided wealth’, and ‘he provided knowledge’” (wa-yuqālu: qad ʾafāda
mālan wa-ʾafāda ʿilman). This records that already in the mid 3rd/9th century
the root f-y-d had to do with providing useful things, and that money and
knowledge were already at the top of the list of relevant useful things. Later
in that century the movement to translate the logical works of Aristotle into
Arabic was well under way; in contrast with Ibn al-Sikkit, these translations
make no use of the root f-y-d. At least we have not found it there. One of
the earliest translations of Aristotle is the translation of his Rhetoric; Lyons’
very full glossary (Aristotle, Rīṭūrīqā vol. ii) makes no mention of the root f-
y-d. It is not in the translations of De Interpretatione or Prior Analytics i; we
have not seen it in the translation of Topics, though our search there has not
124 giolfo and hodges

been exhaustive. (These three translations are in Aristotle, Manṭiq.) It is not in

the Arabic translation of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Greek essay on Conversion
(Alexander, Conversion). It is not in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s summary of logic, or
in Bihriz’s logical wordbook (both from the 8th century and both in Ibn al-
Muqaffaʿ, Manṭiq).
In fact, within logic the root f-y-d (though generally not the forms fāʾida
and ʾifāda that Carter cited) appears rather suddenly in the works of al-Fārābī
in the first half of the 4th/10th century. He uses the root in a range of ways. For
example a logical training provides ( yufīdu) various skills such as the ability to
exercise critical judgment and the skill of identifying quickly what are the key
points of disagreement ( Jadal 30.1, cf. Fārābī, ʾAlfāẓ 96.1). But his use of this verb
is heavily concentrated on one particular usage, namely in dialogues where the
questioner aims to elicit metaphysical information from the answerer. These
dialogues have a broadly Aristotelian cast, but their exact form seems to be
al-Fārābī’s own invention, for the novel purpose of providing a kind of game-
theoretic semantics for words that al-Fārābī reckoned were fundamental in
philosophy. The expressions yufādu ‘is provided’ and ʾafāda ‘provides’ are used
specifically in connection with the information given by the answerer in these
dialogues; the provider of the information is taken to be either the answerer or
the dialogue process itself.

The answer to the question ‘Which thing is it?’ takes up all the propria
of the thing and provides ( yufīdu) a way of distinguishing the thing from
everything else, purely by its features and not by its substance […] ( fa-l-
ḫawāṣṣu kulluhā tuʾḫaḏu fī jawābi ʾayyi šayʾin huwa fa-yufādu bihā tamyīzu
l-šayʾi ʿan ġayrihi fī ʾaḥwālihi faqaṭ lā fī jawharihi […])
fārābī, ʾAlfāẓ 76.17

These are the things that our study of the particle ‘What [is it?]’ gives
us and provides for us (ʾafādanā) ( fa-hāḏihi hiya l-ʾašyāʾu llatī ʾaʿṭānā wa-
ʾafādanā taʾammulunā ḥarfi mā huwa […])
fārābī, Ḥurūf 181.10

So although the root is common in al-Fārābī, in senses connected with impart-

ing information, his usage is really quite idiosyncratic. (This might be why the
root is missing in the otherwise comprehensive book (Alon and Abed 2007) on
al-Fārābī’s philosophical terminology.)
Versteegh (1977:34–37) suggested that f-y-d should be seen as translating the
Greek root tel-, which has to do with aims and completions. He suggested this
not on the basis of actual translations (he cites only one), but because of the
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 125

similarity of the semantic ranges of the two roots. We make no comment on

Versteegh’s claim that this translation might have come via a “voie diffuse, i.e.
through contact with living Greek grammar” (Versteegh 1977:178). However, we
should like to say that his comparison between the roots gets no support at all
from the logical side. We noted the absence of the root f-y-d in logical writing
before al-Fārābī. Even in al-Fārābī there is no evidence of any connection
between the root and ‘use, aim, goal’, which Versteegh mentions (1977:37) as
a sense of télos. Peripatetic commentaries tended to begin with a statement of
the aim of the author and the uses of the contents. For ‘aim’ al-Fārābī writes
ġaraḍ (ʿIbāra 17.4; Jadal 28.2) or qaṣd (Qiyās 11.2) or ġāya ( Jadal 28.1); for ‘use’
he writes manfaʿa (ʿIbāra 19.20; Jadal 29.16).
Sheyhatovitch (2015), in her study of fāʾida in Sībawayhi’s successors, traces
the use of the root f-y-d back to al-Mubarrad (d. ca. 285/899) and Ibn al-Sarrāj
al-Baġdādī (d. 316/928). So it had already entered linguistics before al-Fārābī
had reached maturity
What do these facts imply about influences between logic and linguistics?
As to al-Fārābī, we can say straight away that his most characteristic use of f-y-
d, in connection with metaphysical dialogues, doesn’t come from Aristotelian
sources. He could have picked up the word from general trends of intellectual
conversation, and that would include its use by linguists in Baghdad. However,
putting together the link that he makes with dialogues, his interest in fiqh,
and the fact that the experts in fiqh had been developing their own version
of jadal since the 2nd/8th century (Young 2017), fiqh would be a sensible place
to look.
As to the linguists, it seems to us that there is no need to invoke any out-
side influence; the development from Sībawayhi to Ibn al-Sarrāj and his stu-
dent al-Sīrāfī could well be entirely home-grown. Sībawayhi uses the notion of
fāʾida but without having a name for it (witness the number of times that al-
Sīrāfī uses the root in his explanations of Sībawayhi). But Sībawayhi’s lack of
semantic vocabulary makes it treacherous for him to discuss different kinds
of information that could be given by different information-bearing expres-
sions. For example the information involved in knowing which individual is
meant by a description is different from the information involved in knowing
a fact about an individual; we can distinguish them as information-what and
information-that. Sībawayhi gets further than he deserves to without making
this distinction.
We also need to distinguish between (i) an information-bearing expression,
(ii) the information that an expression carries, and (iii) the fact of an expres-
sion being informative. Thus ḫabar can serve for (i) but fāʾida is needed for
(iii).
126 giolfo and hodges

Carter (2004:142) translates fāʾida/ʾifāda as ‘information/conveying infor-

mation’. However, the original meaning of fāʾida is ‘usefulness’, and that of
mufīd is ‘useful’. In terms of ‘communication’, that is to say relative to the com-
municative function of speech, ‘useful’ should mean ‘informative’, i.e. ‘provid-
ing information’, and ‘usefulness’ would mean something like ‘informativeness’,
i.e. ‘the quality or fact of being informative’.
Sheyhatovitch (2015) gives a number of examples that seem to us to illustrate
these points. Her examples of fāʾida as ‘communicative value’ show its use for
(iii). While (ii) is often rendered by ḫabar, she gives examples where fāʾida
serves for (ii) when the information that an expression carries is a ‘full message’,
that is to say that it is not information given to the listener about an individual
already known to the listener.
In short, the introduction of the term fāʾida is a natural improvement of
technical vocabulary in a developing discipline. There is no need to look out-
side linguistics to explain it.

4 Definiteness, Morphosyntactic and Pragmatic

Sībawayhi introduces the notion of definiteness, maʿrifa, already in the Risāla

of his Kitāb, but without any definition. Evidently he considers it a well-known
notion. In Chapter 104 of the Kitāb he defines the notion as a certain class
of ‘things of nouns’ (ʾašyāʾ al-ʾasmāʾ). Some of the items in this class could be
taken simply to be nouns or adjectives or pronouns. However, other parts of his
definition refer to the context of the noun, for example whether it carries the
definite article or is annexed to (muḍāf ) a suitable noun. So the class is a class
of occurrences of nouns (or adjectives or pronouns) in certain speech contexts.
But for brevity we will say ‘nouns’ rather than ‘occurrences of nouns’.
The class of definite nouns consists of five subclasses:

i. Proper names.
ii. Words that are muḍāf to a definite noun.
iii. Words carrying the definite article.
iv. ‘Vague’ (mubham) words, i.e. demonstrative pronouns.
v. Personal pronouns.

Sībawayhi says (Kitāb i, 218.7f., Chapter 117) that the mubham nouns are six-
teen demonstrative pronouns that he spells out, “and similar words”. Later lin-
guists, for example al-Zamaḫšarī (Mufaṣṣal, section 48) took mubham in (iv) to
include pronouns such as allaḏī and ʾayyuhā.
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 127

This list of definite nouns has passed almost unaltered into the modern
linguistic literature; relative pronouns are generally included. Badawi, Carter
and Gully (2004:94f.) divide the list into two parts: the items in (ii) and (iii)
are ‘formally definite’ and the remainder are ‘semantically definite’. We are not
sure what is intended by the description ‘semantic’ here; apart from the need
to tell whether a phrase is being used as a proper name, Sībawayhi’s criteria are
entirely morphosyntactic and could be checked by a text-processing computer.
(Note by the way that the definition is recursive, by (ii).)
Al-Zamaḫšarī (Mufaṣṣal 106) gives a different definition. For him, a noun
is definite if it “signifies a specific entity” (dalla ʿalā šayʾin bi-ʿaynihi); so the
list amounts to a claim that in Arabic the nouns that signify specific entities
are precisely those in the list. This definition is not morphosyntactic. Nor is it
semantic in a strict sense, because it rests on features of the speech situation
and the speaker’s knowledge, not just on the meanings of the words. We will
say that nouns fitting Sībawayhi’s definition are ‘morphosyntactically definite’,
and nouns fitting al-Zamaḫšarī’s are ‘pragmatically definite’.
For brevity we write M-definite for morphosyntactically definite, and P-
definite for pragmatically definite. Likewise we write M-indefinite and P-indef-
inite for nouns that are not morphosyntactically definite and not pragmatically
definite.
There is a slight variant of P-definiteness that al-Sīrāfī calls attention to: not
that the noun specifies a certain individual, but that the speaker uses the noun
with the intention that the listener will identify a certain individual:

… like man and horse and similar things where the name applies to all the
individuals; if the speaker uses the name with the intention that the lis-
tener will identify one specific of those individuals, then the name is def-
inite (… ka-rajulin wa-farasin wa-naḥwahu mimmā huwa li-jamāʿati kulli
wāḥidin minhum lahu ḏālika l-ismu, fa-ʾin ʾawradahu l-mutakallimu qāṣi-
dan ʾilā wāḥidin bi-ʿaynihi ʿindahu ʾanna l-muḫāṭaba yaʿrifuhu, fa-huwa
maʿrifatun).
Šarh ii, 318.19f.

This is also a pragmatic notion of definiteness; much of what we say about P-

definiteness applies to it equally well.
Sībawayhi assigns M-definiteness to the opening noun of a noun phrase,
not to the whole phrase. But P-definiteness must refer to the noun phrase as
a whole, since the phrase as a whole must be satisfied by any entity that is
specified by it. So we will take the liberty of sometimes referring to the whole
noun phrase as P-definite or M-definite.
128 giolfo and hodges

We will consider the following claim:

Equivalence Claim. The M-definite nouns are the same as the P-definite
nouns.

Al-Zamaḫšarī evidently believes that the Equivalence Claim is substantially

true. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Sībawayhi believed it too, with
some precise exceptions that we will come to below. But al-Sīrāfī devoted quite
a few pages to considering counterexamples, more precisely morphosyntacti-
cally definite noun occurrences that are not pragmatically definite. Some of
what he says runs parallel to observations of Ibn Sīnā. So we will review possi-
ble counterexamples, keeping an eye on Sībawayhi’s five cases.
Al-Zamaḫšarī’s definition can be read in more than one way, because we can
distinguish between a phrase that does signify a specific entity and a phrase
that the speaker used with the intention of signifying a specific entity. These
can come apart, for example if the phrase is less specific than the speaker meant
it to be. In an earlier paper (Giolfo and Hodges 2013) we concluded that for both
al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā the speaker’s intention is paramount. So it must be the
speaker’s responsibility to choose a phrase that does signify what the speaker
intended (unless of course the speaker intends to mislead or trick the listener,
Ibn Sīnā might add).
So if the conversation is to be fully communicative, the speaker’s intention
in using the phrase must pass to the mind of the listener. We suppose that this
must be what al-Sīrāfī has in mind when he says:

Know that definiteness attaches to the listener’s knowledge, regardless

of the speaker. It can well be that the speaker mentions that which he
knows, but the listener doesn’t, so that is unknown (iʿlam ʾanna l-taʿrīfa
muʿallaqun bi-maʿrifati l-muḫāṭabi dūna l-mutakallimi wa-qad yaḏkuru
l-mutakallimu mā yaʿrifuhu huwa wa-lā yaʿrifuhu huwa fa-yakūnu man-
kūran [sic! i.e.: ‫)]منكور ًا‬.2
Šarḫ ii, 338.21f.

2 Carter (2016:31, 189f., 267) translates mankūr by ‘indefinite’; however, we should like to note
that Carter’s (2016) interpretation of Sibawayhi’s notion of definiteness is in the first instance
always the pragmatic one, not the morphosyntactic one. Marogy (2010:100) renders wa-qad
yaḏkuru l-mutakallimu mā yaʿrifuhu huwa wa-lā yaʿrifuhu l-muḫātabu fa-yakūnu mankūran
[sic!] (Šarḫ (ʿAtif) i, 163b) by “The speaker might mention something known to him but not
to the listener, in which case it is bound to be treated as indefinite”.
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 129

For the phrase in question, communication is complete when the speaker

intends by it some specific entity, and speaks the phrase, and the listener picks
up what entity the speaker intended. If the listener does not or cannot pick it
up, then pragmatically the definiteness of the phrase has failed.
Carter (2004:64) says: “Very early in the Kitāb [Sībawayhi] states the prin-
ciple that it is the speaker’s duty to bring the listener to the same level of
knowledge as himself”. This is true in the sense that Sībawayhi is interested
in situations where the speaker does want to transfer some particular piece of
knowledge. Al-Sīrāfī shares this interest, and both authors discuss the linguistic
devices open to the speaker to help him. A typical example is

[Sībawayhi] means that if you start with an indefinite, so as to talk about

it, this is not right, because the listener is not brought to the same position
as you in respect of identifying it. Rather, the effect of effective commu-
nication is that the listener is brought to the same level as the speaker
in identifying what the speaker has given him information about ( yaʿnī
ʾanna btidāʾaka bi-l-nakirati li-tuḥaddiṯa ʿanhā ġayru mustaqīmin li-ʾanna
l-muḫāṭaba laysa yunazzalu manzilataka fī maʿrifatihā wa-ḥukmu l-ḫiṭābi
l-mafhūmi ʾan yusāwiya l-muḫāṭabu l-mutakallima fī maʿrifati mā ḫab-
barahu bihi)
Šarḫ i, 304.2–4

In short, if the speaker needs to identify something to the listener, an M-definite

noun phrase is generally the right linguistic expression to do this job.
Certainly Ibn Sīnā would be puzzled by the idea that the duty of ensuring
that the listener knows what things are being talked about rests with the
speaker. After all, the listener is in a better position to judge what she knows
or does not know, and what she wants to know.

So when [the argument] yields the conclusion that [the speaker] needed
to reach, we push the discussion with him in the direct of checking.
It was not clear what the speaker meant in the premises? Then it is
up to the listener to press him with questions and say ‘What did you
intend by the question [that we are debating], and what did you intend
when you stated the topic as such-and-such?’ ( fa-ʾinnahu ʾiḏā ʾantaja mā
lahu nasūqu kalāmahu bi-l-taḥqīqi wa-lam yakun bayyinan mā yaʿnīhi fī l-
muqaddimāti kāna li-l-mujībi ʾan yataʿannata ʿalayhi fa-yaqūla mā ʾaradta
fī l-masʾalati wa-mā ʾaradta fī l-mawḍiʿi llaḏī ʾaḥfaẓtahu ka-ḏā?)
Safsaṭa 77.5–7
130 giolfo and hodges

The speaker may well know more than he says about some individual that
he refers to. There need not be anything unethical about this—he may only
include what information he thinks is relevant to the matter in hand. Al-Sīrāfī
gives an example:

… saying to the listener ‘In the man’s house is an orchard’, ‘In my house is
a friend of mine’ and [the listener] does not know the particular man and
orchard (… ka-qawli l-rajuli li-muḫāṭabihi fī dāri l-rajuli bustānun wa-ʿindī
ṣadīqun lī wa-huwa lā yaʿrifu l-rajula bi-ʿaynihi wa-l-bustāna)
Šarḫ ii, 338.21–23

One of the phrases under discussion, al-rajul, is in fact M-definite, being a

noun with the definite article. Al-Sīrāfī would then be saying that an M-definite
expression may in fact not convey who is referred to. In short, he is pointing to
a failure of the Equivalence Claim.

5 Definiteness of Proper Names

Sībawayhi assumes that his readers know what a proper name is. However, al-
Sīrāfī offers what may be meant as a definition of proper names:

The basis of a proper name is just that it defines, because it is the name
by which someone is named personally in order to distinguish by that
name between that individual and [all] other individuals (wa-ʾinnamā
ṣāra l-ismu l-ʿalamu ʾaṣluhu l-taʿrīfu li-ʾannahu l-ismu llaḏī yuqṣadu bihi l-
musammā šaḫṣan li-tubayyinahu bi-ḏālika l-ismi min sāʾiri l-šuḫūṣi)
Šarḥ ii, 318.14; see also ii, 429.7

The definition is a little heavy, but we can see why. Al-Sīrāfī is feeling his way
between two deathtraps.
The first deathtrap is that we might be tempted to say, as Sībawayhi (Kitāb i,
187.14f.) says, that each proper name is the name of a unique individual which
it thereby distinguishes from all other individuals. The statement is tempting
but false. Any number of people can have the same name. Al-Sīrāfī illustrates
the point with a neat sentence:

marartu bi-ʿuṯmānin wa-ʿuṯmānin ʾāḫara

‘I passed ʿUṯmān and another ʿUṯmān’
Šarḫ ii, 318.12
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 131

(Wright 1967:i, 235 has a charming variant: marartu bi-sībawayhi wa-sībaway-

hin ʾāḫara—as if there could be more than one!) Al-Sīrāfī’s formulation makes
only the weaker claim that the name can be used (bi-ḏālika l-ismi) for identi-
fying an individual that it names; this leaves it open that any features of the
context, including a pointing finger if necessary, might also help.
Al-Sīrāfī’s example also makes the point that any proper name can be con-
verted into a common noun, which is true of all the things named by the proper
name. Ibn Sīnā makes the same point: there are people called ʿAlī but also a
whole tribe of ʿAlīs (Madḫal 47.10).
Al-Sīrāfī is arguably less successful in avoiding the second deathtrap. This
is that unless the definition of proper name says something about what it is
that makes n a name of a and b but not of c or d, it risks making any personal
or demonstrative pronoun a proper name. A pronoun ‘this’ can be used for
identifying any individual whatever, given suitable contexts.
Ibn Sīnā has a way of avoiding this deathtrap. Namely, for each proper name
n and each individual a named by n, there is a meaning n(A) of n which is
uniquely true of a. The first deathtrap tells us only that the same proper name
can have many distinct meanings, which we know happens with common
nouns. Ibn Sīnā believes that this meaning a has a canonical form depending
only on a and not on n, and he calls it the ‘(individual) essence’ of a (Madḫal
26.18–27.4). This notion leads quickly into metaphysics. But without following
it far down that path, we can see what al-Sīrāfī needs to supply to fit the bill.
Al-Sīrāfī rightly observes that a person called Mr Banana-Tree does not have
to be a banana tree (Šarḥ ii, 421.17; we note that some of his language in this
section is strongly Peripatetic, for example at ii, 429.2.) In this rather obvious
sense he is right that the object named by a proper name does not have to fit a
description given by the proper name. However, there is another sense in which
the proper name does have to contain a description of the object, say a. If you
know the name, then you must be able, given the name and a suitable context,
to find a; and conversely given a you should be able to supply the name. So
there must be some kind of procedure or description—call it what you like—
that links the name to a. Moreover knowledge of this procedure or description
must be transferable between people, otherwise how can the speaker use the
name to name a and expect the interlocutor to pick up the reference? If we
dislike metaphysics we can regard Ibn Sīnā’s ‘individual essence’ as simply a
name for whatever this usable and transferable procedure is. Then Ibn Sīnā and
al-Sīrāfī are both in a position to discuss this essence, and we can trace some
thoughts that they both had about it.
Sībawayhi (Kitāb i, 227, Chapter 123) had suggested that one source of proper
names is as fossilized descriptions. A natural question is whether the individual
132 giolfo and hodges

essence of a might be a description too, but one with the distinctive property
that a is the unique thing fitting the description. Ibn Sīnā believes he can show
that this is never the case. For any consistent collections, not including a proper
name, there is always a possible further description that chops the possibilities
into two groups.

An example is ‘This is Socrates’; if you define it by saying ‘He is a philoso-

pher’, this leaves more than one possibility open. If you say ‘The pious
philosopher’, that also leaves open possibilities. Then if you say ‘The pious
philosopher who was put to death unjustly’, this still allows more pos-
sibilities. If you add ‘the son of so-and-so’, even that allows more than
one possibility, but in any case you need to identify ‘so-and-so’ just like
Socrates, and if you identify him through pointing and a proper name
then you are back where you were before without finding a descrip-
tion of ‘Socrates’ (wa-miṯlu dālika hāḏā suqrāt ʾin ḥaddadtahu fa-qulta
ʾinnahu l-faylasūfu fa-fīhi šārikatun wa-ʾin qulta al-faylasūfu l-dayyinu fa-
fīhi ʾayḍan šārikatun fa-ʾin qulta al-faylasūfu l-dayyinu l-maqtūlu ẓulman
fa-fīhi ʾayḍan šārikatun fa-ʾin qulta ʾibnu fulānin kāna fīhi iḥtimālu širkatin/
šarikatin [sic! i.e. ‫ ]شركة‬ʾayḍan wa-kāna fulānun šaḫṣan taʿrīfuhu ka-taʿrīfihi
wa-ʾin ʿurifa dālika l-šaḫṣu bi-l-ʾišārati ʾaw bi-l-laqabi ʿāda l-ʾamru ʾilā l-
ʾišārati wa-l-laqabi wa-baṭala ʾan yakūna bi-l-taḥdīdi)
Ilāhiyyāt v.8, 246.8–12

There is clear evidence that al-Sīrāfī takes at least the first steps down this road.
Thus we find him considering a series of indefinite references to one and the
same individual:

marartu bi-rajulin ẓarīfin

marartu bi-rajulin ẓarīfin ṣayrafiyyin
marartu bi-rajulin ẓarīfin ṣayrafiyyin ʾaʿwara
‘I passed a charming man.
I passed a charming money-changer.
I passed a charming one-eyed money-changer’.
Šarḫ ii, 313.3–25

Although the speaker has a single individual in mind, the class of individuals
satisfying the description shrinks at each step. Al-Sīrāfī goes on to suggest ways
in which the list could be extended: beautiful or ugly? Coming from what
country? Persian or Arabic? If al-Sīrāfī had thought the list reaches a natural
endpoint, he would surely have said so.
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 133

We turn to a problem that both al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā raise about proper
names. The word šams ‘sun’ names a unique entity, so it should count as a
proper name. Then why do we say al-šams, with the definite article al-, as if
šams was a common noun for a class of things? Elsewhere (Giolfo and Hodges
2013:95f.) we compared the answers given by al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā (and on
al-Sīrāfī see also Marogy 2010:109f.). In brief, both al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā claim
that there is a class of ‘suns’; but they point to quite different classes. Al-
Sīrāfī points to usages like ‘The sun in Basra is hotter than the sun in Kufa’,
whereas Ibn Sīnā is more impressed by scientific statements such as ‘If a planet
orbiting around a sun has a moon, then an eclipse will occur when the moon
moves between the planet and the sun’. (At Jadal 213.12 f. Ibn Sīnā also suggests
that ‘sun’ could be defined as ‘the brightest heavenly body’, which is not a
proper name. This answer is too strong since it could equally well be applied to
more or less any proper name, with a suitably elaborate definition.) The same
question can be asked about ‘the sun’ in English. We know of no studies of this
question.

6 The mubtadaʾ

For the remainder of this paper we concentrate on the informational content

of a noun or noun phrase at the beginning of a sentence. These phrases play a
distinctive role in Arabic, and this is imperfectly matched by a distinctive role
that they play in Peripatetic logic.
There is a curious fact about definiteness. The Arabic name for it is maʿrifa,
which literally means ‘knowledge’. But there is no mention of knowledge in
either Sībawayhi’s definition or al-Zamaḫšarī’s. The reason for the name lies in
a theory that Sībawayhi and his successors developed, about a particular role
that M-definite nouns or noun phrases play in Arabic, in connection with nom-
inal sentences. Nominal sentences begin with nouns or noun phrases. Usually
these sentences take one of two forms. In equational sentences the opening
noun phrase is followed by another noun phrase with an ‘is’ understood (or
written as huwa) between the two phrases. In topicalized verbal sentences the
noun phrase is followed by a complete sentence that refers back to the noun
phrase. In a nutshell, the theory says that the opening noun phrase, called ism
or mubtadaʾ, serves the purpose of identifying a specific entity that satisfies it.
The remaining part of the sentence, called ḫabar, serves the purpose of stat-
ing some information about the specified entity. Sentences with these broad
features are known to linguists as ‘topic-comment’, where the mubtadaʾ is the
topic and the ḫabar is the comment.
134 giolfo and hodges

This theory requires that the mubtadaʾ should be P-definite. Sībawayhi evi-
dently hoped that he could pin down the phrases appropriate to be a mubtadaʾ
by reference to morphosyntactic features—hence the Equivalence Claim. For
al-Sīrāfī, counterexamples to the Equivalence Claim need investigating. They
could be counterexamples to the whole idea of topic-comment sentences;
alternatively there might be a way of rescuing the Equivalence Claim by some
suitable paraphrase or taqdīr. We will see what he does with them in some cases
that he considers.
We turn from the linguists to the logicians. In the late 3rd/9th century
Theodorus, translator of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, briefly used ism and ḫabar
to serve as the respective translations of two of Aristotle’s key logical notions:
subject and predicate (Aristotle, Manṭiq 309.6). This was an unexplained aber-
ration; everywhere else he gave the translations which became universally
accepted, namely mawḍūʿ for subject and maḥmūl for predicate. In the follow-
ing century we find al-Fārābī occasionally using ḫabar for predicate (e.g., Fuṣūl
70f.). Ibn Sīnā was the first logician to accept mubtadaʾ and ḫabar as alterna-
tives to mawḍūʿ and maḥmūl, as at Madḫal 15.8 and ʿIbāra 29.11.
This is not to say that Ibn Sīnā understood the word mubtadaʾ in exactly
the same way as the linguists. For example he uses mubtadaʾ for any linguistic
expression that serves as the beginning of a train of thought. This need not be
a word or phrase; it can be an entire argument if the argument introduces an
assumption that is new to the discussion (Najāt 102.1; Qiyās 518.12). Also the
mention of the notion of mubtadaʾ in Madḫal, a work which is entirely about
meanings in any language, indicates that Ibn Sīnā understands a mubtadaʾ
as a semantic or pragmatic notion, not as a morphosyntactic one. On closer
inspection of the passage at Madḫal 15.8 we find that Ibn Sīnā is telling us
that the notion of a mubtadaʾ is relative, in the sense that a meaning can only
properly be described as a mubtadaʾ in relation to some compound meaning
that contains it. Thus a word w in a sentence s is a mubtadaʾ if and only if the
meaning of w plays a certain role in the meaning of s as a whole.
The role presumably has something to do with starting a train of thought; so
the word w for the mubtadaʾ should come early in the sentence S. Ibn Sīnā often
makes the point that different languages do things in very different ways—he
was fluent in both Arabic and Persian—but in practice it is noticeable that in
his logical examples he virtually always puts logical subjects at the beginnings
of sentences. (Contrast al-Fārābī, who insisted that the same purpose is served
by putting the logical subject at the end of the sentence, as at Qiyās 23.10–17.)
The outcome is that we have a plentiful supply of example sentences where we
know what Ibn Sīnā took the mubtadaʾ to be, and in many cases his mubtadaʾ
fits the linguists’ morphosyntactic criteria for M-definiteness.
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 135

Ayoub (1981) notes that in Modern Standard Arabic, M-indefinite noun

phrases are not allowed in verbal sentences in preverbal (i.e. topic) position.
Can the same be said of Classical Arabic?
Al-Sīrāfī almost gives an example of such a sentence (Šarḥ ii, 219.13): rāk-
ibun min banī fulān sāʾirun ‘A rider from the Tribe of Bani Such-and-Such is
travelling’. He saves it from being a counterexample to Ayoub’s observation by
making the verb a participle so that the sentence is nominal. He also observes
that the sentence would have been unacceptable if the mubtadaʾ was a single
word. Another near-miss at a counterexample is this from Ibn Sīnā, discussing
a difference between kinds of things and properties of things:

‘Some human’ is never used to describe anything but humans, whereas

a thing that carries the description ‘white’ is something other [than a
‘white’] (wa-ʾinsānun mā lā yakūnu mawṣūfan bihi šayʾun ġayruhu min
ḥayṯu huwa ʾinsānun fa-yakūnu l-ʾabyaḍu lahu mawṣūfun huwa šayʾun
ʾāḫaru)
Jadal 220.6f.

In this example the initial noun phrase is ʾinsānun mā, which at first seems not
to be M-definite by the criteria of Section 4. But in fact the noun phrase is used
as a name of itself, so it is in effect a proper name and M-definite.
But here are two full-blooded counterexamples from Ibn Sīnā; each of them
has an M-indefinite and prima facie P-indefinite mubtadaʾ followed by a verbal
sentence. The first might be an example of how metaphysics chews up lan-
guage: ʾabyaḍu yubayyaḍu min al-ibyiḍāḍi ‘A white thing acquires whiteness
from the property of being white’ (ʿIbāra 26.7f.) (But it could be argued that
ʾabyaḍu here is short for kullu ʾabyaḍa, which is P-definite.)
The second is quoting some other unnamed author, so that the sentence
could be a word-for-word translation of something from Syriac or Greek: šayʾun
mā yamšī ‘Something is walking’ (ʿIbāra 19.11). Ibn Sīnā stresses that there is no
problem saying what would count as making this sentence true, so presumably
he would count it as semantically acceptable. But he might not have counted
it as good Arabic.
Ibn Sīnā’s further discussion of this last example contrasts it with the single
word yamšī used as a sentence. He argues that if the initial ya- is taken as
equivalent to a personal pronoun, it would have to be ‘indeterminate’ (ġayr
muʿayyan) as a part of the word yamšī, even if the speaker has some specific
entity in mind.
There is a passage of al-Sīrāfī’s Commentary which overlaps with this pas-
sage of Ibn Sīnā by claiming that a personal pronoun sometimes has to be read
136 giolfo and hodges

as P-indefinite. Sībawayhi had said that poets can override the rule that a mub-
tadaʾ should be M-definite, and had quoted a line of poetry to make the point.
Omitting irrelevant details, the line reads (Šarḥ i, 305.11 ff.): lā tubālī ʾa-ẓabyun
kāna ʾummaka ʾam ḫimār ‘You don’t care whether a gazelle or a donkey is your
mother’. There is an embedded sentence with mubtadaʾ ‘a gazelle or a donkey’.
Although al-Sīrāfī’s explanations are too brief for comfort, it seems that some
scholars disputed Sībawayhi’s analysis, probably by claiming that the sentence
has a paraphrase along the lines ‘You don’t care whether, when you see a gazelle
or a donkey, it is your mother’. There are now two subclauses; ‘a gazelle or a
donkey’ appears only in the first and is no longer mubtadaʾ in it, while the
mubtadaʾ of the second clause is ‘it’, which is a personal pronoun and hence
definite.

But taking the indefinite as a pronoun doesn’t give the listener any more
information than the indefinite did. Don’t you see that if a person said ‘I
passed a man and I talked to him’, the ‘him’ by referring back to ‘the man’
doesn’t affirm any information about a specific individual of mankind
(wa-ḍamīru l-nakirati lā yastafīdu minhu l-muḫāṭabu ʾakṯara min al-naki-
rati ʾa-lā tarā ʾanna qāʾilan law qāla ‘marartu bi-rajulin wa-kallamtuhu’ lam
takun al-hāʾu l-ʿāʾidatu ʾilā rajulin bi-mūjibatin li-taʿrīfi šaḫṣin bi-ʿaynihi min
bayna l-rijāli)
Šarḫ i, 306.1–3

But in this passage al-Sīrāfī comes nowhere near giving a counterexample to

Ayoub’s observation.

7 Definiteness with Quantifiers

We remarked in Section 4 above that Sībawayhi himself identifies a group of

exceptions to the Equivalence Claim. The exceptions are the words miṯluka,
šibhuka and naḥwaka; these all mean ‘like you’ and consist of a word in ʾiḍāfa
to the personal pronoun -ka. By the fifth and second criteria for definiteness
in Section 4, all of them are M-definite. But Sībawayhi says (Kitāb i, 179.4–6,
cf. i, 191.18) that these three words are nakira, i.e. indefinite. His point is clear;
many things can be ‘like you’, so none of these three words is much use for
identifying an individual. Thus these words are M-definite but P-indefinite, and
this makes them exceptions to the Equivalence Claim. In the same context
Sībawayhi mentions ġayruka ‘other than you’, which is another obvious excep-
tion.
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 137

If any of these words occurred as a mubtadaʾ, there would be a conflict

with the informational role of mubtadaʾ as we sketched it in Section 6 above.
But in fact these words are extremely unlikely to be found as first word of a
sentence. Sībawayhi quotes at Kitāb i, 179.6–8 an observation of Yūnus, to the
effect that one of these words is more likely to be definite if it occurs earlier in
the sentence. But the earliest that Yūnus manages to put it is as second word
in hāḏā miṯluka muqbilan ‘This person who is like you is approaching’, where
the opening phrase is P-definite, but the main credit for that should go to the
mubham word hāḏā.
What Sībawayhi seems to have overlooked is that his small class of excep-
tions is in fact part of a much larger class of exceptions, some of which do
occur in mubtadaʾ position. This raises significant problems about cases of P-
indefinite mubtadaʾ. As we will see below, al-Mubarrad already realized that
Sībawayhi’s class of exceptions should be extended, and later linguists includ-
ing al-Sīrāfī followed him in this. But independent of these researches, the
logicians were deploying hundreds of examples of this larger class of excep-
tions, taken in mubtadaʾ position.
We must indicate what is the larger class of exceptions that Sībawayhi
missed.
Consider two nouns in ʾiḍāfa: A-of-B. Two cases can arise. The first is that
everything that fits the description A-of-B fits the description a, so that the
effect of b is a restriction (taqyīd) of a. In this case we call a the ‘head noun’
of the ʾiḍāfa and b the ‘complement’. This is the commonest case, though it was
largely ignored by logicians until modern times. Ibn Sīnā does call attention
to two ʾiḍāfa structures of this type (ʿIbāra 12.14): rāʿī l-šāti wa-rāmī l-ḥiğārati
‘herder of (the) sheep and thrower of (the) stones’. These phrases will be
pragmatically definite if specific sheep or stones are intended.
The second case is that a is not a descriptive word, so that the question
whether a thing fits the description a doesn’t arise. In this case we call b
the ‘head noun’ and a the ‘specifier’. Sībawayhi’s examples miṯluka, šibhuka,
naḥwaka, ġayruka all fall under this second case, with head noun -ka. Al-Sīrāfī
gives an example that is M-definite (Šarḥ ii, 315.17): niṣfu l-nahāri ‘halfway
through the day’.
We can distinguish these two cases as the ‘complement case’ and the ‘speci-
fier case’.
The terminology of ‘head noun’, ‘specifier’ and ‘complement’ comes from
X-bar theory, for example Jackendoff (1977). In that theory, typical examples
of noun phrase specifiers are articles and demonstrative pronouns like ‘the’
and ‘this’, and quantifying expressions like ‘every’, ‘a few’, ‘a gallon of’, ‘a dozen’,
‘many’. Jackendoff also lists ‘no’, which besides being a quantifier of sorts, comes
close to matching the Arabic ġayr in ʾiḍāfa.
138 giolfo and hodges

In the complement case it makes sense to treat P-definiteness as a feature of

the first noun, which is essentially what the Equivalence Claim does. But for the
specifier case there is no reason to expect the morphosyntactic properties of
the first noun to have any direct relationship with the satisfiability of the whole
phrase. We have to look at the meaning of the specifier word to see whether it
together with the head noun pins down a specific individual. So P-definiteness
is likely to be the exception in the specifier case.
Now recall from Section 4 that Ibn Sīnā in his logic studied sentences con-
sisting of a subject and a predicate. The main source of these was the class of
sentences used by Aristotle in his categorical logic, converted from Greek into
Arabic. In his book ʿIbāra Ibn Sīnā introduces typical examples of the four main
sentence forms of categorical logic:

(a) Every person is an animal.

kullu ʾinsānin ḥayawānun
ʿIbāra 45.14

(e) No person is a stone.

laysa wa-lā wāḥida min al-nāsi bi-hajarin
ʿIbāra 46.3f.

(i) Some person is a writer.

baʿḍu l-nāsi kātibun
ʿIbāra 47.16

(o) Not every person is a writer.

laysa kullu l-nāsi bi-kātibin
ʿIbāra 47.16

He also gives some paraphrases of these forms, remarking that “for the truth
about these phrases you should consult the linguistic experts” (ʿalā ʾanna taḥ-
qīqa l-qawli fī hāḏā ʾilā ʾaṣḥābi ṣināʿati l-luġati, ʿIbāra 46.9).
The labels (a), (e), (i) and (o) for these forms are a later Medieval Latin
convention, based on taking vowels from the Latin words AffIrmo and nEgO.
Ibn Sīnā describes the forms (a) and (e) as ‘universal’ (kullī), or as having
‘generality’ (ʿumūm) attached; while (i) and (o) are ‘existential’ ( juzʾī), and
result from attaching ‘existentiality’ ( juzʾiyyatu).
At ʿIbāra 54.11 Ibn Sīnā lists the expressions kullu, lā šayʾa, baʿḍu and lā kullu,
corresponding to these four forms, under the name lafẓat al-taqdīr. Elsewhere
he also calls these expressions ḥaṣr or sūr. (Or at least he applies these names
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 139

to kullu and baʿḍu; we are not sure whether he includes the negation.) Leaving
aside the negatives, both kullu and baʿḍu are expressions that sit as muḍāf on
nouns or noun phrases. In Ibn Sīnā’s sample sentence forms above, baʿḍu is
muḍāf to the M-definite al-nās, so it is M-definite. Kullu is muḍāf to ʾinsanin,
which is M-indefinite; but note that kullu ʾinsanin could be paraphrased as
kullu al-nās, and arguably the two occurrences of kullu should be semantically
equivalent. In all these cases the opening noun phrase is a specifier case of
ʾiḍāfa.
Besides the four main sentence forms above, categorical logic has two fur-
ther kinds of form, known as ‘unquantified’ (muhmal) and ‘singular’ (maḫṣūṣ).
Examples of ‘singular’ are

hāḏihi l-yadu hiya baʿḍu al-badani

‘This hand is part of the body’
ʿIbāra 54.14–55.1

hāḏā šayʾun ḏātī

‘This is something essential [i.e. belonging to an essence]’
ʿIbāra 130.30

zaydun huwa ʾabū ʿabdi llāhi

‘Zayd is the servant of ʿAbdallāh’
Qiyās 109.13

Ibn Sīnā expresses some doubts about whether the category of ‘unquantified’
really can be carried over from Greek to Arabic, but he gives some tentative
examples, including al-ʾinsānu kātibun ‘[The?] man is a writer’ (ʿIbāra 50.11).
Between them his sentence forms have given us all of Sībawayhi’s five types
of definite except for personal pronouns. All these examples are nominal sen-
tences, and Ibn Sīnā himself regards the first and second noun phrases as mub-
tadaʾ and ḫabar respectively. In short, the sentences of Ibn Sīnā’s categorical
logic provide us with a good crop of mubtadaʾ/ḫabar sentences, in many cases
with an M-definite mubtadaʾ.
Which of these logical mubtadaʾ phrases can be counted as P-definite?
Singular sentences can begin with a proper name; in fact it seems that singular
sentences are the only one of Ibn Sīnā’s forms where the initial noun phrase
has any serious chance of specifying an individual.
140 giolfo and hodges

‘Definiteness’ in the Medieval Arabic context only captures half of what

linguists commonly regard as definite. What it misses is plural noun phrases
beginning with a definite article or a universal quantifier; see for example
(Lyons 1999:15–33) for criteria of definiteness that lead to the inclusion of
these plural phrases. On this broader account, the (a) sentences normally have
a definite mubtadaʾ. The (e) and (o) sentences complicate matters by being
negated.
The main challenge for the Equivalence Claim rests with the (i) sentences. In
many cases these open with an M-definite noun phrase of specifier type that
comes nowhere near specifying any individual. Given the informational role
of the mubtadaʾ, we should expect to find Arabic writers being uncomfortable
with these (i) sentences, or even avoiding them altogether.
For example, are there any examples of (i) sentences in the Qurʾān? We did
find just one example, at Sūratu l-ḥujurāt q. 49/12: ʾinna baʿḍa l-ẓanni ʾiṯmun
‘Suspicion is in some cases a sin’.
We note that the translation, from a standard modern edition of the Qurʾān,
replaces the indefinite ‘some suspicion’ by the definite ‘suspicion’, moving the
indefinite ‘some’ to later in the sentence. This kind of neutralization of the
indefiniteness is typical of what we find in both al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā. Our final
section will illustrate this.

8 Neutralising the Indefiniteness in Specifier ʾiḍāfas

Ibn Sīnā and al-Sīrāfī both have adjustments that allow us to see specifier ʾiḍāfas
as P-definite.
Ibn Sīnā does not explain his approach, but it is clear enough from his exam-
ples. When he is being careful he sticks to the standard categorical sentence
forms, even when they yield what is surely barbaric Arabic:

baʿḍu l-nāsi ḥayawānun

Qiyās 120.6

baʿḍu l-ʾabyaḍi ṯaljun

Qiyās 501.8

But when he is in a less formal mood he lapses into paraphrases of these forms,
for example
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 141

al-mutaḥarrikātu baʿḍuhā nāsun

‘Some mobile things are people’
Qiyās 209.2

al-ʿilmu mawjūdun fī kulli kayfiyyatin

‘There is knowledge about every quality’
Qiyās 483.5

min al-ḥayawāni mā huwa sābiḥun

‘Some animals swim’
Burhān 140.14

(He explicitly says that the second sentence is to be read as existentially quan-
tified, i.e. as an (i) sentence.) What he is doing in these paraphrases is to recast
the sentence form so that the topic is what was the head noun in the ʾiḍāfa.
The ḫabar is, or is a paraphrase of, the original ḫabar and the original specifier
of the ʾiḍāfa (i.e. baʿḍ in these examples). The new topic is a noun with defi-
nite article, which can be read as naming a class or genus; the remainder of the
sentence then gives information about that class.
In short, Ibn Sīnā’s paraphrases turn the standard sentence forms into topic-
comment sentences with a genuinely P-definite topic, but it is not the topic
of the original sentence. It seems that this approach should work with great
generality. He makes no claim that the paraphrased form is any more basic than
the original standard form.
We turn to al-Sīrāfī. His commentary on Sībawayhi’s Chapter 101 cites the
remark of ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās al-Mubarrad that

Ġayr does not become definite even when it is put in ʾiḍāfa with a definite,
because when you say ‘I passed someone other than you’, everything apart
from the interlocutor is ‘other than him’, and then putting it in ʾiḍāfa
to a definite thing does not force it to change to something different
from what it is (ʾanna ġayra wa-ʾin ʾuḍīfa ʾilā maʿrifatin lā yataʿarrafu
li-ʾannaka ʾiḏā qulta marartu bi-ġayrika wa-kullu mā laysa bi-l-muḫātabi
fa-huwa ġayruhu, fa-ʾiḍāfatuhu ʾilā l-maʿrifati lam tūjib taġyīra šayʾin bi-
ʿaynihi)
Šarḫ ii, 320.6f.
142 giolfo and hodges

Al-Sīrāfī’s response is explicitly the same as what we found implicitly in Ibn

Sīnā: namely that there is a way of paraphrasing ġayruka into a definite phrase.

‘Other than’ has an aspect in which it is definite. Namely, it is some-

times used in the sense of ‘what is different’. For example one says […]
‘The generous is other than the miser’, meaning that it is what is dif-
ferent from it. Thus one can separate off the things that are like [the
miser] from the other things that are different from it, […] and then the
things that are different from it are said to be [other than it] (ʾinna li-
ġayrin wajhan yataʿarrafu fīhi wa-ḏālika ʾannahā qad tustaʿmalu fī maʿnā
l-muḫālifi ka-qawlihim: […] al-jawādu ġayru al-baḫīli ʾay al-muḫālifu lahu
wa-qad yuḥṣaru ʾašyāʾu mutašābihatun, […] wa-yuqālu li-l-muḫālifati lahā
ʾinnahā ġayruhā)
Šarḫ ii, 320.10f.

More precisely al-muḫalifu li-l-baḫīli is an M-definite phrase, and it can be taken

as P-definite, referring collectively to the things that are not miserly.
Al-Sīrāfī’s paraphrase works with ‘other than’, because the class of things that
are ‘other than’ miserly is determinate, at least if the class of miserly things
is determinate. But this is clearly not true for all specifiers. For example if
a person said ‘I passed half the family of Zayd’, we cannot straightforwardly
paraphrase this by referring to ‘the half of the family of Zayd’, since there will be
several different halves. (Unstraightforwardly we can, by referring to the class
of halves of the family of Zayd. But we know of no linguistic applications of this
fact.)
But al-Sīrāfī does not leave the matter there. In answer to further remarks of
al-Mubarrad suggesting that ‘half of x’ behaves like ‘all of x’ and ‘some of x’, al-
Sīrāfī points out that we can and do speak of ‘the half that …’; for example we
can talk of ‘the half of the goods consisting of long-necked bottles’. The same
applies to ‘third’, ‘quarter’, etc. But there is no such usage with ‘all’ and ‘some’
(laysa hāḏā fī kull wa-lā fī baʿḍ, Šarḫ ii, 344.7–9).
Probably Ibn Sīnā would accept al-Sīrāfī’s paraphrases. However, he would
be bound to point out, in connection with ‘half’ and ‘some’, that at least logi-
cians say ‘the some’. For example at Qiyās 118.7 he has an argument beginning
with the premise ‘Some b is an a’:

We argue by ecthesis, by specifying the some b which is an a to be [the

class] d ( yatabayyanu bi-l-iftirāḍi bi-ʾan yuʿayyana l-baʿḍu llaḏī huwa b, wa-
huwa a fa-li-yakun ḏālika d)
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in al-sīrāfī and ibn sīnā 143

(Similarly Ibn Sīnā, Qiyās 40.5, 47.5, 48.6, 76.13 etc. etc.) But this seems to be
a technical usage peculiar to logic.

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Zamaḫšarī, ʾUnmūḏaj = ʾAbū l-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿUmar al-Zamaḫšarī, al-ʾUnmūḏaj.
Ed. and transl. by Djamel Eddine Kouloughli, Le résumé de la grammaire arabe. Paris:
Ecole Normale Supérieure, 2007.

b Secondary Sources
Alon, Ilon and Shukri Abed. 2007. Al-Fārābī’s philosophical lexicon = Qāmūs al-Fārābī
al-falsafī. Cambridge: The E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust.
Ayoub, Georgine. 1981. Structure de la phrase en arabe standard. Ph.D. diss., Université
de Paris vii.
Badawi, Elsaid, Michael G. Carter, and Adrian Gully. 2004. Modern Written Arabic: A
comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.
Carter, Michael G. 2004. Sībawayhi. London: Tauris.
Carter, Michael G. 2016. Sībawayhi’s principles: Arabic grammar and law in early Islamic
thought. Atlanta, ga: Lockwood Press.
Chatti, Saloua. 2016. “Existential import in Avicenna’s modal logic”. Arabic Sciences and
Philosophy 26.45–71.
Elamrani-Jamal, Abdelali. 1983. Logique aristotélicienne et grammaire arabe: Etude et
documents. Paris: Vrin.
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Giolfo, Manuela E.B. and Wilfrid Hodges. 2013. “Syntax and meaning in Sirafi and Ibn
Sīnā”. Romano-Arabica 8.81–97.
Gutas, Dimitri. 2014. Avicenna and the Aristotelian tradition: Introduction to reading
Avicenna’s philosophical works. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Heffening, Willi. 2012. “Al-Muzanī”. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. Brill, online.
Hodges, Wilfrid, 2016. “Proofs as cognitive or computational: Ibn Sīnā’s innovations”.
Philosophy and Technology (2016) https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0242-2.
Jackendoff, Ray. 1977. x̄ Syntax: A study of phrase structure. Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press.
Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marogy, Amal E. 2010. Kitāb Sībawayhi: Syntax and pragmatics. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Sheyhatovitch, Beata. 2015. “The notion of fāʾida in the Medieval Arabic grammatical
tradition: Fāʾida as a criterion for utterance acceptability”. The foundations of Arabic
linguistics. ii. Kitāb Sībawayhi: Interpretation and transmission, ed. by Amal Elesha
Marogy and Kees Versteegh, 184–201. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Versteegh, Kees. 1977. Greek elements in Arabic linguistic thinking. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Wright, William. 1967. A grammar of the Arabic language. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Young, Walter E. 2017. The dialectical forge: Juridical disputation and the evolution of
Islamic law: Logic, argumentation and reasoning. Cham: Springer.
Early Pedagogical Grammars of Arabic
Almog Kasher

1 Introduction

In his review article, “Writing the history of Arabic grammar”, Carter (1994:390)
criticizes comparisons “drawn between grammarians who are literally incom-
parable, e.g. Sībawayhi and Luġda (a minor pedagogue who died in 913) […]”.
The following is an attempt to elaborate on this point, and to demonstrate why
traits found in a corpus of early pedagogical grammars (including Luġda’s) can-
not simply be incorporated in discussions of grammatical theories.1 I will show
how we can nevertheless benefit from these pedagogical grammars in our study
of the early history of Arabic grammatical tradition. To this end, I will con-
centrate on two terms found in some of the extant works of this kind. A more
comprehensive study of the characteristics of early pedagogical grammars will
be conducted in the near future.
It should be stated from the outset that some grammarians explicitly state
that discrepancies exist between theoretical and pedagogical grammar. For
example, in his Qurʾānic commentary al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822) speaks twice of
explanations fit for “the novice [in instruction]” (al-mubtadiʾ [li-l-taʿlīm]).2 In
a similar vein, one of the explanations offered by al-Zajjājī (d. ca. 338/950)
for the naṣb of the (originally second, but now the only) object of originally
ditransitive verbs in the passive voice, e.g. ʾuʿṭiya zaydun dirhaman ‘Zayd was
given a dirham’, is that it is ḫabar mā lam yusamma fāʿiluhu.3 But this term,
he says, is merely meant to “facilitate [it] for the learner/novice” (taqrīb ʿalā l-
mutaʿallim/al-mubtadiʾ), and does not belong to the parlance of the Baṣrans.4
The expression al-taqrīb ʿalā l-mubtadiʾ is also used by al-Zajjājī to charac-

1 On pedagogical grammar, see Carter (1990:123–126, 131); Baalbaki (2005). On the distinction
between theoretical and pedagogical grammars, see Ryding (2013:207).
2 See Kinberg (1996:53). See also Carter (1990:124).
3 For discussion of this term, see Vidro and Kasher (2014:213, 223).
4 Zajjājī, Jumal 78. One should not hasten to infer from this statement that this is a Kūfan term.
In fact, an anonymous Kūfan grammarian (on whom see below) seems to have used the term
fiʿl mā lam yusamma fāʿiluhu in this sense (see the discussion in Vidro and Kasher 2014:213,
223).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_008

early pedagogical grammars of arabic 147

terize al-ʾAḫfaš’ (d. 215/830) and al-Mubarrad’s (d. 285/898) definitions of the
part of speech ism.5
The two technical terms I will discuss here are ḥurūf al-jarr and ḥurūf al-rafʿ.
First, some remarks are in order regarding the use of the term ḥarf in early
grammatical writings. There is an apparently never-ending debate over the
term ḥarf in the Kitāb Sībawayhi. In broad terms, the conundrum is whether
the term ḥarf denotes ‘particle’ in the Kitāb, or refers to this part of speech
only occasionally, while its denotation is ‘word’ or something similar.6 My own
preference is for the latter view, but even scholars adhering to the former admit
that the term ḥarf did indeed frequently denote ‘word’ or something similar in
the Kitāb,7 a fact which Medieval grammarians were also well aware of, as we
shall see presently.8 It is probably Ibn al-Sarrāj (d. 316/928) who first refrained
from using ḥarf in the more general sense and restricted it to ‘particle’. The
term ḥarf almost never conveys the general sense of ‘word’ in his writings,
i.e. it almost never refers to nouns or verbs. However, it did not cease to be
used in the general sense even after Ibn al-Sarrāj.9 The most celebrated case
of such usage is probably the title of the chapter on kāna and its ‘sisters’ in al-
Zajjājī’s al-Jumal fī l-naḥw, where these verbs are referred to as ḥurūf.10 This
chapter drew much attention from later commentators, generating interesting
discussions about particle-like features of these verbs.11 Another approach
to defending al-Zajjājī was based upon the grammarians’—and particularly
Sībawayhi’s—use of ḥarf in the sense of ‘word’.12 It should be kept in mind
that this usage of the term ḥarf was by no means an isolated case in that
period.
The following two sections revolve around the terms ḥurūf al-jarr and ḥurūf
al-rafʿ (and similar expressions) in a corpus of early pedagogical grammars:
Kitāb al-naḥw by Luġda, Kitāb al-Muwaffaqī fī l-naḥw by Ibn Kaysān (d. 299/912

5 ʾĪḍāḥ 49, 51; also 44, 47 (Versteegh 1995:25, 44, 50, 51).
6 For overviews of the different opinions, see Talmon (1984:49ff.); Versteegh (1995:68–70).
See also Levin (2000); Talmon (2003:213ff.).
7 See Fischer (1989:136–137, 138–139); Owens (1990:245–248); Levin (2000:25).
8 See also Sīrāfī, Šarḥ i, 412. Cf. Weiß (1910:375).
9 On the mention of nouns and verbs in the ḥurūf literature, see Baalbaki (2014:214).
10 Zajjājī, Jumal 41ff. That these are indeed verbs is stated ibid., 103.
11 Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ 121; Baṭalyūsī, Ḥulal 157–159; Ibn ʾAbī l-Rabīʿ, Basīṭ ii, 661 ff.; ʿAlawī,
Minhāj i, 307f. See Peled (2009:193ff., esp. 200–202).
12 Baṭalyūsī, Ḥulal 159–160; Ibn Ḫarūf, Šarḥ i, 415; Ibn ʾAbī l-Rabīʿ, Basīṭ ii, 661; ʿAlawī, Minhāj
i, 308.
148 kasher

or 320/932),13 al-Jumal fī l-naḥw by al-Zajjājī, Kitāb al-tuffāḥa fī l-naḥw by the

Egyptian al-Naḥḥās (d. 338/950) and Kitāb al-wāḍiḥ by the Andalusian al-
Zubaydī (d. 379/989).14 Another item which belongs to this corpus is an anony-
mous treatise (survived in Hebrew characters) that is replete with Kūfan char-
acteristics and whose author—as can be inferred—affiliates himself with the
Kūfans; this provides us with a terminus ante quem, namely the very beginning
of the 5th/11th century, when the last known ‘Kūfan’ grammarian is likely to
have died.15 Palaeographic evidence suggests that the grammar was translit-
erated into Hebrew characters at the end of the 5th/11th century.16 The use
of these terms in the grammars under discussion here stands in contradis-
tinction to what I shall refer to as the ‘mainstream’ of the Arabic grammat-
ical tradition, by which are mainly intended the writings of Sībawayhi, al-
Mubarrad, Ibn al-Sarrāj, al-Fārisī (d. 377/987) and Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002).17
I will demonstrate that the use of these terms by the former group reflects
a pedagogical tradition, which has roots in earlier times. The next section
will discuss several undatable treatises in which these terms are also used;
the question of their dating will be revisited in light of the findings of this
study.

2 The ḥurūf al-jarr

In light of the previous discussion of the term ḥarf, it is not surprising that the
term ḥurūf al-jarr (or ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ18 or similar expressions) was not always

13 This grammarian is said to have mixed the two schools. See Troupeau (1962:399); Sezgin
(1984:158) “jedoch neigte er etwas mehr den Basrensern zu”; Carter (2000:265).
14 “Umayyad al-Andalus displays an aggressive intellectual emulation of the Arab East …”
(Carter 2011:31). There is thus no need to assume that “the tradition of u-inf [sc. rafʿ]
governors continued in isolated cases and areas; it is found in the Andalusian Zubaydi”
(Owens 1990:200).
15 See Sezgin (1984:150). See also Carter (2000:265).
16 On this treatise, see Vidro and Kasher (2014).
17 Apart from the celebrated al-Lumaʿ fī l-naḥw which is used for the present study, another
pedagogical treatise, entitled ʿUqūd al-lumaʿ fī l-naḥw, is ascribed to Ibn Jinnī; the latter
will not be incorporated in the following discussion, as its different versions and even its
very attribution to Ibn Jinnī need further study, which I intend to undertake in the near
future.
18 Although the term ḫafḍ is frequently said to be the Kūfan equivalent of the Baṣran term
jarr, the former is ubiquitous in mainstream grammars. See the discussion and references
in Vidro and Kasher (2014:218f.).
early pedagogical grammars of arabic 149

restricted to particles. In fact, some grammarians put forward quite heteroge-

neous lists of operators of the jarr under the class ḥurūf al-jarr. This practice is
in sharp contrast to the strict differentiation in mainstream grammars between
word classes. To take one representative example from a mainstream pedagog-
ical grammar, Ibn al-Sarrāj’s al-Mūjaz fī l-naḥw. In this treatise, nouns in jarr
are divided into those operated on by a preposition (ḥarf jarr, i.e. a particle
assigning the jarr) vs. those taking jarr by dint of annexation of a noun to
them.19
In contrast, under the heading Bāb ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ in his al-Tuffāḥa fī l-naḥw,
al-Naḥḥās lists both particles, e.g. min ‘from’ and ʾilā ‘towards’, and nouns of
several classes, e.g. ḫalfa ‘behind’, kull ‘all’, wayl ‘woe (to)’, siwā ‘other than’
and subḥāna ‘glory (to)’. This chapter ends with a mention of annexations,
e.g. ṯawbu ʾabīka ‘your father’s garment’. It is inferred that, unlike the nouns
in the list above, these are nouns which are not obligatorily, or characteris-
tically, annexed.20 Similar heterogeneous lists are found in Luġda’s grammar
under the title Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tajurru mā baʿdahā,21 and in the anonymous
Kūfan grammar under ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ.22 Moreover, one of the additional pas-
sages found in one of the fragments of the latter text is a short list of this sort
(maybe only the beginning of a longer one), copied from a different anonymous
work, entitled al-Ḥurūf allatī taḫfiḍu mā baʿdahā.23
To what extent this practice was widespread can be inferred from the criti-
cism leveled at it by Ibn al-Sarrāj. Right after he claims that what the Baṣrans
call ẓarf is termed ṣifa by al-Kisāʾī and maḥall by al-Farrāʾ, he says that “they”—
note: in the plural, not the dual—mix nouns with particles in lists of ḥurūf
al-ḫafḍ, and he illustrates his point with a long list of this sort.24 Although it
is rather tempting to assume that he refers here exclusively to the Kūfans,25

19 Ibn al-Sarrāj, Mūjaz 55–61. See also Sībawayhi, Kitāb ch. 100, i, 177 f. Derenbourg/i, 419–421
Hārūn; Mubarrad, Muqtaḍab iv, 136ff.; Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl i, 408 ff.; Fārisī, ʾĪḍāḥ 199 ff.; Ibn
Jinnī, Lumaʿ 29ff. Sometimes, ẓurūf, such as ḫalfa ‘behind’, are included in the category of
nouns, but sometimes, they constitute an independent class.
20 Naḥḥās, Tuffāḥa 17f. (see Omar 1990:244).
21 Luġda, Naḥw 225f. (see Owens 1989:228, n. 10). Annexation is discussed in the following
chapter (Luġda, Naḥw 226). We shall see below that in a previous chapter Luġda in
fact explains the reason for the use of the term ḥurūf for a group comprising nouns as
well.
22 See Vidro and Kasher (2014:190f., 211–213).
23 See Vidro and Kasher (2014:177).
24 Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl i, 204f.
25 Cf. Levin (1987:354); Owens (1989:228, n. 10).
150 kasher

there is no textual evidence to support this.26 The term ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ, in fact, is
almost completely absent from extant Kūfan writings.27
So far we have seen two ways of handling the various operators of the jarr:
strict differentiation between ḥurūf al-jarr, i.e. particles (prepositions), and
nouns vs. presentation of heterogeneous lists of operators, all subsumed under
ḥurūf al-jarr (or similar expressions). Now, two pedagogical grammars, Ibn
Kaysān’s and al-Zajjājī’s, use the term ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ for the entire class, while
differentiating between subclasses.28 Thus, in face of the discrepancy between
theory, i.e. differentiation between parts of speech, and what appears to be a
pedagogical tradition of presenting lists under the title ḥurūf al-jarr, these two
grammarians hold the stick at both ends.

3 The ḥurūf al-rafʿ

As already shown by Peled, ḥurūf al-ibtidāʾ was a widespread term for a class of
particles, including ʾinnamā ‘[approx.] only’ and lākin ‘but’, which do not assign
case/mood to any constituent in the sentences they introduce.29 However,
Peled also notes the rare term ḥurūf al-rafʿ.30 This and similar expressions,
which will be dealt with below, are found in several pedagogical grammars with
a wider extension than that of ḥurūf al-ibtidāʾ.31 With the terms ḥurūf al-naṣb,
ḥurūf al-jarr and ḥurūf al-jazm in mind, one might have expected that ḥurūf

26 In fact, the opposite conclusion, namely, that he is referring to grammarians in general,

receives corroboration from a statement, admittedly very laconic, made by al-Mubarrad
(Muqtaḍab iv, 136) on this issue, where he speaks of al-naḥwiyyūna.
27 But see nonetheless Farrāʾ, Maʿānī ii, 292 (ḥarf ḫāfiḍ); Ṯaʿlab, Faṣīḥ 26 f. Note that Kūfan
grammarians use the term ṣifa for both prepositions and ẓurūf (for discussion and refer-
ences, see Vidro and Kasher 2014:229f.).
28 Ibn Kaysān, Muwaffaqī 110f.; Zajjājī, Jumal 60–65. Regarding the latter, Ibn ʾAbī l-Rabīʿ
(Basīṭ ii, 837) explains that the use of the term ḥurūf in the sense of kalim, as done here,
was common among grammarians, as long as the context rendered it clear that it is this
sense which is intended. Al-Zubaydī uses the term ʾadawāt for the entire class, albeit not
according to all the manuscripts of his book (Wāḍiḥ 59–62); elsewhere in this book (ibid.,
311f.) nouns such as dūna ‘below’ are subsumed under ḥurūf.
29 See Peled (1992:159ff.). He emphasizes that this ibtidāʾ is not identical to the operator
named ibtidāʾ, but rather it is equivalent to what in later times is commonly termed istiʾnāf.
30 Peled (1992:164ff.). See also Owens (1990:184, 188, 193).
31 The term ḥurūf al-rafʿ is also found at least once outside pedagogical grammars, in Fārisī,
Ḥujja iv, 365, but it is unclear to which words this term refers here.
early pedagogical grammars of arabic 151

al-rafʿ would refer to operators of rafʿ,32 but surprisingly, this is not the case.
A nice illustration is found in al-Naḥḥās’ grammar: the list under the title Bāb
ḥurūf al-rafʿ contains elements from all three parts of speech (i.e., nouns, verbs
and particles), such as ʾinnamā, lākin, lawlā ‘if it were not for’, hal [interrogative
particle], ʿasā ‘maybe’, niʿma ‘how good’, biʾsa ‘how bad’, ʾayna ‘where’, hāḏā ‘this’
and huwa ‘he’.33 However, he immediately explains that the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ
merely means that these words are mostly followed by a marfūʿ. For instance,
the rafʿ of zaydun in ʾinnamā zaydun qāʾimun ‘[approx.] Zayd is only standing’ is
assigned by the ibtidāʾ.34 Now, there is a striking resemblance between this and
the equivalent chapter of the anonymous Kūfan grammar mentioned above,
which opens with the words Bāb al-rafʿ, wa-ḥurūfuhu …, also followed by a
list, albeit a shorter one, and the very same explanation of the term. The first
example also begins with ʾinnamā, viz.ʾinnamā ʿabdullāhi muḥsinun ‘[approx.]
Abdallah is only a good-doer’. Yet, as expected from a Kūfan grammar, the rafʿ
of ʿabdullāhi is ascribed to muḥsinun and vice versa.35 Hence, the term ḥurūf
al-rafʿ is neutral with respect to grammatical theory. Since the demonstratives,
lawlā, kam ‘how many’36 and, probably, ḥabbaḏā ‘how lovely’ are said in this
chapter to assign the rafʿ, it may be inferred that the other members of the list
are not operators of the rafʿ.37 To be sure, the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ is lacking from
the other extant Kūfan writings, as far as I know.38

32 See Peled (1992:159ff.).

33 Naḥḥās, Tuffāḥa 21.
34 Naḥḥās, Tuffāḥa 21. Note that not all the items on this list are sentence-introducers, for
it includes also demonstratives and personal pronouns. Al-Naḥḥās does not present any
examples of the latter, but wherever their use is illustrated in other grammars, they occupy
the subject position. See the discussion below.
35 See Vidro and Kasher (2014:191f., 213, 220–224). On this ‘Kūfan’ concept (often termed
tarāfuʿ), see Vidro and Kasher (2014:220–224), and the references therein.
36 E.g. kam māluka ‘how many [dirhams etc.] is your property?’. On this construction see,
e.g., Ibn al-Sarrāj (ʾUṣūl i, 327). Al-Naḥḥas (Tuffāḥa 21) restricts its inclusion in the list to
cases where it is followed by a definite noun.
37 See Vidro and Kasher (2014:213, 220–224). It is stated that the second constituent after
ʾayna and kayfa ‘how’ may take either the rafʿ or the naṣb, e.g. ʾayna ʾaḫūka jālisun ‘where
is your brother sitting?’ or ʾayna ʾaḫūka jālisan ‘where is your brother, sitting?’ (cf. Peled
1992:166f.). This grammarian does not parse the latter construction, but elsewhere (see
Vidro and Kasher 2014:191), the rafʿ in the construction ʿinda + jarr + rafʿ is explained as
bi-l-ṣifa, which is in line with what is regarded as the ‘Kūfan’ view (see the discussion and
references in Vidro and Kasher 2014:220–224).
38 No title in the list of chapters of al-Farrāʾ’s lost Kitāb al-ḥudūd (see Sezgin 1984:132)
152 kasher

The term is also found at the end of one of the headings in al-Zajjājī’s Jumal:
Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī yartafiʿu mā baʿdahā bi-l-ibtidāʾ wa-l-ḫabar wa-tusammā
ḥurūf al-rafʿ.39 This is not the only version of this heading; in some versions,
the words wa-l-ḫabar are not found, but more importantly, some read tarfaʿu
(also: yurfaʿu) instead of yartafiʿu.40 Obviously, it was the version tarfaʿu which
drew much attention, for it appears to contradict the explanation of the rafʿ
as due to the ibtidāʾ. Several explanations were offered, most commonly that
the verb should not be analyzed as a 3rd person feminine singular, its subject
referring to the ḥurūf in question, but as a 2nd person masculine singular, its
subject referring to the addressee.41 Since the list is not restricted to particles
such as ʾinnamā and hal, but also includes, for instance, kayfa and ʾayna, the
term ḥurūf also drew some attention.42 Now expressions introduced by the
words al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu/turfaʿu … were in circulation in early grammars,
where the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ itself is not found. Thus, one of the headings in
Luġda’s grammar reads Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu/turfaʿu baʿdahā l-ʾasmāʾ bi-l-
ibtidāʾ.43 The explanation of the rafʿ as due to the ibtidāʾ is repeated later in
the chapter;44 yet here too it is uncertain how one should read and interpret
the verb.45 Interestingly, Luġda immediately concedes that these are, in fact,
ḥurūf, ʾasmāʾ and ẓurūf ; and the use of the term ḥurūf for all three classes is
explained as being easier for the learner (li-takūna ʾahwan ʿalā l-mutaʿallim).
One may infer from his wording that Luġda is following a common prac-
tice.

corresponds to the class of ḥurūf al-rafʿ, let alone incorporates this term. One occurrence
of ḥurūf al-istiʾnāf was detected in Farrāʾ, Maʿānī i, 476.
39 Zajjājī, Jumal 302. This issue is discussed in Peled (1992:164 ff.).
40 See Zajjājī, Jumal 302, n. 1; Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ 600–602; Baṭalyūsī, Ḥulal 333; Ibn Ḫarūf,
Šarḥ 63; Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ ii, 565; ʿAlawī, Minhāj ii, 294; Ibn Hišām, Šarḥ 368. See Peled
(1992:165).
41 See Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ 600f.; Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ ii, 565; ʿAlawī, Minhāj ii, 295. See Peled
(1992:165).
42 See Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ 600; Ibn Ḫarūf, Šarḥ 64; Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ ii, 565; ʿAlawī, Minhāj ii,
295.
43 Luġda, Naḥw 225.
44 Luġda, Naḥw 225. It is unclear whether this applies also to the demonstratives and per-
sonal pronouns, also included in this chapter.
45 Note that the list includes also words whose following nouns are predicates, rather than
subjects, e.g. demonstratives. Luġda’s theory regarding the operator of the predicate is
unclear (see Luġda, Naḥw 223f.).
early pedagogical grammars of arabic 153

Ambiguity is also found in al-Zubaydī’s grammar: Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu46

mā baʿdahā min al-ʾasmāʾ wa-l-ʾaḫbār. He also stresses that the rafʿ is due to the
operation of ibtidāʾ.47 Included here are not only particles, but also words that
al-Zubaydī himself classifies as ẓurūf.48
However, the short list of words presented by Ibn Kaysān under al-ḥurūf
allatī tarfaʿu (the subject of the verb here unequivocally refers to the ḥurūf )
may be restricted to those which, for him, actually assign the rafʿ, although it is
not restricted to particles.49
Strong evidence that such expressions were common in that epoch is found
in al-Ḫwārizmī’s (d. after 387/997)50 Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm (composed between 370/
980 and 380/990),51 whose aim, according to its author’s statement, is to pres-
ent the technical terms common in the literatures of the ʿulūm.52 Or, as Fischer
puts it in his study of the chapter on grammar in this book: “What gives this
chapter its specific importance, is the fact that its author is not a professional
grammarian, thus he wants to outline what an educated amateur—that means
a secretary (kātib)—has to know about grammar, and gives a sketch of this
domain of learning from outside.”53 Thus, the fact that such a book features
the category al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu/turfaʿu baʿdahā l-ʾasmāʾ wa-l-ʾaḫbār,54 under
which ʾayna, kayfa, matā ‘when’, hal and bal are listed, is an indicator that it was
deemed basic in grammatical writings at that time. A similar conclusion can be
inferred from Ibn Farīʿūn’s55 (probably died between 350/960 and 400/1010)56
Jawāmiʿ al-ʿulūm, whose arrangement is said to be “particularly suitable for
textbooks”.57 In this compendium one finds the category ḥarf yarfaʿu l-ʾasmāʾ
wa-l-nuʿūt wa-l-ʾaḫbār.58

46 In such cases, one cannot rule out the possibility that the original text read yurfaʿu (tarfaʿu
being a copyist’s error).
47 Zubaydī, Wāḍiḥ 79.
48 Ibid., 79f.
49 Ibn Kaysān, Muwaffaqī 110.
50 Versteegh (1993:17).
51 Fischer (1985:94).
52 Ḫwārizmī, Mafātīḥ 2ff. For an overview, see Bosworth (1963).
53 Fischer (1985:94).
54 Ḫwārizmī, Mafātīḥ 47.
55 The name is uncertain; see Sezgin’s introduction to his edition of the book.
56 According to Sezgin’s introduction to his edition of the book. See also Biesterfeldt (1990:
49).
57 Biesterfeldt (1990:50).
58 Ibn Farīʿūn, Jawāmiʿ 27 Sezgin/61 al-Janābī.
154 kasher

We have so far emphasized two points of discrepancy between the term

ḥurūf al-rafʿ (and similar expressions) and mainstream grammatical theory,
namely, the application of the term ḥarf to nouns and verbs, and the implica-
tion that all the members of the set are operators of the rafʿ. We have also seen
several ways by which grammarians attempted to incorporate these expres-
sions into their theories. The element bi-l-ibtidāʾ at the end of some of these
expressions may also have been a later addition aimed at this goal. But the
discrepancy is deeper, for these chapters are at odds with the entire taqsīm
structure of mainstream grammars.59 Some of the words listed deserve, accord-
ing to the mainstream taqsīm, the title ḥurūf al-ibtidāʾ; others are ẓurūf ; still
others are demonstratives and personal pronouns, and are thus simply sub-
sumed under mubtadaʾ; some are verbs; etc. With ḥurūf al-jarr the discrep-
ancy is less severe: in order to bring these chapters in line with mainstream
taqsīm, one only needs to separate particles from nouns, as we have seen
above.60
Now we have evidence, outside the corpus of these pedagogical grammars,
that both the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ and similar expressions were regarded as not
reflecting grammatical theory. First, Ibn Wallād (d. 332/943) tells us that some
grammarians ( jamāʿa min ʾahl al-naḥw), among them al-ʾAḫfaš, write in their
books: Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu l-ʾasmāʾ wa-l-ʾaḫbār, although such words as
hal and ʾayna do not assign the rafʿ.61 The context is Sībawayhi’s statement
“and if you wish, you may put [the words] in rafʿ by means of [the opera-
tor] by means of which you put [the words] in naṣb” (wa-ʾin šiʾta rafaʿta bimā
naṣabta), applied to a construction in which the rafʿ is not, in fact, caused
by the operator in question, since it is a case of a mubtadaʾ and its ḫabar.62

59 The subject of taqsīm was studied recently by Viain (2014). I would like to thank Dr. Viain
for kindly having sent me a copy of her thesis.
60 However, some grammarians formulate syntactic rules pertaining to sentence types in
these chapters. The most striking case is the construction: preposition/ẓarf + jarr + rafʿ,
e.g. fī ʾaḫīka ḫaṣlatun jamīlatun ‘there is a beautiful quality [inhering] in your brother’,
discussed by al-Zajjājī ( Jumal 62) and the anonymous Kūfan grammarian (Vidro and
Kasher 2014:190f.). Both formulate the same rule: when the noun in jarr is followed by
another noun, the latter takes the rafʿ. As expected, al-Zajjājī explains this case as bi-
l-ibtidāʾ, while the Kūfan grammarian accounts for it as bi-l-ṣifa (on the latter, see the
discussion and references in Vidro and Kasher 2014:220–224). Such discussions, which, as
far as I know do not appear in jarr-chapters in mainstream grammars, also do not square
with the taqsīm-structure, as this is not the appropriate place to discuss sentence types.
61 Ibn Wallād, Intiṣār 73 (= Bernards 1997:27).
62 Sībawayhi, Kitāb ch. 31, i, 51 Derenbourg/i, 124 Hārūn.
early pedagogical grammars of arabic 155

Since Sībawayhi’s wording here is regarded by Ibn Wallād as tasammuḥ,63

it may be inferred that the wording Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu l-ʾasmāʾ wa-l-
ʾaḫbār would also be regarded by him as such. In addition, an unattributable
paragraph found in the margins of the manuscript of al-ʾAʿlam al-Šantamarī’s
(d. 476/1083) commentary on this discussion, also compares Sībawayhi’s word-
ing with the use of the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ and the expression al-ḥurūf allatī
tarfaʿu mā baʿdahā bi-l-ibtidāʾ wa-l-ḫabar.64 Finally, ʾAbū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī (d.
early 5th/11th century) regards the grammarians’ practice of subsuming lawlā
under ḥurūf al-rafʿ as musāmaḥa, for the following noun takes the rafʿ due to
the ibtidāʾ.65
The mention of al-ʾAḫfaš in the last paragraph leads us to the next question:
how early was the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ used, to judge by extant sources? Put dif-
ferently, we have seen so far that this term, and similar expressions, appear in
a corpus of early pedagogical grammars, yet the term does not appear in what
I referred to above as the ‘mainstream’ of Arabic grammatical tradition. There-
fore, was this term a late innovation vis-à-vis this mainstream? The answer
seems to be in the negative. Apart from Ibn Wallād’s attribution of the expres-
sion Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu l-ʾasmāʾ wa-l-ʾaḫbār to al-ʾAḫfaš (which should,
like any account of this sort, be treated with considerable caution), we have two
early testimonies for the use of the term in question, one by al-ʾAḫfaš himself,
as we shall see presently. The other testimony, which is of great significance,
is al-Jumaḥī’s (d. 221/845–846) version of the story of the invention of naḥw.66
In this account, ʾAbū l-ʾAswad al-Duʾalī is said to have composed the following
ʾabwāb: Bāb al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl wa-l-muḍāf wa-ḥurūf al-jarr wa-l-rafʿ wa-l-naṣb
wa-l-jazm.67 In order to grasp the import of this version, it should be compared
with a much more ‘orthodox’ one, according to which the first grammar sup-
posedly began with the tripartite division of the parts of speech.68 It is plausible
that just as the latter is modeled on what came to be the standard openings of

63 This term means “using a careless mode of expression, relying upon the understanding of
the reader or hearer” (Lane 1863–1893: iv, 1423).
64 Al-ʾAʿlam al-Šantamarī, Nukat i, 357.
65 ʿAskarī, Taṣḥīḥ 425.
66 On the literature about the invention of Arabic grammar, see Talmon (1985); Versteegh
(1995:147–151); Baalbaki (1995:124f.). On al-Jumaḥī’s testimony, see Talmon (2003:30 ff.).
67 Jumaḥī, Ṭabaqāt 5. This also may be the idea behind ʾAbū l-Ṭayyib al-Luġawī’s version, in
which ʿAlī is said to have ordered ʾAbū l-ʾAswad: ijʿal li-l-nās ḥurūfan wa-ʾašāra lahu ʾilā l-
rafʿ wa-l-naṣb wa-l-jarr (Marātib 20). As stated by Baalbaki (1995:125), “the arrangement
according to regimen seems to be initiated only for didactic purposes”.
68 See, for instance, Zajjājī, ʾĪḍāḥ 89.
156 kasher

grammars, following the Kitāb, the former is modeled on (a) grammar(s) in cir-
culation in al-Jumaḥī’s time (or perhaps in his source’s, or sources’, time). It is
striking that series of chapters basically organized around classes of ḥurūf fea-
ture in some of the pedagogical grammars mentioned above. For instance, the
following series occurs in al-Naḥḥās’ grammar: Bāb ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ, Bāb al-ḥurūf
allatī tanṣubu l-ʾasmāʾ wa-tarfaʿu l-ʾaḫbār, Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu l-ʾasmāʾ wa-
tanṣubu l-ʾaḫbār, Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tanṣubu l-ʾafʿāl al-mustaqbala, Bāb al-jawāb
bi-l-fāʾ,69 Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tajzimu l-ʾafʿāl al-mustaqbala, Bāb ḥurūf al-raf.70
From this correspondence, we may infer that not only did the term ḥurūf al-
rafʿ have roots in early grammar, but also that it constituted part of a series of
chapters organized around classes of words followed by a certain case/mood.
A statement found in al-ʾAḫfaš’ al-ʿArūḍ corroborates this conclusion: he says
that those interested in ʿarūḍ must study some Arabic, including ḥurūf al-rafʿ
wa-l-naṣb wa-l-jarr wa-l-jazm.71
At this point the reader may well ask whether the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ ever
reflected a grammatical theory.72 To be sure, some of the items in the list were
recognized by grammarians as operators of rafʿ, e.g. niʿma and biʾsa, demon-
stratives and personal pronouns (in subject position, although the view that
the subject assigns the rafʿ to the predicate was not universally accepted).73
The inclusion of lawlā is of interest, since it reflects the opinion ascribed to the
Kūfans, as was indeed al-Farrāʾ’s view, against Sībawayhi’s and al-Mubarrad’s, as
has already been shown by Baalbaki.74 The former view was also adopted in the
anonymous Kūfan grammar.75 Interesting is also the inclusion of interrogative
ẓurūf, e.g. ʾayna. Illustrations of the use of such ẓurūf consist of the construc-
tion ẓarf + subject + predicate, but also of predicative ẓarf + subject (+ naṣb). In
the latter case, the Kūfans, as well as several other early grammarians, held that
the ẓarf assigns the rafʿ to the subject.76 The grammatical view on these words
by the first grammarians to form such lists is a matter of conjecture. The more
interesting question, however, revolves around sentence-introducing particles,
such as ʾinnamā (i.e. the ḥurūf al-ibtidāʾ—see above): were these particles ever

69 This is merely an offshoot of the previous chapter.

70 Naḥḥāṣ, Tuffāḥa 17–21. See also Luġda, Naḥw 225f.; Vidro and Kasher (2014:187–192).
71 ʾAḫfaš, ʿArūḍ 136 (quoted by Talmon 2003:125f., who, however, identifies these ḥurūf with
ḥurūf al-ʾiʿrāb).
72 Cf. Owens (1990:200).
73 See Levin (2003–2005).
74 Baalbaki (1981:15f.).
75 See Vidro and Kasher (2014:192, 224).
76 See Vidro and Kasher (2014:224).
early pedagogical grammars of arabic 157

held to assign rafʿ? An alternative possibility is that the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ was
coined as a pedagogical term from the outset, independently of the grammat-
ical theory of the grammarian(s) who coined it. There is a third possibility as
well, namely that it was coined prior to any comprehensive theory of syntactic
effect. The question of whether grammarians ever maintained that words such
as ʾinnamā assign the rafʿ thus has no conclusive answer. Talmon’s evidence
from the Kitāb for such a theory adhered to by early grammarians is, to say
the least, tenuous.77 The evidence from the Kitāb al-ʿayn is more convincing.78
However, it may as well be explained as nothing more than another instance
of tasammuḥ (cf. Sībawayhi’s wording mentioned above).79 Finally, as we have
seen, some grammarians refer to the subject as ism, which is the flip side of the
coin of the term ḥurūf al-rafʿ. It may hint at an early provenance,80 but it is pre-
mature to infer far-reaching conclusions from this about any early grammatical
theory.
Another remark about the organization of al-Jumaḥī’s first grammar is in
order here. Its first chapter is prima facie Bāb al-fāʿil, but it might just as
well be Bāb al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl; nothing in the text can either corroborate or
refute either reading. However, other accounts claim that ʾAbū l-ʾAswad al-
Duʾalī composed only Bāb al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl,81 which increases the probability
of the latter. Now, chapters entitled Bāb al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl bihi are found in
three of the grammars dealt with here.82 Moreover, in the anonymous Kūfan
grammar Bāb al-mafʿūl bihi wa-l-fāʿil seems to occupy the first place, just like
in al-Jumaḥī’s first grammar.83 Such series of ḥurūf chapters do not feature in
grammars of the ‘mainstream’, as far as I know. As to bāb al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl, only
one occurrence of this heading was found in a ‘mainstream’ grammar, namely
Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s Mīzān al-ʿarabiyya (an edition of this treatise is in preparation
by Dr. Arik Sadan and the present author).

77 Talmon (2003:264f.). See also Owens (1990:184, n. 5).

78 See Talmon (1997:199, 2003:264f.).
79 See also Ibn Fāris, Ṣāḥibī 175.
80 Talmon (1990a:272ff., 1993:278, 2003:165ff.).
81 E.g., Sīrāfī, ʾAḫbār 36, 41.
82 Luġda, Naḥw 224; Zajjājī, Jumal 10–12; Naḥḥās, Tuffāḥa 17.
83 See Vidro and Kasher (2014:179).
158 kasher

4 Undatable Treatises

So far we have examined two corpora of writings, up to the early 11th century,
those displaying the characteristics discussed here, and ‘mainstream’ writings.
It is significant that the latter are the model followed by later grammars. But
when did the characteristics of the former corpus disappear? Since we have
“only a fraction of the number of known titles”84 at our disposal, it is impossible
to answer this question with any certainty. What can be said for now, which, I
believe, is of significance, is that no extant source which is datable as later than
the early 5th/11th century displays the traits dealt with here, as far as I know.
However, there are several undatable treatises which do display these traits, or
some of them:

(i) Muqaddima fī l-naḥw, attributed to Ḫalaf al-ʾAḥmar (d. 180/796),85 which

contains a series of chapters each dedicated to a class of ḥurūf,86 accord-
ing to the following nouns’/verbs’ cases/moods;87 the heading of the first
chapter in this series is Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī tarfaʿu kull ism baʿdahā,88 and
of the third, Bāb al-ḥurūf allatī taḫfiḍu mā baʿdahā min ism wa-ʾaḫbāruhā
marfūʿa.89
(ii) al-Muḥallā ‘wujūh al-naṣb’, attributed to Ibn Šuqayr (d. 315/927 or 317/929),
a grammarian who is said to have mixed the two schools.90 The very same

84 Carter (1994:389).
85 A comprehensive study of this book and its attribution is Talmon (1990b). See also ʿIzz
al-Dīn al-Tanūḫī’s preface to his edition; Ibn ʿĀšūr (1963–1964); al-Tanūḫī (1964); Sezgin
(1984:118, 126); Owens (1990:179ff.); Talmon (1993:285 f., 1999:191–193); Carter (2000:264);
Baalbaki (1995:127f., 2005:41). For those accepting the ascription of the book to Ḫalaf al-
ʾAḥmar, this is probably the oldest extant testimony of the issues dealt with here.
86 On the term ḥarf in the Muqaddima, see Talmon (1990b:143).
87 Ḫalaf al-ʾAḥmar, Muqaddima 36–50 (the chapter on the operators assigning the naṣb to
verbs is found ibid., 71f.).
88 Ḫalaf al-ʾAḥmar, Muqaddima 36. The wording is ambiguous. Note, however, the unam-
biguous characterization of the part of speech ḥarf : wa-hāḏā l-ḥarf huwa l-ʾadā allatī bihā
tarfaʿu wa-tanṣubu wa-taḫfiḍu l-ism wa-tajzimu l-fiʿl (ibid., 35; the word bihā was omitted in
the edition, although it appears in the manuscript, as noted in Ibn ʿĀšūr 1963–1964:586).
Talmon (1990b:156f.) interprets this not as a case of operation, but rather of indicators;
however, in the postscript he states that in light of the equivalent chapter in al-Muḥallā
(see below), this concept belongs to a theory deviating from the mainstream (ibid., 162).
89 Ḫalaf al-ʾAḥmar, Muqaddima 43. See Talmon (1990b:144 f.).
90 Troupeau (1962:399); Sezgin (1984:162) “… galt trotz seiner Neigung für die Kufenser … als
Eklektiker …”; Baalbaki (2007:xxix). But cf. Carter (2000), passim.
early pedagogical grammars of arabic 159

treatise was also published as Kitāb al-jumal fī l-naḥw, with an attribution

to al-Ḫalīl.91 One of the titles in this treatise reads wa-l-rafʿ bi-hal wa-
ʾaḫawātihā, and one of the manuscripts continues: min ḥurūf al-rafʿ.92
Interestingly, the author uses the term ḫabar ʾayna wa-kayfa.93
(iii) Kitāb talqīn al-mutaʿallim min al-naḥw, attributed to Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/
889).94 A series of ḥurūf chapters is also found here.95 The first, entitled
Mā yulaqqanu l-mutaʿallim min ḥurūf al-jarr,96 opens with a heteroge-
neous list of operators of jarr,97 and the third is entitled Bāb ḥurūf al-rafʿ
wa-mā yusʾalu ʿanhā.98 It is explicitly stated twice at the beginning of the
chapter, both before and after the list, that these ḥurūf assign the rafʿ to
the subject and the predicate. Moreover, the rafʿ of zaydun in the sentence
hal zaydun muntaliqun ‘Is Zayd departing?’ is explained as due to hal.
However, another explanation, of a higher order, is offered, according to
which hal and its ‘sisters’ join mubtadaʾ and ḫabar and bring about noth-
ing.99 This author also uses terms such as ism matā and ḫabar matā.100

91 For the different views regarding the authorship of the book see Fāris’ and Qabāwa’s
prefaces to their respective editions; Sezgin (1984:162f.); Owens (1990:179ff.); Ryding (1992,
1998); Talmon (1993:285f.); Carter (2000:264); Baalbaki (2005:41, 2007:xxviii–xxix). Other
titles are also mentioned for this book in these sources.
92 Ibn Šuqayr, Muḥallā 141 = Ḫalīl, Jumal 188.
93 Ibn Šuqayr, Muḥallā 141 = Ḫalīl, Jumal 188.
94 This treatise was studied by Carter (1979), who surmises that it was written “no earlier than
the 10th/16th century” (ibid., 267). Talmon (1993:285f.), on the other hand, concludes that
it is of an early provenance, “on the basis of several elements of its linguistic teaching”.
See also Lecomte (1965:176f.); Sezgin (1984:154, n. 1); Muḫaymar’s preface to his edition;
Baalbaki (2005:41).
95 Ibn Qutayba, Talqīn 61ff. On the term ḥarf in the Talqīn see Carter (1979:269).
96 Ibn Qutayba, Talqīn 61–75. See Carter (1979:269).
97 See also Ibn Qutayba, Talqīn 108, 154, 165f., 171; ʿinda ‘at’, which features in the list, is also
discussed later (ibid., 65), where it is regarded as ḥarf, taking naṣb as maḥalluhu min al-
ʾiʿrāb due to its being a ẓarf ; the latter term is illustrated here with other items on the list,
e.g. fawqa ‘above’. Two other items, qabla ‘before’ and baʿda ‘after’, are categorized as ism
later in this chapter (ibid., 72). Elsewhere (ibid., 116) ẓurūf and ḥurūf al-jarr are presented
as two distinct classes.
98 Ibn Qutayba, Talqīn 93–102. Elsewhere (ibid., 209f.) niʿma and biʾsa are also referred to
both as ḥarf s causing rafʿ and as verbs. Demonstratives and personal pronouns are also
regarded as ḥurūf that assign rafʿ to their ḫabar (ibid., 157–159). On ḥattā as assigning rafʿ,
see ibid., 279, 283. See also Carter (1979:269).
99 Ibn Qutayba, Talqīn 93. See also ibid., 94, 96, 98, 99.
100 Ibn Qutayba, Talqīn 95, 100.
160 kasher

(iv) Another book is included in Sadan’s critical edition of a very late gram-
matical treatise; in one of the manuscripts of this grammar an other-
wise unknown treatise is incorporated (Sadan 2012:4), which Sadan pub-
lished as an appendix. A heterogeneous list under Bāb ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ is fol-
lowed here by Bāb ḥurūf al-rafʿ.101 Another, heading-less chapter revolves
around content that is characteristic of the Bāb al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl in other
books.102

The fact that traits which are not found in the extant datable sources later than
the early 5th/11th century appear in these books, by no means constitutes a
conclusive argument for their early provenance, but it certainly should be taken
into consideration.

5 Conclusion

Beside what can safely be regarded as the mainstream Arabic grammatical tra-
dition, several pedagogical grammars from no later than the early 5th/11th cen-
tury display non-canonical features. Some features go back to the early 3rd/9th
century at the latest, but it is still unclear to what extent they reflect early gram-
matical theories. At least some authors of these pedagogical grammars were
well aware of the discrepancy between these traits and their own grammatical
theories. The clumsy wordings and apparent self-contradictions found in these
writings are the result of the interplay between traditional practice and theory.
These traits, however, finally gave way to mainstream grammar, as part of the
general canonization process which the 4th/10th century witnessed.103

101 Sadan (2012:133).

102 Sadan (2012:129).
103 See Bohas, Guillaume, Kouloughli (1990:4, 8ff.); Carter (2000:270f.). It is possible that
this process is what underlies al-Qifṭī’s statement that al-Zajjājī’s Jumal was replaced
by al-Fārisī’s ʾĪḍāḥ and Ibn Jinnī’s Lumaʿ (ʾInbāh ii, 161). See also Versteegh (1995:3f.).
Carter (2011:46) explains the popularity of the Jumal in the Maġrib as “a deliberate act
of appropriation to mark group identity”.
early pedagogical grammars of arabic 161

Bibliographical References

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naḥwiyyīna. Ed. by Muḥammad ʾAbū l-Faḍl ʾIbrāhīm. Sidon: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya,
2002.
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Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Dāyim ʿAbdallāh. Cairo: Maktabat al-Zahrāʾ, 1989.
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Šantamarī, al-Nukat fī tafsīr Kitāb Sībawayhi wa-tabyīn al-ḫafiyy min lafẓihi wa-šarḥ
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Šuʾūn al-ʾIslāmiyya, 1999.
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162 kasher

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What is Meant by al-ḥāl al-muqaddara?
Aryeh Levin

1 Introduction

The first occurrence of the term al-ḥāl is found in the Kitāb—the earliest extant
source of Arabic grammar, composed by Sībawayhi (2nd/8th century). The
grammarians divide the phenomenon of al-ḥāl into several sub-categories. This
paper proposes to discuss the sense and the historical development of the term
ḥāl muqaddara, which denotes a sub-category of the hāl. Although this term
originates in grammatical texts between the 3rd/9th and the 6th/12th centuries,
it became a defining term only later, in works of the 8th/14th century, in which
it is briefly mentioned. Reckendorf and Wright accept the later grammarians’
concept of the term.1

2 The Development of the Term ḥāl

2.1 The Basic Construction of a Sentence Containing a ḥāl

The basic construction of a sentence containing a ḥāl is: a verbal predicate
+ a fāʿil + a direct object + a ḥāl. In the grammarians’ view, the ḥāl denotes
the state of the fāʿil (= the agent) or of the mafʿūl (the object), at the time of
the occurrence of the act expressed in the verbal predicate, as in the exam-
ple ḍarabtu zaydan qāʾiman (Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl i, 214.21), which can mean
either ‘I hit Zayd when I was standing’ or ‘I hit Zayd when he was stand-
ing’.2

1 Wright (1951:ii, 197.5–11; 288.7–14). Wright gives the combination ḥāl muqaddar instead of ḥāl
muqaddara. The term ḥāl muqaddar is mentioned twice in Wright, as an addition of the editor
W. Robertson Smith (see Wright 1951:ii, 19.28–20, 1; 113, Rem. a); see also Reckendorf (1921:99,
§55, 5; 450, §219, 2). In the latter reference Reckendorf uses the combination ḥāl muqaddar
instead of ḥāl muqaddara.
2 See Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl i, 214.20–22. In the terminology of the later grammarians the terms
ṣāḥib al-ḥāl and ḏū l-ḥāl ‘the owner of the ḥāl’ denote the noun to which the hāl refers (see
Ibn ʿAqīl, Šarḥ 633.2; 632.15; Wright 1951:ii, 117.9f.).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_009

168 levin

The grammarians hold that the state expressed in the ḥāl and the act
expressed in the verbal predicate of the sentence containing it, take place
simultaneously. Hence some grammarians say that this type of ḥāl has the qual-
ity of being mustaṣḥaba ‘occurring simultaneously with [the act expressed in
the verbal predicate]’.3

2.2 The Meaning of the Term ḥāl

I began by observing that the term ḥāl lit. ‘state’ is first encountered in the
Kitāb. In this text, the form ḥāl is frequently restricted by a relative clause or
by another restrictive expression, as in the examples ḥāl waqaʿa fīhi l-fiʿl ‘a state
in which an act [expressed in the verbal predicate of the sentence where the
ḥāl occurs] took place’ (Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 165.15 f.); ḥāl yaqaʿu fīhi l-siʿru ‘a state
where [a certain] price [of a sheep] exists’ (Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 167.11; 167, 12); ḥāl
mafʿūl fīhā ‘a state where a certain act is performed’ (Sībawayhi, Kitāb i 222.2).
The technical term ḥāl is an abbreviation of the above and of some similar
expressions.4

3 See Sīrāfī’s Šarḥ, according to Jahn i/2 217, n. 12; ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj 206.9 f. Ibn al-Sarrāj uses
the term al-ḥāl al-muṣāḥiba li-l-fiʿl ‘the ḥāl simultaneously occurring with [the act expressed
in] the verb’ (Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl i, 216.3f.).
4 The above and similar examples refute Ibn al-Sarrāj’s explanation of the literal sense of the
term ḥāl (ʾUṣūl i, 213.16–18). This explanation is evidence that Ibn al-Sarrāj believes that the
literal sense of the syntactic term ḥāl originates in the grammatical term al-ḥāl, denoting
‘the present tense’. He contends that the syntactic phenomenon called al-ḥāl is designated
by this term, because when the ḥāl is expressed by an active participle, this active participle
always denotes the present tense. For example, in jāʾa zaydun rakiban ‘Zayd came riding’, the
ḥāl rākiban is an active participle denoting the present tense. Hence, the syntactic function
of rākiban is also called al-ḥāl. This theory is incorrect because these two terms are not
related: one of them denotes a syntactic term, while the other one refers to one of the tenses
expressed in Arabic verbs and participles. Apart from this, although the phenomenon of al-
ḥāl is frequently expressed by an active participle, it is also frequently expressed by words
belonging to other parts of speech. The wording of Ibn al-Sarrāj’s definition of the ḥāl (see
ʾUṣūl i, 213.19–29) also contradicts his explanation: in this definition, al-ḥāl is referred to by
him as hayʾat al-fāʿil ʾawi l-mafʿūl ʾawi l-waṣf ‘the state of the fāʿil, the mafʿūl or the waṣf ’,
because al-ḥāl and al-ḥāla are synonyms of al-hayʾa (see Fayyūmī, Miṣbāḥ 888.8; Malouf
1937, 158b, s.v. al-ḥāl; 971c, s.v. al-hayʾa wa-l-hīʾa). As mentioned above, combinations used
by Sībawayhi, such as ḥāl waqaʿa fīhi l-fiʿl, also refute Ibn al-Sarrāj’s above explanation.
what is meant by al-ḥāl al-muqaddara? 169

3 al-Ḥāl al-muqaddara

The early grammarians hold that in the literal construction of given sentences
containing a ḥāl, the ḥāl is not a ḥāl mustaṣḥaba (see 2.1 above). Hence they
believe that when uttering such sentences the ḥāl mustaṣḥaba is muqaddara,
i.e., the ḥāl is intended in the speaker’s mind, or in other words, the ḥāl occurs
in the taqdīr construction of the sentence.
The standard example given by grammarians dealing with the phenomenon
of ḥāl muqaddara is marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan ‘I
passed by a man who had a hawk with him, intending to hunt with it tomorrow’.
The first grammarian to deal with this example in the context of ḥāl muqaddara
was Ibn al-Sarrāj5 (d. 316/928) who says:

You say marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan, intending
[that when expressing the utterance ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan, it is as if you
were saying] muqaddiran al-ṣayda bihi ġadan ‘intending to hunt with it
tomorrow’. If this taqdīr construction were not implied in the sentence,6
it would have been impossible [to express this sentence, since it would
have expressed a meaning which is an absurdity]7 (wa-taqūlu marartu bi-
rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan turīdu muqaddiran al-ṣayda bihi
ġadan wa-lawlā hāḏā l-taqdīru mā jāza hāḏā l-kalāmu).8
ʾUṣūl ii 38.7f.

5 The same example, but without the last word ġadan, occurs in Sībawayhi, Kitāb i,206.8 (ed.
Būlāq i 241.12; ed. Hārūn ii 49.7). See also Mubarrad, Muqtaḍab iii 261.13. These texts do not
deal with ḥāl muqaddara, but with the topic of the ẓarf as an ʿāmil, and the possibility of
the occurrence of ṣāʾidin as a waṣf, instead of ṣāʾidan as a ḥāl (Kitāb i,206–210, ch. 112; Levin
2007:143–146, §5). It seems that ġadan is omitted from the above texts because it is relevant
only for the discussion of ḥāl muqaddara, but it is irrelevant for a text dealing with the topic of
the ẓarf as an ʿāmil and the occurrence of ṣāʾidin as a waṣf. However, ġadan occurs in the same
example in Sībawayhi, Kitāb i 207.17f. (ed. Būlāq i, 243.4; ed. Hārūn ii, 52.6 f.). In Sībawayhi,
Kitāb i 207.18, ʿāʾidan occurs instead of ṣāʾidan. It seems safe to assume that ʿāʾidan is a printing
error.
6 The taqdīr construction referred to here by Ibn al-Sarrāj is muqaddiran al-ṣayda bihi ġadan.
7 For examples of utterances expressing an absurdity (muḥāl) see Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 7, ch. 6.
8 This translation is supported by Ibn al-Sarrāj’s discussion of the same sentence, ʾUṣūl ii,
268.17–19. In this example, the taqdīr of ṣāʾidan bihi, which is muqaddiran-i l-ṣayda bihi,
belongs to a special kind of taqdīr, later also called taʾwīl lit. ‘interpretation, explanation’
by Ibn al-Sarrāj and other grammarians (see ibid.). The grammarians hold that this kind of
taqdīr is applied when the speaker makes certain utterances and at the same time intends
that it is as if he had pronounced a different utterance, corresponding in sense to the literal
170 levin

Ibn al-Sarrāj’s view that the literal structure of the sentence marartu bi-
rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan expresses an absurdity (muḥāl)
derives from the fact that in the literal construction the word ṣāʾidan expresses
a future state, while the verbal predicate marartu denotes an act that took place
in the past. Hence ṣāʾidan is not a ḥāl mustaṣḥaba, since it does not occur
simultaneously with the act expressed in the verbal predicate. By saying that
the taqdīr of ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan is muqaddiran al-ṣayda bihi ġadan, the word
muqaddiran ‘intending’ becomes a ḥāl mustaṣḥaba, which takes place simul-
taneously with the occurrence of the act expressed in the predicate marartu.
This ḥāl muqaddiran denotes the fact that at the time of the occurrence of the
act expressed in marartu, the state of the noun rajulin is that he, the protago-
nist, intends to perform in the future the act expressed in the active participle
ṣāʾidan. Hence, the state of rajulin is a state of a noun intending to perform
an act, rather than a state of a noun performing an act, as against the state of
zaydun in jāʾa zaydun rākiban ‘Zayd came riding’. The sense of the example
marartu bi-rajulin etc. is to be understood according to its taqdīr construction
marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun muqaddiran-i l-ṣayda bihi ġadan, as follows: ‘I
passed by a man who had a hawk with him, intending to hunt with it tomorrow’.
This taqdīr construction solves both a grammatical and a semantic problem:
(i) It solves the grammatical difficulty created by the fact that the literal con-
struction of the above example does not contain a ḥāl mustaṣḥaba; and (ii) It
explains the meaning of the literal construction in which the ḥāl muqaddara
is implied. Moreover, the literal construction is preserved from expressing an
absurd meaning.
The sources allow the inference that in the grammarians’ view the relevant
construction, as far as grammatical and semantic analysis is concerned, is the
taqdīr construction rather than the literal one (lafẓ), since it is the former
construction which exists in the speaker’s mind. This notion led the gram-
marians to hold that a taqdīr construction that accorded with their theories
would enable the occurrence of a literal construction that was incompatible
with those theories.9 Hence, the taqdīr construction containing a ḥāl muqad-
dara, which possesses the quality of being mustaṣḥaba, enables Ibn al-Sarrāj
to accept the literal construction of the utterance marartu bi-rajulin etc., irre-
spective of the fact that it does not contain a ḥāl mustaṣḥaba.

utterance. This view is held when the literal construction does not accord with one of the
grammarians’ theories, or when it needs some theoretical elucidation (see Levin 1997:148–
150, §3.5).
9 This notion is inferred from Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, ʾInṣāf 34–36, masʾala 9.
what is meant by al-ḥāl al-muqaddara? 171

Al-Sīrāfī (d. 368/978) explicitly says that the ḥāl is always mustaṣḥaba.10 In
certain utterances, he says, the ḥāl is unexpressed in the literal construction,
but it is intended in the speaker’s mind. In these utterances the real ḥāl occurs
in the taqdīr construction, while it is represented in the literal construction by
a ḥāl denoting a future state.11 In this connection, al-Sīrāfī says:

The ḥāl in any case has the quality of being mustaṣḥaba,12 but [some-
times] that part of the ḥāl occurring in the literal utterance13 expresses
[a time] occurring later [than the time expressed in the verbal predi-
cate]. [The ḥāl occurring in the literal utterance is pronounced] together
with the intention of the speaker that an utterance expressing a simulta-
neous ḥāl occurs in the taqdīr construction, as in the Qurʾānic example
fa-dḫulūhā ḫālidīna lit. ‘Enter it [i.e., paradise] when you are eternal in
it’,14 although it is well known that their eternal being in paradise does
not take place simultaneously with the act of their entering paradise.
That which is intended by the speaker when saying fa-dḫulūhā ḫālidīna
is [ fa-dḫulūhā] muqaddirīna l-ḫulūda or mustawjibīna l-ḫulūda ‘Enter it
[i.e., paradise] intending eternal stay in it, or deserving eternal stay in
it’15 (al-ḥālu ʿalā kulli ḥālin mustaṣḥabatun wa-qad yakūnu l-malfūẓu bihi
mina l-ḥāli mutaʾaḫḫiran bi-taqdīri šāyʾin mustaṣḥabin ka-qawlihi taʿālā
fa-dḫulūhā ḫālidīna wa-qad ʿulima ʾanna l-ḫulūda laysa fī ḥāli duḫūlihim
wa-taqdīruhu muqaddirīna l-ḫulūda ʾaw mustawjibīna l-ḫulūda).
jahn i/2, 271, n. 12

Al-Sīrāfī adds the following example:

And if somebody says to a certain person ‘Enter the house!’, and he

answers ‘What shall I do in it?’, it is possible to say [to him] ‘Enter it to
eat and to drink in it!’. The intention of the speaker is: ‘Enter it intend-
ing and deserving it! [i.e., ‘Enter the house intending and deserving to
eat and drink in it!’]’ ( fa-law qīla li-l ʾinsāni udḫul-i l-dāra fa-qāla fa-mā

10 See Sīrāfī, Šarḥ vi, 178.15–179.13; Sīrāfī according to Jahn i/2, 271, n. 12.
11 See Sīrāfī, Šarḥ vi, 178.15–179.13.
12 I.e., the ḥāl always has the quality of expressing a state that occurs simultaneously with
the act expressed in the verbal predicate.
13 The part of the ḥāl occurring in the literal construction of this example is ṣāʾidan.
14 I.e., ‘Enter paradise to be eternally in it’.
15 See also a very similar version of this text in Sīrāfī, Šarḥ vi, 179.6–9.
172 levin

ʾaṣnaʿu fīhā la-jāza ʾan yuqāla ʾudḫulhā ʾākilan fīhā šāriban ʿalā maʿnā
muqaddiran ḏālika wa-mustawjiban).
sīrafī, Šarḥ vi, 179.12f.

Al-Fāriqī (d. 391/1001), the commentator of some of the first chapters of al-
Mubarrad’s Kitāb al-muqtaḍab, holds a view similar to that of al-Sīrāfī concern-
ing al-ḥāl al-muqaddara. In his discussion of the example marartu bi-rajulin
etc. he says that the ḥāl muqaddiran, which is implied in the literal utterance,
is represented in the literal construction by the word ṣāʾidan.16 Ibn al-Ḫaššāb
(d. 567/1172) says:

The ḥāl [sometimes] occurs in the mind of the speaker [and not in the
literal utterance]. Among these examples is that [contained in the text
of] the problem discussed in the Kitāb, marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun
ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan (wa-tajīʾu l-ḥāl muqaddaratan wa-min ḏālika masʾalat
al-Kitāb marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan).
ibn al-ḫaššāb, Murtajil 164.9f.

3 The Later Grammarians’ View of ḥāl muqaddara

In the grammatical literature, the term ḥāl muqaddara occurs for the first
time in the works of ʾAbū Ḥayyān, in the 8th/14th century. The explanation
of the concept of ḥāl muqaddara by the later grammarians is extremely brief,
although ʾAbū Ḥayyān’s discussion of this topic is more detailed than that of
the others.
The later grammarians of the 8th/14th and 9th/15th centuries illustrate their
concept of ḥāl muqaddara by the old grammarians’ example marartu bi-rajulin
maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan.17 It is inferred from their works that their dis-
cussions differ from those of the early grammarians in the following respects:

(i) The early grammarians do not use the term ḥāl muqaddara. They say
rather that the ḥāl in given utterances is muqaddara. By contrast, ʾAbū
Ḥayyān uses the combinations ḥāl muqaddara18 and al-ḥāl al-muqaddara

16 See Mubarrad, Muqtaḍab iv, 122.4–7.

17 See ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj 206.11–13; Ibn Hišām, Muġnī 605.15–606.2; Suyūṭī, Hamʿ iv, 41.6–
10; Suyūṭī, ʾAšbāh ii, 196.11f.
18 See ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj 206.12.
what is meant by al-ḥāl al-muqaddara? 173

as grammatical terms.19 Other later grammarians, such as Ibn Hišām and

al-Suyūṭī, briefly state that the ḥāl may denote three categories of time, of
which that denoting the future is called muqaddara.20
(ii) The early grammarians hold that the ḥāl conceived of by them as muqad-
dara does not occur in the literal construction of the sentence, and that
it occurs only in the taqdīr construction. The later grammarians call ḥāl
muqaddara the accusative ṣāʾidan, which occurs in the literal construc-
tion.21
(iii) The early grammarians hold that the literal construction of sentences
containing an implicit ḥāl muqaddara does not include a ḥāl mustaṣḥaba.
By contrast, the later grammarians, except ʾAbū Ḥayyān, do not refer to
this aspect.22

Although apparently the later grammarians’ concept of ḥāl muqaddara differs

from that of the early grammarians, it is understood from ʾAbū Ḥayyān and Ibn
Hišām that they actually accept the early grammarians’ view of this type of ḥāl.
In referring to the example marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan,
ʾAbū Ḥayyān says:

Among [the examples of ḥāl muqaddara is the example] marartu bi-

rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan, so ṣāʾidan is a ḥāl muqaddara,
because at the time you passed by [the man], or at the time that the
hawk was with him, you [sic!] were not hunting with it, but the taqdīr
is muqaddiran-i l-ʾāna ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan ‘intending [to hunt] now, [but
actually] hunting with it tomorrow’ (wa-minhu marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu
ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan, fa-ṣāʾidan ḥālun muqaddaratun li-ʾannaka
waqta l-murūri ʾaw waqta kaynūnati l-ṣaqri maʿahu lam takun [sic.!] ṣāʾi-
dan bihi wa-ʾinnamā l-maʿnā muqaddiran-i l-ʾāna ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan).
Manhaj 206.11–13

In referring to the example zaydun-i l-yawma fī yadihi ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan
‘Today, Zayd [is holding] in his hand a hawk, [intending to] hunt with it tomor-

19 See ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj 206.11.

20 See Ibn Hišām, Muġnī 605.15–606.3; Suyūṭī, ʾAšbāh ii, 196.11–197.1. ʾAbū Ḥayyān holds the
same view in this respect (Manhaj 206.8–13).
21 See ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj 206.10–13; Ibn Hišām, Muġnī 605.15–606.2; Suyūṭī, Hamʿ iv,
41.6–10. The term [ḥāl] muqārina used by the later grammarians in these sources, cor-
responds to the early grammarians’ term ḥāl mustaṣḥaba. The term al-ḥāl al-mustaṣḥaba
occurs also in ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj 206.9.
22 For ʾAbū Ḥayyān see his discussion of the concept of al-iqtirān below, p. 174.
174 levin

row’, ʾAbū Ḥayyān (Manhaj ii, 374.3f.) says that in this sentence, the hāl, which
is ṣāʾidan, denotes the future, although the ʿāmil of the ḥāl, which is fī yadihi
denotes the present. The difference between the time denoted by these two
parts of the sentence contradicts the concept of al-iqtirān,23 i.e, the concept
that the ḥāl and its verbal ʿāmil must always denote the same time.24 The notion
which ʾAbū Ḥayyan calls here al-iqtirān is the same notion that elsewhere is
expressed by the early grammarians when they say that the ḥāl has the quality
of being mustaṣḥaba. The significance of this term is that the state expressed in
the ḥāl and the act expressed in the verbal predicate occurring in the sentence
containing it, take place simultaneously (see above 2.1).
Although here the iqtirān of the time expressed in the ḥāl and in the ʿāmil
of the ḥāl does not occur in the literal construction (lafẓ), it occurs according
to ʾAbū Ḥayyān in the taqdīr construction of the utterance ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan,
which is muqaddiran-i l-ṣayda bihi ġadan (see above), or in ʾAbū Ḥayyān’s
wording, irrespective of the fact that ṣāʾidan here denotes the future, the word
ṣāʾidan is “intended in the mind of the speaker as if it denotes the present”
(muqaddarat l-ḥuḍūr), since the taqdīr of ṣāʾidan bihi ġadan is muqaddiran-
i l-ṣayda bihi ġadan.25 Hence, the ḥāl muqaddiran and the predicate fī yadihi
denote the same time, which is the present.
The above excerpts attest that ʾAbū Ḥayyān accepts the old grammarians’
concept of this type of ḥāl, irrespective of the fact that he himself, in contrast to
the early grammarians, labeled ṣāʾidan as ḥāl muqaddara.26 A text of Ibn Hišām
confirms that he too accepts the same concept of the early grammarians.27
It is evident that the later grammarians were aware of the fact that ṣāʾidan
in the above examples cannot be a ḥāl muqaddara, because it explicitly occurs
in the literal form of the sentence (lafẓ). Hence, it is inferred that they called
sāʾidan a ḥāl muqaddara, because they believed that in the speaker’s mind,
the taqdīr construction of ṣāʾidan, which is muqaddiran-i l-ṣayda bihi, contains
the implicit form muqaddiran, which can be conceived of as a ḥāl muqad-
dara.

23 Literally, iqtirān is the maṣdar of iqtarana bi- ‘to be joined, united to’ (see Hava 602a, s.v.
iqtarana bi-).
24 See ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Šarḥ ii, 374.1–5. It should be noted that the predicate denoting the
present in the above example is not a verb, but the expression fī yadihi, which is a ẓarf.
For the ẓarf as an ʿāmil see Levin (2007).
25 See ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Šarḥ ii, 374.1–5.
26 The text of ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj 206.10f. also refers to this aspect.
27 See Ibn Hišām, Muġnī 605.15–606.1.
what is meant by al-ḥāl al-muqaddara? 175

It seems safe to assume that for the sake of convenience, the later grammari-
ans preferred to ignore the exact concept of the early grammarians of this type
of ḥāl. Hence, they applied the principle which Ibn Yaʿīš called taqrīb wa-taysīr
ʿalā l-mubtadiʾ28 ‘making [the understanding of a certain grammatical concept]
easier and clearer to the beginner’, by using an inaccurate technical term, rather
than a more accurate one, originating in a complex concept.29 Hence, the later
grammarians say that in the example marartu bi-rajulin maʿahu ṣaqrun ṣāʾidan
bihi ġadan, the word sāʾidan is a ḥāl muqaddara, instead of giving the expla-
nation that here ṣāʾidan is an expression whose taqdīr construction contains
a ḥāl muqaddara, which is the implicit accusative muqaddiran. In referring
to ṣāʾidan as a ḥāl muqaddara they deliberately denoted it by an inaccurate
term, just as the early grammarians called ḫabar kāna the accusative con-
tained in sentences beginning with kāna al-nāqiṣa, such as qāʾiman in kāna
zaydun qāʾiman ‘Zayd was standing’. It is evident that they knew that the part
of the sentence they called ḫabar kāna was the ḫabar of ism kāna, and not the
ḫabar of kāna.30 Similarly, the later grammarians of the 8th/14th century knew
that ṣāʾidan is not a ḥāl muqaddara, but a constituent of the sentence whose
taqdīr construction contains the implicit accusative muqaddiran, which has
the grammatical qualities of a ḥāl muqaddara

Bibliographical References

a Primary Sources
ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Manhaj = ʾAbū Ḥayyān Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Ġarnāṭī al-Naḥwī, Man-
haj al-sālik fī l-kalām ʿalā ʾAlfiyyat Ibn Mālik. Ed. by Sidney Glazer. New Haven, Conn.:
American Oriental Society, 1947.
ʾAbū Ḥayyān, Šarḥ = ʾAbū Ḥayyān Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Ġarnāṭī al-Naḥwī, Šarḥ
al-tashīl li-bn Mālik. Ed. by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sayyid and Muḥammad Badawī al-
Maḫtūn. 2 vols.

28 Jahn’s reading taqrīb wa-taysīr ʿalā l-mubtadaʾ (see Ibn Yaʿīš, ed. Jahn ii, 999.6) is incorrect.
For the correct reading see Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ vii, 91.18. See also Levin (1979:203, n. 107; 203f.,
n. 108).
29 For this principle see Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ, ed. Jahn ii, 999.4–6; For al-Zajjājī’s expression al-
taqrīb ʿalā l-mubtadiʾ see Levin (1979:203f., n. 108).
30 Ibn Yaʿīš explicitly says so. He also says that it is impossible to assign a predicate to a verb.
For Ibn Yaʿīš’s view in this respect see Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ ii, 999.3–6. See also Levin (1979:203f.,
§2.6).
176 levin

Fayyūmī, Miṣbāḥ = ʾAḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Maqarrī al-Fayyūmī, al-Miṣbāḥ
al-munīr fī ġarīb al-šarḥ al-kabīr li-l-Rāfiʿī. Beirut: Dār al-Qalam, n.d.
Ibn ʿAqīl, Šarḥ = Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿAbdallāh Ibn ʿAqīl, Šarḥ Ibn ʿAqīl ʿalā ʾAlfiyyat Ibn Mālik wa-
maʿahu Kitāb minḥat al-Jalīl. Ed. by Muḥyī l-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd. 14th edition. Cairo,
1384 a.h.
Ibn ʾAnbārī, ʾInṣāf = Kamāl al-Dīn ʾAbū l-Barakāt ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-
ʾAnbārī, Kitāb al-ʾinṣāf fī masāʾil al-ḫilāf bayna l-naḥwiyyīna l-Baṣriyyīn wa-l-Kūfiyyīn.
Ed. by Gotthold Weil. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1913.
Ibn Hišām, Muġnī = Jamāl al-Dīn ʾAbū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh ibn Yūsuf Ibn Hišām,
Muġnī l-labīb ʿan kutub al-ʾaʿārīb. Ed. by Māzin al-Mubārak and Muḥammad ʿAlī
Ḥamd Allāh. 5th ed. Beirut, 1979.
Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl = ʾAbū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Sahl Ibn al-Sarrāj al-Naḥwī al-Baġdādī,
Kitāb al-ʾuṣūl fī l-naḥw. Ed. by ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn al-Fatlī. 3 vols. Beirut, 1987.
Ibn al-Ḫaššāb, Murtajil = ʾAbū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh ibn ʾAḥmad ibn ʾAḥmad Ibn al-
Ḫaššāb, al-Murtajil. Ed. by ʿAlī Ḥaydar. Damascus, 1972.
Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ = Muwaffaq al-Dīn ʾAbū l-Baqāʾ Yaʿīš ibn ʿAlī Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal.
2 vols. in 10 parts. [Cairo], n.d.
Jahn i/2 = Sībawaihi’s Buch über die Grammatik, übersetzt und erklärt von Gustav Jahn.
Vol. i, second paging. Berlin, 1895.
Mubarrad, Muqtaḍab = ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-Mubarrad, Kitāb al-
muqtaḍab. Ed. by Muhammad ʿAbd al-Ḫāliq ʿUḍayma. 4 vols. Cairo, 1385–1388a.h.
Sībawayhi, Kitāb = ʾAbū Bišr ʿAmr ibn ʿUṯmān Sībawayhi, al-Kitāb. Ed. by Hartwig
Derenbourg, Le livre de Sîbawaihi: Traité de grammaire arabe. 2 vols. Paris, 1881–
1889./Ed. by ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn. 5 vols. Cairo, 1966–1977./Ed. Būlāq. 2 vols. 1316–
1317 a.h.
Sīrāfī, Šarḥ = ʾAbū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Sīrāfī, Šarḥ Kitāb Sībawayhi. Ed. by
Ramaḍān ʿAbd al-Tawwāb et al. 18 vols. Cairo, 1988–2006.
Suyūṭī, ʾAšbāh = Jalāl al-Dīn ʾAbū l-Faḍl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʾAbī Bakr al-Suyūṭī, al-
ʾAšbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir fī l-naḥw. Vol. i. Ed. by ʿAbdallāh Nabhān. Vol. ii. Ed. by Ġāzī
Muḫtār Ṣulayḥāt. Damascus, n.d.
Suyūṭī, Hamʿ = Jalāl al-Dīn ʾAbū l-Faḍl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʾAbī Bakr al-Suyūṭī, Hamʿ al-
hawāmiʿ fī šarḥ Jamʿ al-jawāmiʿ. Ed. by ʿAbd al-ʿĀl Sālim Mukarram. 4 vols. Kuwait,
n.d.
Zajjājī, Jumal = ʾAbū l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʾIsḥāq al-Zajjājī, Kitāb al-jumal fī
l-nahw. Ed. by ʿAlī Tawfīq al-Ḥamad. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla and Irbid: Dār al-
ʾAmal, 1404/1984.

b Secondary Sources
Levin, Aryeh. 1979. “Sībawayhi’s view on the syntactical structure of kāna waʾaxawā-
tuhā”. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 1.185–211.
what is meant by al-ḥāl al-muqaddara? 177

Levin, Aryeh. 1997. “The theory of al-taqdīr and its terminology”. Jerusalem Studies in
Arabic and Islam 21.142–166.
Levin, Aryeh. 2007. “Sībawayhi’s view of the ẓarf as an ʿāmil”. Approaches to Arabic
linguistics, presented to Kees Versteegh on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, ed. by
Everhard Ditters and Harald Motzki, 135–148. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Malouf, Louis [Lūwīs Maʿlūf]. 1937. al-Munjid: Muʿjam madrasī li-l-luġa al-ʿarabiyya.
Beirut: Catholic Press, 1937.
Reckendorf, Hermann. 1921. Arabische Syntax. Heidelberg: C. Winter.
Wright, William. 1951. A grammar of the Arabic language. 3rd ed. 2 vols. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Demonstratives in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb
Arik Sadan

1 Introduction

Many phonetic, morphological and syntactic features in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb have

attracted scholarly attention in the last two centuries. One issue that has not
been investigated thoroughly is Sībawayhi’s use of and views on the role of
demonstratives in the Arabic language he describes. Troupeau’s Lexique-Index
cannot be of assistance in this matter,1 but electronic editions of Sībawayhi’s
Kitāb now enable us to trace and analyze every instance of a demonstrative
in this important treatise. Although an electronic edition can be less reliable
than a printed one, the former allows a quick search to be made of the occur-
rences of the relevant contexts and these can then be more easily located in
the printed edition for a thorough inspection.2 Sībawayhi’s use of demonstra-
tives in his Kitāb can be divided into three groups: (i) the demonstrative as a
morphological or syntactic subject that is discussed and explained; (ii) demon-
stratives in example sentences; and (iii) demonstratives used in other contexts,
simply as words that are parts of sentences, like other nouns, verbs, etc. In this
paper, I shall examine the first two groups. In the second group I shall focus on
example sentences that highlight the roles and functions of demonstratives in
the language, according to Sībawayhi.

1 Troupeau does not provide the locations of words that appear more than 60 times in the
Kitāb, nor those of pronouns, including demonstratives; see Troupeau (1976:8) and (1976:25),
respectively.
2 After a thorough search I was able to locate searchable versions of the entire text on the
websites http://www.islamhouse.com/d/files/ar/ih_books/single/ar_sebawayh_book.zip and
http://shamela.ws/browse.php/book-23018. The text is also searchable in Word files which
can be downloaded from http://www.almeshkat.net/books/open.php?cat=16&book=484#
.VCUqERbuSHw and elsewhere. The most reliable printed version is the Derenbourg edition
(Sībawayhi, Kitāb Derenbourg).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_010

demonstratives in sībawayhi’s kitāb 179

table 1 Demonstratives for near deixis in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Demonstratives indicating a person or Number of occurrences in

thing that is near the speaker Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

hāḏā (‫ )ه ٰذ َا‬masc. sg. 3631

hāḏāni (‫ن‬
ِ ‫ )ه ٰذ َا‬masc. du. nominative 27
hāḏayni (‫ )ه ٰذ َي ِْن‬masc. du. oblique 26
hāḏihi (ِ ‫ )ه ٰذِه‬fem. sg. 9913
hātāni (‫ن‬
ِ َ‫ )هاَ تا‬fem. du. nominative 5
hātayni (ِ‫ )هاَ ت َي ْن‬fem. du. oblique 2
hāʾulāʾi (ِ ‫ )ه ٰؤلُ َاء‬pl. 85

2 Occurrences of Demonstratives in the Kitāb

Demonstratives occur very frequently in the Kitāb. My first step was to search
for all occurrences in the electronic edition, then examine each in its context
and finally extract the most interesting cases that can be assigned to groups (i)
and (ii) described in the Introduction above. Tables 1 above and 2 below present
the common demonstratives next to the number of occurrences in Sībawayhi’s
Kitāb.
For the sake of completeness I also searched for the less common morpho-
logical patterns of demonstratives,4 presented in Tables 3 and 4 (only demon-
stratives found in the Kitāb are indicated; for example, the rare fem. sg. demon-
strative tī (‫)ت ِي‬, which does not occur at all in the book, does not appear in the
tables).
Lastly, I looked for the diminutive forms of the demonstratives. Tables 5 and
6 below present these demonstratives next to the number of occurrences (here,
too, only demonstratives found in the Kitāb are indicated).

3 Including two occurrences of the secondary form ‫ه ٰذِي‬.

4 For all sets of demonstratives, see Wright (1997:i, 264–269, §§ 338–345).
180 sadan

table 2 Demonstratives for far deixis in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Demonstratives indicating a person or Number of occurrences in

thing that is distant from the speaker Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

ḏālika (‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ )ٰذل‬masc. sg. 3424
ḏānika (‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ )ذ َان‬masc. du. nominative 3
ḏaynika (‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ )ذ َي ْن‬masc. du. oblique 1
tilka (‫ك‬
َ ْ ‫ )ت ِل‬fem. sg. 89
tānika (‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ )تاَ ن‬fem. du. nominative 2
taynika (‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ )ت َي ْن‬fem. du. oblique 0

َ ِ ‫ )ُأول ٰئ‬pl.
ʾulāʾika (‫ك‬ 10

table 3 Less common demonstratives for near deixis in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Demonstratives indicating a person or Number of occurrences in

thing that is near the speaker Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

ḏā (‫ )ذ َا‬masc. sg. 288

(barring occurrences meaning
‘owner’, masc. sg. acc.)
ḏī (‫ )ذِي‬fem. sg. 3
ḏih/ḏihi (ِ ‫ذِه‬/ْ‫ )ذِه‬fem. sg. 11
ḏihī (‫ )ذِهِي‬fem. sg. 1
tā ( َ‫ )تا‬fem. sg. 3
ḏāni (‫ن‬
ِ ‫ )ذ َا‬masc. du. nominative 2
ḏayni (‫ )ذ َي ِْن‬masc. du. oblique 2
tāni (‫ن‬
ِ َ‫ )تا‬fem. du. nominative 1

ʾulāʾi (ِ ‫ )ُأل َاء‬pl. 4

ʾulāʾi (ِ ‫ )ُأول َاء‬pl. 8

demonstratives in sībawayhi’s kitāb 181

table 4 Less common demonstratives for far deixis in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Demonstratives indicating a person or Number of occurrences in

thing that is distant from the speaker Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

ḏāka (َ ‫ )ذ َاك‬masc. sg. 287

hāḏāka (َ ‫ )ه ٰذ َاك‬masc. sg. 1

ḏākum (‫ )ذ َاك ُْم‬masc. sg. 2

tīka (‫ك‬
َ ِ‫ )تي‬fem. sg. 1

table 5 Diminutive demonstratives for near deixis in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Demonstratives indicating a person or Number of occurrences in

thing that is near the speaker Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

hāḏayyā (‫ )ه ٰذ َ َي ّا‬masc. sg. 1

tayyā (‫ )ت َي ّا‬fem. sg. 1
ḏayyāni (‫ن‬
ِ ‫ )ذ َ َي ّا‬masc. du. nominative 1

ʾulayyā (‫ )ُأل َي ّا‬pl. 1

table 6 Diminutive demonstratives for far deixis in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Demonstratives indicating a person or Number of occurrences in

thing which is distant from the Sībawayhi’s Kitāb
speaker

ḏayyāka (َ ‫ )ذ َ َي ّاك‬masc. sg. 2

ḏayyālika (‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ )ذ َ َي ّال‬masc. sg. 1
182 sadan

3 The Morphology and Syntax of Demonstratives Discussed and

Explained

In Sībawayhi’s Kitāb there is no separate chapter on demonstratives. However,

there are several chapters in which Sībawayhi treats this category and reveals
his views on demonstratives and their role in language. In what follows I quote
and translate the references to the demonstratives, sorting them into groups
according to context:

a. The demonstratives belong to the group of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama ‘dubi-

ous, or vague, nouns’, that is, nouns that are not clear in the sense that
they can have more than one denotation. In three chapters they are said
to pertain to this group, which contains not only the demonstratives, but
also the third person independent pronouns.5 Here are the main relevant
quotes from the Kitāb:
i. In chapter 104, bāb majrā naʿt al-maʿrifa ʿalayhā, Sībawayhi deals
with the different kinds of definite nouns, which he divides into
five categories: “nouns which are strictly proper names” (al-ʾasmāʾ
allatī hiya ʾaʿlāmun ḫāṣṣatan); “the first element of a construct state
in which the second element is definite, when you do not intend
the meaning of the tanwīn” (al-muḍāf ʾilā l-maʿrifa ʾiḏā lam turid
maʿnā l-tanwīn); “[the nouns with] the definite article” (al-ʾalif wa-
l-lām); “the dubious, or vague, nouns” (al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama); and
“the pronouns” (al-ʾiḍmār). With respect to the category of al-ʾasmāʾ
al-mubhama Sībawayhi says: “As for the [category of] al-ʾasmāʾ al-
mubhama, [it contains words] such as hāḏā ‘this [masc. sg.]’, hāḏihi
‘this [fem. sg.]’, hāḏāni ‘these two [masc. nom.]’, hātāni ‘these two
[fem. nom.]’, hāʾulāʾi ‘these’, ḏāka ‘that [masc. sg.]’, tilka ‘that [fem.
sg.]’, ḏānika ‘those two [masc. nom.]’, tānika ‘those two [fem. nom.]’,
ʾulāʾika ‘those’, and the like. They [i.e. these above-mentioned nouns]
became definite, because they became nouns pointing to a

5 As the following quotes in §a.i and §a.ii show, Sībawayhi once excludes the third person inde-
pendent pronouns from the group of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama and once includes them in this
group. See also Levin (1979:194, n. 58). This ambiguity is also evident in other sources: Lane
mentions the demonstratives as pertaining to al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama, but quotes the lexicog-
rapher al-ʾAzharī, according to whom “these are the particles which have no derivatives, and
of which the roots are not known, as ‫ال َ ّذ ِي‬, ‫م َا‬, ‫ن‬
ْ َ ‫م‬, ‫ ع َْن‬and the like” (see Lane 1863–1893:i,
269b–c). See also Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān i, 378b. Wehr (1994:97b) translates ‫ الَ ٱِ س ْم ٱل ْمبُ ْه َم‬as ‘the
demonstrative pronoun’.
demonstratives in sībawayhi’s kitāb 183

thing to the exclusion of the rest of its group” (wa-ʾammā l-ʾasmāʾu

l-mubhamatu fa-naḥwu hāḏā wa-hāḏihi wa-hāḏāni wa-hātāni wa-
hāʾulāʾi wa-ḏāka wa-tilka wa-ḏānika wa-tānika wa-ʾulāʾika wa-mā ʾaš-
baha ḏālika wa-ʾinnamā ṣārat maʿrifatan li-ʾannahā ṣārat ʾasmāʾa
ʾišāratin ʾilā l-šayʾi dūna sāʾiri ʾummatihi).6
ii. In chapter 117 Sībawayhi deals with sentences in which a member
of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama forms the subject. In the lengthy title of
this chapter Sībawayhi says: “As for the [category of] al-ʾasmāʾ al-
mubhama, [it contains words] such as hāḏā ‘this [masc.]’, hāḏāni
‘these two [masc. nom.]’, hāḏihi ‘this [fem.]’, hātāni ‘these two [fem.
nom.]’, hāʾulāʾi ‘these’, ḏāka ‘that [masc.]’, ḏānika ‘those two [masc.
nom.]’, tilka ‘that [fem.]’, tānika ‘those two [fem. nom.]’, tīka ‘that
[fem. sg.]’, ʾulāʾika ‘those’, huwa ‘he’, hiya ‘she’, humā ‘they two’, hum
‘they [masc. pl.]’, hunna ‘they [fem. pl.]’, and what resembles these
nouns” (wa-l-ʾasmāʾu l-mubhamatu hāḏā wa-hāḏāni wa-hāḏihi wa-
hātāni wa-hāʾulāʾi wa-ḏāka wa-ḏānika wa-tilka wa-tānika wa-tīka wa-
ʾulāʾika wa-huwa wa-hiya wa-humā wa-hum wa-hunna wa-mā ʾaš-
baha hāḏihi l-ʾasmāʾa).7 It should be noted that among the category
of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama we find not only the demonstratives but
also the third person independent pronouns.
iii. In chapter 147 Sībawayhi deals with various structures of the voca-
tive, among them one in which the vocative particle is followed
by a member of what Sībawayhi calls al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama and a
noun with the definite article, such as yā hāḏā l-rajulu ‘O, this man’.
Here he explains the category of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama as follows:
‘and they [i.e. al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama] are hāḏā ‘this [masc.]’, hāʾulāʾi
‘these’, ʾulāʾika ‘those’, and the like’ (wa-hiya hāḏā wa-hāʾulāʾi wa-
ʾulāʾika wa-mā ʾašbahahā).8
b. The demonstratives serve in order to indicate, or point to, nearby or far
objects or persons. In several places Sībawayhi speaks of the function
and meaning of demonstratives. Here are the relevant quotes from the
Kitāb:
i. In chapter 117, discussed in §a.ii above, Sībawayhi discusses the
similarity and difference between hāḏā and ḏāka (and similar pairs):

6 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 187.22–188.1.

7 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 218.6–8. Levin (1979:194, §1.(1)). refers to the first part of the chapter’s
title, not quoted here, and translates it.
8 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 265.4 (for the whole discussion see ibid. i, 265.3–9).
184 sadan

both are demonstratives that draw the attention to a thing, but the
former is used for nearby things, whereas the latter is intended for
distant things: “Ḏāka ‘that [masc.]’ is like hāḏā ‘this [masc.]’, but
when you say ḏāka ‘that [masc.]’, you draw his [i.e. the addressee’s]
attention to an extended [i.e. distant]9 thing. Hāʾulāʾi ‘these’ is like
hāḏā ‘this [masc.]’ [but in the plur. form], ʾulāʾika ‘those’ is like
ḏāka ‘that [masc.]’ [but in the plur. form] and tilka ‘that [fem.]’ is
like ḏāka ‘that [masc.]’ [but in the fem. sing. form]” (wa-ḏāka bi-
manzilati hāḏā ʾillā ʾannaka ʾiḏā qulta ḏāka fa-ʾanta tunabbihuhu li-
šayʾin mutarāḫin wa-hāʾulāʾi bi-manzilati hāḏā wa-ʾulāʾika bi-manzi-
lati ḏāka wa-tilka bi-manzilati ḏāka).10
ii. Sībawayhi does not explicitly define the meaning of each demon-
strative. A definition of two of them, ḏā and ḏī, can nevertheless
be inferred from chapter 508 of the Kitāb, in which various nouns
and particles are briefly defined: “Among the nouns are [the demon-
stratives] ḏā ‘this [masc.]’ and ḏī ‘this [fem.]’, whose meaning is
that you are in their presence [i.e. in the presence of the nouns to
which they refer]. They belong to the group of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama
[see §a above] and were clarified elsewhere” ( fa-mina l-ʾasmāʾi ḏā
wa-ḏī wa-maʿnāhumā ʾannaka bi-ḥaḍratihimā wa-humā smāni mub-
hamāni wa-qad buyyinā fī ġayri hāḏā l-mawḍiʿi).11
iii. In the same chapter discussed above Sībawayhi relates to the end-
ing -ka of some demonstratives. After dealing with the possessive
suffixes -ka and the like,12 he clarifies that as suffixes of demonstra-
tives they are markers (ʿalāmāt),13 whose function is li-l-muḫāṭaba
‘to address’:14 “[The suffix] -k [i.e. -ka, -ki, -kum etc.] can be other
than a noun [i.e. ʿalāma ‘marker’], but appear to address [a person],
for example [the demonstratives] ḏālika/ḏāka15 ‘that [masc.]’ [used
when addressing a masc. sg.], for the -k [suffix] in this [demonstra-
tive] is like [the suffix] -at (ʿalāmat al-taʾnīṯ ‘the feminine marker’) in

9 See Lane (1863–1893:iii, 1061a; 1061c).

10 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 218.16–18.
11 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 236.4f.
12 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 331.10f.
13 On the concept of ʿalāma see Levin (1985:119, §2; 1989:43 f., § 2.2).
14 On the idea of al-kāf fī ḏālika li-l-muḫāṭaba see also Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 62.22; 142.8. Cf.
Wright (1997: i, 266, beginning of §342).
15 Ḏāka according to ms. a in the Derenbourg edition; for the reference see the following
note.
demonstratives in sībawayhi’s kitāb 185

the example faʿalat fulānatu ‘so-and-so [fem. sg.] did’, and the like”
(wa-qad takūnu l-kāfu ġayra smin wa-lākinnahā tajīʾu li-l-muḫāṭabati
wa-ḏālika naḥwu kāfi ḏālika fa-l-kāfu fī hāḏā bi-manzilati l-tāʾi fī qaw-
lika faʿalat fulānatu wa-naḥwi ḏālika).16
c. The demonstratives also have diminutive forms, to which Sībawayhi de-
votes chapter 393, Bāb taḥqīr al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama.17
i. In the beginning of the chapter he mentions three diminutive forms:
“As in the examples hāḏayyā ‘this little one [masc.]’ as [the diminu-
tive form of] hāḏā ‘this [masc.]’, ḏayyāka ‘that little one [masc.]’ as
[the diminutive form of] ḏāka ‘that [masc.]’ and ʾulayyā ‘these little
ones’ as [the diminutive form of] ʾulā ‘these’ ” (wa-ḏālika qawluka fī
hāḏā hāḏayyā wa-ḏāka ḏayyāka wa-fī ʾulā ʾulayyā).18
ii. Later in the chapter Sībawayhi mentions other diminutive forms of
the demonstratives, refers to their morphology and compares them
to diminutive forms of relative pronouns, for example tayyā ‘this
little one [fem.]’, the diminutive of tā ‘this [fem.]’, ḏayyālika ‘that
little one [masc.]’ and ʾulayyāʾ ‘these little ones’.19
d. The demonstratives have dual forms, to which Sībawayhi devotes the
short chapter 355, Bāb taṯniyat al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama allatī ʾawāḫiruhā
muʿtalla.20
i. In the beginning of the chapter Sībawayhi mentions the dual forms
of two demonstratives, ḏāni and tāni: “If you make ḏā ‘this [masc.]’
dual you say ḏāni ‘these two [masc.]’ and if you make tā ‘this [fem.]’
dual you say tāni ‘these two [fem.]’” ( fa-ʾiḏā ṯannayta ḏā qulta ḏāni
wa-ʾin ṯannayta tā qulta tāni).21
e. Demonstratives can be used as names of persons. Sībawayhi treats this
issue extensively in chapter 310, Bāb taġyīr al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama ʾiḏā
ṣārat ʿalāmāt ḫāṣṣa,22 and briefly in chapter 317, Bāb al-ḥikāya allatī lā
taġayyaru fīhā l-ʾasmāʾ ʿan ḥālihā fī l-kalām.23

16 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 331.12–14.

17 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 141.16–142.20.
18 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 141.18f.
19 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 142.2–6; 142.6–8; and 142.12, respectively.
20 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 102.14–19.
21 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 102.15.
22 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 38.16–40.21.
23 For the whole chapter see Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 59.18–64.8.
186 sadan

i. Sībawayhi starts chapter 310 with an enumeration of five demon-

stratives: “These are ḏā ‘this [masc.]’, ḏī ‘this [fem.]’, tā ‘this [fem.]’,
ʾulā ‘these’ and ʾulāʾi ‘these’, whose taqdīr24 is ʾulāʿi”25 (wa-ḏālika ḏā
wa-ḏī wa-tā wa-ʾulā wa-ʾulāʾi wa-taqdīruhā ʾulāʿi).26
ii. In chapter 317 Sībawayhi refers to nouns which do not change when
used as proper nouns, two of which are hāḏā and hāʾulāʾi: “He said: if
you call a man by the name hāḏā or hāʾulāʾi, you leave them as they
are [without any change]” (qāla wa-law sammayta rajulan hāḏā ʾaw
hāʾulāʾi taraktahu ʿalā ḥālihi).27

4 Demonstratives in Example Sentences Highlighting Their Roles

and Functions

Demonstratives are used in numerous example sentences in the Kitāb, as

modifiers of nouns or standing on their own. A scrutiny of all the example
sentences in the book shows that in addition to the regular, known meanings
of demonstratives such as ‘this’, ‘that’ and the like, Sībawayhi also tends to use
them with a meaning similar to that of certain verbs, namely tanabbah or unẓur
in the imperative, meaning ‘here is/are; there is/are; behold!’ (for the meanings
of tanabbah and unẓur, see §a.ii below). These sentences make it clear that
for Sībawayhi demonstratives are good examples for non-verbal elements with
the syntactic and semantic characteristics of verbs, as in the cases mentioned
in what follows:

a. Many of the examples in which the demonstratives reflect the meaning

‘here is/are; there is/are; behold!’ occur as part of a discussion of the
‘circumstantial phrase’ (ḥāl). Here are some quotes from the Kitāb:

24 According to Levin (1997:162, §7), the meaning of taqdīr in this context is a theoretical
form that Sībawayhi created, where the historical hamza is replaced by ʿayn, “in order to
show the place occupied by the hamza in the historical stage of certain words in certain
dialects”.
25 According to both the Derenbourg and the Būlāq editions, the form is wa-ʾulāʿi with a
short u, whereas in Hārūn’s edition it is wa-ʾūlāʿi with a long ū. See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii,
38.17 Derenbourg/Kitāb ii, 42.7 Būlāq/Kitāb iii, 280.18 Hārūn, respectively. Since this form
should be parallel to the original demonstrative ʾulāʾi, which is with a short u, the version
in the Derenbourg and the Būlāq editions would seem to be the correct one.
26 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 38.16f.
27 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb ii, 62.23.
demonstratives in sībawayhi’s kitāb 187

i. In chapter 88, Bāb mā yantaṣibu min al-maṣādir tawkīdan li-mā

qablahu, Sībawayhi deals with the circumstantial phrase for empha-
sis, which later grammarians call al-ḥāl al-muʾakkida.28 The chapter
is introduced by the following example sentences: “As in the exam-
ples hāḏā ʿabdu llāhi ḥaqqan ‘here is ʿAbdallāh, truly!’ and hāḏā
zayduni l-ḥaqqa lā l-bāṭila ‘here is Zayd, truly, not falsely!’ ” (wa-
ḏālika qawluka hāḏā ʿabdu llāhi ḥaqqan wa-hāḏā zayduni l-ḥaqqa lā
l-bāṭila).29
ii. In chapter 117, discussed in §3.a.ii above, Sībawayhi brings several
examples in which the demonstratives function as the subject of the
sentence and mean ‘here is/are; there is/are; behold!’. Here are the
examples that introduce the chapter: hāḏā ʿabdu llāhi munṭaliqan
‘here is ʿAbdallāh going!’; hāʾulāʾi qawmuka munṭaliqīna ‘here are
your people going!’; ḏāka ʿabdu llāhi ḏāhiban ‘there is ʿAbdallāh
walking!’; hāḏā ʿabdu llāhi maʿrūfan ‘here is ʿAbdallāh, as is well
known!’.30 In order to explain the circumstantial phrase in these
examples, Sībawayhi refers to the meaning of the first example, hāḏā
ʿabdu llāhi munṭaliqan and reveals the role of the demonstrative in
this and similar sentences: “The meaning is that you want to draw
his attention to him [i.e. to ʿAbdallāh] walking, not to introduce
ʿAbdallāh to him because you think that he does not know him.
[When you say hāḏā ʿabdu llāhi munṭaliqan, it is]31 as if you were
saying unẓur ʾilayhi munṭaliqan ‘look at him going!’” (wa-l-maʿnā
ʾannaka turīdu ʾan tunabbihahu lahu munṭaliqan lā turīdu ʾan tuʿarri-
fahu ʿabda llāhi li-ʾannaka ẓananta ʾannahu yajhaluhu fa-ka-ʾannaka
qulta unẓur ʾilayhi munṭaliqan).32

28 On this term see Wright (1997:ii, 115, last line-116, 21, § 44, Rem. d.).
29 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 159.9f.
30 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 217.9f. A similar example is discussed in chapter 114, also devoted to
the ḥāl: hāḏā ʿabdu llāhi qāʾiman ‘here is ʿAbdallāh standing!’; see Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 212.1.
See also Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 237.3f. (towards the end of chapter 129): hāḏā zaydun ḏāhiban
‘here is Zayd walking!’.
31 According to Levin (1997:151f., §4.1(2)), the technical phrase ka-ʾannaka qulta is in fact an
elliptical form of the expression ʾiḏā qulta … fa-ka-ʾannaka qulta.
32 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 217.13f. See al-Sīrāfī’s commentary, Šarḥ ii, 406.4–11. Cf. Zajjāj,
Maʿānī iii, 63.2 from the end–64.4, where he says the demonstrative has the meaning
intabih ‘behold!’. See further Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ i, 167.4–12, where the author explains that
the demonstrative hāḏā in hāḏā zaydun wāqifan ‘here is Zayd standing!’ means ʾašartu
ʾilayhi ‘I pointed at him’ or nabbahtu ʿalayhi ‘I drew attention to him’.
188 sadan

b. Some examples in which the subject is a demonstrative and the predi-

cate is an active participle can reflect the above-mentioned meaning of
demonstratives.
i. Chapter 37, whose title begins with the words Hāḏā bāb min ism al-
fāʿil, is devoted to an active participle that syntactically functions
like an imperfect verb.33 The first example in this lengthy chap-
ter is hāḏā ḍāribun zaydan ġadan ‘here is one that will hit Zayd
tomorrow!’.34 The chapter contains similar examples, which I will
not quote here.35
ii. In various other chapters there are additional examples in which the
demonstrative has this meaning, for instance: hāḏā l-rajulu munṭali-
qan ‘here is the man going!’.36

5 Conclusion

Although Sībawayhi does not devote a separate chapter to the morphology,

syntax and functions of demonstratives, a scrutiny of their occurrences in
his Kitāb reveals their functions and semantic characteristics. For Sībawayhi
demonstratives form part of the group of al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama ‘the dubious,
or vague, nouns’; they serve to indicate, or point to, nearby or far objects or
persons, a separate set existing for nearby objects or persons and for far ones;
they have diminutive and dual forms; and finally, they can be used as names
of persons. Among the demonstratives in Sībawayhi’s example sentences there
are quite a few that have the meaning of a verb in the imperative, ‘behold!’ or
‘see!’, and this is explicitly explained in this way by Sībawayhi.

33 For the whole chapter see Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 70.10–74.19.

34 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 70.11f. One could also translate this sentence as ‘this is one that will
hit Zayd tomorrow’.
35 See, for example, Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 73.10–12; 73.12–16; 74.6–10; 74.10 f.; 74.11 f.
36 See Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 221.19 (ch. 120). For a thorough discussion and translation of this
example in its context, see Levin (1979:194, §1.(2)).
demonstratives in sībawayhi’s kitāb 189

Bibliographical References

a Primary Sources
Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ = ʾAbū l-Ḥasan Ṭāhir ibn ʾAḥmad al-Naḥwī al-Miṣrī Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ
al-muqaddima al-muḥsiba. Ed. by Ḥālid ʿAbd al-Karīm. 2 vols. Kuwait: al-Maṭbaʿa l-
ʿAṣriyya, 1977.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān = ʾAbū l-Faḍl Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Mukarram ibn ʿAlī al-
ʾAnṣārī al-ʾIfrīqī al-Miṣrī Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab. Ed. by ʿAbdallāh ʿAlī al-Kabīr et
al. 9 vols. [Cairo]: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1981–1986.
Sībawayhi, Kitāb = ʾAbū Bišr ʿAmr ibn ʿUṯmān Sībawayhi, al-Kitāb. Ed. by Hartwig
Derenbourg, Le livre de Sībawaihi, Traité de grammaire arabe. 2 vols. Paris: Imprime-
rie Nationale, 1881–1889/2 vols. Cairo: Maṭbaʿa Būlāq, 1316–1317/1898–1900/Ed. ʿAbd
al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn. 5 vols. Cairo: Maktabat al-Ḫānjī, 1988/Electronic eds.,
accessed on 26 September 2014. http://www.islamhouse.com/d/files/ar/ih_books/
single/ar_sebawayh_book.zip; http://shamela.ws/browse.php/book-23018; http://
www.almeshkat.net/books/open.php?cat=16&book=484#.VCUqERbuSHw.
Sīrāfī, Šarḥ = ʾAbū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Marzubān al-Sīrāfī, Šarḥ Kitāb
Sībawayhi. Ed. by ʾAḥmad Ḥasan Mahdalī and ʿAlī Sayyid ʿAlī. 5 vols. Beirut: al-Kutub
al-ʿIlmiyya, 2008.
Zajjāj, Maʿānī = ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq ʾIbrāhīm ibn al-Sarī al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī l-Qurʾān. Ed. by ʿAbd
al-Jalīl ʿAbduh Šalabī. 5 vols. Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1408/1988.

b Secondary Sources
Lane, Edward William. 1863–1893. An Arabic-English lexicon. 8 vols. London: Williams
and Norgate.
Levin, Aryeh. 1979. “Sībawayhi’s view of the syntactic structure of kāna waʾaxawātuhā”.
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 1.185–213. [Repr. Levin 1998, art. v.]
Levin, Aryeh. 1985. “The distinction between nominal and verbal sentences according
to the Arab grammarians”. Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 25.118–127. [Repr. Levin
1998, art. iii.]
Levin, Aryeh. 1989. “What is meant by ʾakalūnī l-barāġīṯu?”. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam 12.40–85. [Repr. Levin 1998, art. viii.]
Levin, Aryeh. 1997. “The theory of al-taqdīr and its terminology”. Jerusalem Studies in
Arabic and Islam 21.142–166.
Levin, Aryeh. 1998. Arabic linguistic thought and dialectology. Jerusalem: The Hebrew
University.
Troupeau, Gérard. 1976. Lexique-Index du “Kitāb de Sībawayhi”. Paris: Klincksieck.
Wehr, Hans. 1994. A dictionary of modern written Arabic. 4th edition. Ed. J. Milton
Cowan. Ithaca, n.y.: Spoken Language Services.
Wright, William. 1997. A grammar of the Arabic language. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
How Have the Descriptions of taḥḏīr Changed?*
Haruko Sakaedani

1 Speech Acts and taḥḏīr

Austin (1962) divides utterances into two categories: ‘constative’ utterances,

which express facts or situations, and ‘performative’ utterances, which them-
selves come into effect as acts. Performative utterances are furthermore divided
into two kinds: ‘explicit’ performatives and ‘primary’ performatives, in which
the performative function is not explicit, such as ‘Fire!’, ‘Hello!’, and so on.
The speech acts themselves have three subdivisions (Austin 1962:91–93, 101–
107): i. locutionary acts; ii. illocutionary acts; and iii. perlocutionary acts. The
locutionary act is the act of uttering a certain language expression. The illocu-
tionary act is an act in another dimension fulfilled based on the locutionary act
in saying something. The perlocutionary act is the act of producing utterance
effects through the illocutionary act by saying something. It is the illocutionary
act that usually becomes the subject of research on speech acts, so illocution-
ary acts are commonly called ‘speech acts’. Being a mediated locutionary act,
the illocutionary act brings ‘illocutionary force’, such as imperative, promise,
request, question, reporting, and so on.
In the Arabic grammatical tradition there is no direct parallel with Austin’s
theory, but several notions come close to the framework introduced by Austin.
In this connection, the classification of speech into ḫabar and ʾinšāʾ should
be mentioned. Ibn Hišām (d. 761/1360) says that “it [kalām ‘speech’] is ḫabar,
ṭalab, and ʾinšāʾ” (Šuḏūr 31). He explains that ḫabar encompasses sentences
such as affirmative sentences and negative sentences, that is, sentences which
can be determined to be true or false. Imperative, prohibitive, and interrogative
sentences, whose meaning is not truth-conditional and is derived from the
utterance with a delay, are ṭalab. In contrast, ʾinšāʾ encompasses sentences like
ʾanta ḥurr ‘You are free’, said to a slave, or qabiltu hāḏā l-nikāḥ ‘I have accepted

* I should like to thank the audiences for their comments when I presented a small paper on
taḥḏīr at the 57th Meeting of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan (Nippon Oriento
Gakkai) and at the fal iii meeting in Paris. However, any and all possible mistakes are
mine.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_011

how have the descriptions of taḥḏīr changed? 191

this marriage’ to a person who proposed to you, whose meaning and utterance
co-exist (Šuḏūr 32).
Ibn Hišām says that some grammarians agree with a tripartite division of
speech in this way, but in fact speech is divided into only two, that is, ḫabar
and ʾinšāʾ, as the content of qum ‘stand up!’ happens at the time of its utterance
and is not affected by any delay. In this type of speech, which is called ʾinšāʾ, the
utterance means that the meaning has been completed (Šuḏūr 32). Ḫabar may
be regarded as a constative utterance, and ʾinšāʾ as a performative utterance
in terms of Austin’s (1962) definition. Larcher (2007:358) points out that ʾinšāʾ
consists of two subdivisions, ṭalabī (jussive utterance) and ʾīqāʿī (performative
utterance) according to al-Kafawī’s al-Kulliyyāt. He also offers as a hypothesis
that ʾinšāʾ had its roots in fiqh, then it broadened its scope toward the jussive
utterances, which include orders (ʾamr) and prohibitions (nahy). Eventually,
Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249) expanded the category of ʾinšāʾ from the legal to the
linguistic sciences (2007:359).
The present paper aims to illustrate the changing descriptions of speech acts
in Arabic grammar, taking taḥḏīr ‘warning’ as an example. Actually, taḥḏīr is not
a term used frequently in Arabic grammar. Sībawayhi, for example, used this
term only twice in his Kitāb (i, 253 and 273).1 Nonetheless, the term taḥḏīr has
come down in the Arabic grammatical tradition, at least on a small scale. Ikeda
(1970:41) points out that grammarians in the field of Arabic grammar began to
focus their attention on editing instructional textbooks in the 5th/11th century;
therefore, there must have been some changes in the descriptions of Arabic
grammar at that time. This era must be investigated to see how the description
of taḥḏīr changed in the Arabic grammatical tradition.
The notion of taḥḏīr fits into Austin’s primary performatives.2 Concerning
accusatives of exclamation, Reckendorf (1921:108) says that an exclamation
about or to somebody is called nidāʾ ‘calling’ like taḥḏīr ‘warning’ and ʾiġrāʾ
‘rebellious encouragement’. Jumla ʾinšāʾiyya means an exclamatory sentence,
and on the other hand, a declarative sentence is called jumla ʾiḫbāriyya or

1 Al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822) uses the term taḥḏīr only once in his Maʿānī (iii, 268). He states that
taḥḏīr is accusative, quoting a Qurʾānic verse fa-qāla la-hum rasūlu llāhi nāqata llāhi ‘and the
messenger of Allah said to them “Allah’s she-camel”’ (q. 91/13), where nāqata ‘she-camel’ with
an accusative ending has the meaning of taḥḏīr. However, he also adds examples of taḥḏīr
with a nominative ending, such as hāḏā l-ʿaduwwu hāḏā l-ʿaduwwu ‘this enemy, this enemy’
and hāḏā l-laylu fa-rtaḥilū ‘This night and go away’ (iii, 268 f.).
2 Firanescu (2009) deals with the relationship between modern speech act theory and tradi-
tional Arabic grammar.
192 sakaedani

jumla ḫabariyya. An exclamative accusative infinitive is called maṣḍar manṣūb

bi-fiʿl muḍmar (an accusative verbal noun with a concealed verb). The contrast
to the ‘concealment’ of the verb is its ‘manifestation’, and the verb in the latter
case is fiʿl maḥḍ ‘pure verb’. For example, consider the imperative iḍribū ‘Hit!’
in contrast to ḍarban. Accusatives like ʾuffatan ‘pooh!’ or wayḥa-ka ‘woe on
you!’ are called mā lā fiʿla la-hu ʾaṣlan ‘what does not have a verb in the first
place’.
Reckendorf (1921:109) cites examples of interjections consisting of an
accusative noun with pronominal suffix, stating that it is often difficult to
decide whether it is an interjection form or a true accusative. In such a case,
the accusatives can be verbal nouns or other nouns, and the accusatives can
generally draw attention to the subject, or they may contain the call to other,
more specific actions. Some of the examples he cites are nafsa-ka ‘Save your-
self!’ and ʾanta ʾiyyā-ka ʾiyyā-ka ‘You, take care, beware!’.
Wright (1988:ii, 72–78) describes the accusatives that depend on an implied
verb. These include the following cases:

(i) mafʿūl muṭlaq in phrases of command (positive and negative), wish,

reproach (worded interrogatively), praise, salutation, and so on. Exam-
ples:

ṣabran lā jazaʿan as in iṣbir ṣabran wa-lā tajzaʿ jazaʿan ‘Be patient

and do not be grieved!’
saqyan laka, i.e. saqāka llāhu saqyan ‘May God give you rain!’
ʾa-kufran baʿda raddi l-mawti ʿannī? as in ʾa-ʾakfuru kufran … ‘Shall I
be ungrateful after you have averted death from me?’
subḥāna llāh as in ʾusabbiḥu subḥāna llāh ‘I praise the absolute
glory of God!’ or sabbiḥ/ sabbiḥī subḥāna llāh ‘Praise the
absolute glory of God!’3
ḫayra muqdamin as in qadimta ḫayra muqdamin ‘Welcome!’ (lit.
‘You have arrived the best of arrivals’)

(ii) when the verb may be easily guessed from the manner in which the noun
in the accusative is uttered and the circumstances of the speaker, the verb
is omitted. This is found in several types of phrases:

3 Wright (1988:ii, 73) says that ʾusabbiḥu subḥāna llāh is “an ʾiḫbār or statement of fact” and
sabbiḥ/sabbiḥī subḥāna llāh is “an ʾinšāʾ a command or wish”, but both of these must be
interpreted as ʾinšāʾ for pragmatic reasons.
how have the descriptions of taḥḏīr changed? 193

(a) phrases expressing wish, salutation, and the like. Example: marḥa-
ban bika as ʾatayta makānan yarḥubu bi-ka ‘You have come to a com-
fortable place’.
(b) in this section, Wright (1988:ii, 74–76) describes taḥḏīr and ʾiġrāʾ in
detail. He says taḥḏīr means “phrases in which an individual is called
upon to guard himself, or a part of his person, against someone or
something” and ʾiġrāʾ means phrases “in which one or more indi-
viduals are urged to do something or attack some object” (1988:ii,
74). As for taḥḏīr, “the speaker may mention (a) either the person
who is to be on his guard; or (b) the person or thing he is to guard
against, repeating the word or not, at pleasure; or lastly, (c) both
together, connecting them by the conjunction wa”. As for ʾiġrāʾ, “he
mentions only the object to be attacked, repeating the word or not,
as he pleases” (1988:ii, 75). It should be noted that Wright includes
attacking something in the category of ʾiġrāʾ. Wright quotes many
examples from Classical Arabic, which will be examined in the fol-
lowing sections. Most are examples of omitting imperative forms of
verbs, though some of them are examples of other forms of the verb,
such as ʾiyyā-ka, as in ʾiyyā-ka ʾuḥaḏḏiru ‘I warn you’, or several exam-
ples of ism fiʿl, such as ḥadīṯa-ka, as in hāti ḥadīṯa-ka ‘Give your story
here!’. Wright gives many such examples; however, he does not make
clear which examples constitute taḥḏīr and which are ʾiġrāʾ. Wright
(1988:ii, 76) furthermore states that it is only the second person pro-
noun which is commonly used in this way, and that examples of the
first and third person are rare, i.e., ʾiyyā-ya wa-l-šarra, as in naḥḥi-
nī ʿan al-šarri wa-naḥḥi l-šarri ‘keep me from evil!’; ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan
yaḥḏifa ʾaḥadu-kum al-ʾarnaba, as in naḥḥi-nī ʿan mušāhadati ḥaḏfi
l-ʾarnabi wa-naḥḥi ḥaḏfa-hā ʿan ḥaḍrat-ī wa-mušāhadat-ī ‘Preserve
me from seeing any of you throw at [or: shoot at] a hare!’.
(c) various other phrases, such as al-kilāba ʿalā l-baqari as in ʾarsil al-
kilāba ʿalā l-baqari ‘Let the dogs loose on the antelopes!’.
(d) iḫtiṣāṣ ‘specification’ or ‘particularization’ (of the pronoun), i.e., the
accusative is the noun which the pronoun represents and to which
the statement refers. It can be explained by an ellipsis of ʾaʿnī ‘I
mean’ or ʾaḫuṣṣu ‘I specify’. One example is naḥnu l-ʿaraba ʾasḫā man
baḏala ‘we Arabs [i.e. ‘we, (I mean) the Arabs’] are the most liberal
among the generous’.

Contemporary grammarians, too, such as Ḥasan (1992:126–139), explain taḥḏīr

in detail. Ḥasan states that taḥḏīr comprises the following three elements: i.
194 sakaedani

muḥaḏḏir (a speaker who addresses the warning to another person); ii. muḥaḏ-
ḏar (a person to whom the warning is addressed); and iii. maḥḏūr or muḥaḏḏar
min-hu (the thing for which the warning is given). He distinguishes five kinds
of taḥḏīr:

i. al-nāra lit. ‘the fire’ (the speaker refers only to muḥaḏḏar min-hu.)
ii. al-barda l-barda lit. ‘the coldness, the coldness’, and al-barda wa-l-maṭara
lit. ‘the coldness and the rain’ (muḥaḏḏar min-hu is repeated.)
iii. yada-ka lit. ‘your hand’, yada-ka yada-ka lit. ‘your hand, your hand’, and
yada-ka wa-malābisa-ka lit. ‘your hand and your clothes’ (the speaker
refers to muḥaḏḏar by -ka and so on.)
iv. raʾsa-ka wa-ḥarārata l-šamsi lit. ‘your head and the sun’s heat’, and mawā-
ʿīda-ka wa-l-ḫulfa lit. ‘your promises and the difference’ (the speaker refers
to muḥaḏḏar by -ka and so on and adds muḥaḏḏar min-hu with wa-.)
v. ʾiyyā-ka lit. ‘you [masc. sg.]’, etc. (muḥaḏḏar is shown by the accusative
pronoun.)

2 Taḥḏīr in the Arabic Grammatical Tradition

This section will deal first with Sībawayhi, then with Ibn Yaʿīš, Ibn Mālik, and
Ibn ʿAqīl, and finally with Ibn Hišām in order to trace the transition in their
descriptions of taḥḏīr.

2.1 Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Sībawayhi (d. 177/793 or 179/796) explains taḥḏīr ‘warning’ in the chapter on
command (ʾamr) and warning (taḥḏīr) of his Kitāb.4 He states that in order
to give a warning, speakers say ʾiyyā-ka ‘you [acc.]’, which has the intended
meaning ʾiyyā-ka naḥḥi ‘Take yourself away!’, ʾiyyā-ka bāʿid ‘Keep yourself far
away!’, ʾiyyā-ka ttaqi ‘Keep yourself away!’, and other similar expressions. One
such expression is nafsa-ka yā fulānu lit. ‘yourself [acc.], so-and-so!’, which
means ittaqi nafsa-ka ‘Keep yourself away!’. In these cases, no verb is allowed,
which means that speakers can warn only with ʾiyyā-ka and nafsa-ka.
Sībawayhi also gives two other examples: ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-ʾasada lit. ‘yourself
[acc.] and the lion [acc.]’, which means ʾiyyā-ka fa-ttaqiyanna wa-l-ʾasada ‘Keep
yourself away, and away from the lion!’, and ʾiyyā-ya wa-l-šarra which means
ʾiyyā-ya li-ʾattaqiyanna wa-l-šarra ‘I’ll keep myself away, and away from evil!’,

4 Sībawayhi, Kitāb i, 273–277.

how have the descriptions of taḥḏīr changed? 195

where ʾiyyā-ka ‘you’ and ʾiyyā-ya ‘me’ are the persons avoiding and (a)l-ʾasada
‘the lion’ and (a)l-šarra ‘the evil’ are the things being avoided. He cites another,
slightly different example: ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan yaḥḏifa ʾaḥadu-kumu l-ʾarnaba ‘Let
me keep away from that one of you who throws the rabbit!’.5 In this sentence,
bāʿid or naḥḥi is omitted. Sībawayhi claims that if someone warns someone else
saying ʾiyyā-ka, that person may answer ʾiyyā-ya, which means ʾiyyā-ya ʾaḥfaẓu
wa-ʾaḥḏaru ‘I take care of myself, and I am aware of myself’.
Speakers omit the verbs from ʾiyyā-ka because they use them often in their
speech, just as they omit ḥīna-ʾiḏin ‘at that time’ when they talk about the past
and al-ʾāna ‘now’ when they talk about the present. Thus, they say ʾiyyā-ka wa-
l-ʾasada (with wa-) instead of iḥḏari l-ʾasada ‘Be careful of the lion!’.
There are several examples of taḥḏīr without ʾiyyā-:

raʾsa-hu wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa, which means ḫalli (or daʿ) raʾsa-hu wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa lit.
‘Leave his head with the wall!’
šaʾna-ka wa-l-ḥajja, which means ʿalay-ka šaʾna-ka wa-l-ḥajja lit. ‘Against
you your affair with the hajj!’
imraʾan wa nafsa-hu, which means daʿi mraʾan wa-nafsa-hu lit. ‘Leave a
man with himself!’6
ʾahlaka wa-l-layla, which means bādir ʾahla-ka qabla l-layli lit. ‘Attend
your people before the night!’7
māzi8 raʾsa-ka wa-l-sayfa lit. ‘Māzi, leave your head with the sword!’. This
taḥḏīr can be explained just like raʾsa-ka wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa (the example
quoted here was raʾsa-hu wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa, with a third person pronoun).

5 According to Lisān al-ʿArab (ii, 810), ḥaḏf means ramy ‘throwing’ or ḍarb ‘hitting’. It is said
on the authority of al-ʾAzharī ‘I saw the Arab shepherds yaḥḏifūna the rabbits with their
sticks when they [the rabbits] ran [with small slides] in front of them [the shepherds]; then
maybe the stick injured their legs and they hunted them and slaughtered them’. The Arab
shepherds thought that the rabbits were ill-omened, and encountering one was regarded as
an evil omen.
6 Sībawayhi says here that this wa-, which means maʿa, is like the wa in mā ṣanaʿta wa ʾaḫā-ka
‘You did not make, you with your brother’. Thus, it is also appropriate to say daʿi mraʾan wa-
daʿ nafsa-hu ‘Leave a man and leave himself!’. Elsewhere (Kitāb i, 297), Sībawayhi gives similar
examples, such as mā ṣanaʿta wa-ʾabā-ka ‘You did not make, you with your father’.
7 In ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-ʾasada, (a)l-ʾasada is “the thing against which you must guard yourself”
(muḥtafaẓ min-hu). In the same way, here, (a)l-layla is “the thing against which you must
be warned” (muḥaḏḏar min-hu).
8 Ibn Yaʿīš says in his Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal (ii, 26) that māzi is the apocopate form of māzin(u),
with the last consonant omitted. The name of the man called Māzinu was not Māzinun (with
196 sakaedani

As shown above, speakers omit verbs that are used frequently, when some-
thing else is put after them. Thus, the first object may become a substitute for
uttering the verb, as in ʾiyyā-ka, in which the verb is omitted. Nafsa-ka means
iḥfaẓ nafsa-ka ‘Take care of yourself!’, and raʾsa-ka means ittaqi raʾsa-ka ‘Take
care of your head!’. Likewise, al-jidār means ittaqi l-jidār ‘Keep away from the
wall!’.
If speakers add another element after the verb, it takes the position of ʾiyyā-
ka. In other words, ʾiyyā-ka may be a substitute for uttering the verb, just as
verbal nouns may be. Thus, one can say al-ḥaḏara l-ḥaḏara, which means ilzami
l-ḥaḏara ‘Have caution!’. In a similar way, al-najāʾa l-najāʾa means ʿalay-ka l-
najāʾa ‘You have to rescue’ and ḍarban ḍarban, which probably means ‘You have
to hit’.9 The examples above omit the verbs making the repeated verbal nouns
substitutes for ifʿal ‘Do!’; therefore, it is unreasonable to add verbs such as ilzam
or ʿalay-ka here.
One of the examples Sībawayhi gives of the use of verbal nouns is a line from
a poem by ʿAmr bn Maʿdīkarib: ʾurīdu ḥibāʾa-hu wa-yurīdu qatlī / ʿaḏīra-ka min
ḫalīli-ka min murādi ‘I want to make him welcome, and he wants to kill me /
[Give] your justification to your friend from tribe Murād’. Sībawayhi regards
ʿaḏīr ‘justification’ here as a verbal noun, but some other grammarians do not.
This issue will be treated in section 2.2.

2.2 Al-Zamaḫšarī’s Mufaṣṣal and Ibn Yaʿīš’ Comments

Al-Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/1143) refers to taḥḏīr in his Mufaṣṣal (ii, 25–30), deal-
ing with it as a kind of ʾamr ‘imperative’. He uses the same examples as Sīb-
awayhi does: ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-ʾasada, whose meaning is explained as ittaqi nafsa-ka
ʾan tataʿarraḍa li-l-ʾasadi, wa-l-ʾasada ʾan yuhlika-ka ‘Keep yourself away from
encountering the lion, and keep the lion away from its killing you!’. He also
gives some examples confirming this: raʾsa-ka wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa and māzi10 raʾsa-ka
wa-l-sayfa.
In a similar way, al-Zamaḫšarī discusses ʾiyyā-ya wa-l-šarra, which he
explains as naḥḥi-nī ʿan al-šarri, wa-naḥḥi l-šarra ʿannī ‘Keep me away from evil,

nunation), but he was from the Banū Māzin, or Māzinī. The speakers omitted the last yāʾ
of Māzinī and then also the n in Māzin. His real name was Kirām ʾAsar Buḫayr al-Qušayrī.
A man named Qaʿnab al-Yarbūʿī came to kill him, but Māzi fought him off by a neck, and
this phrase māzi raʾsa-ka wa-l-sayfa was said to him.
9 The meaning of ḍarban ḍarban is not explained here, though it may mean ‘You have to
hit’. Sībawayhi gives some examples of verbal nouns in the accusative repeated twice in
another chapter (Kitāb i, 335).
10 See above, n. 8.
how have the descriptions of taḥḏīr changed? 197

and keep evil away from me!’. Then, he explains ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan yaḥḏifa ʾaḥadu-
kumu l-ʾarnaba11 as naḥḥi-nī mušāhadat-ī ḥaḏfi l-ʾarnabi wa-naḥḥi ḥaḏfa-hā ʿan
ḥaḍrat-ī wa-mušāhadat-ī’ ‘Keep me away from my looking at the throwing of
the rabbit, and keep its throwing from my presence and my looking!’, whose
meaning is a prohibition of throwing the rabbit (wa-l-maʿnā l-nahyu ʿan ḥaḏfi
l-ʾarnabi).
Al-Zamaḫšarī also gives the same examples without ʾiyyā- as Sībawayhi does:
šaʾna-ka wa-l-ḥajja, imraʾan wa nafsa-hu, and ʾahla-ka wa-l-layla. In addition, he
gives another example. Remember that Sībawayhi quotes a verse containing
the expression ʿaḏīra-ka ‘your justification’. Al-Zamaḫšarī interprets this as
ʾaḥḍir ʿuḏra-ka ʾaw ʿāḏira-ka ‘Bring your justification, i.e. your ʿāḏir’. According
to Ibn Yaʿīš, ʿaḏīr is a verbal noun like ʿuḏr ‘justification’, but others argue that,
rather than being a verbal noun, it means ʿāḏir, i.e. an active participle.
We have seen above that Sībawayhi presents expressions in which a verbal
noun is repeated twice. On his part, al-Zamaḫšarī (Mufaṣṣal ii, 29) cites expres-
sions in which a noun is repeated twice:

al-ʾasada l-ʾasada lit. ‘the lion, the lion’

al-jidāra l-jidāra, i.e. al-jidāra
l-mutadāʿiya
al-ṣabiyya l-ṣabiyya, i.e. ʾibṭāʾa l-ṣabiyyi
ʾaḫā-ka ʾaḫā-ka, i.e. ilzam-hu
al-ṭarīqa l-ṭarīqa, i.e. ḫalli-hi
‘the wall on the verge of collapse’
‘letting the young man down slowly’
‘Stick to him [your brother]!’
‘Vacate it [the way]!’

Ibn Yaʿīš (d. 643/1246) comments that it is not allowed to put twice-repeated
nouns after a verb, as in *ittaqi l-ʾasada l-ʾasada lit. ‘Keep away from the lion, the
lion!’. He recommends avoiding such expressions and using instead sentences
such as the following: ḥāḏiri l-ʾasada ttaqi l-ʾasada ‘Beware of the lion, keep
away from the lion!’.

2.3 Ibn Mālik’s ʾAlfiyya

In his ʾAlfiyya (540) Ibn Mālik (d. 672/1274) gives the following example of
taḥḏīr: ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-šarra lit. ‘you and the evil’ (line 622). We have seen above
that Sībawayhi and al-Zamaḫšarī quote the example ʾiyyā-ya wa-l-šarra ‘Keep
me away from evil’, but Ibn Mālik changes the first person pronoun to the
second person, pointing out that ʾiyyā-ya ‘me’ is infrequent (šāḏḏ) and that
ʾiyyā-hu ‘him’ is even more infrequent (ʾAlfiyya 541).

11 See above, n. 5.
198 sakaedani

The commentator of the ʾAlfiyya, Ibn ʿAqīl (d. 769/1367), repeats that occur-
rence of the first person, like ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan yaḥḏifa ʾaḥadu-kumu l-ʾarnaba, is
exceptional and that occurrence of the third person is even more exceptional
(Šarḥ 541). According to him, ʾiyyā-ka ‘you [masc.]’ and its sisters, i.e. ʾiyyā-ki
‘you [fem.]’, ʾiyyā-kumā ‘you [du.]’, ʾiyyā-kum ‘you [masc. pl.]’, and ʾiyyā-kunna
‘you [fem. pl.]’ must be accusative, whether or not they are attached to another
word with wa-, because they are supposed to be like ʾiyyā-ka ʾuḥaḏḏiru ‘I warn
you’. Here, Ibn ʿAqīl does not regard taḥḏīr as a kind of imperative anymore.
As an example of repeating a noun twice, Ibn Mālik gives al-ḍayġama l-
ḍayġama. The word ḍayġama means ‘jawbone’, but in this case, it means the
wide-jawboned lion. This example corresponds, therefore, to al-Zamaḫšarī’s
example, al-ʾasada l-ʾasada.
Ibn ʿAqīl mentions māzi raʾsa-ka wa-l-sayfa, saying that it means yā māzinu
qi raʾsa-ka wa-ḥḏari l-sayfa ‘Māzin, protect your head and be aware of the
sword’.
Ibn Mālik explains that objects of encouragement (muġran bihi) are to
be treated as objects of cautioning (muḥaḏḏar) without ʾiyyā- (ʾAlfiyya 541,
line 626). Subsequently, Ibn ʿAqīl distinguishes between taḥḏīr and ʾiġrāʾ ‘incit-
ing, encouraging’. He explains that ʾiġrāʾ being a command to stick to some-
thing praiseworthy is like taḥḏīr: the coordinating wa- or the repeated noun
without a verb causes their object to be accusative, while ʾiyyā- may not be used
in either case.
Ibn ʿAqīl discusses the examples ʾaḫā-ka ʾaḫā-ka and ʾaḫā-ka wa-l-ʾiḥsāna
ʾilay-hi ‘Be kind to your brother!’, which means ilzam-hu ‘Stick to him!’. He
clearly distinguishes ʾaḫā-ka ʾaḫā-ka from other taḥḏīr expressions like al-
ʾasada l-ʾasada.

2.4 Ibn Hišām’s Šuḏūr al-ḏahab

Unlike the authors mentioned above, Ibn Hišām (d. 761/1359) does not men-
tion taḥḏīr in his Šuḏūr al-ḏahab. Instead, he explains ʾiġrāʾ in more detail
(Šuḏūr 222–225), defining it as “calling the addressee’s attention to something
praised in order to keep close to it” (tanbīh al-muḫāṭab ʿalā ʾamrin maḥmūdin
li-yalzama-hu), for which he gives the example ʾaḫā-ka ʾaḫā-ka.12 He says that
when a noun is repeated, or when it is attached to another noun, as in al-
murūʾata wa-l-najdata ‘the manhood and the heroism’, its agent (i.e. what
makes the noun accusative, that is, a verb like ilzam) must be omitted. Ibn

12 In his Muntahā l-ʾadab bi-taḥqīq bi-Šarḥ Šuḏūr al-Ḏahab, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd explains the
second ʾaḫā-ka as emphasis or confirmation of the first one.
 how have the descriptions of taḥḏīr changed? 199

Hišām regards ʾiġrāʾ as an accusative whose regent is omitted, and he does not
lay weight on whether it is a kind of imperative.
As an example of ʾiġrāʾ without repeating or attaching, Ibn Hišām presents
the following verse: ʾaḫā-ka llaḏī ʾin tadʿu-hu li-mulimmati yujib-ka … ‘[Stick to]
your brother! Even if you call him to disaster, he will answer you …’. In this case,
ʾaḫā-ka is ʾiġrāʾ, even though it is not repeated or attached to another word.

3 Conclusion

In the field of Arabic grammar, scholars began to focus their attention on

editing pedagogical textbooks in the 5th/11th century, that is, the era of al-
Zamaḫšarī. The grammarians arranged the grammatical items and put them
in order, focusing most of their attention on clarification and concretization of
the styles and terms. Furthermore, as in the case of Ibn Mālik’s ʾAlfiyya, they
sometimes versified the grammatical treatises, so that these could be learnt by
heart more easily (Ikeda 1970).
In studying the transition in the description of taḥḏīr, we see that al-Zamaḫ-
šarī has borrowed some things from Sībawayhi, but that he also adds new
findings. Moreover, Ibn Mālik and Ibn Hišām apparently attempt to introduce
a frame that differs from the one used previously (see Table 1).

table 1 Comparison of the examples of taḥḏīr cited by Arabic grammarians

al-Kitāb Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal Šarḥ al-ʾAlfiyya Šuḏūr al-ḏahab

ʾiyyā-ka ʾiyyā-ka ʾiyyā-ka

nafsa-ka nafsa-ka ʾiyyā-ki
ʾiyyā-kumā
ʾiyyā-kum
ʾiyyā-kunna

ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-ʾasada ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-ʾasada

ʾiyyā-ya wa-l-šarra ʾiyyā-ya wa-l-šarra ʾiyyā-ka wa-l-šarra

ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan yaḥḏifa ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan yaḥḏifa ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan yaḥḏifa

ʾaḥadu-kumu l-ʾarnaba ʾaḥadu-kumu l-ʾarnaba ʾaḥadu-kumu l-ʾarnaba
(exceptional)
 200 sakaedani

table 1 Comparison of the examples of taḥḏīr cited by Arabic grammarians (cont.)

al-Kitāb Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal Šarḥ al-ʾAlfiyya Šuḏūr al-ḏahab

raʾsa-hu wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa šaʾna-ka wa-l-ḥajja

šaʾna-ka wa-l-ḥajja imraʾan wa nafsa-hu
imraʾan wa nafsa-hu ʾahla-ka wa-l-layla
ʾahla-ka wa-l-layla

māzi raʾsa-ka wa-l-sayfa māzi raʾsa-ka wa-l-sayfa māzi raʾsa-ka

raʾsa-ka wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa raʾsa-ka wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa wa-l-sayfa

nafsa-ka
raʾsa-ka
al-jidār

al-ḥaḏara l-ḥaḏara
al-najāʾa l-najāʾa
ḍarban ḍarban

ʿaḏīraka ʿaḏīraka

al-ʾasada l-ʾasada al-ḍayġama

al-jidāra l-jidāra l-ḍayġama
al-ṣabiyya l-ṣabiyya
ʾaḫā-ka ʾaḫā-ka
al-ṭarīqa l-ṭarīqa

(ʾaḫāka ʾaḫāka) ʾaḫāka ʾaḫāka ʾaḫāka ʾaḫāka

ʾaḫāka wa-l-ʾiḥsāna al-marūʾata
ʾilayhi wa-n-najdata

ʾaḫāka llaḏī ʾin tadʿuhu

li-mulimmati yujibka

iġrāʾ

For example, ʾiyyā-ya wa-ʾan yaḥḏifa ʾaḥadu-kumu l-ʾarnaba is quoted by both

Sībawayhi and al-Zamaḫšarī, and Ibn ʿAqīl also uses this example but he states
that such a ‘warning’ to a first person is exceptional. Māzi raʾsa-ka wa-l-sayfa
how have the descriptions of taḥḏīr changed? 201

raʾsa-ka wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa is retained as an example for quite some time, but raʾsa-hu
wa-l-ḥāʾiṭa is only cited by Sībawayhi and not used by succeeding grammarians.
As for ʾaḫā-ka ʾaḫā-ka cited by al-Zamaḫšarī, Ibn ʿAqīl clearly distinguishes
it from taḥḏīr as ʾiġrāʾ, and in this way it comes down to Ibn Hišām. This
means that the distinction between illocutionary forces that Austin proposed
was known at least to some grammarians. According to Larcher’s hypothesis,
Ibn al-Ḥājib expanded the category of ʾinšāʾ to the linguistic sciences, and
grammarians after him distinguish between taḥḏīr and ʾiġrāʾ. This may mean
that historical factors must be taken into consideration in arguing this point.
On the other hand, while taḥḏīr was treated as a kind of imperative and
prohibitive, Ibn ʿAqīl and Ibn Hišām looked at it from the perspective of ʾiʿrāb,
that is as a kind of accusative noun.
In future study, it will be necessary to explore other grammatical items, too,
from the viewpoint of the shifts in the theoretical framework.

Bibliographical References

a Primary Sources
Farrāʾ, Maʿānī = ʾAbū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā ibn Ziyād al-Farrāʾ, Maʿānī l-Qurʾān. Ed. by
Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Najjār. 3 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1955.
Ibn ʿAqīl, Šarḥ = Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿAbdallāh Ibn ʿAqīl, Šarḥ Ibn ʿAqīl ʿalā ʾAlfiyyat Ibn Mālik.
Tripoli (Lebanon): Dār Jurūs, 1990.
Ibn Hišām, Šuḏūr = Jamāl al-Dīn ʾAbū Muḥammad ʾAḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn Hišām,
Šarḥ Šuḏūr al-ḏahab. Sayda and Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿAṣriyya, n.d.
Ibn Mālik, ʾAlfiyya = Jamāl al-Dīn ʾAbū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh Ibn Mālik
al-ʾAndalusī, al-ʾAlfiyya. Ed. by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ibn Muḥammad al-Ḫaṭīb. Kuwait: Mak-
tabat Dār al-ʿUrūba li-l-Našr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 2006.
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān = Jamāl al-Dīn ʾAbū l-Faḍl Mukarram ibn Mukarram Ibn Manẓūr,
Lisān al-ʿArab. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, n.d.
Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ = Muwaffaq al-Dīn Yaʿīš Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal. 10 vols. Beirut: ʿĀlam
al-Kutub, n.d.
Sībawayhi, Kitāb = ʾAbū Bišr ʿAmr ibn ʿUṯmān Sībawayhi, al-Kitāb. Ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd
al-Salām Hārūn. 3rd ed. Cairo: Maktabat al-Ḫānjī, 1988.

b Secondary Sources
Austin, John. 1962. How to do things with words. London: Oxford University Press.
Firanescu, Daniela Rodica. 2009. “Speech acts”. Encyclopedia of Arabic language and
linguistics, ed. by Mushira Eid et al., iv, 328–334. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Ḥasan, ʿAbbās. 1992. al-Naḥw al-wāfī, iv. 9th ed. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif.
202 sakaedani

Ikeda, Osamu. 1970. “The history of Arabic philology from the 10th century up to the
19th century [in Japanese]”. Osaka Gaikokugo Daigaku Gakuho, Osaka University of
Foreign Studies 22.35–49.
Larcher, Pierre. 2007. “ʾInšāʾ”. Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, ed. by
Mushira Eid, Alaa Elgibali, Kees Versteegh, Manfred Woidich, and Andrzej Zaborski,
ii, 358–361. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Reckendorf, Hermann. 1921. Arabische Syntax. Heidelberg: C. Winter.
Wright, William. 1988. A grammar of the Arabic language, translated from the German
of Caspari and edited with numerous additions and corrections. 3rd ed. Repr., Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Origin and Conceptual Evolution of the Term taḫṣīṣ
in Arabic Grammar*

Manuel Sartori

1 Introduction: Taḫṣīṣ, a Forgotten Term?

The third volume of The foundations of Arabic linguistics, subtitled The devel-
opment of a tradition: Continuity and change, constitutes an appropriate frame-
work for showing that not everything is said with the Kitāb of Sībawayhi
(d. 180/796?). It is in this context that I undertake the archeology of the tech-
nical term taḫṣīṣ, commonly rendered as ‘particularization’, whose history and
evolution within the Arabic grammatical tradition I trace. Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/
1249) first drew my attention to this category, of which I had never heard in my
Arabic studies.
Taḫṣīṣ remains a little-known term. First of all, it is not treated as a separate
category in the Classical Arabic grammars,1 which do not reserve a special
chapter to it. Moreover, the term is almost completely absent from Orientalist
grammars, which simply ignore it as such (Silvestre de Sacy 1831; Forbes 1863;
Palmer 1874; Socin 1885; Donat Vernier 1891; Howell 1911; Fleisch 1961, 1979;
Blachère and Gaudefroy-Demombynes 1975). Finally, contrary to expectation,
neither the Encyclopaedia of Islam, nor the Encyclopedia of Arabic language and
linguistics devote an entry to taḫṣīṣ.
When the term or the concept denoted by it are mentioned, it is usually
in passing. Thus, in the Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, Hoyt
(2009:316b) mentions the phenomenon in the entry “Specificity”, but does not
give its name, while the entry “ʾIḍāfa” incidentally mentions the phenomenon
by citing iḫtiṣāṣ (cf. Ryding and Versteegh 2007:295b). Likewise, in the second
edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, taḫṣīṣ is quoted incidentally in the entries

* In quotes, I keep the author’s transliteration. I thank Michael Carter and Jean Druel for their
remarks, which helped me to improve this article.
1 Note also that the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ is only used four times in the Qurʾān, twice for yaḫuṣṣuhu
bihi (2/105; 3/74), once for ḫāṣṣatan (8/25) and once for ḫaṣāṣatun (59/9) (cf. ʿAbd al-Bāqī
1997:297).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_012

204 sartori

“ʾiḍāfa” (Fleisch 1986:1008b), “naʿt” (Troupeau 1993:1034a) and “taʿrīf ” (Carter

2000:241b). Finally, Brustad (2000:21) briefly mentions it in passing.
By placing this work in the context of continuity and change, I have three
objectives: i. to conduct an archeological search of the term taḫṣīṣ in Arabic
grammar; ii. to trace the evolution of its conceptual content; iii. to identify
its origin. First, however, we need to define the notion of taḫṣīṣ, which, given
the scattered nature of the information, can only be done by a combination of
sources.

2 Taḫṣīṣ: First Definition

2.1 Lexical Family and Meaning of ḫ-ṣ-ṣ

The term taḫṣīṣ is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of what is called in the Oriental-
ist tradition Form ii faʿʿala/yufaʿʿilu from the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ. Form i of this verb,
ḫaṣṣa/yaḫuṣṣu means ‘to distinguish, to specify; to apply in particular to, to
be characteristic of’. Of this basic verb, two derivations are frequently used,
the active participle ḫāṣṣ and the passive participle maḫṣūṣ. As for the first,
it should be understood either as ‘peculiar, specific’, opposed to ʿāmm ‘gen-
eral’,2 or as ‘particularizing; someone who/something which particularizes’,
opposed to maḫṣūṣ ‘someone/something particularized, specific, specified’.
The latter in turn is well known in Arabic grammar, especially to designate
the specific object of praise or blame in structures involving ʾafʿāl al-madḥ
wa-l-ḏamm, the praised or blamed object being the maḫṣūṣ bi-l-madḥ ʾaw bi-
l-ḏamm.
From this verb base some augmented stems are derived: the monotransitive
Form ii ḫaṣṣaṣahu ‘to particularize, to specify’, which is the factitive of Form i
and whose maṣdar is taḫṣīṣ; a bi-transitive Form viii, direct and prepositional,
iḫtaṣṣahu bihi ‘to dedicate s.th. to s.o., to confer distinction upon s.o. by s.th.’,
of equivalent meaning with iḫtaṣṣahu lahu;3 a monoprepositional iḫtaṣṣa bihi
‘to be peculiar to; to concern, regard s.th.; to be distinguished, marked by’; a
monotransitive iḫtaṣṣahu ‘to take exclusive possession of’ with the meaning
of ‘to characterize s.th.’; an intransitive iḫtaṣṣa ‘to distinguish one’s self, to
specialize’, with a passive form uḫtuṣṣa (bi-) ‘to be characterized, specified (by),
to become specific (to)’. Finally, from Form ii a Form v is derived taḫaṣṣaṣa

2 A number of well-known works of ʾuṣūl al-fiqh contain a chapter entitled al-ʿāmm wa-l-ḫāṣṣ
‘the general and the particular’.
3 Cf. Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl i, 156.
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 205

(bihi) ‘to particularize one’s self (by), to be peculiar (to)’. In the present paper
I will focus mainly on taḫṣīṣ, whose precise technical meaning remains to be
defined, as well as to derivatives of the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ, relating thereto.4

2.2 The Grammatical Technical Meaning of taḫṣīṣ among Modern

Authors
Given the scattered nature of the information about taḫṣīṣ, its definition can
only be achieved by combining sources. Relying on secondary sources but also
on primary (old as well as late), I shall give a first definition of taḫṣīṣ. This ideal-
typical definition will then be used to identify the phenomenon in Classical
Arabic grammatical treatises and proceed to engage in an archeology of taḫṣīṣ.
This archeology will then allow us to assess the evolution of the conceptual
content of the notion.
Wright (1996:ii, 198d, 199a, 260–261d)5 assigns to taḫṣīṣ the semantic func-
tion of limiting, more specifically that of ‘partial determination’.6 Terminolog-
ically, taḫṣīṣ is very clearly stated to be connected with tankīr and taʿrīf.7 Con-
textually, taḫṣīṣ appears in conjunction with the annexing construction and,
more incidentally, with the qualification. Finally, syntactically and technically,
taḫṣīṣ consists i) in the annexation of an indefinite genitive (ʿamalu birrin), or
ii) in the qualification of an indefinite noun by an adjective (rajulun karīmun)
or by an expression equivalent to an adjective (ʾamrun bi-maʿrūfin).
Unlike Wright, Reckendorf (1921:57, 193, 200, 218) does not deal with taḫṣīṣ
in the chapter on annexation, but in those dealing with the adjective and
with indefiniteness (tankīr). Overall, the same information may be culled from
Reckendorf as from Wright. Semantically, taḫṣīṣ is a ‘particularization’ (Beson-

4 Therefore, I will not pay attention to other technical terms, such as those of taḫṣīṣ al-ʿilla
‘cause particularization’ (cf. al-Sayyid al-Šarīf, Taʿrīfāt 57 and for the technical term ʿilla, cf.
Versteegh 2007, 2011), nor such as maḫṣūṣ used in the framework of the expression of praise
or blame (maḫṣūṣ bi-l-madḥ/ḏamm).
5 The passages in which taḫṣīṣ occurs are in fact Wright’s additions in the form of footnotes to
the text of Caspari, the latter not quoting the term, neither in his Latin edition of 1844–1848,
nor in the German one of 1859. Cf. Caspari (1848:221f., 250; 1859:288 f., 330).
6 Goguyer (1888:208) translates the term in verse 919 of the ʾAlfiyya of Ibn Mālik (d. 672/1274) as
‘reserving’; in his translation of the Qaṭr al-nadā of Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 761/1360), he uses
‘particularization’ (cf. notably Goguyer 1887:284, 286, or words from the same Latin root). The
latter translation will be adopted here.
7 Note that Fleisch (1961:i, 339f.) remarks that the issue of determination and indetermination
in Arabic “est difficile et jusqu’ici n’a pas reçu une élucidation suffisante”, which seems to
imply the existence of taḫṣīṣ.
206 sartori

derung, 57), a ‘quasi-determination’ (nähere Bestimmung, 200), and a ‘restric-

tion’ (Einschränkung, 218); it is connected with tankīr and taʿrīf.
Badīʿ Yaʿqūb and ʿĀṣī (1987: i, 154, 367, ii, 1254) are in turn the only ones, to
my knowledge, to reserve an entry to taḫṣīṣ in a dictionary of Arabic grammar
and/or of fiqh al-luġa.8 In addition to the entry (i, 367) where it is specifically
linked to annexation, they also deal incidentally with it in entries “ʾiḍāfa” (i,
154), “ʿaṭf al-bayān” (ii, 868) and “naʿt” (ii, 1254). On the whole, they assign to
it the same connection with tankīr and taʿrīf, in the same contexts, plus the
explanatory apposition (ʿaṭf al-bayān).
I will end this first part with two ‘late’ authors: al-Sayyid al-Šarīf, i.e. ʿAlī
ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413) and Muḥammad ibn ʾAḥmad al-Širbīnī
(d. 977/1570). Taḫṣīṣ is found five times in al-Sayyid al-Šarīf. In his Kitāb al-
taʿrīfāt he defines this term when it has the technical sense we are interested
in, as follows: “particularization among grammarians is an expression meaning
the restriction of equivocity occuring in indefinite expressions like ‘a learned
man’” (al-taḫṣīṣ ʿinda al-nuḥāt ʿibāra ʿan taqlīl al-ištirāk al-ḥāṣil fī l-nakirāt
naḥwa ‘rajulun ʿālimun’, Taʿrīfāt 57).
In al-Širbīnī’s commentary on the ʾĀjurrūmiyya of Ibn ʾĀjurrūm (d. 723/
1323),9 taḫṣīṣ is used twice: “An undefined antecedent may occur when justified
by specialization, generalization, or inversion. Specialization may be effected
either by annexation […] or by adjectival qualification” (wa-yaqaʿu nakira bi-
musawwiġ wa-huwa ʾimmā al-taḫṣīṣ ʾaw al-taʿmīm ʾaw al-taʾḫīr fa-l-ʾawwal wa-
huwa l-taḫṣīṣ sawāʾan ʾa-kāna bi-ʾiḍāfa […] ʾaw bi-waṣf, Carter 1981:376). Carter
(1981:377) explains that

‘specialization’, taḵṣīṣ, is an intermediate level between absolute indefini-

tion and pure definition [… and] that ‘specialized’ elements (i.e. qualified
by adjectives, like fulukin māḵirin […]) are sufficiently defined to function
as subjects on nominal sentences.

8 There is indeed no trace of it in al-Labdī (1985); Fawwāl Bābitī (1992); ʿAbbās Maʿan (2001);
ʿAbbās Maʿan (2002); ʿUbāda (2011), nor in Marzā al-Ḫāmis (2012). Only Baraké (1985:154)
mentions it with the meaning of ‘particularization’, shared with tamyīz, which is not odd (cf.
infra).
9 The editor of the text, Carter (1981:v), indicates that “in the Arabic text Ibn Ājurrūm’s own
words have, according to the practice of the day, been directly integrated into aš-Širbīnī’s
commentary, and are therefore distinguished by overlining”. Occurrences of taḫṣīṣ not being
highlighted, they are indeed additions made by the commentator, al-Širbīnī, to the primary
text (matn).
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 207

He notes (1981:461) that “‘Specialization’ is taḵṣīṣ, cognate (and almost syn-

onymous with) iḵtiṣāṣ ‘particularization’ […], in both cases denoting an inter-
mediate stage between absolute definition and indefinition”.
If we add to these data the information distilled from Gätje (1970:47, 235);
Fleisch (1986:1008b); Troupeau (1993:1034a), as well as Carter’s (2000:241b)
comment that taḫṣīṣ is a “weaker type” of definiteness, the following defini-
tion of the phenomenon may be proposed: taḫṣīṣ is a technical term that is
connected with tankīr and taʿrīf. Occurring in the context of indefiniteness, it
is related to several terms denoting definiteness, on which I will focus in other
studies. Taḫṣīṣ is, besides, related to the grammatical categories of annexation,
qualification, and explanatory apposition. Understood as ‘partial determina-
tion’ or ‘quasi-determination’, it is not only a grammatical category but also, first
and foremost, a semantic category and, therefore, a pragmatic one, something
well understood by the grammarian, logician and pragmatician al-ʾAstarābāḏī
(d. 688/1289).10 In the following lines I will address only the syntactic aspect of
taḫṣīṣ and its derivatives.

3 Terminological Evolution of taḫṣīṣ

The question to be answered now is: at what point did this term or its cognates
appear in Arabic grammar with the precise meaning defined above? To do this,
I have listed, in all grammatical treatises at my disposal, not only significant
occurrences of taḫṣīṣ, but more generally of those terms that are derived from
the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ.
Taḫṣīṣ is used once in the Kitāb of Sībawayhi, according to Troupeau’s
Lexique-index (1976:81), but only with a general meaning, not as a grammat-
ical technical term (Kitāb i, 302). Suffice it to note that of all derivations
from the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ, only two occurrences are close to the technical mean-
ing we are looking for. In both cases this concerns the quasi-technical use of
Form viii iḫtaṣṣa-hu in association with specification. We will see later that a
link may justly be made between taḫṣīṣ and tamyīz.11 Sībawayhi says: “When

10 In fact, al-ʾAstarābāḏī appears to be the only grammarian to recognize clearly this prag-
matic dimension of taḫṣīṣ and some of the terms derived from it, and that in some well
defined contexts. The scope of the present article does not allow me to deal with this topic,
which would justify a study on al-ʾAstarābāḏī. On the pragmatic aspects of al-ʾAstarābāḏī’s
approach, cf. Larcher (1990, 1992, 1994, 1998 and more generally, 2014).
11 Cf. infra.
208 sartori

you say ‘I have twenty’, you have made the species imprecise, and when you
say ‘dirham’, you have characterized a species and thanks to this, it is known
of what species is this number” (ʾiḏā qulta ‘lī ʿišrūna’ fa-qad ʾabhamta l-ʾanwāʿ
fa-ʾiḏā qulta ‘dirhaman’ fa-qad iḫtaṣaṣta nawʿan wa-bihi yuʿrafu min ʾayy nawʿ
ḏālika l-ʿadad, Kitāb ii, 174, and 192 for a similar example). Although in fact
Sībawayhi’s use of the term is not technical, but general (like the other occur-
rences of iḫtiṣāṣ in the Kitāb), and even if this use does not strictly fall within
the framework defined by taḫṣīṣ (annexation, qualification, and explanatory
apposition), it may very well be the first occurrence of the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ with the
technical meaning we are looking for, or perhaps, a proto-manifestation of
it.
In contrast, according to Kinberg’s index (1996), no trace of taḫṣīṣ or any
other word of this root occurs in al-Farrāʾ’s (d. 207/822) Maʿānī l-Qurʾān, nor
does it occur in al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898), neither in his Muqtaḍab, nor in his
Kāmil. Nevertheless, at least one occurrence of muḫtaṣṣ, passive participle of
Form viii, in connection with annexation could count as a proto-technical
usage, when al-Mubarrad writes (Muqtaḍab iii, 198) about ḫamsatahum:
“Then you annexed it to its plural and it became particularized by it” ( fa-
ʾaḍaftahu [ḫamsa] ʾilā jamīʿihi fa-ṣāra muḫtaṣṣan bihi).
We find again a single occurrence of taḫṣīṣ in the ʾUṣūl fī l-naḥw of Ibn al-
Sarrāj (d. 316/928), in connection with the admirative formula (ʾUṣūl i, 102).
However, while his use of taḫṣīṣ certainly refers to a technical grammatical cat-
egory, Ibn al-Sarrāj has in mind that of maḫṣūṣ (bi-l-madḥ/bi-l-ḏamm). What is
more, some of the terms from the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ in Ibn al-Sarrāj actually describe
the inverse of the phenomenon we are interested in (the first term of annex-
ation particularizing the second, see ʾUṣūl i, 85, 153), since he uses maḫṣūṣ in
the sense of muḫaṣṣaṣ. Indeed, here is what he writes: “This does not include
the case of ḍarabanī ġulāmu ḫamsata ʿašara rajulan ‘the servant of fifteen men
hit me’, since ‘the servant’ is particularized, known and not ambiguous” (wa-
lā yadḫulu fī hāḏā ‘ḍarabanī ġulāmu ḫamsata ʿašara rajulan’ li-ʾanna l-ġulām
maḫṣūṣ maʿlūm ġayr mubham, ʾUṣūl i, 276). We find here maḫṣūṣ in the sense
of muḫaṣṣaṣ in the technical meaning we are looking for, while we find taḫṣīṣ
in the sense of maḫṣūṣ bi-l-madḥ/ḏamm.
Since the term does not occur neither in the ʾĪḍāḥ fī ʿilal al-naḥw nor in the
Jumal fī l-naḥw of al-Zajjājī (d. 337/949), one might say that al-Zajjājī ignores
the notion as such. Indeed, he writes about the active participle:

Know that the active participle, when it has the meaning of the past and
you annex it to an indefinite expression, becomes indefinite, and that if
you annex it to a definite expression, it becomes definite (wa-ʿlam ʾanna
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 209

ism al-fāʿil ʾiḏā kāna bi-maʿnā l-muḍiyy fa-ʾaḍaftahu ʾilā nakira tanakkara
wa-ʾin ʾaḍaftahu ʾilā maʿrifa taʿarrafa).
Jumal ii, 90

Thus, he is aware of the phenomenon of particularization, (in this case with the
annexation of an indefinite to an indefinite), but does not link it to the term we
know. There is a single occurrence of taḫṣīṣ in al-Zajjājī’s short treatise Kitāb
al-lāmāt, but it lacks the relevant technical meaning (Lāmāt 32).
Presumably, the first occurrence of a derivative of the root ḫ-ṣ-ṣ with an
obvious link with the defined technical meaning is in al-Sīrāfī’s (d. 368/979)
Šarḥ Kitāb Sībawayhi. It occurs in the chapter on the adjective:

ʾAbū Saʿīd [al-Sīrāfī] said that the meaning of the adjective was to charac-
terize the essence of the qualified element and to bring it out from vague-
ness and general toward a more precise sense. Thus, the adjective brings
out the undefined qualified elements of a species toward a more precise
kind. As for the [qualified] defined elements, the adjective brings them
out from an individual whose name is shared and who is therefore sub-
ject to ambiguity at a stage where ambiguity disappears from it. As for the
indefinite expression, it is [like] when you say marartu bi-rajulin ẓarīfin ‘I
passed by a friendly man’. If you limited yourself to ‘man’, it would have
fallen under the set of all men, and the species to which it belongs would
have been general, while when you qualify it by ‘friendly’, it becomes
part of the class of friendly men, which is more restricted than men in
general (qāla ʾAbū Saʿīd maʿnā l-naʿt ʾannahu iḫtiṣāṣ nafs al-manʿūt wa-
ʾiḫrāj lahu min ʾibhām wa-ʿumūm ʾilā mā huwa ʾaḫaṣṣ minhu wa-l-nakirāt
al-manʿūta yuḫrijuhā al-naʿt min nawʿ ʾilā nawʿ ʾaḫaṣṣ minhu wa-ʾammā l-
maʿārif fa-yuḫrijuhā l-naʿt min šaḫṣ muštarak al-ism ʿinda wuqūʿ al-labs fīhi
ʾilā ʾan yazūla al-labs ʿanhu ʾammā l-nakira fa-qawluka ‘marartu bi-rajulin
ẓarīfin’ law iqtaṣarta ʿalā ‘rajul’ waḥdahu la-kāna l-rajul waḥdahu min jum-
lat al-rijāl kullihim wa-nawʿuhu llaḏī huwa minhum al-rijāl ʿalā l-ʿumūm fa-
lammā naʿattahu bi-‘ẓarīf’ ṣāra min jumlat al-rijāl al-ẓirāf wa-huwa ʾaqall
min al-rijāl bi-ʾiṭlāq).
Šarḥ ii, 312f.

Thus, the result of the qualification of an indefinite noun is more precise than
the indefinite noun alone, which al-Sīrāfī expresses in his own way by using
iḫtiṣāṣ and ʾaḫaṣṣ. Nevertheless, these are still only proto-technical terms that
do not encompass the whole concept defined under taḫṣīṣ since they concern
only qualification; a fortiori, this is not yet a matter of taḫṣīṣ.
210 sartori

ʾAbū ʿAlī al-Fārisī (d. 377/987) uses taḫṣīṣ more frequently than his predeces-
sors. It is found twice in his Kitāb al-ʾīḍāḥ (208) and twice in al-Takmila (320,
365), but in a basic, non-technical meaning. On the other hand, in one partic-
ular instance, involving a vocative particle (nidāʾ)12 functioning as a common
factor for two nouns, al-Fārisī writes:

The point of the resemblance of this type with the annexation is that
the second [term] particularizes the first, just like the second term of the
annexation particularizes the first term of the annexation (wa-wajh šabah
hāḏā l-ḍarb bi-l-ʾiḍāfa ʾanna l-ṯānī muḫaṣṣiṣ li-l-ʾawwal kamā ʾanna l-muḍāf
ʾilayhi muḫaṣṣiṣ li-l-muḍāf ).
ʾĪḍāḥ 190

This passage is quite remarkable, first because as far as I know, this is the first
appearance in Arabic grammar of the term muḫaṣṣiṣ, active participle of taḫṣīṣ,
used here with its technical meaning in connection with annexation. Further
on, again in connection with annexation, but this time with the Form viii
verb iḫtaṣṣa, al-Fārisī also refers to the proto-determined character mentioned
above:

And when you annex an indefinite [expression] to an indefinite one, it is

particularized by the annexation, even if it does not become definite, as
in ‘a donkey’s rider’ (wa-ʾiḏā ʾaḍafta nakira ʾilā nakira iḫtaṣṣat bi-l-ʾiḍāfa
wa-ʾin lam tataʿarraf naḥwa ‘rākibu ḥimārin’).
ʾĪḍāḥ 210f.

Apparently, then, al-Fārisī does identify the phenomenon and clearly states
that it is connected with tankīr and taʿrīf. At the same time, it should be stressed
that the terminology is still unstable, since he uses a Form viii verb rather than
Form ii (cf. also Fārisī, Takmila 268). Moreover, he only deals with it as part
of the annexation and does not refer to the explanatory apposition, nor to the
qualification.
Seven instances of taḫṣīṣ are found in Ibn al-Warrāq’s (d. 381/991) ʿIlal al-
naḥw, where it occurs both in connection with annexation (ʿIlal 145, 228, 304)
and with qualification (ʿIlal 371, 380). As for the annexation, Ibn al-Warrāq says:

12 This case involves the use of yā ṯalāṯatu wa-l-ṯalāṯūna ‘o, thirty-three!’ when addressing a
group of people: wa-law nādayta jamāʿatan hāḏihi l-ʿidda ʿiddatuhā la-rafaʿta fa-qulta yā
ṯalāṯatu wa-l-ṯalāṯūna fī-man qāla zaydu wa-l-ḥāriṯu wa-man qāla wa-l-ḥāriṯa naṣaba al-
ṯalāṯīna ʾaw qāla yā ṯalāṯata wa-[yā] ṯalāṯūna.
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 211

The characteristic feature of annexation is that the first term of annex-

ation is particularized. […] Don’t you see that if you said hāḏā ġulāmun
‘He is a servant’, it would be ambiguous, but when you say ġulāmu zaydin
‘Zayd’s servant’, he is distinguished by the fact that he is Zayd’s possession
(wa-l-faḍl bi-l-ʾiḍāfa taḫṣīṣ al-muḍāf […] ʾa-lā tarā ʾannaka law qulta ‘hāḏā
ġulāmun’ la-kāna mubhaman fa-ʾiḏā qulta ‘ġulāmu zaydin’ iḫtaṣṣa bi-milk
zayd).
ʿIlal 145

As for the qualification, Ibn al-Warrāq writes: “Regarding the indefinite expres-
sion […], the adjective only signifies in it a particularization” (ʾammā l-nakira
[…] fa-l-ṣifa ʾinnamā tufīdu fīhā taḫṣīṣan, ʿIlal 371) and “as for the indefinite
expression, the principle in it is to be qualified because the aim of the qual-
ification is the particularization of the qualified element” (wa-ʾamma l-nakira
fa-l-ʾaṣl fīhā ʾan tunʿata li-ʾanna l-ġaraḍ min al-naʿt taḫṣīṣ al-manʿūt, ʿIlal 380). As
we see, taḫṣīṣ appears in connection with qualification and annexation and in
the framework of indefiniteness since the first term of annexation and the qual-
ified element are both indefinite. Thus, it could correspond to the ideal-typical
definition given above, but for Ibn al-Warrāq annexation has the property of
defining the first term since he writes that “the first term of annexation takes
on definiteness from the second term” (wa-l-muḍāf yaktasibu taʿrīfan min al-
muḍāf ʾilayhi, ʿIlal 383) and that “the first term of annexation is supposed to be
an indefinite expression before annexation and then to be annexed, because
the aim of annexation is its definition” (al-muḍāf yuqaddaru qabla l-ʾiḍāfa
nakira ṯumma yuḍāfu li-ʾanna al-ġaraḍ fī l-ʾiḍāfa taʿrīfuhu, ʿIlal 416). Even clearer
is the following statement:

The characteristic of annexation is the particularization of the first term

and its definition. When the first term has the article, it becomes defined
by it and does not need another definition by means of annexation (al-faṣl
fī l-ʾiḍāfa taḫṣīṣ al-muḍāf wa-taʿrīfuhu fa-ʾiḏā kānat fī l-muḍāf al-ʾalif wa-l-
lām taʿarrafa bihimā wa-lam yaḥtaj ʾilā taʿrīf ʾāḫar min jihat al-ʾiḍāfa).
ʿIlal 304

Thus, for Ibn al-Warrāq, annexation always involves definiteness and particu-
larization, while qualification only involves particularization within the frame-
work of indefiniteness. In particular, Ibn al-Warrāq does not address the case
where the second term of annexion is itself indefinite (as in bayt muʿallim),
which shows that, unlike later grammarians, he does not take into account this
phenomenon.
212 sartori

At least one passage of the Šarḥ Kitāb Sībawayhi of ʾAbū l-Ḥasan al-Rummānī
(d. 384/994) suggests that he is aware of this phenomenon: “… since the gov-
erned element particularizes, as does annexation and as does the adjective”
(ʾiḏ al-maʿmūl yuḫaṣṣiṣu kamā tuḫaṣṣiṣu l-ʾiḍāfa wa-kamā tuḫaṣṣiṣu l-ṣifa, Šarḥ
i, 374). Here indeed we find for the first time the Form ii verb ḫaṣṣaṣa, both in
connection with annexation and with qualification.
Apart from the many occurrences of the expression taḫṣīṣ al-ʿilla in the
Ḫaṣāʾiṣ of Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), taḫṣīṣ often has the technical meaning we
are dealing with. He writes: “In fact, the adjective in the utterance is of two
types: either it serves specification and particularization, or praise and eulogy”
(wa-ḏālika ʾanna l-ṣifa fī l-kalām ʿalā ḍarbayn ʾimmā li-l-taḫlīṣ wa-l-taḫṣīṣ wa-
ʾimmā li-l-madḥ wa-l-ṯanāʾ, Ḫaṣāʾiṣ ii, 146). In another passage, which has no
connection with qualification, but only with annexation, Ibn Jinnī writes: “It
has been said that the purpose in annexation is only to define and to particu-
larize” (qīla li-ʾanna al-ġaraḍ fī l-ʾiḍāfa ʾinnamā huwa l-taʿrīf wa-l-taḫṣīṣ, Ḫaṣāʾiṣ
ii, 267). This is expressed in the same way in his Sirr ṣināʿat al-ʾiʿrāb where he
states that “annexation imparts definiteness and particularization” (al-ʾiḍāfa
tuksibu l-taʿrīf wa-l-taḫṣīṣ, Sirr ii, 37). With Ibn Jinnī we thus clearly pass from
Form viii iḫtaṣṣa to Form ii ḫaṣṣaṣa, and more specifically, to its maṣdar. This
means that with Ibn Jinnī the notion of taḫṣīṣ, for the first time in the history
of Arabic grammar, acquires the familiar technical meaning. This transition to
Form ii is understandable, because it fits into a set of systematic notions from
this form, such as tankīr and taʿrīf. Moreover, it allows the formation of pairs
of terms, of which Arabic grammar is fond, such as muḍāf and muḍāf ʾilayhi,
manʿūt and naʿt, mawṣūf and ṣifa, mubdal and mubdal minhu, mustaṯnā and
mustaṯnā minhu, etc. From the factitive Form ii, pairs of terms distinguish-
ing an agent from a patient may be derived, such as munakkir and munakkar,
muʿarrif and muʿarraf, muḫaṣṣiṣ and muḫaṣṣaṣ. Nevertheless, Ibn Jinnī appears
to be less explicit than al-Fārisī about the connection of taḫṣīṣ with tankīr and
taʿrīf.
Nothing is found concerning our subject in Ibn Fāris’ (d. 395/1004) Maqāyīs,
nor in his al-Ṣāḥibī fī fiqh al-luġa. Likewise, al-Ṯaʿālibī (d. 430/1038) in his Fiqh
al-luġa wa-ʾasrār al-ʿarabiyya has only one instance of taḫṣīṣ in a basic sense
(Fiqh al-luġa 391), while the technical meaning is absent from his work.
Ibn Sīda (d. 458/1066) recognizes the phenomenon of taḫṣīṣ in his Muḫaṣṣaṣ
in the context of qualification as he writes: “Its particularization by means of
annexation became like its particularization by means of qualification” ( fa-
ṣāra taḫṣīṣuhu bi-l-ʾiḍāfa ka-taḫṣīṣihi bi-l-waṣf, Muḫaṣṣaṣ xvi, 66), providing
as an example sayrun šadīdun ‘a difficult walk’, i.e., the qualification of an
indefinite noun by an indefinite adjective.
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 213

ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078), a student of a nephew of al-Fārisī,13

illustrates a new turning point in the terminological history of taḫṣīṣ by placing
it in a precise system and by explicitly linking it to the framework of indefinite-
ness:

Know then that, with respect to indefinite expressions, the adjective con-
veys particularization and, with respect to definite expressions, clarifi-
cation. The explanation for this is that when you say marartu bi-rajulin
ṭawīlin ‘I passed by a tall man’, you reduce the generality of the noun by
making it apply to only part of [its] species, rather than to its entirety,
insofar as you do not include in it any man who is not tall. This is the
meaning covered by particularization and it only occurs with the indefi-
nite expression (ṯumma iʿlam ʾanna l-ṣifa tufīdu fī l-nakira al-taḫṣīṣ wa-fī l-
maʿrifa al-tawḍīḥ tafsīr hāḏā ʾannaka ʾiḏā qulta ‘marartu bi-rajulin ṭawīlin’
kunta qad naqaṣta min ʿumūm al-ism fa-jaʿaltahu yaqaʿu ʿalā baʿḍ al-jins
dūna kullihi min ḥayṯu lā tudḫilu man lā yakūnu ṭawīlan min al-rijāl fīhi
fa-hāḏā huwa l-murād bi-l-taḫṣīṣ wa-lā yakūnu ʾillā fī l-nakira).
Šarḥ 276; see also Muqtaṣid ii, 175

Thus, al-Jurjānī is the first to be as clear on the distinction between taḫṣīṣ and
tawḍīḥ, which is therefore understood to be its complementary rather than its
equivalent.14 Yet, taḫṣīṣ is limited here to qualification, while nothing is said
about taḫṣīṣ in annexation.
Finally, ʾAbū l-Qāsim al-Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/1144) provides the first accurate
description in the history of Arabic grammar of taḫṣīṣ, as we currently under-
stand it:15

Annexation of a noun to a noun is of two types: semantic and formal. The

semantic one signifies definiteness, as when you say dāru ʿamrin ‘ʿAmr’s
house’, or (ʾaw) particularization, as when you say ġulāmu rajulin ‘a man’s
servant’ (ʾiḍāfat al-ism li-l-ism ʿalā ḍarbayn maʿnawiyya wa-lafẓiyya fa-l-

13 He was the student of ʾAbū l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-
Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Wāriṯ al-Fārisī al-Naḥwī (d. 421/1030), himself a nephew by his mother
of ʾAbū ʿAlī al-Fārisī (cf. Jurjānī, Šarḥ 30). On al-Jurjānī see Larcher (1993).
14 This case is dealt with in a forthcoming study, “Definition and determination in Medieval
Arabic grammatical thought”, to appear in the proceedings of the 4th Conference on the
Foundations of Arabic Linguistics.
15 Troupeau (1993:1034a) effectively notes the presence of this term in al-Zamaḫšarī.
214 sartori

maʿnawiyya mā ʾafāda taʿrīfan ka-qawlika ‘dāru ʿamrin’ ʾaw taḫṣīṣan ka-

qawli-ka ‘ġulāmu rajulin’).
Mufaṣṣal 119

As we see, al-Zamaḫšarī carefully distinguishes between taʿrīf and taḫṣīṣ. He

does so by using two contrastive examples: a definite second term of annex-
ation for taʿrīf, and an indefinite one for taḫṣīṣ. He also does so by using an
actually disjunctive coordination, ʾaw, where others before him had used wa-,
so that the disjunction had to be imagined. In another passage, this time in con-
nection with the treatment of the adjective, he writes: “It is said that it serves for
particularization within the indefinite expressions and for clarification within
the definite ones” (wa-yuqālu ʾinnahā li-l-taḫṣīṣ fī l-nakirāt wa-li-l-tawḍīḥ fī l-
maʿārif, Mufaṣṣal 148).
While the work of al-Suhaylī (d. 581/1185) provides us with only a few
instances of this term (Natāʾij 28 for annexation, and 158 for qualification), it is
clear that taḫṣīṣ, in and after al-Zamaḫšarī, is the act of particularizing an indef-
inite noun by the second term of an annexation, itself indefinite, or by a follow-
ing indefinite adjective. In either case, taḫṣīṣ is linked to the state of tankīr. It
is something else than taʿrīf and has a complementary term within the state
of taʿrīf, that of tawḍīḥ. We find the same technical uses and the same system-
atic relations in later grammarians.16 Within the line of the Mufaṣṣal, this is the
case of Ibn Yaʿīš (d. 643/1245) (cf. Šarḥ ii, 126, 233), Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249) (cf.
Kāfiya 122, 129, ʾImlāʾ 43a–b, 45b, 48a) and Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī, in whose
approach this category takes a more pronounced pragmatic dimension, taḫṣīṣ
and its derivatives being connected to the notions of speaker (mutakallim) and
interlocutor (muḫāṭab) (cf. notably Šarḥ al-Kāfiya i, 202ff., in particular 206;17
ii, 238f.; ii, 314).
Although al-Zajjājī does not mention taḫṣīṣ at all or even ignores the phe-
nomenon, Ibn Ḫarūf (d. 609/1212), commentator of al-Zajjājī’s Jumal, should
be partly included within al-Zamaḫšarī’s legacy, since for him “the adjective
serves to particularize the indefinite expression and to remove the supposed
equivocity concerning the definite qualified element” (wa-fāʾidat al-naʿt taḫṣīṣ
al-nakira wa-rafʿ al-ištirāk al-mutawahham fī l-manʿūt al-maʿrifa, Šarḥ i, 300).

16 In the appendix two grammarians will be dealt with, whose use of taḫṣīṣ is sufficiently
against the current to warrant separate treatment, Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (d. 577/1181) and ʾAbū
Mūsā al-Juzūlī (d. 607/1210 or 616/1219).
17 I refer here to Larcher (1983:253) about salām which “is specified by its relation to the one
that greets”, muḫtaṣṣ bi-.
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 215

Nevertheless, he presents an example such as ṣāḥibu zaydin as a case of taḫṣīṣ,

which it is not, and thus shows that the terminology, while certainly being
more stable, is not identical for all grammarians. Ibn ʿUṣfūr (d. 669/1271) has
the same terminology as al-Zamaḫšarī in the matter (cf. Šarḥ i, 141–143, 164; ii,
171). By contrast, Ibn al-Faḫḫār (d. 754/1353) returns to the use of iḫtiṣāṣ for the
qualification of an indefinite expression (Šarḥ i, 131), but he does keep taḫṣīṣ in
the case of annexation (Šarḥ i, 495).
Ibn Mālik (d. 672/1274) recognizes the phenomenon, both in his ʾAlfiyya and
his Kāfiya al-šāfiya. About the semantic (or pure) annexation he says:

All of that is what its annexation is semantic, real and pure as it affects
the first term of annexation, defining it if the second [term] is a definite
expression, and particularizing it if the second is an indefinite expres-
sion ( fa-hāḏihi kulluhu mimmā ʾiḍāfatuhu maʿnawiyya wa-ḥaqīqiyya wa-
maḥḍa li-ʾannahā muʾaṯṯira fī l-muḍāf taʿrīfan ʾin kāna l-ṯānī maʿrifa wa-
taḫṣīṣan ʾin kāna l-ṯānī nakira).
Šarḥ i, 408

He does the same for qualification by an adjective. Yet, his examples concern
qualification of nouns already definite, so that they do not fall within the
strict framework of the ideal-typical definition of taḫṣīṣ (cf. Šarḥ i, 520). Ibn
Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 761/1360) also uses the term with its technical meaning
(ʾAwḍaḥ iii, 71, 256; Sabīl al-hudā 347 [twice, ḥāl], 377 [twice], 378 [ʾiḍāfa], 416
[twice, naʿt], 434f. [ʿaṭf ]) as well as derived terms (Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Sabīl al-
hudā: muḫaṣṣaṣa 347 [ḥāl]; muḫaṣṣiṣ 433 [twice], 434 [ʿaṭf ]). Finally Ibn ʿAqīl
(d. 769/1367) uses taḫṣīṣ in the same way (Šarḥ i, 368 f.).
Let us go back to Ibn Mālik in order to draw conclusions about the develop-
ment of the conceptual content of taḫṣīṣ. First, Ibn Mālik, just like Ibn ʿAqīl later
on, subsume tawḍīḥ and taḫṣīṣ under one type of taḫṣīṣ (= taḫṣīṣ1) (cf. Ibn Mālik
Šarḥ i, 520 and Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ ii, 43). This is not what Ibn Hišām does, because
he always distinguishes between definite and indefinite nouns (ʾAwḍaḥ iii, 64,
223, 256; Sabīl al-hudā 416, 433–435). But Ibn Mālik is also the one who expands
the category of taḫṣīṣ beyond the borders of qualification and annexation, and
he is followed in this by his commentators. He begins by extending it to the
explanatory apposition (ʿaṭf al-bayān), close to the adjective (cf. Ibn Mālik Šarḥ
i, 533). Following him, Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī does the same; he writes in connec-
tion with the explanatory apposition with taḫṣīṣ:

The explanatory apposition is the appositive that looks like an adjective,

clarifying its subordinate if it is a definite expression and particularizing
216 sartori

it if it is an indefinite one (ʿaṭf bayān wa-huwa l-tābiʿ al-mušbih li-l-ṣifa fī

tawḍīḥ matbūʿihi ʾin kāna maʿrifa wa-taḫṣīṣihi nakira).
ʾAwḍaḥ iii, 256; see also Sabīl al-hudā 434f.

Furthermore, he observes about muḫaṣṣiṣ:

I have referred with the two examples to what is included in the definition
in terms of its being used to clarify the definite [expressions] and par-
ticularize the indefinite ones (ʾašartu bi-l-miṯālayn ʾilā mā taḍammanahu
l-ḥadd min wuqūʿihi muwaḍḍiḥan li-l-maʿārif wa-muḫaṣṣiṣan li-l-nakirāt).
Sabīl al-hudā 434

Finally, Ibn Mālik (Šarḥ i, 331) incidentally couples taḫṣīṣ with tamyīz, when
he quotes the Qurʾānic verse 41/10 fī ʾarbaʿati ʾayyāmin sawāʾan li-l-sāʾilīna
‘in just four days. [This refers to] those who question’ (Blachère 1950:506), to
illustrate the fact that taḫṣīṣ serves within an annexation in the framework
of indefiniteness, here with ʾarbaʿat ʾayyām. The numerals in the segment [3–
10], as well as for full hundreds and thousands, are therefore subject to taḫṣīṣ
(annexation of an indefinite second term), while the complementary term in
the segment [11–99] is the tamyīz.18 Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī (Sabīl al-hudā 347)
and Ibn ʿAqīl (Šarḥ i, 321) proceed in the same way with this example.
Taḫṣīṣ as a technical term is connected with tankīr and taʿrīf ; its complemen-
tary terms are in intension, tawḍīḥ (or others on which I will focus elsewhere)
and in extension, tamyīz. Technically, taḫṣīṣ means the particularization of an
indefinite noun by another indefinite element (the second term of an annex-
ation or a qualification in the broad sense that includes the attributive quali-
fication, the explanatory apposition, and the prepositional group). It is there-
fore surprising that this technical term, with its long history, thus far has not
attracted more interest, and even more that this term is far from unknown or
ignored in other fields than grammar.

18 This is echoed at a late period by al-Kafawī (d. 1094/1683) al-taḫṣīṣ wa-huwa l-ḥukm bi-ṯubūt
al-muḫaṣṣaṣ li-šayʾ wa-nafyihi ʿammā siwāhu [wa-kilāhumā ʿibarātān ʿan maʿnā wāḥid] wa-
yuqālu ʾayḍan tamyīz ʾafrād baʿḍ al-jumla bi-ḥukm iḫtaṣṣa bihi (Kulliyyāt 284, 422), and
more recently by Baraké (1985:154).
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 217

4 The Extra-Grammatical Origins of taḫṣīṣ: The ʾuṣūl al-fiqh

Relatively unknown or ignored in grammar, taḫṣīṣ is rather well represented as

a category or technical term in the field of ʾuṣūl al-fiqh, translated by Larcher
(1988:122, Larcher 1991:185) as ‘jurologie’. Sānū (2000:126) reserves for this term
an entry in his Muʿjam muṣṭalaḥāt ʾuṣūḷ al-fiqh, and translates taḫṣīṣ in English
by ‘specification’.19 Similarly, Hilāl (2003:71–78) devotes eight pages to the study
of taḫṣīṣ in jurology. He distinguishes taḫaṣṣuṣ from taḫṣīṣ and subdivides the
latter in several subentries. Finally, entire books are reserved to it. ʿUmar ibn
ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Šaylaḫānī is the author of a book on the issue of taḫṣīṣ among
legal scholars, entitled Mabāḥiṯ al-taḫṣīṣ ʿinda l-ʾuṣūliyyīna (al-Šaylaḫānī 2000),
and ʾIsmāʿīl Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān devotes to it a monograph enti-
tled ʾAṯar al-taḫṣīṣ fī l-fiqh al-ʾislāmī (Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 2010).
In the Classical Arabic period, the list of specialists in ʾuṣūl al-fiqh who
deal with taḫṣīṣ would become too long. As a matter of fact, this category is
dealt with extensively in one or more sections of its own, unlike its status in
grammar.20 Finally, taḫṣīṣ is not only well-known among Arab specialists in
legal theory, but also among Arabist specializing in this field,21 although, just
like in studies on Arabic grammar, it has not been the subject of special studies.
As for al-Šaylaḫānī (2000:128, 212), he focuses on legal scholars, but does not
forget to mention Ibn al-Ḥājib. The latter, in addition to being known in the
Orientalist West as a grammarian, is indeed also known in the East as a legal

19 al-taḫṣīṣ: min ḫaṣṣaṣahu bi-l-šayʾ ʾiḏā qaṣarahu ʿalayhi. qaṣr al-ʿāmm ʿalā baʿḍ ʾafrādihi
bi-dalīl, muṭlaqa qaṣrin sawāʾ ʾa-kāna ḏālika al-dalīl mustaqillan, ʾam ġayr mustaqill, wa-
sawāʾ ʾa-kāna muqtarinan bi-l-dalīl al-ʿāmm al-murād taḫṣīṣuhu, ʾam kāna ġayr muqtarin
bi-hi. miṯāluhu qawluhu […]: “wa-ʾaḥalla llāhu l-bayʿa wa-ḥarrama l-ribā” [Q. 2/275], fa-
kalimat al-bayʿ tašmulu al-ribā li-ʾanna al-bayʿ mubādalat māl bi-māl, wa-ka-ḏālika al-ribā
fa-ʾinnahu mubādalat māl bi-māl maʿa al-ziyāda, wa-li-ḏālika ḫaṣṣaṣa qawlahu […]: “wa-
ḥarrama al-ribā” al-ʿumūm allaḏī warada fī qawlihi: “wa-ʾaḥalla llāhu l-bayʿa” […]
20 Among legal scholars dedicating a whole section to taḫṣīṣ are: Rāzī, Maḥṣūl iii, 7 f.; ʾĀmidī,
ʾIḥkām ii, 485f.; ʾĪjī, Šarḥ 208f.; Ibn al-Najjār, Šarḥ iii, 267f.; ʾAnṣārī, Fawātiḥ i, 300 f.;
Zarkašī, Tašnīf ii, 715f.
21 One finds it mentioned in several authors, and notably so in the Encylopaedia of Islam:
Layish (1991:41a); Paret (1997:256a–b, 258b); Chaumont (2009: § 9). See also Weiss (1984),
who elsewhere (2000:867a) specifies: “Many pages in the uṣūl al-fiḳh literature are devoted
to the subject of ‘particularisation of the general expression’ (tak̲h̲ṣīṣ al-ʿāmm). An inter-
preter was always obliged to look for a ‘particulariser’ (muk̲h̲aṣṣiṣ, dalīl al-tak̲h̲ṣīṣ) in the
context before making a final conclusion concerning the scope of reference of a general
expression”.
218 sartori

scholar.22 As a legal scholar and a grammarian, he informs us about the status

and origin of taḫṣīṣ. Apparently, since he dedicates an entire section of his
Muḫtaṣar Muntahā to taḫṣīṣ,23 something he does not do in his grammatical
works (neither in the Kāfiya, nor in the ʾImlāʾ ʿalā l-Kāfiya, nor in the ʾĪḍāḥ fī
šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal), for him taḫṣīṣ is first and foremost a legal category (as proven
by the entries in ʾuṣūl al-fiqh) rather than a grammatical one (as proven by the
absence of systematic treatment of this category in grammar).
Here, I will confine myself to speculate that al-Fārisī, or his student Ibn
Jinnī (or even al-Rummānī), the former being the first in the history of Arabic
grammar to use the term muḫaṣṣiṣ, the latter being the one who innovated by
introducing the maṣdar related to this active participle, i.e. taḫṣīṣ, may have
been the ones responsible for the introduction of this concept from the ʾuṣūl
al-fiqh.
What is certain is that al-Šāfiʿī (d. 204/819) almost never employs the root ḫ-ṣ-
ṣ,24 while al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1012) quotes taḫṣīṣ (cf. Bāqillānī, Taqrīb iii, 63).25
The answer to the question which one of them (or one of his successors) could
have invented the concept and introduced it into grammar must be looked
for between these two extremes and in particular in the works on ṭabaqāt al-
ʾuṣūliyyīna. After having consulted one of these books, the Fatḥ al-mubīn fī
ṭabaqāt al-ʾuṣūliyyīna of al-Murāġī, and assuming that the person I was looking
for was a contemporary of al-Fārisī, I found no fewer than 26 legal scholars, from
Ibn Sarīj al-Šāfiʿī (d. 306/908) to ʾAbū l-Qāsim al-Ṣaymarī al-Šāfiʿī (d. 386/996)
(cf. Murāġī 1947:i, 204–249). I leave this work of archeology on taḫṣīṣ in the ʾuṣūl
al-fiqh to specialists in Islamic law.

22 He is notably the author of Muntahā l-suʾal wa-l-ʾamal fī ʿilmay al-ʾuṣūl wa-l-jadal, a treatise
on the sources of law according to the Maliki school, and a treatise in which he sum-
marizes the ʾIḥkām of Sayf al-Dīn al-ʾĀmidī (d. 631/1233). From the first he brings out a
summary, the Muḫtaṣar Muntahā l-suʾal wa-l-ʾamal fī ʿilmay al-ʾuṣūl wa-l-jadal.
23 Cf. Ibn al-Ḥājib, Muḫtaṣar 786–858.
24 Only three times yaḫuṣṣu is found in the Risāla, but neither iḫtiṣāṣ nor taḫṣīṣ nor any
verbal or nominal derivative.
25 The first definition of taḫṣīṣ in ʾuṣūl al-fiqh appeared later in the work of ʾAbū al-Ḥusayn
al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044). At least, this is what ʾIsmāʿīl Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, pro-
fessor of ʾuṣūḷ al-fiqh at the faculty of King Saʿūd in Riyadh says. According to him (2010:4),
al-Baṣrī defined taḫṣīṣ as “extracting a part of what the speech deals with being linked to
it” (ʾiḫrāj baʿḍ mā tanāwalahu l-ḫiṭāb maʿa kawnihi muqārinan lahu). This definition pre-
sumably derives from another edition of the Muʿtamad (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya,
1982) than mine, where it is absent, although it may actually be recontructed like this (cf.
Baṣrī, Muʿtamad i, in particular 201f., 231).
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 219

5 Conclusion

The category of taḫṣīṣ in Arabic grammar relates, first, to annexation, then to

qualification, and later to explanatory apposition. It forms a terminological pair
with tamyīz. It is connected with tankīr and taʿrīf, and is to be understood
as ‘particularization’26 (that is to say a kind of ‘determination’). It is comple-
mentary to other terms, including tawḍīḥ ‘clarification’. In this context, it refers
to the particularization of an indefinite noun by another indefinite element,
which can also be a prepositional group, the noun of the group being definite
or not.
Probably, al-Sīrāfī (d. 368/979) was the first to refer to a closely related mean-
ing, although without using the term itself (since he uses iḫtiṣāṣ), but ʾAbū ʿAlī
al-Fārisī (d. 377/987) should be considered the one who introduced this cate-
gory in grammar. He did so through the active participle of Form ii muḫaṣṣiṣ,
and was followed in this by al-Rummānī, who used the finite verb of Form ii
(tuḫaṣṣiṣu and yuḫaṣṣiṣu). Ibn al-Warrāq (d. 381/991) uses taḫṣīṣ in a sense quite
close to the later definition, but he does not explicitly distinguish between it
and taʿrīf (with respect to annexation) and consequently, he does not present
it as something connected with tankīr and taʿrīf, as will be the case afterwards.
Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), himself a student of al-Fārisī, develops this heritage,
notably through the verbal noun taḫṣīṣ. This legacy is reinforced later by Ibn
Sīda (d. 458/1066), but especially by ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078), a stu-
dent of a nephew of al-Fārisī, and even more so by al-Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/1144),
who gives a systematic presentation of taḫṣīṣ, but only within the state of tankīr
or below the state of taʿrīf.
With respect to the origin of the term, Fleisch points out critically:

Sībawayhi, raised on the shield by al-Mubarrad, obtained immense

authority: he became the master par excellence. In principle, everything
had to be found in the Kitāb, which came to be called: Qurʾān an-naḥw
‘grammar’s Quran’. His views, his opinions were to be the only accurate
ones. One came to draw conclusions, not only on the basis of his words,

26 It should be distinguished from ‘specificity’, as used by Lyons (1999:165–178), taḫṣīṣ being a

kind of determination specially not linked with referentiability. Moreover, taḫṣīṣ is not the
only term meaning a kind of determination, as I will show in my forthcoming publication
in the proceedings of the 4th Conference on the Foundations of Arabic Linguistics, where
the term will be dealt in connection with ‘specification’, ‘clarification’, ‘elucidation’, and
even ‘completion’, all of those terms being kinds of special determination. This also
explains why taḫṣīṣ is translated here by ‘particularization’.
220 sartori

but also his silences (just as was done with the Prophet of the Arabs): con-
sequently, what was not found in the Kitāb, was dismissed beforehand, as
devoid of authority.27

It is clear that as a technical term, taḫṣīṣ—certainly not the most important

term in Arabic grammar, although we have seen that its full scope encom-
passes both annexation and qualification, as connected with between taʿrīf
and tankīr—is not present in Sībawayhi, nor in his immediate successors. How-
ever, the term did have a place in the Arabic grammatical tradition and it has
maintained this place till the present day, as we find it in a few well-informed
modern authors. We must therefore conclude, in accordance with Fleisch’s crit-
icism, that not everything is said in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb.

Appendix: Two Dissenting Grammarians

In his book ʾAsrār al-ʿarabiyya Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (d. 577/1181) uses taḫṣīṣ in a quite surprising
way, compared to the other grammarians. First, with respect to annexation, he writes
that “impure annexation does not signify taʿrīf,28 unlike the pure one, as in ġulāmu
zaydin ‘Zayd’s servant’” (al-ʾiḍāfa ġayr maḥḍa lam tufid al-taʿrīf bi-ḫilāf mā ʾiḏā kānat
maḥḍa naḥw ‘ġulāmu zaydin’, ʾAsrār 151). Apparently, he does not distinguish within
the pure annexation between those cases where the second term is definite and those
where it is not. Even more surprising terminologically, is Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s usage in
connection with qualification:

If someone asks ‘what is the purpose of qualification?’, he is told that it is

particularization and distinction. Thus, if it is a definite expression, the purpose
of qualification is particularization, because of the inherent equivocity. Don’t
you see that there are many people called Zayd or something similar, so that
when we say jāʾanī zaydun ‘Zayd came to me’, it is not known which one of

27 “Sībawayhi, élevé sur le pavois par al-Mubarrad, obtint une autorité immense: il devint le
Maître sans plus. En principe, tout devait se trouver dans le Kitāb, que l’ on vint à appeler:
Qurʾān an-naḥw ‘le Coran de la grammaire’; sa manière de voir, ses opinions devaient être
les seules exactes. On en vint aussi à conclure non seulement de ses dires, mais de ses
silences (comme pour le Prophète des Arabes): ainsi, ce que l’ on ne trouvait pas dans le
Kitāb était d’avance écarté comme dénué d’autorité” (Fleisch 1961:i, 34).
28 I have chosen not to translate taʿrīf here, because it clearly does not refer to definiteness,
but rather to what the other grammarians call taḫṣīṣ, i.e. ‘determination’, which cannot
serve to translate taʿrīf as such.
origin and evolution of taḫṣīṣ in arabic grammar 221

them we mean? Thus, when we say zaydun al-ʿāqilu ‘Zayd the intelligent’ or al-
ʿālimu ‘the learned’ or al-ʾadību ‘the educated’, or something similar, we single
him out from among the others. Now, if the noun is an indefinite expression, the
purpose of qualification is distinction. Don’t you see that when you say jāʾanī
rajulun ‘a man came to me’, it is not known which man is meant, and that when
you say rajulun ʿāqilun ‘an intelligent man’, you distinguish him from those who
do not possess this qualification, and that it is not a matter of particularizing
him, because by distinguishing we mean a specific entity, which was not aimed
here? (ʾin qāla qāʾil ‘mā al-ġaraḍ fī l-waṣf’ qīla al-taḫṣīṣ wa-l-tafḍīl fa-ʾin kāna
maʿrifa kāna l-ġaraḍ min al-waṣf al-taḫṣīṣ li-ʾanna l-ištirāk yaqaʿu fīhā ʾa-lā tarā
ʾanna l-musammā bi-‘zayd’ wa-naḥwihi kaṯīr fa-ʾiḏā qāla ‘jāʾānī zaydun’ lam yuʿlam
ʾayyahum yurīdu fa-ʾiḏā qāla ‘zaydun al-ʿāqilu’ ʾaw ‘al-ʿālimu’ ʾaw ‘al-ʾadību’ wa-mā
ʾašbaha ḏālika fa-qad ḫaṣṣahu min ġayri-hi wa-ʾin kāna l-ism nakira kāna l-ġaraḍ
min al-waṣf al-tafḍīl ʾa-lā tarā ʾannaka ʾiḏā qulta ‘jāʾanī rajulun’ lam yuʿlam ʾayy
rajul huwa fa-ʾiḏā qulta ‘rajulun ʿāqilun’ fa-qad faḍḍaltahu ʿalā man laysa lahu
hāḏā l-waṣf wa-lam taḫuṣṣahu li-ʾannā naʿnī bi-l-tafḍīl šayʾan bi-ʿaynihi wa-lam
nuridhu hāhunā).
ʾAsrār 155

What is particularly interesting here is that, while distinguishing within the qualifi-
cation of a noun between its definiteness or indefiniteness, and while reserving two
different technical terms for each of these qualifications, Ibn al-ʾAnbārī does not com-
ply with the terminology. Indeed, for him, taḫṣīṣ (= taḫṣīṣ2) corresponds in fact with the
complementary term to taḫṣīṣ of the other grammarians, while tafḍīl, a term encoun-
tered anywhere else with that sense, is, on its own, the equivalent of taḫṣīṣ among other
grammarians.
The second a-typical grammarian is ʾAbū Mūsā al-Juzūlī (d. 607/1210 or 616/1219)
who, perhaps because he was Andalusian, used a different terminoly or, at least in
this case, one that was less stabilized. First of all, for him taḫṣīṣ (= taḫṣīṣ3) clearly is
the union of taʿrīf and taḫṣīṣ according to the sense given by the other grammarians
(cf. Muqaddima 8f., 57, 84). Nevertheless, this does not prevent him, while address-
ing annexation, from distinguishing between ʾiḍāfa maḥḍa and ʾiḍāfa ġayr maḥḍa, and
from specifying then that “pure [annexation] is what signifies definiteness or partic-
ularization” (al-maḥḍa mā ʾafāda taʿrīfan ʾaw taḫṣīṣan, Muqaddima 131). Doing so, he
returns to the use of ‘Oriental’ terminology. At last, he renders at least once taḫṣīṣ with
its technical sense by iḫtiṣāṣ (cf. Muqaddima 94). As a consequence of this, iḫtiṣāṣ,
which one can find in the works of other grammarians with the general meaning of
particularization, particularly correlated with the particle li-, is then rendered by ʾAbū
Mūsā by taḫṣīṣ (cf. Muqaddima 128).
222 sartori

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The Classification of the Verb in the Arab
Grammatical Tradition
From Sībawayhi to al-Jurjānī

Zeinab A. Taha

1 Introduction

There has never been a lack of interest in providing semantic justification for
certain structures in Arabic grammar. Medieval grammarians had a varying
interest in semantics, and often presented semantic arguments to explain the
syntactic behavior of the different syntactic categories.
The present study examines the history of grammatical ideas about verb
classification in Arabic. It briefly reviews the contributions of Sībawayhi, al-
Mubarrad, and Ibn al-Sarrāj, which have been dealt with elsewhere (Taha 1994,
1995, 2011; Owens 1990). It goes on to examine in more detail later works, by
al-Zajjājī, al-Sīrāfī, and al-Jurjānī. The discussion focuses on the status of the
verb in treatises written by these grammarians with particular emphasis on
verb classes, status of the direct object, and the use of selected terminology
for transitivity.

2 Sībawayhi (d. 180/796)

Depending on their morphological pattern, verbs are introduced in the Kitāb

with respect to transitivity as forming two major categories: those with a tran-
sitive pattern and those with an intransitive pattern. Fig. 1 illustrates these two
categories.
The Kitāb does not provide any other criterion for (in)transitivity than the
morphological pattern of the verb in question. However, one can infer how Sīb-
awayhi looked at the act of transitivity from the way he presents his argument
with respect to the direct object and the other noun complements of the verb
(Taha 1994, 1995, 2011).
There is a brief discussion in the Kitāb as to the necessity of including a
direct object in a proposition including a transitive verb. Sībawayhi uses the
term ṣinf to differentiate between the maṣdar used with an intransitive verb,
as in ḏahabtu ḏahāban ‘I definitely went away’ and the direct object bakran
in ḍaraba zaydun bakran ‘Zayd hit Bakr’. In several passages of the Kitāb it is

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_013

230 taha

figure 1 Classification of verbs in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

clear that he considers transitive verbs as indicating a direct object in terms

of their meaning, or the completion of kalām. He uses the term istaġnā ‘to
do without’ continuously to refer to the object of the transitive verb as being
an essential part of the sentence (e.g. Kitāb i, 149). These repeated references
indicate, albeit indirectly, how the verb’s object is indicated once the verb is
used.

If you say ʿajibtu min ḍarbin ‘I did not like a hitting’, you have not men-
tioned the agent because the masdar is not the agent, although it indicates
it. Therefore, you need in it [i.e., this masdar construction] an agent and a
patient (wa-ʾiḏā qulta: ʿajibtu min ḍarbin fa-ʾinnaka lam taḏkur al-fāʿil fa-
l-maṣdar laysa bi-l-fāʿil wa-ʾin kāna fīhi dalīlun ʿalā l-fāʿil fa-li-ḏālika ḥtajta
fīhi ʾilā fāʿil wa mafʿūl).
Kitāb i, 189

The discussion, however, follows from an immediate constituent point of view,

in which structural units exist one after the other to fill certain syntactic slots.
The term mutaʿaddī is used to refer to transitivity, i.e. to the property of
having a direct object, and also to the ability of the verb to have other accusative
noun complements in its sphere, irrespective of whether or not it is transitive.
The terms waṣala and ʾawṣala are used unsystematically to refer to the action
of reaching the accusative object. The difference between the construction
with kāna and the regular transitive construction is pointed at by Sībawayhi
classification of the verb in the arab grammatical tradition 231

(Kitāb i, 31), when he explains that there is no action ‘reaching’ the accusative
predicate in the kāna construction.

kāna is not a verb that reaches from one thing to another […]. You say:
‘Abdallah was your brother’, so you wanted to inform [i.e. predicate] about
being brothers and therefore you used kāna in order to make it in the
past tense (kāna laysa bi-fiʿl yaṣilu min šayʾin ʾilā ʾāḫar […] taqūlu kāna
ʿabdullāh ʾaḫāka fa-ʾinnamā ʾaradta ʾan tuḫbira ʿan al-ʾuḫuwwa wa-ʾadḫalta
kāna li-tajʿala ḏālika fīmā maḍā)

The term yanfuḏ is employed to refer to the action going from the verb to its
direct object, but is then used sporadically to refer to other intransitive verbs
with other accusative complements (Kitāb i, 37), which makes it difficult to
claim that the term is connected with the notion of transitivity or specifically
with the relationship between the verb and its direct object.

2 Al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898)

Al-Mubarrad’s classification is represented in Fig. 2, in which we find for the

first time the category of non-real verbs. Verbs are clearly described as those
lexical items that are capable of providing certain syntactic and morpholog-
ical functions. Thus, kāna ‘to be’ and its sisters, the verbs of admiration (al-
taʿajjub), and those particles that only resemble verbs in their meaning, such
as mā when it has the meaning of laysa, are all considered by al-Mubarrad to
be non-real verbs. Real verbs, on the other hand, are categorized as either tran-
sitive or intransitive (Muqtaḍab iii, 188–190). Intransitive verbs are of three
kinds: the morphological pattern of faʿula and infaʿala, in addition to the so-
called ‘metaphorical’ verbs, such as māta ‘to die’ and saqaṭa ‘to fall’. For this last
kind in particular, it is obvious that the role of agency is central to verb clas-
sification. Thus, with the verb saqaṭa, as in saqaṭa l-ḥāʾiṭ ‘the wall fell down’,
the agent does not perform any action, hence, it is considered by al-Mubarrad
to be a metaphorical verb (Muqtaḍab iii, 188). The category of transitive verbs
includes two types. One type is ‘reaching and having an effect’, such as qatala
‘to kill’ and ḍaraba ‘to hit’, and the other one is ‘not-reaching’, such as šatama
‘to scold’ and ḏakara ‘to mention’. Both types are transitive and syntactically
behave in the same manner, yet, their categorization depends on reasons other
than syntactic ones.
Regarding the status of the direct object, al-Mubarrad states that it is implied
by the transitive verb. Yet, he also states clearly that the verb and the agent
232 taha

figure 2 Classification of verbs in al-Mubarrad’s Muqtaḍab

together form a complete sentence (for which the term jumla appears for the
first time in al-Muqtaḍab), and that the object is introduced after the sentence
has been completed (Muqtaḍab i, 146):

The agent [i.e., the subject of the verb] is in the nominative case because
together with the verb it forms a sentence after which one could appropri-
ately stop, and whose meaning is fulfilled (wa-ʾinnamā kāna l-fāʿil rafʿan
li-ʾannahu huwa wa-l-fiʿl jumla yaḥsunu ʿalayhā l-sukūt wa-tajibu bihā l-
fāʾida)

Although he uses the term faḍla to refer to any item that is included in the
sentence beyond its verb and agent, he indirectly implies that the direct object
is in fact different. Al-Mubarrad uses the term faḍla to refer to all accusative
complements of the verb, making clear that they are additional items in the
jumla, while at the same time emphasizing the fact that transitive verbs imply
the existence of a mafʿūl bihi (Muqtaḍab i, 146; iii, 116; iv, 335).
Al-Mubarrad uses the term wāṣil to refer to a group of transitive verbs. It
refers consistently to a binding effect that the verb’s denotation has in reaching
and affecting its patient. The term muʾaṯṯir is only used once in the Muqtaḍab,
but wāṣala is used throughout the discussion of transitivity, though not always
consistently, to refer to a domain other than syntax. The term mutaʿaddī, how-
ever, continues to be the term for syntactic transitivity and continues to be
used to refer to the ability of the verb to govern accusative nouns in its domain.
classification of the verb in the arab grammatical tradition 233

The confusion is clear when verbs such as ḏakara and šatama are called ġayr
wāṣila. We shall see below that al-Zajjājī considers them to be wāṣila, but not
muʾaṯṯira.
In the discussion of verb classification in the Muqtaḍab, verb denotation
begins to play an important role. In an earlier period, Sībawayhi had classified
both ḍaraba and ḏakara as transitive verbs, and he had not initiated any further
subdivision of these two transitive verbs. The reference to one as wāṣila and the
other as not wāṣila was an innovation of al-Mubarrad. For him, the physical
effect and the representation of the act were of importance. Therefore, he not
only established a category of wāṣila verbs, but also included the concept of
‘effect’ under the same category. He did not establish a category of wāṣila and
ġayr muʾaṯṯira verbs.
From his classification of verbs, it can be seen that al-Mubarrad represents
both continuity, and innovation. His innovation consists in introducing new
terms that could easily fit in a semantic analysis of verbal structures where the
verb controls different nouns in its valency (Owens 1990).

3 Ibn al-Sarrāj (d. 316/928)

In Ibn al-Sarrāj’s classification of verbs, the two categories of real vs. non-real
verbs become more restrictive. A real verb denotes a certain meaning whereby
its agent carries out the action denoted by it causatively, i.e., it causes the
action/event to take place. Such arguments are not clearly formulated in al-
Mubarrad’s explanations. According to Ibn al-Sarrāj, if the agent is not actually
causing the action of the verb to take place, the verb is regarded as non-real
(ʾUṣūl i, 74):

The first kind includes terminal/metaphoric verbs, which are used for
conciseness, and in them is an indication that their agents are in fact the
acted upon [i.e., their objects], such as ‘Zayd died’, ‘the wall fell down’, and
‘Bakr got sick’ (al-ḍarb al-ʾawwal: ʾafʿāl mustaʿāra li-l-ʾiḫtiṣār wa-fīhā bayān
ʾanna fāʿilīhā fī l-ḥaqīqa mafʿūlūna naḥwa māta zayd wa-saqaṭa l-ḥāʾiṭ wa-
mariḍa bakr).

Verbs are first divided into the two large categories of whether or not they
actually come in contact with any other entity than the agent (see Fig. 3). The
term mulāqiya is widely used by Ibn al-Sarrāj to refer to the type of action
involved in the meaning of the verb. Verbs are then categorized according to
whether or not they are transitive, but more importantly, how their denotations
234 taha

figure 3 The main categories of verbs/events in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s ʾUṣūl

figure 4 The classification of verbs in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s ʾUṣūl

classification of the verb in the arab grammatical tradition 235

shape their transitivity (see Fig. 4). The terms wāṣil and muʾaṯṯir come to be very
important in this classification.
Regarding the status of the direct object, Ibn al-Sarrāj considers the mafʿūl
bihi to be an intrinsic part of the transitive verb’s semantic entity, since “there
is always an implication of it within [the verb]” (hunāka dalīlun ʿalayhi, ʾUṣūl
i, 412). The term faḍla is used, but it is restricted to the linear structure of the
sentence, i.e., it refers to accusative complements that may appear after the
verb.
Ibn al-Sarrāj continues to use the term wāṣil to refer to the direct object in
a strict sense, while using the term mutaʿaddī to refer to the syntactic features
of the verb and its ability to operate on noun complements. His classification,
although very similar to al-Mubarrad’s, includes new subdivisions that further
emphasize the semantic features of actions and events denoted by verbs.
Interestingly, Ibn al-Sarrāj does talk about transitivity by using several levels
of analysis, employing both old and new terminology. His Kitāb al-ʾuṣūl fea-
tures a consistent approach of the use of couplets of terms such as wāṣil and
mutaʿaddī. This is apparent in how he subcategorizes the mutaʿaddiya verbs as
either wāṣila or wāṣila wa-muʾaṯṯira. As far as syntax is concerned, all of these
represent transitive verbs with direct objects. The sub-categorization here does
not yield any additional syntactic information, but rather adds to the semantic
description of verbs and highlights the verbs’ effect on their noun comple-
ments.

4 Al-Zajjājī (d. 337/949)

With respect to the classification of verbs, there is a clearer change in direction

manifest in the manner in which al-Zajjājī formed his syntactic arguments
(see Fig. 5). The change is illustrated by the larger share given by al-Zajjājī to
the meaning conveyed by the verbs and how he distinguishes this meaning
from the verb’s syntactic behavior. In his Kitāb al-Jumal, al-Zajjājī was clearly
interested in explaining how the different syntactic categories behave in terms
of the ʾiʿrāb. The bulk of the book is dedicated to the different syntactic rules
and case endings. On the other hand, the swift description of the verb in his
Kitāb al-ʾīḍāḥ fī ʿilal al-nahw and the intensity of the logical arguments whereby
the linguistic representation of the syntactic structure becomes involved with
the verbal structure, marks clearly the convoluted picture painted by al-Zajjājī
(in Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ i, 299).
The term mutaʿaddī is used in the Jumal to refer to the act of ‘going beyond
the agent to a patient’. In an innovatory development, al-Zajjājī states that if the
236 taha

figure 5 The classification of verbs in al-Zajjājī’s ʾĪḍāḥ

verb goes beyond the agent to an item other than the direct object, it would not
be called mutaʿaddī. The syntactic test for transitivity is according to al-Zajjājī
the possibility to derive the ism mafʿūl. Thus, if from jalasa ‘to sit down’, we are
not in fact able to derive majlūs to refer to an item in the sentence, then the verb
is intransitive. On the other hand, in ḍaraba zaydun ʿamran ‘Zayd hit ʿAmr’, it
is possible to say that the maḍrūb is ʿAmr, which demonstrates that ḍaraba is
transitive (in Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ i, 299):

Thus, the one that is intransitive is the one that no passive participle is
derived from […], such as the verbs ‘to sit’ and ‘to stand’ […] and the
opposite of this is the transitive verb from which a passive participle
may be derived and about which you may inquire whom the action
befell, as in ḍaraba zaydun ʿamran ‘Zayd hit ʿAmr’. Don’t you see that
it is possible to derive from it passive participle, so that it is possible
to say maḍrūb ‘[one who has been] hit’, and it is possible to inquire
whom the action of hitting befell? ( fa-llaḏī lā yataʿaddā huwa llaḏī lā
yubnā minhu ism mafʿūl […] naḥwa jalasa wa-qāma […] wa-l-mutaʿaddī
ʿaksuhu wa-huwa llaḏī yubnā minhu ism mafʿūl wa-yuṣbiḥu l-suʾāl ʿanhu bi-
ʾayy šayʾ waqaʿa naḥwa ḍaraba zaydun ʿamran; ʾa-lā tarā ʾannahu yaṣiḥhu
ʾan tabniya minhu ism al-mafʿūl fa-yuqālu maḍrūb wa-yuqālu bi -ʾayy šayʾ
waqaʿa ḍarb zayd?)
classification of the verb in the arab grammatical tradition 237

According to al-Zajjājī (in Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ i, 299), the transitive verb may be
divided into three types. The first type is the one that is transitive directly to the
object as in the two verbs ḍaraba and ḏakara. He does, however, make a distinc-
tion between these two verbs, in that the sentence ḍaraba zaydun ʿamran ‘Zayd
hit ʿAmr’ refers to an action that befalls ʿAmr, whereas in the sentence ḏakara
zaydun ʿamran ‘Zayd mentioned ʿAmr’, one cannot see anything befalling ʿAmr.
Al-Zajjājī explains that in fact there is an understood muḍāf : ʾamr ‘the matter
of’, so that the sentence should read ḏakara zaydun ʾamra ʿamrin ‘Zayd men-
tioned the matter of ʿAmr’, in which the verb ḏakara befalls the ʾamr ʿamrin.
The verb in this category ‘demands’ a direct object. The second type is when
the verb is transitive by means of a preposition. The justification here is that
the verb actually does not settle or befall the object, as in marartu bi-zaydin ‘I
passed by Zayd’ or ḥaḍartu ʾilā ʿamrin ‘I came to ʿAmr’. Neither verb manifests
an action happening to the two objects. The third category is the transitive verb
that is optionally used with a preposition. There are also two passages where he
speaks directly of the verb transitivity when he introduces some morphologi-
cal patterns for the verb in terms of linking them to transitivity (in Ibn ʿUṣfūr,
Šarḥ i, 161), an approach that was very elaborate in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, and was
never entirely deserted by subsequent grammarians.
From the above, it is obvious that the way al-Zajjājī classifies verbs according
to their (in)transitivity takes a quite different approach from that of Ibn al-
Sarrāj. Although he set syntactic criteria for the three categories of transitive
verbs, he included in his presentation some explanation of why the verbs
ḏakara and ḍaraba are in the same category, although they feature a different
effect on their direct objects. In the second and third type of transitive verbs,
al-Zajjājī explains that there is no action befalling the object. This part comes
as an obvious contradiction to Ibn al-Sarrāj, who included causation or effect
as a criterion for transitivity.
Following a radically different argument, al-Zajjājī addresses actions and
their doers in the ʾĪḍāḥ in a few places. For him (ʾĪḍāḥ 53), verbs are the rep-
resentation of the movements of their agents (ʿibāra ʿan ḥarakāt al-faʿilīn), but
they are not in reality their actions (ʾafʿāl). Rather, they are an expression (=
representation) of their agents’ actions and a representation of the actions of
those expressing these verbs (al-muʿabbirīn ʿan tilka l-ʾafʿāl). He adds that the
existence of the doer precedes the existence of the action, because it is he who
did the action. Thus, al-Zajjājī makes a difference between the sentences as
‘representations of events’ and their semantic denotations and he emphasizes
that these two should not be confused. What is on the surface syntactic struc-
ture has nothing to do with agency or patience as represented physically in real
life.
238 taha

With respect to the status of the direct object, although al-Zajjajī states that
the verb contains an indication of the mafʿūl, i.e., the direct object (ʿIḍāḥ 135),
he refers to it by the term faḍla and explains that it receives the accusative case
ending after the completion of the kalām (in Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ i, 161). In a way,
al-Zajjājī’s treatment of transitivity has returned to the non-specificity of termi-
nology as it first appeared in Sībawayhi’s Kitab. This non-specificity had been
challenged and more specific terminology started to appear with al-Mubarrad.
This terminology was elaborated and applied extensively to semantic relations
in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s ʾUṣūl. Al-Zajjājī, although being a student of Ibn al-Sarrāj,
appears to be using different terminology in different contexts and to be hold-
ing two distinctive views of verb classification. In his Jumal, he mostly uses
syntactic arguments to explain the linear word order and the ʾiʿrāb, while in
the ʾĪḍāḥ, he goes beyond the linear level to explain ‘causes’, which are in many
ways far from being syntactic ones.
The categorization of verbs into real and unreal as introduced by both al-
Mubarrad and Ibn al-Sarrāj, was not part of al-Zajjājī’s classification. However,
the absence of the terms ḥaqīqiyya and ġayr ḥaqīqiyya should not be taken as an
indication of his ignoring verb denotations. It might very well be an extension
of how he philosophically looked at the denotation of verbs as representations
of their agents’ actions, hence, the immaterial character of the ḥaqīqī vs. not
ḥaqīqī binary division. These categories, however, later reappeared in al-Sirāfī’s
and al-Jurjāni’s treatises. Other significant terminology did re-appear in al-
Zajjaji’s works. In discussing transitive verbs, he used the term yaṣilu from
the verb waṣala to refer to the binding of the action to the object. He also
continued using the one categorization of Ibn al-Sarrāj of ‘verbs of the senses’.
Al-Zajjājī mentions that samiʿa ‘to hear’ is one of the sense verbs and thus is
transitive (in Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ i, 303). However, he did not include this as a clear
category when transitive vs. intransitive verbs were introduced. In later parts
of the book, al-Zajjājī starts using the term yataʿaddā ʾilā to refer to all verbs,
whether transitive or intransitive, having accusative noun complements other
than the direct object (in Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ i, 324). A statement that stands in
direct contradiction to an earlier statement confining the term mutaʿaddī to
transitive verbs only (in Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ i, 229).

5 Al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078)

Just like al-Zajjājī does sporadically in his works, both al-Sīrāfī (d. 368/978) and
al-Jurjānī choose to distinguish verbs from the other parts of speech on the
basis of their grammatical qualities and their functions. There emerges a clear
classification of the verb in the arab grammatical tradition 239

distinction between the purpose for which verbs are introduced into the sen-
tence and the syntactic functions these verbs perform. The involvement of the
meaning conveyed by the verbs becomes more and more peripheral compared
to their syntactic role, as the explanation of their function proceeds in the Muq-
taṣid. Several items from the terminology used by al-Jurjānī’s predecessors have
survived, but not always with the same weight given to the semantic side, as has
become apparent in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s discussion in particular.
Both al-Sīrāfī and al-Jurjānī agree that the verb is what predicates, but does
not itself receive a predicate (mā kāna musnadan wa-lā-yusnadu ʾilayhi šayʾun),
as in ḫaraja ʿabdullāh ‘ʿAbdallah went out’ and yanṭaliqu bakrun ‘Bakr left’
(Jurjānī, Muqtaṣid i, 77). Al-Jurjānī claims that grammarians had described the
verb’s agent as the item on which the verb ‘leans’ ( yusnadu ʾilayhi), assuming
a distinctive role of the agent in causing the action to happen. Agency with al-
Jurjānī starts to be explained along somewhat different lines. He says (Muqtaṣid
i, 327):

It is not necessary for the agent actually to do something. Don’t you see
that you say ṭāba l-ḫabar ‘the message was good’, when the ḫabar does
not have an action as there is one for Zayd in qāma zaydun ‘Zayd got
up’. Likewise, you say lam yaqum zaydun ‘Zayd didn’t get up’, marking it
as nominative, even though you have negated its action … If it were a
condition for being an agent to carry out an action, it would not have been
allowed to put zayd in the nominative in the sentence lam yaqum zaydun
(wa-laysa l-šarīṭa ʾan yakūna ʾaḥdaṯa šayʾan, ʾa-lā tarā ʾannaka taqūlu ṭāba
l-ḫabar wa-laysa li-l-ḫabar fiʿlun kamā yakūnu li-zaydin fī qawlika qāma
zaydun wa-kaḏā taqūlu lam yaqum zaydun fa-tarfaʿuhu wa-qad nafayta
ʿanhu l-fiʿla … fa-law kāna li-l-fāʿil min šarṭihi ʾan yakūna ʾaḥdaṯa šayʾan la-
mā jāza rafʿ zaydin fī qawlika lam yaqum zaydun).

Thus, receiving the nominative case takes priority in al-Jurjānī’s argument over
the role of the agent in fulfilling the action denoted by its verb. The agent is
seen as an intrinsic element of the verb whereas the causation element does
not carry any syntactic implications.
Al-Jurjānī also argues that there is a distinction between the lexical meaning
and the abstract meaning and explains that the agent is contained in the
verb, as in zayd ḍaraba ‘Zayd hit’, meaning that the verb itself indicates and
encompasses the agent, while the mafʿūl is not contained in it. The argument
is purely syntactic and refers to the ʾalif at the end of the dual verb ḍarabā ‘the
two of them [masc.] hit’, and the wāw in the plural verb ḍarabū ‘they [masc.]
hit’, both referring to the agent, as an intrinsic part of the verb. On the other
240 taha

hand, the object is attached at the end of the verb, as a suffix: when you say
ḍarabaka ‘he hit you’, -ka is only connected to the verb at the lexical level, not
at the abstract or maʿnawī level. This syntactic argument aims at illustrating
the difference between the fāʿil as the recipient of the nominative case, while
the mafʿūl gets the accusative case. Al-Jurjānī uses the term ḥadd al-kalima, lit.
‘the border of the word’, to refer to the status of the fāʿil as part of the original
ḥadd of the verb, while the mafʿūl is attached to the word or is referred to by
a pronoun that comes beyond the ḥadd or the border of the verb (Muqtaṣid i,
328f.).
Another clear distinction in the criteria used for verb classification is appar-
ent when al-Jurjānī places verbs in the same category that were treated by Ibn
al-Sarrāj as belonging to different categories. He draws an analogy between
the admirative verb ( fiʿl al-taʿajjub), which has the pattern ʾafʿala and the verb
ʾaḏhaba (Form iv ‘to make someone go’). In his argument, the taʿajjub verb is
fiʿl manqūl, i.e., derived by the addition of a hamza, which changes the Form i
verb to Form iv. Thus, the fiʿl al-taʿajjub is treated with respect to transitivity in
the same manner as morphologically causative just like any other Form iv verb
derived from Form i. The specificity of the fiʿl al-taʿajjub, as introduced by Ibn
al- Sarrāj, is lost completely in al-Jurjānī’s classification of verbs. To illustrate
his point, al-Jurjānī cites the analogy between the admirative and the causative
verb (Muqtaṣid i, 384):

The expression mā ʾaḥsana zaydan ‘How good is Zayd!’ has the same status
as ʿamrun ʾaḏhaba zaydan ‘ʿAmr made Zayd go away’, in that you derive
it from the verb ḥasuna with the meaning of šayʾun jaʿalahu ḥasanan
‘something caused him to be good’, just like ʿamrun ʾaḏhaba zaydan means
jaʿalahu ḏāhiban ‘he caused him to be going away’ ( fa-qawluka mā ʾaḥ-
sana zaydan bi-manzilat ʿamrun ʾaḏhaba zaydan fī ʾannaka naqaltahu min
ḥasuna bi-maʿnā šayʾun jaʿalahu ḥasanan kamā ʾanna ʿamrun ʾaḏhaba
zaydan bi maʿnā jaʿalahu ḏāhiban).

Here, it is clear that verbs are discussed as structural units, irrespective of

whether or not they denote actions or experience.
Another parallel is made between two verbs that also formed two different
types in Ibn al-Sarrāj’s classification: the verb raʾā ‘to see’ and the verb ḍaraba
‘to hit’ in their ability to be transitive to one mafʿūl, while ʾarā and ʾaḍraba are
doubly transitive. Once again, al-Jurjānī resorts to a morphological argument
to explain multiple transitivity (Muqtaṣid i, 349).
Like al-Sīrāfī, al-Jurjānī recognizes two large categories of transitive verbs
(see Fig. 6). They are classified on the basis of whether they involve practical
classification of the verb in the arab grammatical tradition 241

figure 6 The classification of verbs

in al-Jurjānī’s Muqtaṣid

manipulation/dealing (ʿilāj), i.e. action verbs, or not (ġayr ʿilāj), i.e. non-action
verbs. The ʿilāj category includes verbs like ḍaraba ‘to hit’, qatala ‘to kill’, ʾaḫaḏa
‘to take’, kasara ‘to break’, and naqala ‘to move away’, while the ġayr ʿilāj category
includes verbs like ʿalima ‘to know’, ẓanna ‘to assume’, fahima ‘to understand’,
ḏakara ‘to mention’, and hawiya ‘to love’, which are all experiential verbs (Muq-
taṣid i, 596).
Al-Jurjānī explains that the term ʿilāj implies that the verbs are those of
the limbs ( jawāriḥ), including eyes, hand, legs, and tongue. Every act done
with the hand or the leg, such as hitting, killing, walking, standing, and sitting,
is assumed to be an ʿilāj. In this manner, both al-Sirāfī and al-Jurjānī agree
with their predecessors that all verbs of the limbs are transitive. What does
not involve ʿilāj are the verbs of cognition and whatever behaves in the same
manner, such as hawītuhu ‘I fell in love with him’ and fahimtuhu ‘I understood
him’, because of the lack of physical evidence these actions effect. Such verbs
are rather ‘indicated by circumstances’, i.e., state verbs as in ‘to love’ and ‘to
understand’. It is worth mentioning that the dichotomy of ʿilāj vs. non-ʿilāj
does not only refer to verbs that are transitive to only one mafʿūl, because
kasā ‘to cover [s.th. with s.th.]’ is considered to involve ʿilāj while being doubly
transitive.
Although al-Jurjānī states that the mafʿūl bihi comes after the thought is
completed, he believes that the transitive verb meets the requirement by
including a direct object. Once this requirement has been met, the transitive
verb acts like an intransitive one in that it starts to be ‘transitive’ (mutaʿaddī) to
the other accusatives, such as, time, place, maṣdar, ḥāl, etc. (Muqtaṣid i, 628f.).
Al-Jurjānī explains, however, that the direct object as in ʾaʿṭaytu zaydan al-
dirhama ‘I gave Zayd the dirham’ is different from the cognate accusative, as in
242 taha

the sentence ḍarabtu zaydan al-ḍarba ‘I hit Zayd a beating’ (Muqtaṣid i, 352).
In the latter sentence, both zayd and al-darb are object of the verb, just like
zayd and dirham are object of the verb in the former sentence. Yet, there is a
difference between the two sets of objects:

Don’t you see that the giving includes the dirham, while the hitting in
ḍarabtu zaydan al-ḍarba ‘I hit Zayd a beating’ is not like that, because
it does not resemble zayd in having the verb ḍaraba encompassing it
(ʾa-lā tarā ʾanna l-ʾiʿṭāʾ yaštamilu ʿalā l-dirham wa-l-ḍarb laysa ka-ḏālika li-
ʾannahu lā yušākilu zaydan fī štimāl al-fiʿl allaḏī huwa l-ḍarb ʿalayhi).

Here, al Jurjānī hints at the fact that the direct object has a status that is
different from that of other noun complements, such as the cognate accusative
in this case. If we compare the two structures in (1a, b)

(1) a. ḍarab-tu zayd-an al-ḍarb-a

hit.past-1s Zayd-acc art-hitting-acc
‘I hit Zayd a beating’

b. ʾaʿṭay-tu zayd-an al-dirham-a

give.past-1s Zayd-acc art-dirham-acc
‘I gave Zayd a dirham’

we see that in (1a) the verb ḍaraba is involved only with zayd, while in (1b), the
verb is involved with both zayd and dirham, as shown in Fig. 7.
This type of ‘involvement’ refers to verb valency, where the verb is seen to
have an effect and to encompass a different number of noun complements
depending on its denotation (Muqtaṣid i, 352).
Expressions such as ʾawṣalta al-fiʿl ʾilā l-ism, nāfiḏ ʾilā l-mafʿūl (Sībawayhi’s
terminology, as well as al- Sīrāfī’s) are used frequently to refer to the relationship
between the verb and the noun complements. The two expressions are used to
refer to the use of Form iv verbs as opposed to Form i and thus causing the
derived verb to ‘reach’ an object as in ḏahaba vs. ʾaḏhaba. The argument here
includes other consonants than the hamza. For example, the bāʾ in ḏahabtu bi-
zaydin as well as the doubling of the second consonant of the root in Form ii
farraḥa ‘to make happy’ as opposed to the intransitive Form i verb fariḥa ‘to be
glad’ Thus, al-Jurjānī argues that the doubling of the ḥ transfers the verb to a
transitive verb as in farraḥtu zaydan ‘I made Zayd happy’. The three examples
are discussed in the same section dealing with the consonants that make the
verb ‘reach, go into’ an object (Muqtaṣid i, 347).
classification of the verb in the arab grammatical tradition 243

figure 7 Valency relations in sentences (1a, b)

In general, the term waṣṣala appears in al-Muqtaṣid only a few times. Al-
Jurjānī says that with phrasal verbs, the preposition is sometimes omitted and
the verb reaches or goes into the accusative complements directly (Muqtaṣid i,
643). It it not entirely clear anymore what the terms ʾawṣala and naffaḏa mean
in this context, and whether or not they still represent the semantic role of
the verb as they did for his predecessors. What is obvious, though, is that the
term wāṣil has completely disappeared as implying a semantic quality of some
transitive verbs.

6 Conclusion

From Sībawayhi to al-Jurjānī, there have been signs of continuity and signs
of convergence. Each grammarian had his own approach in representing the
inter-sentential relationships between the different constituents in verbal con-
structions. Although they basically agreed on the different features and roles
of the different syntactic categories, their treatment of verb transitivity, and
consequently on the effect of the verb on the different noun complements did
vary from one grammarian to the other. We have seen above that greater inter-
est in the semantic denotation of the verb gradually appeared from the time
of Sībawayhi onward, reaching its peak in the 4th/10th century with the way
Ibn al-Sarrāj classified verbs. Although the view of the verb as the source of
effect on its surrounding continued into the writings of subsequent grammar-
ians, we find that a different tradition had emerged with al -Zajjājī’s effort to
separate semantic arguments from syntactic ones. The fact that he composed
two distinct treatises, the ʾĪḍāḥ and the Jumal, is indeed a clear sign of this.
Although both al-Sirāfī and al-Jurjānī continued to sporadically use signifi-
cant arguments with respect to verb valency, it has become clear that there was
an increasing effort to keep the arguments within the domain of syntax. With
al- Jurjānī’s contribution, the view of what syntax was, got somewhat altered
for he emphasized the role of meaning in what he called ‘syntactic functions’
(maʿānī l-naḥw), which encompassed the intended meaning, and he showed
how syntactic relations provided the means to convey them. On that level, the
significance of the whole utterance, rather than the verbal element, became
the heart of the linguistic analysis.
244 taha

Bibliographical References

a Primary Sources
Ibn al-Sarrāj, ʾUṣūl = ʿAbū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Sahl Ibn al-Sarrāj, al-ʾUṣūl fī l-naḥw. Ed.
by ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn al-Fatlī. Beirut: Dār al-Risāla, 1988.
Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ = ʾAbū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muʾmin Ibn ʿUṣfūr al-ʾIšbīlī, Šarḥ al-Jumal fī
l-naḥw. Ed. by ʿAlī Tawfīq al-Ḥamad. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla and Irbid: Dār al-
ʾAmal, 1984.
Jurjānī, Muqtaṣid = ʾAbū Bakr Abd al-Qāhir ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-
Jurjānī, al-Muqtaṣid fī šarḥ al-ʾĪḍāḥ. Ed. by Kāẓim al-Marjān. Baghdad: Wizārat al-
Ṯaqāfa wa-l-ʾIʿlām, 1982.
Mubarrad, Muqtaḍab = ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-ʾAzdī al-Mubarrad, al-
Muqtaḍab. Ed. by Muḥammad ʿUḍayma. 3 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Taḥrīr, 1965–1968.
Sībawayhi, Kitāb = ʾAbu Bišr ʿAmr ibn ʿUṯmān ibn Qanbar al-Baṣrī, al-Kitāb. Ed. by ʿAbd
al-Salām Muḥammad Harūn. 5 vols. Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb,
1966–1977.
Zajjājī, ʿIlal = ʾAbū l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʾIsḥāq al-Zajjājī, al-ʾĪḍāḥ fī ʿilal al-naḥw.
3rd ed. Ed. by Māzin al-Mubārak. Beirut: Dār al-Nafāʾis, 1979.
Zajjājī, Jumal see Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Šarḥ

b Secondary Sources
Owens, Jonathan. 1990. Early Arabic grammatical theory: Heterogeneity and standard-
ization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
Taha, Zeinab. 1993. “The term ṣila in early Arab grammatical theory: The case of Ibn
al-Sarrāj”. Proceedings of the Colloquium on Arabic Lexicology and Lexicography, 232–
244.
Taha, Zeinab. 1995. Issues of syntax and semantics: A comparative study of Sibawayhi,
al-Mubarrad and ibn al-Sarrāj. Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University.
Taha, Zeinab. 1996. “Semantic valence in tenth-century Arabic grammar: The case of
ibn al-Sarrāj’s ʾuṣūl fil-naḥw”. Multiple Perspectives on the Historical Dimensions of
Language, ed. by Kurt Jankowsky, 281–289. Munster: Nodus Publikationen.
Taha, Zeinab. 2008. “Mafʿūl”. Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. by
Mushira Eid a.o., iii, 100–106. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Taha, Zeinab. 2009. “Taʿaddī”. Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ed. by
Mushira Eid a.o., iv, 410–416. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Taha, Zeinab Ahmed. 2011. Development of Arab grammatical thought from the 2nd to
the 4th century of Hijra (In Arabic). Cairo: Maktabat al-ʾĀdāb.
Versteegh, Kees. 1995. The explanation of linguistic causes: Al-Zajjāji’s theory of gram-
mar. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
Learning Arabic in the Islamic World
Kees Versteegh

1 Learning Arabic: The Curriculum

In his autobiography al-ʾAyyām, Taha Hussein (1889–1973) recounts his early

education in the Azhar, including the grammatical treatises he had to learn
by heart, among them the ʾĀjurrūmiyya by Ibn ʾĀjurrūm (d. 723/1323) and
the ʾAlfiyya by Ibn Mālik (d. 672/1274).1 Children like the young Taha Hussein
grow up speaking an Arabic dialect as their mother tongue, which no doubt
helps them to some extent to make sense of the texts they are memorizing.
The present paper will be about learning Arabic outside the Arabic-speaking
world. It is difficult to imagine how children who do not speak Arabic can
learn the language by memorizing texts that are well-nigh incomprehensible
to them.
The difference between teaching Arabic to first and second language learn-
ers is formidable, yet it turns out that in many respects the curriculum used
all over the Islamic world is remarkably similar, regardless of the students’
mother tongues. This similarity may be explained by the status of Arabic, espe-
cially in the East. Zadeh (2012) has shown how the use of Persian translations,
even of the Qurʾān, was much more widespread than has commonly been
assumed. In the eastern part of the empire Ḥanafī scholars and Sufi travellers
alike propagated the new creed in the indigenous languages from the begin-
ning of the daʿwa. Interlinear translation of the Qurʾān and Persian exegesis
of the Qurʾān were widespread in schools and universities all over the east-
ern provinces (Zadeh 2012:282); sometimes, Persian was even used for liturgical
purposes.
This does not mean that Arabic was no longer learnt in these parts. Islamic
scholars, from al-Šāfiʿī (d. 204/820) to Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), had made it
very clear that learning Arabic was one of the obligations any Muslim had to ful-
fill (Zadeh 2012:80, 124, 128). Yet, especially in the eastern Islamic world, though
Arabic was the “favoured mode of written communication” in scholarship, Per-
sian was the current language of oral instruction (Zadeh 2012:41). Arabic was

1 See van Gelder (1995:103). On the teaching of grammar in the educational system at the Azhar
see also Gesink (2009:30).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365216_014

246 versteegh

learnt primarily as a dead language.2 Precisely because of this, knowledge of

Arabic became one of the principal hallmarks of scholarship (Zadeh 2012:408)
in the East and the level of knowledge of Arabic grammar was reputedly much
higher here than in the West, at least according to the testimony of the Arab
traveller al-Maqdisī, who visited Persia in 374/984 (Zadeh 2012:373).
Unfortunately, we do not have at our disposal much information concerning
the methods with which students learnt Arabic. For the older period, such
information is completely lacking as far as the elementary stages of education
are concerned. Biographies of scholars do not normally enlighten us about
their early training. Even when we know that children received special training,
as in the case of the young Mamluks in Egypt (Haarmann 1988), we do not
know exactly how they became proficient in Arabic. During the Mamluk period
in Egypt and Syria, Arabic remained the language of religion and culture and,
while the Mamluks did not think highly of the Arabs in military and political
matters, they still strove after a classical education for their children in which
Arabic held an important place.3 Some of the higher Mamluk functionaries
even became grammarians, and we may assume that grammatical treatises
formed part of their curriculum, but we have no information about the texts
with which they learned Arabic.
From the 19th century onwards more information is available. The cur-
riculum described by Taha Hussein resembles that of schools throughout the
Islamic world outside the Arabic-speaking countries, as illustrated by the uni-
versal popularity of the two main treatises mentioned by him, the ʾĀjurrūmiyya
and the ʾAlfiyya, and their commentaries.4 It seems that madāris all over the
Islamic world used these treatises. The limitation in our information pertains to

2 This does not seem to have changed in the modern period; Iranian students of Arabic
in Tehran apparently do not learn Arabic as a living language, at least that is what the
observations by von Maltzahn (2013, ch. 6) suggest.
3 On the grammatical training of the Mamluks see Mahamid (2011); Mauder (2012). See also
Flemming (1977) about the writing exercises some of the young Mamluks had to write during
their training.
4 For a detailed analysis of the pedagogical set-up of the ʾAlfiyya see Viain (2014:228–253); she
regards the ʾAlfiyya as “une version parallèle de classements antérieurs dans une optique
plus pratique” (2014:228); the same judgment applies to the ʾĀjurrūmiyya (Viain 2014:254–
259). In her analysis of the organization of these two introductory treatises, compared to
the preceding tradition, Viain characterizes them as the product of “une tradition andalouse
privilégiant, dans l’organisation des données, l’efficacité pédagogique, parfois au détriment
de la logique théorique”. As such, they do not follow the innovatory classifications of al-
Zamaḫšarī’s (d. 538/1144) Mufaṣṣal, but return to texts by earlier grammarians, notably Ibn
al-Sarrāj’s (d. 316/928) Kitāb al-ʾuṣūl and al-Zajjājī’s (d. 337/949) Kitāb al-jumal fī l-naḥw.
learning arabic in the islamic world 247

table 1 Arabic grammatical texts used in Indonesian pesantrens in the 19th century (after
van den Berg 1886)

Author Arabic title

Ibn ʾĀjurrūm (d. 723/1323) al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya

al-Ruʿayni al-Ḫaṭṭāb (d. 954/1547) al-Mutammima (supplement to
al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya)
al-ʾImrīṭī/ʿAmrīṭī (fl. 989/1581)5 al-Durra al-Bahiyya (versification of
al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya)
Ḥasan al-Kafrāwī (d. 1202/1787) commentary on al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078) al-ʿAwāmil al-miʾa
anonymous commentary on ʿAwāmil (starting with
the words ʾinna ʾawlā)
Ibn Mālik (d. 672/1272) al-ʾAlfiyya
Ibn ʿAqīl (d. 769/1367) Šarḥ al-ʾAlfiyya
al-ʾAzharī (d. 905/1499) Tamrīn al-ṭullāb (commentary on
al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya)
Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249) al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw
Ibn Hišām (d. 761/1360) Qaṭr al-nadā

the fact that, although we have extensive lists of books used in teaching gram-
mar, theology, law, and even Sufism, these titles do not tell us how children
learned Arabic and, in particular, how proficient they became in Arabic.
Roughly at the same time that Taha Hussein received his schooling, students
in Indonesian pesantrens and East African vyuo (plural of chuo) studied the
same texts in roughly the same order. According to a report from the 1880s,
commissioned by the Dutch government in the Dutch East Indies (van den
Berg 1886), education in Indonesian pesantrens took place on the basis of a
small number of fundamental textbooks (see Table 1).
Specifically with respect to grammar, Drewes (1971) distinguishes between
what he calls the ‘native type’ of instruction and the ‘Meccan style’. In the for-
mer, no grammar is taught at all, so that the students’ understanding of the
text is strictly limited to the memorized translation of the Arabic text. In the
Meccan type, grammar is learnt by memorizing Arabic grammatical treatises,
chief among them the ʾAlfiyya and the ʾĀjurrūmiyya, as well as their commen-

5 See Brockelmann (1943:ii, 320).

248 versteegh

taries. In the case of the ʾAlfiyya the main commentaries studied in Indone-
sia are those by Ibn Hišām (d. 761/1360), al-ʾAzharī (d. 905/1499), Ibn ʿAqīl
(d. 769/1367), and al-ʾUšmūnī (d. 872/1468),6 while the most important com-
mentaries on the ʾĀjurrūmiyya are those by al-ʾAzharī, al-Kafrāwī (d. 1207/1787),
and ʾAḥmad ibn Zaynī Daḥlān (see below). A few commentaries or glosses
were written locally, among them the commentaries by the Banten scholar
Muḥammad Nawawī (d. 1897, van Bruinessen 1990:236, n. 20) and the gloss
on Daḥlān’s commentary by Muḥammad Maʿṣūm ibn Sālim from Semarang
(Drewes 1971:69).
The basic texts of the old-fashioned pesantrens have remained popular in
present-day Indonesia, where they continue to be reprinted in the so-called
‘yellow books’ (kitab kuning, van Bruinessen 1990, 1994). Concerning grammat-
ical teaching, van Bruinessen (1990:241–243) states that the normal order in
which grammar is studied starts with an elementary treatise on ṣarf, such as
al-Bināʾ wa-l-ʾasās by Mullā ʿAbdallāh al-Danqarī (date of death unknown) or
ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Zanjānī’s (d. 654/1257) al-Taṣrīf al-ʿIzzī, and then progresses with
an elementary treatise on naḥw, such as al-ʿAwāmil al-miʾa by ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-
Jurjānī (d. 471/1078) or the ʾĀjurrūmiyya. Van Bruinessen (1990:241) stresses the
fact that these treatises are the first introduction to Arabic grammar all over the
eastern Islamic world, from Kurdistan to Sumatra and Java. After the introduc-
tory texts students continue either with commentaries on the ʾĀjurrūmiyya or
directly with the ʾAlfiyya and the commentary on it by Ibn ʿAqīl. Another pop-
ular work that has remained in use in contemporary pesantrens is Ibn Hišām’s
Qaṭr al-nadā. The classical canon is not absolute and immutable, however. Van
Bruinessen (1990:263) presents data on forty-six pesantrens; among them five
have shifted to the Qawāʿid al-luġa, which were introduced in the Egyptian
school reform at the end of the 19th century (see below), and four to al-Naḥw
al-wāḍiḥ (see below).
For East Africa, Loimeier (2009:169–170) describes the educational system
in Zanzibar, which was organized around basic introductory texts, studied by
all students, and specialized texts in various disciplines. The student learned
the basic texts, the so-called ʾummahāt by heart, while the teacher explained
the text with the help of commentaries. In the field of grammar, the students
began with the Ājurrūmiyya as the introductory text on grammar (2006:177),
with the commentary by ʾAḥmad ibn Zaynī ibn ʾAḥmad Daḥlān (d. 1303/1886).
The specialized texts for grammar included (2006:189–191):

6 See Drewes (1971:69) on the identification of this author.

learning arabic in the islamic world 249

– Mullā ʿAbdallāh al-Danqarī, Matn al-bināʾ wa-l-ʾasās (with the commentary

by ʿAlī ibn ʿUṯmān)
– al-Kafrāwī, ʾIʿrāb al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya
– al-Ruʿaynī al-Ḫaṭṭāb, Tatimmat [or: Mutammimat] al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya, with the
commentary by Muḥammad ibn ʾAḥmad al-ʾAhdal al-Yamanī (d. 1269/1835),
entitled al-Kawākib al-durriyya
– ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, ʿAwāmm al-Jurjānī
– Ibn Mālik, Lāmiyyat al-ʾafʿāl (with the commentary by Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥam-
mad ibn ʿUmar Baḥraq, d. 1033/1624, entitled Tuḥfat al-ʾalbāb = al-Baḥraqa)
– Hifni Bek Nāṣif al-Miṣrī and Muḥammad Effendi Diyāb al-Miṣrī (end 19th
century), Qawāʿid al-luġa al-ʿarabiyya (see below)
– Ibn Mālik, al-ʾAlfiyya (with the commentary by Ibn ʿAqīl)
– Ibn Hišām, Qaṭr al-nadā wa-ball al-ṣadā (with the commentary by ʾAbū
ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Fāsī, d. 1115/1704)
– Ibn Hišām, Šuḏūr al-ḏahab fī maʿrifat kalām al-ʿArab (with the commentary
by Zayn al-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-ʾAnṣārī al-Miṣrī, d. 926/1520)

In the second half of the 19th century, during the reign of Sayyid Barghash in
Zanzibar (1870–1888), Arabic literacy became increasingly important in this
region because of the growth of the bureaucracy, which required a large num-
ber of employees being able to read and write Arabic. This necessitated a
more intensive way of teaching Arabic (Bang 2014:112–116). Bang connects this
development with the expansion of the Sufi brotherhoods in the late 1800s.
The main introductory book was the ʾĀjurrūmiyya with the Šarḥ by ʾAḥmad
ibn Zaynī Daḥlān; an older commentary, whose copies may be found in the
East-African libraries, is that by al-ʾAzharī.7 The second most important book
was the ʾAlfiyya, together with the commentary by Ibn ʿAqīl (Bang 2014:113).
Bang mentions a gloss on this commentary by Muḥammad al-Ḫiḍr al-Dimyāṭī
(d. 1287/1870), and a second gloss by ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn ʿAwaḍ al-Jirjāwī (d.
ca. 1190/1776), entitled Šarḥ šawāhid al-ʾAlfiyya.
All of the above mentioned works originated in the Middle East, but gram-
matical treatises were also written in East Africa itself, e.g. the Šarḥ tarbiyat
al-ʾaṭfāl bi-taṣrīf al-ʾafʿāl by Muḥyī l-Dīn al-Qaḥṭānī (d. 1227/1869; Bang 2014:116),
which is a commentary on his own poem Tarbiyat al-ʾaṭfāl. A second example is
a summary of Ibn Hišām’s al-ʾIʿrāb ʿan qawāʿid al-ʾiʿrāb by Muṣabbiḥ ibn Sālim
ibn Muṣabbiḥ al-Barwānī from Brava (date of death unknown), entitled Mirqāt

7 Al-ʾAzharī also wrote a commentary on Ibn Hišām’s commentary on the ʾAlfiyya, entitled al-
Taṣrīḥ ʿalā l-Tawḍīḥ.
250 versteegh

al-ʾiʿrāb (Muḫtaṣar fī ṣarf wa-naḥw). Its main interest lies in the fact that after
presenting the material of the grammar, this summary contains a set of ques-
tions and answers clearly intended for young students.
In the extreme West of the Maghreb, the Sous region was part of the Arabic-
speaking world, yet, the local scholars spoke Berber as well as Arabic. Van den
Boogert (1997) describes the elementary education in this region on the basis
of three accounts in Berber, dating from the middle of the 20th century, by
Muḥammad al-Muḫtār al-Sūsī and Sī ʾIbrāhīm al-Kunkī. The most interesting
part of these accounts is the description of the more advanced stage, after the
memorization of the Qurʾān. At this stage, the students continue with the study
of Arabic grammar, the first of the Arabic sciences they have to master (van
den Boogert 1997:11–19). The first grammatical text learnt is the ʾĀjurrūmiyya
(Ljṛṛumit)—hardly surprising since Ibn ʾĀjurrūm himself was of Berber origin.
When the students have memorized this text, they are ready for the study of
other grammatical treatises, of which al-Kunkī mentions Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-
Muʿṭī al-Zawāwī’s (d. 628/1231) al-Durra al-ʾAlfiyya, and two treatises by Ibn
Mālik, al-ʾAlfiyya and Lāmiyyat al-ʾafʿāl.
In West Africa, from Mauritania to Mali and Niger, the curriculum for learn-
ing Arabic was highly homogeneous, and the textbooks used were largely iden-
tical.8 In the numerous madrasas of Timbuktu, one of the largest centres of
Islamic learning in this area, grammatical instruction took up an important
part of a scholar’s education, and proficiency in Arabic was highly regarded
(Saad 1983:74f.). Grammar was studied together with the text of the Qurʾān
and even before tafsīr. Several commentaries on the ʾĀjurrūmiyya were writ-
ten by local scholars, for instance the one by al-Sayyid ʾAḥmad ibn ʾAnd-
ʾAġ-Muḥammad (d. 1054/1635), al-Futūḥ al-Qayūmiyya fī šarḥ al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya,
copies of which have been found in Egypt and Morocco. Locally, it remained
in use up till the end of the 19th century. In addition to the ʾĀjurrūmiyya
and its commentaries, the second basic text taught and commented in Tim-
buktu was Ibn Mālik’s ʾAlfiyya with its auto-commentary Tashīl al-fawāʾid al-
naḥwiyya.
Even though the list of fundamental texts is roughly the same all over
the Islamic world, there seems to have been a certain amount of regional
distribution. In his exhaustive inventory of commentaries on Ibn al-Ḥājib’s

8 See Fortier (1993:238, n. 10). Autobiographical accounts by scholars, such as the ʾĪdāʿ al-nusūḫ
man ʾaḫaḏtu ʿanhu min al-šuyūḫ by Abdallahi dan Fodio (d. 1829), contain valuable informa-
tion on the books these scholars studied. For the books used in grammatical instruction see
Hall and Stewart (2011:120–123).
learning arabic in the islamic world 251

(d. 646/1249) al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw, Sartori (2013:68) notes that these commen-
taries are concentrated in the Turco-Iranian and Central-Asian region, which
suggests that this treatise was more popular in the Islamic East than in the
Maghreb and in West Africa.9 In their study of the core curriculum in West
Africa, Hall and Stewart (2011:123) remark on the absence of the Kāfiya in the
autobiographical accounts of West African scholars: in spite of copies of the
treatise and its commentaries in the libraries, the text does not seem to have
been part of the curriculum in this region.
Conversely, the most popular treatise in the West, the ʾĀjurrūmiyya, does
not seem to have been very popular in South Asia, at least it does not figure
in the list of grammar books mentioned by Rahman (2008:509) for the Dars-i
Nizami, the traditional Islamic curriculum, whose establishment is attributed
to Nizamuddin Sehalvi (d. 1161/1748)

in ṣarf

– ʿAlī ʾAkbar ʾAllāhābādī (d. 1091/1680), Fuṣūl-i ʾAkbarī

– ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAlī Ibn Masʿūd (8th/14th century?), Marāḥ al-ʾarwāḥ
– Mīzān al-ṣarf (10th/16th century?), with the second part, Munšaʿib by Ḥam-
za Badayūnī
– al-Šarīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413), Ṣarf-i Mīr10
– Ibn al-Ḥājib, al-Šāfiya fī l-ṣarf

in naḥw

– Sirāj al-Dīn al-ʾAwaḏī (d. 757/1356), Hidāyat al-naḥw

– Ibn al-Ḥājib, al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw (with the commentary by ʾAbū Barkat Nūr
al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, d. 898/1492, Šarḥ al-Kāfiya = Mullā Jāmī)

9 On Sunniforum, about which see below, one member (Faqeeh An-Nafs) posts the order
of grammatical treatises in India as he remembers it from the dars Nizamy, which he
claims derives from Mulla Nizam ud-Deen: Nahwa meer (= al-Šarīf al-Jurjānī, Naḥw-i
Mīr), sharah miah aamil (= al-Šarīf al-Jurjānī, Šarḥ al-ʿawāmil al- miʾa), hidayatun nahw
(= Sirāj al-Dīn al-ʾAwaḏī, Hidāyat al-naḥw), kafiyya (= Ibn al-Ḥājib, al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw),
Shrah Jamee (= Mullā Jāmī, Šarḥ al-Kāfiya) http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/
index.php/t-10789.html. In the Indian subcontinent, the Kāfiya and condensed versions
of it, like the Hidāyat al-naḥw, are indeed much more popular than elsewhere http://www
.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-2710.html: “It seems that the Kafiyah is not
normally studied in the Arab world and it is mainly studied in the Indian Subcontient”.
10 Mīr was the title of some aristocratic leaders in India; it is also used as a honorific title for
a few scholars, among them al-Šarīf al-Jurjāni, somewhat like the Arabic sayyid.
252 versteegh

– ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, al-ʿAwāmil al-miʾa (with the commentary by al-Šarīf

al-Jurjānī)
– al-Šarīf al-Jurjānī, Naḥw-i Mīr

Through the migration of Indian/Pakistani scholars to Africa and Europe, some

of the specifically Indian Arabic grammatical texts also became popular out-
side South Asia, e.g. the commentary on the Kāfiya by Mullā Jāmī.

3 Learning Arabic: The Method

The most obvious feature of Islamic learning in general is its emphasis on mem-
orization of the learnt materials, linguistic education being no exception.11
Eickelman (1978:489) analyzes this method, especially in the Islamic West, and
remarks on its role in fixing knowledge: “The cultural idea of religious knowl-
edge has remained remarkably constant over time throughout the regions of
Islamic influence”. He goes on to state that this aspect of the transmission of
religious knowledge in no way “prevents the emergence of an intellectual elite
that was able to deal with all aspects of modern life” (1978:491).
The study of Arabic in order to read Classical Arabic texts was not intended
to foster an ideal of individual searching for the truth, but was meant as a
guarantee that the student would more easily memorize the texts they studied.
Students were expected to understand to some extent the contents of these
texts, or rather, their grammatical structure. Yet, understanding the texts was
not the primary goal of the traditional educational system, and it was not
regarded as a necessary condition for memorization (see also Wagner 1993:47).
In the discussions in the first half of the 20th century about the role of Arabic
in the educational system of colonial Zanzibar, for instance, the opinion was
expressed that students do not need to understand the meaning of the texts
as long as they learn them by heart (Loimeier 2009:289–338). Even today
on the internet, a popular wiki advises boys striving to become a ḥāfiẓ to
concentrate on memorizing the text: it helps to know the meaning of the
text, but this is not regarded as essential.12 Indeed, the advice states, it is part
of the miraculous nature of the Qurʾān that one can recite the text without
understanding it.

11 On the use of mnemotechnical strategies in learning grammar see Fortier (1993:243 f.).
12 http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Hafiz; downloaded 10.02.18.
learning arabic in the islamic world 253

Eickelman explains the permanent character of the canon in the religious

sciences by the fact that “knowledge was considered to be fixed and memoriz-
able” (1978:511). Teachers were, therefore, not free to change the form or content
of their instruction and had to stick to the established canon. In the Moroccan
educational system, independent study of texts was not generally regarded as
something praiseworthy. In the Indian madrasas, too, students were actively
discouraged from reading Arabic books that were not in the curriculum (Sikand
2008:55).
As a result of the general reluctance to introduce new texts in the curriculum
and the fact that most language teaching was text-based, it became hard to
change anything at all, either in the subjects taught, or in the didactics of
language teaching. In assessing the value of the old-fashioned ḥalqa system of
teaching in Malaysia, Ab. Rahim Bin hj. Ismail (1993:7) states:

The success rate of Halqah system in producing students with a good

command of Arabic is extremely limited. The system is only of benefit
for a small number of students who have a considerable degree of intel-
ligence and have great devotion to learning Arabic … In most cases these
students can read only those texts that they have already read and learned
from the teacher.

In such educational systems, the shift to Western-style schools, in which knowl-

edge can be acquired through books, is likely to be regarded with mistrust, since
fixing knowledge in books is not in accordance with its sacred character. Bang
(2014:143–162) discusses at length the case of the writing down of the Rātib al-
Ḥaddād, a Sufi text, which according to some scholars lost its power when it
became available to everyone through written publications. The emergence of
new forms of education did indeed lead to the disappearance of an established
class of learned scholars who had played a pivotal role in the transmission of
(religious) knowledge.

4 Educational Reforms

In such a system of education, reform does not always mean an innovatory and
revolutionary change. According to Berkey (1992:21), the revival of scholarship
in the Maghreb during the 13th century did not arise “through the reception
of unknown or forgotten texts, but through the personal efforts of individual
scholars who traveled to the Middle East, studied there with prominent pro-
fessors and their pupils, and returned to the Maghrib to pass on the traditions
254 versteegh

to their own students”. Yet, throughout the centuries, there have been attempts
to create new ways of learning Arabic when people were no longer satisfied
with the conventional transmission of knowledge because it had become fos-
silized. Around the turn of the 20th century, Egypt went through a series of
reforms,13 in which the old grammatical treatises were replaced with a new
book, Qawāʿid al-luġa al-ʿarabiyya by Ḥifnī Bek Nāṣif al-Miṣrī and Muḥammad
Effendi Diyāb al-Miṣrī.14 The changes concerned not so much the grammati-
cal contents themselves, but the way they were presented. Linguistic examples,
for instance, were taken from contemporary Standard Arabic, rather than from
Classical Arabic texts.
The total impact of these changes was not impressive: as before, Arabic
grammar remained one of the most unpopular and feared topics in the cur-
riculum. After the rediscovery of Ibn Maḍāʾ’s (d. 592/1196) Kitāb al-radd ʿalā
l-nuḥāt, Šawqī Ḍayf, who edited the text, expressed his belief that Ibn Maḍāʾ’s
ideas about the uselessness of grammatical theory (Versteegh 2013) were the
answer to what he perceived as the main cause of the dismal situation in the
educational system, the complexity of the Classical Arabic grammatical sys-
tem. His drive for a ‘simplification of grammar’ (tabsīṭ al-naḥw) does not seem
to have had much success. In fact, reforms of the educational system regularly
floundered on the establishment’s conviction that the old books were the best.
Šawqī Ḍayf’s ideas on simplification of grammar (or the language) certainly did
not reach all schools at all levels of education. Many of the institutes for the
Arabic language that have sprung all over the Arab world, still base their edu-
cation on the old-fashioned ways. The Rumman Academy in Amman, Jordan,
for instance, advertizes its commitment to excellence in language teaching in
the following way:15

As a measure for the highest skill in the Arabic Language Sciences, we

extensively test applying teachers for mastery of the Alfiyya of Ibn Malik,
a 1,000 line poem that codifies Arabic Grammar and is considered the
pinnacle of Arabic Grammar mastery

Not surprisingly, even some of the modernized textbooks still look like trans-
lations of the old texts, with exactly the same terminology and definitions and

13 According to Eickelman (1978), the term ‘reform’ was avoided; reformers preferred to
speak of a reorganization (niẓām), instead.
14 About this book and its adoption in South Africa see Versteegh (2011).
15 http://rummanacademy.com/our-team; downloaded in 2016; website seems to have dis-
appeared since.
learning arabic in the islamic world 255

with exactly the same set of grammatical issues that grammarians dealt with
centuries ago.
Outside the Arabic-speaking world, the risk of fossilization of the educa-
tional system was even greater. In some regions, there simply was not enough
direct communication with the Arab world to enable people to procure new
texts. As a result, students were educated by memorizing a small set of texts,
usually together with their translation in an indigenous language. In these
regions, reforms had to wait until the contacts between local Muslim commu-
nity and the Islamic heartlands intensified through the increase in the number
of pilgrims to Mecca. Pilgrimage brought people in contact with Muslim schol-
ars in the Arabian peninsula and enabled some of the richer families to send
their sons to Mecca or Jedda to study with these scholars. Two examples of
the impact of these contacts may be mentioned here, one from 19th century
Indonesia, and one from contemporary Mali.
At the end of the 19th century, when Indonesia was still part of the Dutch
colonial empire, the introduction of printed books represented a revolutionary
change. Books became available because they could be ordered from abroad
through booksellers’ catalogues. This meant that it became worthwhile to
achieve proficiency in Arabic because with it one could read any text beyond
the limited canon. Scholars who went on pilgrimage used their new knowledge
to meet reformists in the Arab countries and to procure books, in a movement
which Laffan (2008) has called the ‘Meccan turn’.
In Mali, just as in other West-African countries, new types of madrasa,
sometimes with Wahhabi financing, emerged in the post-colonial period. These
new madrasas aimed at proficiency in the living language. Yet, the detailed
description by Bouwman (2005:67–97) of the teaching of Arabic in madrasas
in Mali shows that, even though the curriculum of these schools has been
modernized, it is still based on the Arabic grammatical tradition. Children first
learn Arabic through a modern method published in Morocco for use in West-
African schools, al-Tilāwa al-ʾifrīqiyya li-l-madāris al-ʿarabiyya. The didactic set-
up of this series of books differs considerably from the traditional way, since
they contain exercises, questions and answers, and illustrations. The topics
are contemporary and the focus is on Modern Standard Arabic. Grammar in
these books is taught by deduction, rather than by introducing rules, as is the
case in traditional grammar. From the 3rd class onward, however, grammar is
taught again as a separate subject, rather than an integral part of the acquisition
process. The textbooks used at this stage are al-Durūs al-naḥwiyya, written by
a Malian scholar, Saada Toure, and al-Risāla al-naḥwiyya by another Malian
scholar, Aboubakar Tiam (Bouwman 2005:76–77). These books, too, follow the
deductive method, but they use traditional terminology, classification, and
256 versteegh

theory. The traditional treatises themselves are not studied until the 6th or
7th class and are only intended for the most advanced students (Bouwman
2005:77f.); they include:

– ʿAlī al-Jārim and Muṣṭafā ʾAmīn, al-Naḥw al-wāḍiḥ (dating from the 1930s)
– Ibn ʾĀjurrūm, al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya, with the commentary by al-Kafrāwī
– al-ʾAzharī, Šarḥ al-taṣrīḥ ʿalā l-Tawḍīḥ, a commentary on Ibn Hišām’s Tawḍīḥ
al-masālik ʾilā ʾAlfiyyat Ibn Mālik, itself a commentary on the ʾAlfiyya

Yet, even in these modernized schools, some young students feel dissatisfied
with the limited canon of texts that is transmitted in the school system. They
wish to learn Classical Arabic at a level where they can read the original sources
for themselves. Bouwman cites the example of televized discussions about
contemporary issues, in which the representatives of traditional scholarship
are unable to go beyond the fixed set of responses from the few texts they
know by heart, whereas the new arabisants can quote from new books they
have read for themselves. In this new approach to learning Arabic, the standard
language remains the target. Students from these new madrasas, when they
visit Arab countries or go there in order to study, often express their disdain
for the Arabs, who use dialect in their everyday language (and even introduce
dialect courses at university, intended for foreign Western students!). For the
Malinese students this is an affront: as a Muslim one ought to stick to the rules
of Standard Arabic and never use dialect in one’s everyday conversation, let
alone in discussions about religious topics.16

5 Learning Arabic: Muslims on the Internet

There is no way to know how young Muslims in the 19th century felt, sit-
ting in a pesantren in Indonesia or a chuo in East Africa and listening to a
teacher explaining a line from the ʾĀjurrūmiyya with the help of the com-
mentary by al-Kafrāwī. But there is one modern source with abundant mate-
rial about the feelings of young Muslims earnestly striving to learn Arabic
in order to be able to read religious literature. Forums on the internet like

16 This is not to say that there are no examples of school types that manage to introduce a
satisfactory language teaching programme. One type of modern pesantren in Indonesia
is the Gontor branch (van Bruinessen 2008:223), where students are even obliged to
communicate in Arabic (and in English) in order to improve their proficiency in the
language.
learning arabic in the islamic world 257

www.shariahprogramme.com or www.sunniforum.org create internet com-

munities in which proficiency in Arabic brings status and prestige. Those who
are able to read and translate Arabic texts gain a position of authority. Some-
times they are even addressed formally as teacher (ʾustāḏ). This is true for
Salafi circles, where the study of the original sources is propagated rather than
instruction by an imam (de Koning 2008:256, 294, 304). Yet, for non-Salafis,
too, being able to read Arabic is a much coveted goal. The members of www
.sunniforum.org, who are mainly from South Asia or the uk, are chatting with
each other about the ways and means to master the huge task of learning Ara-
bic. Their goal is to read the Qurʾān and the Ḥadīṯ and other religious tracts in
Arabic.
For the members of this forum the need to learn Arabic is self-evident
because it is the only way to read the text of the Qurʾān and the Sunna in the
original version. But how does one go about learning a language that is per-
ceived by all to be very difficult, if only because of the script? The participants in
the forum discussions try to help each other with advice about the best method
to study Arabic. Questions that are typically and frequently asked include: what
is a good book for beginners, how many hours per day are necessary to read the
ʾAlfiyya, is it o.k. to step right up to the ʾAlfiyya after having studied the ʾĀjur-
rūmiyya, or is it better to first read the Qaṭr al-nadā, what is the best dictionary
to use for Qurʾānic Arabic, is it useful to attend a course in an Arabic-speaking
country, etc. There is some kind of consensus about the texts to be studied and
the order in which they should be studied. The recommended pattern seems
to be to start with the ʾĀjurrūmiyya, followed by the Qaṭr al-nadā. The ʾAlfiyya,
read in combination with the commentary by Ibn ʿAqīl, is the most advanced
text.17 The following list is posted by a member of the forum as suggestion for
a curriculum:18

A Arab scholar of the arabic language once told me that the syllabus for
nahw is:

17 For local differences and for the popularity of al-Kāfiya in South Asia see above, n. 8; for
the organization of the Kāfiya see Viain (2014:214–218).
18 www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-22710.html. Note that all quotations
from the forum discussions are given in the original spelling and transliteration as down-
loaded on 20.09.14; my explanatory remarks are added between square brackets. After
finishing the text of the present article, I found out that the highly popular Sunniforum
was no longer accessible. It seems that because of ideological differences, the adminis-
trators decided to continue the discussion in a forum with limited access, although it
is not quite clear what has happened; see http://www.muftisays.com/forums/14-peoples
-say/9873-sunniforum-is-it-closed-for-good.html, downloaded 10.02.18.
258 versteegh

1. Tuhfatusiniyya sharh on the Ajarumiyyah [i.e. al-Tuḥfa al-saniyya bi-

šarḥ al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya by Muḥammad Muḥyī l-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, a
20th century scholar]
2. Sharh Fawakihi on the Mutammimat Ajarumiyah [i.e., Šarḥ al-fawā-
kih al-janiyya by Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAbdallāh ibn ʾAḥmad al-Fākihī, d. 972/
1565]
3. Kawakib ad Duriyya sharh on the Mutamimat Ajarumiyyah [i.e.,
al-Kawākib al-durriyya by Muḥammad ibn ʾAḥmad al-ʾAhdal, a com-
mentary on al-Ruʿaynī’s Mutammimat al-ʾĀjurrūmiyya]
4. Qatr An Nada wa Bal as Sada [i.e., Ibn Hišām’s Qaṭr al-nadā wa-ball
al-ṣadā]
5. Shudhur Adh Dhahab [i.e., Ibn Hišām’s Šuḏūr al-ḏahab]
6. Sharh ibn Aqeel on the Alfiyyah ibn Malik [i.e., Ibn ʿAqīl’s commen-
tary on the ʾAlfiyyat Ibn Mālik]
7. and 8. Two more commentaries on the Alfiyyah which I don’t re-
member the name of
9. Mughni Labib [i.e. Ibn Hišām’s Muġnī l-labīb]

The texts recommended by ‘A Arab scholar of the arabic language’ in this post,
all center around the ʾĀjurrūmiyya and the ʾAlfiyya, which apparently are just as
popular among the internet learners as they are in madrasas all over the Islamic
world. Western-style textbooks, on the other hand, do not seem to be very
popular among the members of this forum. The reason cannot be that these
were written by non-Muslims: Hans Wehr’s dictionary is regarded by many
members of the forum as the best dictionary for Arabic, and Michael Carter’s
translation of al-Širbīnī’s (d. 978/1570) commentary Nūr al-sajiyya fī ḥall ʾalfāẓ
al-ʾAjurrūmiyya (1981) is hailed as an example of something Muslims should be
doing themselves.19 Nor can it be that these textbooks are written in English,
since some of the members advocate starting Arabic courses in English. The

19 An interesting judgment is made on Sunniforum about this translation: “Michael Carter is

among the more sympathetic western scholars towards the Arabic grammatical tradition,
and tries to present Arabic grammatical theory within that perspective rather than within
a Western (Greek/Latin) perspective. He is also doing a great service in giving the legacy of
Sibawayh its rightful place in history (see his website on the Sibawayhi Project and won-
derful little biography by him on Sibawayhi in the Makers of Islamic Civilization series).
However, despite these efforts, his works still fall within the European Orientalist/Middle
Eastern scholarship, which, obviously, is by no means an Islamic traditional scholarship
as we know it. Hence, that element (an affiliation and loyalty to an Islamic tradition) is
absent from the work” (http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?45723-How
-long-does-it-usually-take-to-study-Sharh-ul-Ajurumiyyah-in-complete/page2&).
learning arabic in the islamic world 259

price may be an issue: Western textbooks tend to be more expensive than the
Arabic ones. As a matter of fact, one of the most frequently asked questions
concerns the availability of downloads on the internet. Some students worry,
though, that it might be ḥarām to learn Arabic from an illegal download! There
is one other factor that may play a role. The Sunniforum is rather orthodox and
even prohibits avatars with a picture in them. It is therefore not surprising that
some of the members express their unease with textbooks containing pictures
of unveiled women in tight clothing.20
The main reason for the popularity of the Classical treatises, however, seems
to be that the participants in the forum discussions have a clear idea about
the proper way to study Arabic. Some members note that the choice of books
depends on one’s precise aim: if one wishes to learn how to speak Arabic, one
might benefit from newer textbooks such as the Madinah series, which was
designed by the University of Medina for non-Arabic speakers. For most of the
learners on the forum, however, such communicative aims are less important
than their wish to be able to read the Qurʾān and other Classical Arabic texts.
For this purpose the Classical Arabic grammatical texts are better suited. One
member characterizes them as texts that have to be decoded and are therefore
eminently suited to prepare one for the reading of Classical texts, which also
have to be decoded in order to understand their meaning:

Something else about the Hidayah al-Nahw, which is very important is

that it prepares the student much better to decode, negotiate and analyse
texts because it is itself a text that needs to be decoded, negotiated and
analysed. al-Nahw al-Wadih is quite straight forward, and the text is not
cryptic such that it develops the student’s analytical and critical reading
abilities. The Hidayah al-Nahw, then, prepares you better for reading
subsequent texts (fiqh, tafsir, ’aqidah, etc.) as you work through it as a text.
al-Nahw al-Wadih offers no such challenges to the reader that will make
of the student a good analytical reader unless the student gets exposed to
such cryptic texts as exercise.21

The old-fashioned method is better because it has been in use for a long
time and it has proven its succesfulness. The advantage is, moreover, that the
Classical treatises contain the entire structure of Arabic grammar and prepare
the learner for the Classical texts rather than throwing them into the deep, as

20 http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-19194.html.
21 http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6043.html; for al-Naḥw al-wā-
ḍiḥ see above, p. 256.
260 versteegh

the modern textbooks do.22 These present the material piecemeal, so that one
never knows beforehand what awaits one, and one never arrives at a synthetic
view of the entire structure. In the words of one of the members:

I think that there could be some benefit in studying a text like the Ajarru-
miyya, even as a beginner (although with a teacher of course!) because it
will give you a clear idea of how Arabic is structured […]. Obviously, the
language only really comes to life through texts, but knowing something
about the structure beforehand is like having the picture on the box of a
jigsaw puzzle in front of you before attempting the puzzle.23

Critical voices, although in the minority, are not entirely absent. One critical
remark concerns the terminology in these Classical treatises, which is per-
ceived as being very difficult. However, as someone is quick to explain, there
is a difference between the terminology of the linguists who use genitive,
accusative etc., and the real Arabic grammar, with its jarr, naṣb, etc. The latter
is axiomatically taken to be superior to other methods for learning Arabic. It is
learnt as a model to do ‘tarkeebs’, somewhat analogous to parsing in Western
systems of education. According to one thread in the forum, tarkeeb is different
from grammar, but it is a good way to revise your grammar: first you translate
the text, then you analyze its meaning, and then you practice your tarkeeb on
it.24 Explanation often takes the form of a rough translation of the Arabic gram-
matical treatise, leaving as many terms as possible untranslated.25

22 In the same post this member says: “Modern texts, I feel, are often made too easy such that
the student is never made to swim without a life-jacket”.
23 http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-2710.html.
24 http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-24866.html. An example of
what is meant by doing a tarkeeb is contained in the following post, which is a reply to a
request for help with a difficult sentence in Arabic (http://forums.shariahprogram.ca/first
-year-students-semester-1/3242-tarkeeb-qasas-2-passage-5-a.html)
Wa jaauu abaahum ’ishaan yabkuun: Jaa- is the verb
uu- the waw infront of jaa is the doer of the verb.
abaahum- is the object of the verb
hum—the “hum” attached to abaahum, is mudaf ilayhi, it means “their father” the
“their” refers to the doers of the verb, which is waw infront of jaa.
’ishaan—mafool fiihi
yabkoon- is a verb and the doer of the verb is waw in it. And at the same time it is the
haal (the state in which the action was done) of the doers of the first verb(jaa).
So the translation is: And they came to their father at night crying (meaning those who
came were crying while coming).
25 An example of such a passage is posted by godilali (http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/
learning arabic in the islamic world 261

Because of the universal nature of the grammar of Arabic, the terminology

of the tarkeeb should also be applicable to English sentences. On one occasion,
a student asks about the function of the word quickly in the sentence zayd came
quickly, whether it is ‘haal’ or ‘mafool mutlaq’. The answer is given as follows:26

Walaikumassalaam,
The word “quickly” is describing the coming (verb) and not the state of
‘Zaid’, therefore if this sentence is written in Arabic then ‘quickly’ would
become maf’ool mutlaq not ‘haal’.
It would sound odd if it was made the haal … Zaid came in a state where
he was quick (at what?)
Wassalaam,
Saad

It is quite understandable why one topic is almost entirely absent from the
forums on which learning Arabic is discussed: pronunciation. It is important
to know how to write Arabic, otherwise you could not read the texts. But it is
not important to know how it is pronounced. These learners approach the lan-
guage in exactly the same way as students in West-European grammar schools
used to approach Greek and Latin. Phonology is relevant insofar as it helps to
understand the morphology; therefore, you need to know the rules about the
changes in the ‘letters’, as in the following explanation of the imperative of the
verb ʾakrama.27

the baab for akrama is different. the beginning hamza is not an enabling
hamza (hamzatulwasl). the rule you are thinking about is different. what

archive/index.php/t-21210.html), as part of his translation project of the Hidāyat al-naḥw;

the text is hardly comprehensible without intimate knowledge of the grammarians’ ter-
minology and theories:
Know that the ma’Toof (taabi’) follows the ruling of the ma’Toof ‘alaih (matboo’),
meaning when the first is a Sifah for something, a khabr, a Silah, or a Haal, then the second
is also like that. The rule is that whenever it is permissible for the ma’Toof to stand in the
place of the ma’Toof ‘alaih, ‘aTf is permissible, and whenever it is not (permissible … stand
in place of … .), then it (‘aTf) is not (permissible). ‘aTf upon the ma’mools of two different
‘aamils is permissible if the ma’Toof ‘alaih is majroor muqaddam (meaning the majroor is
muqaddam over marfoo’ and manSoob), and the ma’Toof is likewise.
26 http://forums.shariahprogram.ca/first-year-students-semester-2/3171-quickly-haal
-mafool-mutlaq.html.
27 http://forums.shariahprogram.ca/first-year-students-semester-2/3038-baab-question
.html.
262 versteegh

you are thinking of is if the fa position is sukun and nothing is before it.
in akrama the hamza in the beginning is mazeed fee and is apart of the
baab. when you construct the amr for it, you drop the mudhari sign and
the hamza comes back. it only left to accomodate the mudhari sign, so
when it leaves, the hamza can come back. the ending changes to the word
are treated the same. hope that helps

This attitude toward the phonetics of Classical Arabic is also visible in the
complete lack of interest in correct transcription.28
In the discussions on Sunniforum, knowledge of language seems to be
equated with grammatical knowledge. Vocabulary has to be learnt separately
and is covered more or less by the memorization of the Qurʾān, which famil-
iarizes one with the Qurʾānic lexicon. Within the study of grammar different
branches are distinguished, usually referred to as different sciences, such as
naḥw, ṣarf and balāġa. One post defines these as follows:

The Arabic language is composed of different sciences. When someone

learns Arabic he/she must understand that he is in fact learning three
sciences. Realizing this separation between the various sciences assist
the student of Arabic in grasping the language. With this he will know
where the language begins and where it ends. It is indeed unfortunate that
most modern books of Arabic language instruction fail to even mention
this.29

All in all, the discussions on the internet give us a clear idea of what it is
like to learn Arabic in this way. Most participants warn that it is impossible
to learn Arabic on your own, you need a sheikh, i.e. someone who knows
how to teach the language in the old-fashioned way, by making you repeat

28 Note that this is not necessarily the case in all institutions where Arabic is taught. Hasan
(2008:265) mentions the case of Indonesian students learning Arabic in Salafi madrasas
in Indonesia, who make an effort to get rid of their Javanese accent in recitation and
actively train the correct pronunciation, for instance, by listening to cassettes. It appears
that these madrasas actually changed the traditional curriculum and introduced new
textbooks. Hasan (2008:273, n. 30) mentions the following grammar texts that are used
in these madrasas, often with the financial support of the Saudi embassy: al-Naḥw al-
wāḍiḥ, mentioned above, p. 256; al-ʾAmṯila al-taṣrīfiyya, mentioned by van Bruinessen
(1994:242) as a book written by a Javanese author, Muḥammad Maʿṣūm ibn ʿAlī from
Jombang; Qawāʿid al-ṣarf ; al-Balāġa al-wāḍiḥa.
29 http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1568.html.
learning arabic in the islamic world 263

the lesson until you know it (have memorized it), something you achieve
by repeating the lesson ten or fifteen times. The teacher explains difficult
terms, usually by giving definitions. Even in the modernized versions of lan-
guage teaching, for instance in the schools that use the Madinah series, expla-
nation usually takes the form of a definition of the term that is to be ex-
plained.30

6 Learning Arabic: The Results

It may seem strange that a didactic poem written in doggerel verse, such as
the ʾAlfiyya, which we associate with the early stages of learning, is actually
intended for advanced students. The ʾAlfiyya is not meant as a reflection on
grammatical theory, but as a handy tool for summarizing all the rules of Arabic
grammar, always accompanied by a commentary, as Viain (2014:254) observes.
As such, it marks the last stage of the curriculum for grammar as an ancil-
lary science. Only those few students who specialize in grammar, go beyond
this level and study texts like Sībawayhi’s Kitāb or al-Mubarrad’s Muqtaḍab, or
Ibn al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-ʾuṣūl, which are hardly ever mentioned in the discus-
sions on the internet, or, for that matter, in any of the reports about grammat-
ical instruction in the Islamic world. Ordinary students who reach the level
of the ʾAlfiyya already know Arabic, or at least they know its structure. The
aim of memorizing the ʾAlfiyya is twofold: it is a summary of everything they
have learnt; and it gives all the details that were skipped at earlier stages. In
the discussions, the ʾAlfiyya is always praised for its completeness.31 As van
Gelder (1995:108) aptly observes, “[i]t is obvious that many an urjūza is not
so much an introduction to be presented to beginners as an aide-mémoire, a
handy compendium for those who have already mastered all or most of the
subject”.
‘Mastering the subject’ is a goal not all learners reach. The discussions on
the internet forums also make clear that there are many false starts and that
even though all of the members of the forum love Arabic dearly and are highly
motivated to learn the language, only few of them actually succeed in this aim.
As soon as someone appears to know something about Arabic, they are treated

30 See the instruction films on Youtube, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tSyG_

wnPLQ.
31 Apparently, the text has other appealing features as well, see http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=VkLCTjb1p4w.
264 versteegh

as teachers by the others, but most of the students do not reach this level. The
alternative of going to the Arab world is not feasible for most of them and,
even if they do, there is no guarantee that their trip will be a success. Note that
success is measured in terms of being able to read the texts. Those who actually
wish to speak Arabic are in a minority.
It is difficult to assess the success of this type of curriculum, whether for the
students on the internet, or for students in Islamic countries outside the Arab
world who visit a madrasa. On the one hand, one has the impression that much
of the knowledge gained is theoretical and does not lead directly to deeper
insight in the texts studied or memorized. On the other hand, it is true that at
least some scholars continue the tradition of commenting on difficult texts and
publishing glosses, such as the commentaries in Bambara on Classical Arabic
poetry and maqāmāt that were published by Tamari (2005, 2013). One proviso
should be made here. Sometimes, one gets the impression that much of what
is contained in the commentary is simply a repetition of the existing literature,
differently arranged and with a few notes added.
In some respects, learning Arabic is quite similar to the instruction in Latin
that used to be the hallmark of Western grammar schools: students learned
various strategies to tackle Latin texts and were not expected to be able to
speak Latin—although they were expected sometimes to compose texts in
Latin (Waquet 1998), just like Islamic schoolboys still write essays in Classi-
cal Arabic.32 The main question underlying the present article was: is it pos-
sible to learn a foreign language like Arabic for purposes of communication
by memorizing a grammatical treatise like the ʾAlfiyya, which presupposes
a large amount of grammatical knowledge. The discussions on the internet
forums provide us with an answer: it is indeed practically impossible to achieve
communicative proficiency in this way, yet, this is not the goal of the learn-
ers of Arabic outside the Arabic-speaking world. Their aim is to be able to
read the Islamic texts in the Arabic original. The discussions also show that
if one persists in studying and memorizing the grammatical treatises, with
the help of a teacher, one can indeed reach this goal. This is as true nowa-
days in the Muslim internet communities, as it was in the past in the Islamic
world.

32 For an exception in the madrasa system see above, n. 14, about the Gontor-type madrasas
where students are trained in using Arabic actively and n. 28.
learning arabic in the islamic world 265

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Index

Ab. Rahim bin hj. Ismail 253 agent of declension 108 f., 112
ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Muḥammad Muḥyī l-Dīn ʾaḫaff 17f., 20
198, 258 ʾaḫaṣṣ 209
ʿAbd al-Tawwāb, Ramaḍān 2 ʾaḫawāt kāna 146
Abdallahi dan Fodio 250 ʾaḫbār see ḫabar
Abed, Shukri 124 ʾAhdal, Muḥammad ibn ʾAḥmad al-Yamanī al-
ʾabhama 208 249, 257
ʾablaġ 86f. ʾaḥdaṯa 239
ʾabniya see bināʾ ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ, al- 64, 77, 146, 154–156
ʾAbū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ 16, 51f., 77 ʾAḫfaš al-Kabīr, al- 51
ʾAbū Ḥayyān 81f., 91, 172–174 ʾahl al-ʿaql 118
ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq al-Ḥarbī 65 ʾahl al-naḥw 154
ʾAbū l-ʿAmayṯal 62 ʾAḥmad ibn ʾAnd-Aġ-Muḥammad, al-Sayyid
ʾAbū l-ʾAswad al-Duʾalī 155 250
ʾAbū l-ʿAtāhiya 66 ʾaʿjamī 36
ʾAbū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī 217 ʿAjjāj, al- 66
ʾAbū l-Najm al-ʿIjlī 66 ʾaksaba 212
ʾAbū l-Ṭayyib al-Luġawī 51, 63, 155 ʾāla 107
ʾAbū Nuwās 66 ʿalam 182
ʾAbū Tammām 66 ʿalāma 17 f., 27, 33, 107 f., 184
ʾAbū ʿUbayd 51f., 62, 65, 67 ʿalāmat al-mutamakkin 33
ʾAbū ʿUbayda 51, 64, 67 ʿalāmat al-taʾnīṯ 184
ʾAbū ʿUmar al-Zāhid see al-Zāhid Alexander of Aphrodisias 124
accusative 6, 12f., 192 ʿAlī ʾAkbar ʾAllāhābādī 251
accusative, cognate 241f. ʾalif al-waṣl 37
accusative of exclamation 191f. ʾalif lām 23, 36, 182, 211
action of the verb 233, 237–240 allaḏī 126
actual reference 22 Alon, Ilon 124
ʾadā 118, 150 ʿamal 11, 28, 107–110
ʿadad 104 ambiguity 109, 209, 220
ʾaḍāfa 208f. ambiguous 211
ʿadam tamakkun 33 ʾĀmidī, al- 217
ʿadam taṣarruf 39 ʿāmil 12, 66, 107, 110, 169
ʾadawāt see ʾadā ʿāmil fī l-ḥaqīqa 108
ʾaḍdād see ḍidd ʿāmil naḥwī 108
adjective 103f., 107, 111, 126, 205, 209, 211f., ʿāmil of the ḥāl 174
214f. ʿamila fī 29
ʿadl 19, 41f. ʾAmīn, Muṣṭafā 256
admirative 208 ʾamina l-tanwīn 16
adverbial of time/place 3 ʾamkan 18
ʾafāda 11, 22, 124, 213f., 221 ʿāmm 204
ʾafʿal 23 ʾamr 191, 194
ʾafʿāl see fiʿl ʿAmr ibn Maʿdīkarib 196
ʾafʿala 60, 63, 240 ʿAmrīṭī, al- see ʾImrīṭī, al-
agency 231, 237, 239 ʾamṣār see miṣr
agent 167, 230, 232f., 235–237, 239 ʾamṯila see miṯāl
270 index

ʾan 12, 46 ʿAskarī, ʾAbū Hilāl al- 155

analogy 31f., 36, 45f., 57, 66, 99 ʾaṣl 19 f., 41, 44, 66, 103–106, 192, 211
Anghelescu, Nadia 8 ʾasmāʾ Allāh 64
annexation see annexion ʾasmāʾ see ism
annexion 16, 30, 98f., 102f., 105f., 149, 205, ʾAṣmaʿī, al- 2, 51, 55, 62, 64, 67
207f., 210–216, 219, 221 assertive 6, 12
annexion of indefinite to indefinite 209f. ʾAstarābāḏī, al- 5 f., 34, 45, 96–114, 207, 214
ʾAnṣārī, ʾAbu Zayd Saʿīd ibn ʾAws al- 51f., 56, ʾašyāʾ al-ʾasmāʾ 126
67, 77 ʾašyāʾ see šayʾ
ʾAnṣārī, Zayn al-Din Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyāʾ al- -at 23, 35, 184
Miṣrī al- 249 ʾaṯar 65
antonyms 84 ʿaṭf 215
aplasticity 39 ʿaṭf al-bayān 206, 215 f.
apposition 98f. ʾaṯqal 18, 34
apposition, explanatory 206–208, 210, ʿAṭṭār, Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn ʿUṯmān al-
215f. 63
ʾAʿrāb 52–54 attributes of God 64
Arabic, ʾAsad 53 Austin, John 5, 190 f., 200
Arabic, ʾAzdī 54 ʾaw 214
Arabic, Bakr ibn Wāʾil 53 ʾAwaḏī, Sirāj al-Dīn 251
Arabic, characteristics of 56f. ʾawqaʿa 13
Arabic, conversation in 256 ʾAws ibn Ḥajar 66
Arabic, Fazāra 53 ʾawṣala 230, 242 f.
Arabic, Ġaniyy 53 ʾawwal 17–22, 34 f., 40–43
Arabic, Ḫaṯʿam 53 ʾaymu 37
Arabic, Ḥijāzī 53 ʾayna 151–153, 156
Arabic, Huḏayl 53 Ayoub, Georgine 6, 11–49, 135 f.
Arabic, Kaʿb 53 ʾayyuhā 126
Arabic, learning of 245–267 ʾAzharī, al- 14, 29, 54, 58, 182, 247–249, 256
Arabic, native speaker of 112
Arabic, Qays 53 Baalbaki, Ramzi 7, 17 f., 33, 39, 50, 75, 110,
Arabic, Qurayš 81 155 f.
Arabic, Šaʾāmī 54 baʿḍ 138 f., 141 f.
Arabic, Saʿd 53 baʿda 159
Arabic, Sulaym 53 Badawi, Elsaid 127
Arabic, Tamīmī 53 Badayūnī, Ḥamza 251
Arabic, Ṭayyiʾ 53 bādiya 52
Arabic, Yamānī 54 Baḥraq, Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar
arabicized 36, 58 249
arabisants 256 bal 153
ʾArdabīlī, al- 86 balāġa 50, 60, 110, 262
Aristotle 82, 116f., 122f., 125, 134, 138 balāġiyyūn 60, 68
article see definite article Bally, Charles 22
ʿarūḍ 50, 156 Bambara 264
ʿasā 151 Bandanījī, al- 65, 67
ʾAʿšā, al- 66 Bang, Anne 249
ʾašāra 187 Bāqillānī, al- 217
ʿašarāt 62f. Baraké, Bassam 206
ʿĀṣī, al- 206 Barghash, Sayyid 249
index 271

Barwānī, Muṣabbiḥ ibn Sālim ibn Muṣabbiḥ complement, dependent form 109
al- 249 complement, numerical 109
Basrans 37, 45, 57, 66f., 77f., 146, 148 complement of the verb 13
Baṭalyawsī, al- 6, 76–95 completion 219
Bedouin 52f., 55 compound 41
Bedouin, language of 112 compound name 19 f., 42
Berber 250 constative 190
Berkey, Jonathan 253 continuity 6
Bihriz 124 conversation 123
biliterals 58 coordination, disjunctive 214
bināʾ 20, 59 correct usage 68
bināʾ al-kalām 57 Culioli, Antoine 39
biʾsa 151, 156, 159 curriculum of grammar 246, 251
blending 60
Bohas, Georges 2f., 98, 205 daḫīl 57
Boogert, Nico van den 250 Daḥlān, ʾAḥmad ibn Zaynī 248 f.
book printing 255 dahr, ẓarf al- 35
Bouwman, Dinie 255f. dalīl 230, 235
Bruinessen, Martin van 248, 256, 262 dalla 127
Buḥturī, al- 66 ḍamīr 136
Danecki, Janusz 33
Carter, Michael 2, 6, 17, 24f., 27, 29, 33, 40, Danqarī, Mullā ʿAbdallāh 248 f.
76–95, 99, 122–124, 126–129, 146, 148– Ḍarīr, Muḥammad ibn Sādān al- 78
160, 206f., 257 Dars-i- Nizami 251
case 6, 11–49 ḏawāq 56
case endings 109 Ḍayf, Šawqī 254
categories, Aristotelian 117f. deceiving 122
categories, grammatical 43 declension 6, 11 f., 42, 110
causation as criterion for transitivity 237 declension of the verb 45 f.
causation see causativity declinability 17, 33–35, 40 f.
causative 240 declinability, full 30 f., 35, 44
causativity 233, 237, 239 definite 21, 23, 32, 36 f., 41
cause 238 definite article 16, 23, 31, 36, 38, 45, 99 f., 126,
Chairet, Mohamed 39 182
Chatti, Saloua 120 definite article in proper names 86
Chomsky, Noam 11 definite expression 213
chuo 247, 256 definite noun 126 f., 215
circumstantial 167–177, 187 definite, formally 127
clarification 219 definite, morphosyntactically 127, 129 f., 133,
cognate accusative 241f. 135–137, 139 f., 142
cognition 37, 39 definite, pragmatically 34, 127, 138–140
Colman, Fran 24 definite, semantically 127
command 192 definiteness 8, 21 f., 24, 32, 43–45, 109 f., 126,
comment 134 128f., 133, 140, 207, 211 f.
communication 128f. definiteness, definition of 133
communication, effective 129 definiteness of proper names 130
communicative value 126 demonstrative 6, 27, 126, 131, 137, 151 f., 154,
complement 101f., 109, 137f. 156, 159, 178–189
complement, accusative 235, 238, 243 demonstrative as proper name 185
272 index

demonstrative, diminutive of 179, 185 fāʿil 108, 155, 157, 160, 167 f., 209, 230, 232, 237,
demonstrative, dual of 185 239 f.
denial 119–121 Fākihī, Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAbdallāh ibn ʾAḥmad al-
Derenbourg, Hartwig 89f. 257
description 131f., 137 faʿlāʾ 23
determination 5, 205, 207, 219 farʿ 41, 44
diachrony 3 Fārābī, al- 78, 80–82, 90, 115 f., 124 f., 134
dialectal usage 53 Fāriqī, al- 172
dialogue, logical 122 Fārisī, al- 77, 148, 150, 160, 210, 212 f., 217, 219
dialogue, metaphysical 125 Fārisī, ʾAbū l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan
dialogue, philosophical 124 al- 213
ḍidd 58, 61f., 88, 104 Farrāʾ, al- 52, 64, 67, 78, 91, 146, 149 f., 152, 156,
diminutive 34, 36, 38, 60, 185 191, 208
diminutive of demonstratives 179, 185 faṣāḥa 66
Dimyāṭī, Muḥammad al-Ḫiḍr 249 Fāsī, ʾAbū ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbd al-Qādir al-
diptote 108 249
discourse 43 faṣīḥ 53
distribution, syntactic 42 Fatlī, ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn 2
Diyāb al-Miṣrī, Muḥammad Effendi 249, 254 faʿula 231
Drewes, Gerard 247 fawāʿil 31 f.
Druel, Jean 5, 96–114 feminine 18 f., 23, 35 f., 41 f., 59, 104
Ḏu l-Rumma 66, 83 feminine marker 104
dual 60 fiʿl 12, 43
dual of demonstrative 185 fiʿl al-madḥ wa-l-ḏamm 204
dūna 150 fiʿl al-taʿajjub 240
fiʿl ġayr ḥaqīqī see ġayr ḥaqīqī
East Africa 248f. fiʿl ḥaqīqī see ḥaqīqī
East Indies, Dutch 247 fiʿl maḥḍ 192
education, reform of 253–256 fiʿl manqūl see manqūl
Egypt, education in 254 fiʿl muʾaṯṯir see muʾaṯṯir
Eickelman, Dale 252–254 fiʿl muḍmar 192
elative 18, 30 fiʿl mulāqī see mulāqī
ellipsis 88 fiʿl mustaʿār see mustaʿār
elucidation 219 fiʿl mutaʿaddī see mutaʿaddī
Equivalence Claim 128, 130, 134, 136, 138, 140 fiʿl wāṣil see wāṣil
equivocity 220 fiqh 52, 125, 191
error, logical 120 fiqh al-luġa 51, 206
essence, individual 131 Firanescu, Daniela 191
event, representation of 237 Fischer, Wolfdietrich 153
exclamation 88, 90, 191f. Fleisch, Henri 90, 98, 205, 219 f.
existential 138 Flemming, Barbara 246
explanatory apposition 219 flexibility 33, 37–40, 42 f.
foreign names 41
fāʾ 11, 156 function, syntactic 243
faʿala 60, 63 fuṣaḥāʾ see faṣīḥ
factual 12 future 45, 174
faḍla 105–109, 232, 235, 238
faḫr 85 ġaraḍ 125
fāʾida 123–126, 214, 232 ġarīb 51, 53–55, 61–64
index 273

ġarīb al-Ḥadīṯ 55, 65 ḫabar ʾayna 159

ġarīb al-Qurʾān 55, 64 ḫabar kāna 15
Gätje, Helmut 8 ḫabar kayfa 159
ġāya 125 ḫabar mā lam yusamma fāʿiluhu 146
ġayr 35f., 38, 137, 141f. ḫabar matā 159
ġayr ḥaqīqī 238 ḫabarī 192
ġayr ʿilāj 241 ḥabbaḏā 151
ġayr muʾaṯṯir 233 ḫabbara 129
ġayr muʿayyan 135 hāḏā 151
ġayr mubham 208 ḥadaṯ 12
ġayr munqaṭiʿ 42 ḥadd al-kalima 240
ġayr munṣarif 34, 37, 42 Ḥadīṯ 7, 52
ġayr mustaqīm 42 Ḥadīṯ, use as linguistic evidence 65 f.
ġayr mutamakkin 16, 34f. ḫafaḍa 149, 158
ġayr wājib 11f., 46 ḫafḍ 16, 148–150, 156, 160
ġayr wāqiʿ 12 ḥāfiẓ 252
ġayr wāṣil 233 hal 151–154, 159
Gelder, Geert-Jan van 263 hal wa-ʾaḫawātuhā 159
gender 43 ḥāl 5, 167, 186, 215, 241
gender agreement 104, 106 ḥāl muʾakkida 187
gender of numerals 102 ḥāl muqaddar(a) 5, 167–170
generalization 206 ḥāl muqārina 173
Generative Grammar 28 ḥāl muṣāḥiba li-l-fiʿl 168
genitive 16 ḥāl mustaṣḥaba 169–171, 173 f.
genus 141 ḥāl, definition of 168
Giolfo, Manuela 7f., 115–145 ḥāl, ḏū l- 167
God’s names 64 ḥāl, ṣāḥib al- 167
Goguyer, Antonin 205 ḥāl, tense of 173 f.
Gontor pesantren 256, 264 Ḫalaf al-ʾAḥmar 158
Government, Theory of 43, 105 Ḫalīl, al- 15 f., 25, 27–29, 31 f., 52 f., 56–58, 67,
grammar books 255 77, 81, 159
grammar, Greek 125 Hall, Bruce 251
grammar, invention of 155 ḥalqa-system 253
grammar, pedagogical 7f., 146–166 Hamaḏānī, al- 62
grammar, study of 248–250 hamza 186, 241 f.
grammar, teaching of 254 Ḥanafī 245
grammar, theoretical 146 ḥaqīqī 238
Greek 135, 138f. ḥarf 44, 105, 118, 146, 152, 155
Greek grammar 125 ḥarf al-ḫafḍ 149 f., 160
Greek philosophy 7 ḥarf al-ibtidāʾ 150, 154, 156
Greenberg, Joseph 41 ḥarf al-ʾiʿrāb 156
Guillaume, Jean-Patrick 2f., 98, 105 ḥarf al-istiʾnāf 152
Ġulām Ṯaʿlab see Zāhid, al- ḥarf al-jarr 7, 146, 148–160
Gully, Adrian 127 ḥarf al-jazm 150
Gutas, Dimitri 117 ḥarf al-naṣb 150
ḥarf al-rafʿ 7, 146, 148–160
hāʾ ʿāʾida 136 ḥarf, definition of 158
ḫabar 15, 108, 125f., 133f., 139, 141, 152–154, Ḥasan, ʿAbbās 193 f.
156, 158, 190f. Hasan, Noorhaidi 262
274 index

ḥaṣr 138 Ibn Fāris 51, 55, 58 f., 212

ḫāṣṣ 204 Ibn Farīʿūn 153
ḫaṣṣaṣa 212 Ibn al-Furāt 116
ḥattā 11, 159 Ibn al-Ḥājib 96 f., 103, 105, 110, 191, 200, 203,
hayʾa 168 214, 217 f., 247, 250 f.
head noun 137f., 141 Ibn Ḫālawayhi 55
heaviness 17 Ibn Ḫaldūn 51
Hebrew 148 Ibn Harma 66
hierarchy 6, 18, 22f., 41, 43, 45 Ibn Ḫarūf 214
hierarchy in language 40 Ibn al-Ḫaššāb 172
hierarchy of categories 17 Ibn Hišām 55, 173 f., 190 f., 194, 198–200, 205,
ḫiffa 18, 37, 42, 44 215 f., 247 f., 256 f.
Ḥigāzī, Maḥmūd Fahmī 2 Ibn Jinnī 5, 59, 78, 116, 148, 160, 212, 217, 219
ḥikāya 28 Ibn Kaysān 67, 147, 150, 153
ḥikāya as proper name 19 Ibn Maḍāʾ 57, 254
Hilāl, Hayṯam 217 Ibn Mālik 7, 76, 194, 197–199, 205, 215 f., 245–
ḥilya 26f. 250, 254, 256 f., 259, 263
Hišām ibn Muʿāwiya 78 Ibn Manẓūr 52, 65–67, 182
Hodges, Wilfrid 7, 115–145 Ibn Manẓūr see Lisān al-ʿArab
homonym 61, 109 Ibn al-Marzubān al-Bāḥiṯ 62
Howell, Mortimer 39 Ibn Masʿūd, ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAlī 251
ḥuḍūr 174 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ 124
ḥujja 55 Ibn al-Naḥḥās 82
ḥukm 216 Ibn Qutayba 62, 64 f., 76, 79, 159
ḥukm al-ḫiṭāb 129 Ibn al-Rūmī 66, 83
ḥurūf see ḥarf Ibn al-Sarrāj 2, 5 f., 63, 65, 77, 98, 102 f., 109–
ḥūšī 63 111, 125, 146, 148 f., 167–170, 208, 229, 233,
huwa 151 235, 237 f., 240, 243, 246, 263
Ḫwārizmī, al- 153 Ibn al-Sīd see Baṭalyawsī, al-
hyperbole 84 Ibn Sīda 51, 58, 67, 212
Ibn al-Sikkīt 6, 67, 123
ʿibāra 216, 237 Ibn Sīnā 7, 115–145
ʾibhām 209 Ibn Šuqayr 158
Ibn ʾAbī ʾIsḥāq 16 Ibn Ṭaymiyya 245
Ibn ʾAbī l-Rabīʿ 82, 150 Ibn ʿUṣfūr 215
Ibn ʾĀjurrūm 156, 206, 245, 247f., 250f., 257, Ibn Wallād 154 f.
260 Ibn al-Warrāq 210 f., 219
Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, ʾAbu Bakr 59 Ibn Yaʿīš 34, 46, 63, 103, 175, 194 f., 214
Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, ʾAbū l-Barakāt 57, 59, 157, 214, ibtidāʾ 150–152, 154 f.
220 ibtidāʾ, bi-l- 154
Ibn ʿAqīl 24, 194, 198, 200, 215f., 247–249, 257 ʾiḍāfa 36, 102, 108, 136 f., 140 f., 203 f., 206,
Ibn al-ʾAʿrābī 52 210–212, 215
Ibn ʿĀšūr, Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir 158 ʾiḍāfa ġayr maḥḍa 220 f.
Ibn al-ʾAṯīr 65 ʾiḍāfa ḥaqīqiyya 215
Ibn Bābašāḏ 78, 187 ʾiḍāfa lafẓiyya 213
Ibn al-Dahhān 63 ʾiḍāfa maḥḍa 215, 220 f.
Ibn al-Ḍāʾiʿ 80 ʾiḍāfa maʿnawiyya 213–215
Ibn Durayd 34, 53f., 56, 58, 62, 64f., 67 ʾiḍāfat al-ism li-l-ism 213
Ibn al-Faḫḫār 215 ʾiḏan 11
index 275

ʾiḍmār 182 infiʿāl 104

ʾifāda 123f., 126 inflection 13
iftiʿāl al-ʿarabiyya 54 inflection, partial 13, 30 f.
iftiḫār 85, 91 information 125 f., 130
ʾiġrāʾ 193, 198–200 information, conveying of 123, 126
ʾiḫbār 192 information, metaphysical 124
ʾiḫbārī 191 informational content 133
iḫtaṣṣa 208, 210–212, 216 ʾinnamā 80, 150–152, 156 f.
iḫtilāf al-lafẓayn 61 innovation 6
iḫtilāf al-maʿnayayn 61 ʾinšāʾ 110f., 190 f., 200
iḫtiṣāṣ 193, 207, 209, 215, 221 ʾinšāʾ ʾīqāʿī 191
ʾijrāʾ 15 ʾinšāʾ ṭalabī 191
ijtihād 78 ʾinšāʾī 191
Ikeda, Osamu 191 inṣarafa 11–49
iktasaba 211 inṣirāf 14f., 21
ʿilāj 241 intention of the speaker 169, 174
ʿilal see ʿilla interjection 192
ʿilla 57, 66, 110, 205 interlocutor 122, 214
ʿilla muʾaṯṯira 107 internet, discussions about Arabic on 256–
illocutionary 190, 200 263
ʿilm al-balāġa 7 interrogative 38
ʿilm al-lisān 51 intransitive 231
ʿilm al-luġa 51 intransitive, double 241
ʿilm al-naḥw 50 inversion 206
ʿilm al-waḍʿ 7, 68 ʾīqāʿī 191
imperative 192 iqtaṣara 209
ʾImrīṭī, al- 247 iqtirān 173 f.
Imruʾ al-Qays 66, 83 ʾiʿrāb 8, 60 f., 107, 159, 235, 238
ʿinda 151, 159 ʾiʿrāb al-fiʿl 46
indeclinable 34 ʾiʿrāb al-ism 46
indeclinable noun 108 irregularity 42
indefinite 14, 20–23, 32, 35–38, 41, 129, 208f., irtafaʿa 152
211 ʿĪsā ibn ʿUmar 51 f., 77
indefinite expression 213, 221 ʾišāra 132, 183
indefinite, morphosyntactically 139 ism 23, 43, 82, 99, 118, 127, 130 f., 133 f., 152–158
indefinite noun 205, 209, 215f., 219 ism ʿalam 130, 182
indefinite, pragmatically 135–137 ism al-fāʿil 109
indefiniteness 8, 13, 21, 109, 140, 205, 207, 211, ism al-mafʿūl 109, 236
213 ism al-tafḍīl 109
indefiniteness, marker of 21 ism ʾišāra 183
indeterminate 135 ism fiʿl 193
indetermination 205 ism kāna 175
India, Arabic in 251ff. ism matā 159
India, education in 251–253 ism mubham 6, 182 f., 188
indicator 158 ism wāḥid 23
Indo-European 43 ismiyya 34
Indonesia 247f., 255 istafāda 136
Indonesia, education in 262 istaġnā 230
infaʿala 104, 231 ištiġāl 12
276 index

istiʾnāf 150 kalima 15, 118

ištiqāq 64 kam 84 f., 88, 151
ištirāk 214, 221 kāna 231
ittifāq al-lafẓayn 61 kāna al-nāqiṣa 175
iyyā- 192–198, 200 kāna, ʾaḫawāt 146
Kasher, Almog 7, 146–166
Jackendoff, Ray 137 kātib 153
jadal 125 kay 12
Jāḥiẓ, al- 60f. kayfa 151–153
Jakobson, Roman 42 Kinberg, Naphtali 208
jamʿ 60 Kisāʾī, al- 52, 67, 68, 149
jamʿ al-luġa 51 Koerner, Konrad 2
jamāʿa 127 Kouloughli, Djamel Eddine 3, 89, 98, 105
jamīʿ 40 Kufans 45 f., 57, 66 f., 77 f., 91, 108, 148–151, 156
Jāmī, ʾAbu Barkat Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān kull 138 f., 142
251 kullī 138
jamʿiyya 106 Kumayt, al- 66
jarā 15 Kunkī, Sī ʾIbrāhīm al- 250
Jārim, ʿAlī al- 256 Kurāʿ al-Naml 6, 64
Jarmī, al- 77
jarr 146, 148–160 lā 46, 89
jawāb bi-l-fāʾ 156 labs 209
Jawālīqī al- 63 labs, wuqūʿ al- 209
jawhar 124 Laffan, Michael 255
jazama 156, 158 lafẓ 58, 170, 174
jazm 12, 155 lafẓat al-taqdīr 138
Jedda 255 lākin 15, 150
Jirjāwī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim ibn ʿAwaḍ al- 249 Langendonck, Willy van 24, 26 f.
Jumaḥī, al- 155–157 language, notion of 4
jumla 216, 232 laqab 132
jumla ḫabariyya 192 Larcher, Pierre 81, 97 f., 103, 110, 191, 200, 207,
jumla ʾiḫbāriyya 191 214, 217
jumla ʾinšāʾiyya 191 lāta 35, 38
Jurjānī, al- 5–7, 50, 60, 213, 219, 229, 238–243, Latin 264
247–249, 252 Latin in Medieval Europe 138
Jurjānī, al-Sayyid al-Šarīf 206, 251f. lawlā 151, 155 f.
jussive 191 laysa 35, 38, 231
juzʾī 138 Layṯ ibn al-Muẓaffar, al- 81
juzʾiyya 138 lāzim 104
Juzūlī, al- 22, 214 Levin, Aryeh 3, 5, 167–177, 182, 186–188
lexica 51 f.
kāf in demonstratives 184f. lexica, arranged according to pattern 63
Kafawī, ʾAbū l-Baqāʾ al-Ḥusaynī al- 191, 216 lexica, arranged according to root 53
Kafrāwī, Ḥasan al- 247–249, 256 lexica, arranged alphabetically 58, 63
kalām 12, 35f., 53, 190, 212, 230 lexica, arrangement of 67
kalām al-ʿArab 57, 118 lexica, mubawwab see mubawwab
kalām, completion of 230, 238 lexica, mujannas see mujannas
kalām, tadāḫul al- 63 lexica, onomasiological 58
kalim 150 lexica, Qurʾānic 64
index 277

lexica, semasiological 58 maḥmūl 134

lexical meaning 51 maḫṣūṣ 139, 204 f., 208
lexicography 7, 50–75 maḫṣūṣ bi-l-madḥ wa-l-ḏamm 205, 208
lexicography, Kufan 66 majāz 85
li- 221 majhūl 123
lightness 17, 37–39, 105f. majrā 15, 34, 182
linguistic data 51 majrūr 105
linguistic sciences 55 majrūr bi-l-ḥarf 105
linguistic sciences, classification of 50f. makān 34
Lisān al-ʿArab 14f., 34, 52, 65, 67, 182, 195 makāna 334
Lisān al-ʿArab see Ibn Manẓūr Makram, ʿAbd al-ʿĀl Sālim 98
listener 129f. Malaysia, education in 253
local domain 28 malfūẓ 171
locutionary 190 Mali 250, 255
logic 115–145 Mali, education in 255 f.
logic and grammar 7 malleability of language 39, 42
logic, Arabic 122 Maltzahn, Nadia von 246
logic, categorical 138f. maʿlūm 123, 208
logic, Greek 116 mamdūd 59 f.
logic, justification of 123 Mamluks 246
logic, Peripatetic 115f., 118, 131, 133 mamnūʿ min al-ṣarf 44
logic, translation of 123f. maʿnā 26, 46, 58, 61, 84, 142
Loimeier, Roman 248 maʿnā l-ʾiḍāfa 108
luġa 16, 50–53, 55f., 58, 61 maʿnā l-tanwīn 182
luġawiyyūn 51–53, 55, 59 maʿnā l-waṣf 103
Luġda 7, 146, 149, 152 manfaʿa 125
Lyons, John 22, 24, 123, 140, 219 mankūr 128
manqūl 240
mā 231 manṣūb 102
mā lā yanṣarif 15–18, 24, 33, 39–41, 44f. manṭiqiyyūn 118
mā yanṣarif 15, 17f., 24, 39f., 41, 44 manʿūt 209, 211 f., 214
maʿa 195 manzila 23, 32, 84, 140, 184 f.
maʿānī l-naḥw 50, 243 Maqdisī, al- 246
maʿānī see maʿnā maqṣūr 59 f.
Maʿarrī, al- 66, 76 marfūʿ 151
madḥ 212 maʿrifa 4, 17, 20, 23–25, 31 f., 35, 126 f., 129, 133,
Madinah series of textbooks 259, 263 141, 182 f., 209, 213–216
madrasa 246, 250, 253, 255f., 262, 264 marked 41 f.
maʿdūl 20 markedness theory 6, 41 f., 44
mafāʿil 22f. marker, declensional 43
mafhūm 106, 129 marker, feminine 59, 104
mafʿūl 13, 108, 155, 157, 160, 167, 230, 233, marker of indefiniteness 21
238–241 marker of plural 36
mafʿūl bihi 157, 232, 235 marker, person 38
mafʿūl muṭlaq 192 Marogy, Amal 1, 128
Maghreb, education in 253 Marzūqī, al- 8
maḥall 105f., 110, 149, 159 masculine 18 f., 35, 41 f., 59, 104
maḥḍ 192, 220f. maṣdar 109, 229 f., 241
maḥḏūr 194 maṣdar manṣūb bi-fiʿl muḍmar 192
278 index

masʾūl 122 mubham mustaqirr 109

Maʿṣūm ibn ʿAlī, Muḥammad 248, 262 mubtadaʾ 6, 12, 108, 133–137, 139 f., 146, 154,
matā 153 159
matbūʿ 216 mubtadiʾ 146
Mattā ibn Yūnus 116–121 muḍāf 126, 139, 155, 182, 210–212, 215, 237
Mauritania 250 muḍāf ʾilayhi 102, 105–109, 210–212
mawḍiʿ 37f., 91, 129, 184 mudāḫal 62
mawḍūʿ 134 muḏakkar 18, 59
mawqiʿ 118 muḍāraʿa 36, 43
mawṣūf 105f., 135, 212 muḍāriʿ 12, 45 f.
Māzinī, al- 50, 77 muḍiyy 209
M-definite see definite, morphosyntactically muḍmar 192
meaning, lexical 51 Mufaḍḍal ibn Salama 59
Mecca 255 mufīd 126
Meccan type of instruction 247 muḥaḏḏar 194, 198
Medina, university of 259 muḥaḏḏar minhu 194
memorization 55, 247, 252f., 263 muḥaddaṯ 122
memorization of the Qurʾān 250, 262 muḥaḏḏir 194
message 126 muḥāl 169 f.
metaphor 84 muḫālif 142
metonymy 13 Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, ʾIsmāʿīl
Milner, Jean-Claude 22 217 f.
min 100f. Muḥammad ibn Sādān al-Ḍarīr 78
M-indefinite see indefinite, morphosyntacti- muḫaṣṣaṣ 208, 212, 215 f.
cally muḫaṣṣiṣ 210, 212, 215–217, 219
minimal domain 28 muḫāṭab 23, 26, 122, 127–130, 136, 141, 198,
minimal sentence 28 214
miṣr 53 muḫāṭaba 184 f.
miṯāl 25, 36 muḥdaṯūn 83
miṯl 136f. muhmal 139
mobility 39 muḫtaṣṣ 208, 214
Morocco, education in 253 mujannas 51, 58, 65–67
Muʿāḏ al-Ḥarrāʾ 78, 82 mujīb 122, 136
muʾakkid 187 mukaḏḏib 120
muʾannaṯ 18, 59 mulāqī 233
muʿarrab 58 munakkar 212
muʿarraf 212 munakkir 212
muʿarrif 212 munawwan 100
muʾaṯṯir 107, 215, 232f., 235 munqaṭiʿ 42
mubāhāh 85, 91 munṣarif 6, 14 f., 17, 34, 37, 42
Mubarrad, al- 2, 5f., 22, 59, 61, 63, 77, 90, muqaddar 167–176
98, 100–103, 109–111, 125, 137, 141, 146, muqaddima 129
148, 150, 156, 169, 172, 208, 231–233, 235, muqārin 173
263 muʿrab 34
mubawwab 51, 58–61, 64f., 67 murād 213
mubdal 212 Murāġī, ʿAbdallāh Muṣṭafā al- 217
mubdal minhu 212 muṣāḥib 168
mubham 6, 26, 45, 100, 103, 109, 126, 182f., mušajjar 62
188, 211 musalsal 62
index 279

musāmaḥa 155 naqīḍ 119

musammā 21, 82, 130 naṣaba 156, 158
musnad 50, 239 naṣb 12, 105, 151, 154 f., 158 f.
musnad ʾilayhi 50 Nāṣif al-Miṣrī, Ḥifnī Bek 249, 254
mustaʿār 233 naʿt 153, 182, 204, 206, 209, 212, 214 f.
mustaʿmal 63 native speaker 112
mustaqbal 156 Nawawī, Muḥammad 248
mustaqīm 42, 129 naẓīr 31, 86
mustaqirr, mubham 109 naẓm 50
muštarak 45, 61f. negation 7, 119–121, 139 f.
mustaṣḥab 168–171, 173f. negation, contradictory 119, 121
mustaṯnā 212 neologism 54, 57
mustaṯnā minhu 212 nidāʾ 191, 210
mutaʿaddī 230, 232, 235f., 238, 241 Niger 250
mutakallim 107, 121, 127f., 214 niʿma 15, 151, 156
muʿtall 31f. nomination 19, 24 f., 27, 40
mutamakkin 16, 18–21, 33–38, 40, 44 non-assertive 6, 12
Mutanabbī, al- 66, 76, 83 non-definite 20 f., 23
mutarādif 61f. noun 126, 149
mutarāḫī 184 noun phrase, plural 140
muṭlaq 80, 192 noun, definite 126 f., 215
muṭlaq al-ʿadad 104 noun, definition of 127 f.
muwaḍḍiḥ 216 noun, indeclinable 10
muwallad 66 noun, indefinite 205, 209, 215 f., 219
muwalladāt 57 noun, properties of 138
Mūzanī, al- 120 noun, referential properties of 36–38
numerals 5, 96–114, 210, 216
naʿata 209 numerals, basic 100–102
nabbaha 184, 187 numerals, gender of 102
Nābiġa al-Ḏubyānī, al- 66 numerals in a vocative 210
Nābiġa al-Jaʿdī, al- 66 numerals, subsidiary 100–102
nādir 53f., 56 nūn, compensatory 103
Naḍr ibn Šumayl, al- 52 nuʿūt see naʿt
nafaḏa 231
naffaḏa 243 oath 37
nāfiḏ 242 object 167, 196, 229–244
nafs 192, 196 object, counted 100–104, 106 f.
nafy 119 object, direct 13, 229 f., 236, 238, 241 f.
naḥārīr 57 object of praise and blame 204
Naḥḥās, al- 7, 78, 80, 148f., 151, 156 operator 150, 156
naḥt 60 operator of the predicate 152
naḥw 50–53, 55, 58–61, 110, 262 operator of the rafʿ 154
naḥw, tabsīṭ al- 254 order 191
naḥwa 136 order, right 122
naḥwiyyūn 50–53, 55–57, 59, 61, 150 Owens, Jonathan 2 f., 33 f., 41, 233, 148
nahy 191, 197
nakira 14–18, 20, 23f., 32, 35f., 40, 129, 136, Pakistan, Arabic in 251, 252
206, 209–211, 213–216, 221 paraphrase 140–142
naqala 240 partial declension 30
280 index

partial declinability 35, 44 pronoun, demonstrative see demonstrative

partial inflection 16, 30f. pronoun, relative see relative pronoun
participle, active 45, 98f., 102, 168, 188, 208 proper name 6, 13 f., 19, 22 f., 24–32, 34 f., 41,
particle 21, 119, 146, 149, 153, 156 45, 126, 130–133, 135, 139
particle, sentence-introducing 156 proper name, definition of 130
particle, vocative 183, 210 proper name, etymology of 64
particularization 5, 193, 203–228 proper name, foreign 41
partitive 100f. proper name, demonstrative as 185
parts of speech 102, 146, 155 proper name, relative as 19
patient 235 property, distinctive 132
P-definite see definite, pragmatically proverbs 53
pedagogical grammar 7f., 146–166
Peled, Yishai 108, 150 qabl 41, 44, 159
performative 24, 110, 190 qablu 20
performative, primary 5, 191 qaddara 211
perlocutionary 190 Qaḥṭānī, Muḥyī l-Dīn al- 249
permutation of roots 58 Qālī, al- 58, 67, 79, 85
Persian 132, 134, 245 qallamā 90
person marker 38 qarāba 26
personal pronoun 126, 131, 135f., 139, 152, 154, Qazzāz al-Qayrawānī, al- 62
156, 159 Qifṭī, al- 63, 160
personal pronoun, third person 182 qirāʾāt 5, 78
pesantren 247f., 256 qiyās 57, 66, 104
philologists 51, 61 quadriliterals 54
phonetics 262 qualification 207 f., 211 f., 214, 219, 221
pilgrimage, transmission of knowledge during qualification, adjectival 206, 215
255 qualification, attributive 216
P-indefinite see indefinite, pragmatically qualification of an indefinite noun 209, 215
plasticity 39, 43 qualifier 30
plural 60 quantified, existentially 141
plural marker 36 quantifier 137
poetry 53, 55f., 60, 66f. quasi-determination 206 f.
poetry narrators 61 Qudāma ibn Jaʿfar 62
poetry, language of 112, 122 quinqueliterals 54, 57
poetry, pre-Islamic 66, 83 Qurʾān 64
poetry used in šawāhid 55 Qurʾān, exegesis of 245
polysemy 45, 61 Qurʾān, language of 112, 122
possession 102f. Qurʾān, memorization of 252, 262
pragmatics 14, 111, 126, 207, 214 Qurʾān, translation of 245
praise 192 Quṭrub 62
precursorism 4 quwwa 90, 110
predicate 134, 138, 152, 156
predicate, verbal 167f., 170 rafʿ 11, 105, 146, 148–160, 232
predication 98f., 105 rafʿ al-ištirāk 214
preposition 105, 149f., 154, 216 rafaʿa 152–155, 158
principle of locality 28 Raḥmān, Ṭāriq 251
prohibition 191 rajaz 55 f.
pronoun 126 rare words 54
pronoun, personal see personal pronoun Rāzī, Faḫr al-Dīn al- 120
index 281

reasoning, language used for 123 school, modernization of 256

Reckendorf, Hermann 167, 191f., 205 school, Western-style 253
reference 6, 11–49 Sehalvi, Nizamuddin 251
reference, deictic 27 semantic 127
reference, indefinite 132 semantic relationship 61
referentiability 219 sentence, affirmative 190
regularity 31 sentence, categorical 140
relative pronoun 127 sentence, equational 133
relative pronoun as proper name 19 sentence, imperative 190
reproach 192 sentence, interrogative 190
restriction 137, 206 sentence, mubtadaʾ/ḫabar 139
rhetoric 123 sentence, negative 190
root 67 sentence, nominal 133
Ruʿaynī al-Ḫaṭṭāb, al- 247, 249 sentence, prohibitive 190
Ruʾba 66 sentence, topicalized verbal 133
rubba 6, 76–95 sentence, topic-comment 134, 141
rubbamā 87–90 sentence, verbal 135
Rumman academy 254 Sezgin, Fuat 81, 148, 158
Rummānī, al- 77, 212, 217, 219 Sheyhatovitch, Beata 125 f.
Sībawayhi 1, 3, 5 f., 11–50, 52, 54, 56–61, 63–
Sadan, Arik 6, 157, 160, 178–189 65, 77, 84, 92, 98 f., 103, 109, 111, 119–123,
šāḏḏ 54, 197 125–131, 133, 137, 139, 141, 148, 154–157,
Šāfiʿī, al- 217, 245 167–189, 191, 194–197, 199 f., 203, 207 f.,
Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād, al- 58 219f., 229, 231, 233, 238, 242 f., 263
šāhid 52, 55f., 58, 60, 62, 66f., 83 šibh 136f.
sāʾil 122 ṣifa 17, 19, 26, 30, 64, 86, 88, 106, 150 f., 154,
Sakaedani, Haruko 5, 190–202 212f., 216
Sakkākī, al- 50 ṣifa, bi-l- 154
Salafis 257, 262 ṣifa mušabbaha bi-l-fāʿil 98 f., 109, 111
salutation 192f. ṣifa muštaqqa 105
Samāra, Rāʾif 53 Sijistānī, al- 54, 59 f., 62, 65, 67
sāmiʿ 123 ṣināʿat al-luġa 138
sammā 36 ṣinf 229
Šammāḫ, al- 66 singular 139
Šantamarī al-ʿAlam al- 15, 91 šiʿr 55f., 60 f.
Sānū, Quṭb Muṣṭafā 217 Sīrāfī, al- 7, 60, 63, 78, 115–145, 171, 209, 219,
ṣarafa 15 229, 238–243
ṣarf 6, 14–17, 20, 43f., 50f., 248, 262 Širbīnī, al- 17, 206, 257
ṣarf, mamnūʿ min al- 44 Sous 250
ṣarf, tark al- 20, 32, 43 speaker 111 f., 129 f., 135
Sartori, Manuel 5, 7, 101, 203–228 speaker, native 112
satisfiability 138 speaker’s intention 128
Saussure, Ferdinand de 4 specialization 206 f.
šawāhid see šāhid species 102 f., 208 f.
šayʾ 126f., 135 specification 5, 99, 103, 105, 107, 109, 193,
Šaybānī, al- 52f., 63, 67 203–228
Šaylaḫānī, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al- 217 specificity 203, 219
school see madrasa specifier 100, 102, 106, 137 f., 140–142
school see pesantren Speech Act Theory 5, 191
282 index

speech acts 190f. taʿlīl 82

speech, tripartite division of 191 Talmon, Rafael 33, 156–159
Stewart,Charles 251 tamakkana 33–35
strength 102 tamakkun 3, 17–20, 36–40, 43
strength, syntactic 100f., 110f. tamām 106
structuralism 42 tamām al-kalām 108
subject 134, 138, 156f. Tamari, Tal 264
subject, logical 134 taʿmīm 206
Sufis 245, 249, 253 tamyīz 5, 100–103, 106, 108 f., 111, 206 f., 216,
Sufism 247 219
Suhaylī, al- 214 tamyīz, numerical 102
Sunniforum 251, 257–263 tanbīh 198
suppletive insertion 66 tankīr 5, 205–207, 210, 212, 216, 219
sūr 138 tanwīn 6, 13–18, 21, 24, 32 f., 35, 40, 43–45,
Sūsī, Muḥammad al-Muḫtār al- 250 100, 182
Suyūṭī, al- 54, 63, 82, 91, 173 tanwīn al-ṣarf 17
synchrony 3 tanwīn al-tamakkun 34
synonyms 61 tanwīn al-tamkīn 17
syntactic categories, theory of 38 tanwīn, compensatory 32
syntactic strength 100f., 110f. taqdīr 57, 66, 134, 138, 169–176, 186
Syriac 135 taqlīb 58
taqlīl 76–78, 80–86, 88, 91 f.
tāʾ marbūṭa 103f. taqrīb ʿalā l-mubtadiʾ 146, 175
taʿaddā 13, 236, 238 taqsīm 154
taʿajjub 231 taqyīd 80, 137
Ṯaʿālibī, al- 212 Ṭarafa 66
taʿarrafa 141f., 209f. tarāfuʿ 108, 151
tābiʿ 108, 216 taraka ʿalā ḥālihi 186
tabsīṭ al-naḥw 254 taʿrīf 128, 132, 136, 204–207, 210–212, 215 f.,
tadāḫul al-kalām 63 219–221
taḏkīr 20 tark al-ṣarf 20, 32, 43
tafḍīl 221 tarkeeb method 260 f.
tafsīr 52, 250 tasammuḥ 155, 157
taġyīr 27, 141 taṣarruf 14, 39
Taha Hussein 245–247 taṣġīr 60
Taha, Zeinab 6, 229–244 taṣrīf 14
taḫaṣṣuṣ 217 taṯniya 60, 185
taḥdīd 132 tawābiʿ see tābiʿ
taḥḏīr 5, 190–202 tawḍīḥ 5, 213–216, 219
taḫfīf 15 Tawfīq, ʾAmīra ʿAlī 97, 107
taʾḫīr 206 Tawḥīdī, ʾAbu Ḥayyān al- 116
taḫliṣ 212 taʾwīl 169
taḥqīr 185 tawkīd 89 f.
taḫṣīṣ 5, 101, 203–228 tawlīd al-ʾalfāẓ 54
taḫṣīṣ al-ʿilla 205, 212 Tawwazī, al- 62
taḫṣīṣ, definition of 205–207 taysīr ʿalā l-mubtadiʾ 175
takṯīr 76–78, 80–82, 84f., 87f., 91f. télos 125
ṭalab 190 tense of the ḥāl 173 f.
ṭalabī 191 terminology 3
index 283

terminology, grammatical 260 verb, assimilated 45 f.

test, proper names as 25, 27 verb, causative 240
textbooks, Madinah series of 259, 263 verb, classification of 6, 229–244
textbooks, Western 259f. verb, declension of 46
Theodorus 134 verb, experiential 241
Tiam, Aboubakar 255 verb, intransitive 229–244
Timbuktu 250 verb, metaphorical 231
ṯiqal 18 verb, non-real 231, 233, 238
Ṭirimmāḥ, al- 66 verb of cognition 241
topic 134f., 141 verb of sense 238
topic-comment 133 verb of the limbs 241
Toure, Saada 255 verb, phrasal 143
transitive, doubly 240f. verb, real 231, 233, 238
transitivity 229–244 verb, state 241
transitivity, morphological patterns of 237 verb, transitive 229–244
transitivity, syntactic test for 236 verbal noun 192, 196
translation 247, 255 verbal patterns 60
transmission of religious knowledge 253f. verbatim quotation 28
transposition 27–30, 32 Versteegh, Kees 8, 17, 32 f., 37–39, 82, 112,
triliterals 58 124f., 245–267
Troupeau, Gérard 14f., 178, 214 Viain, Marie 7, 154, 246, 263
Vidro, Nadia 148, 151, 154
ʿUmar, Yūsuf Ḥasan 98 virtual 12
ʿUmāra ibn ʿAqīl 55 virtual reference 22
ʿumda 105, 107 vocative 24, 28, 183
ʾUmm al-Hayṯam 54 vocative particle 210
ʾummahāt 248 voie diffuse 125
Umru l-Qays see Imruʾ al-Qays vyuo see chuo
ʿumūm 138, 209
ʿumūm al-ism 213 wa- 118f., 193, 198
underlying form 103–105, 107 wa- meaning maʿa 195
universal 138 waḍʿ 84
unmarked 41f. Wahhabi 255
unquantified 139 wāḥid 40
ʾurjūza 263 wajh 11f., 46
ʾUšmūnī, al- 248 waqaʿa 11 f., 23, 42, 168, 213, 236
ʾustāḏ 257 wāqiʿ 11f.
ʾuṣūl al-fiqh 5, 8, 204, 217 Waquet, Françoise 264
ʾuṣūl al-naḥw 67 warning 191, 193 f.
ʿuṣūr al-iḥtijāj 53, 66 waṣala 230, 238
utterance 190 wāṣala 232
utterance, constative 191 waṣf 103, 169, 206, 212, 221
utterance, meaningful 111 wāṣil 232f., 235, 243
utterance, performative 91 waṣṣala 243
wazn 25
vagueness 111 Wehr, Hans 257
valency 6, 233, 242f. Weiss, Bernard 217
verb 43, 229–244 West Africa, Arabic in 251
verb, admirative 28, 231, 240 Western linguistics 4
284 index

Western textbooks 259f. Zajjāj, al- 77, 91, 187

Wilmet, Marc 25 Zajjājī, al- 6 f., 17, 36–38, 51, 64, 77–80, 146,
wish 192f. 148, 150, 152, 154, 160, 208, 214, 229, 233,
word class 27, 28 235, 237 f., 243
words, non-Arabic 56 Zamaḫšarī, al- 46, 65 f., 90, 97, 126–128, 133,
Wright, William 167, 192f., 205 196–200, 213–215, 219, 246
wujūh see wajh Zanjānī, ʿIzz al-Dīn al- 248
wuqūʿ 216 Zanzibar 249
wuqūʿ al-labs 209 Zanzibar, Arabic in 252
Zanzibar, education in 252
x-bar Theory 137 ẓarf 16, 19, 34 f., 149, 152–154, 159, 169
ẓarf al-dahr 35, 38
Yazīdī, ʿAbdallāh ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Mubārak al- ẓarf as ʿāmil 174
64 ẓarf, interrogative 156
Yazīdī, Yaḥyā ibn al-Mubārak al- 52 ẓarf, predicative 156
Yaʿqūb, ʾImīl Badīʿ 206 Zawāwī, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī al- 250
Yūnus ibn Ḥabīb 16, 31f., 51f., 77, 137 ziyāda 23
Zubaydī, al- 51, 60, 148, 150, 153
Zadeh, Travis 245f. Zuhayr 66
Zāhid, ʾAbū ʿUmar Ġulām Ṯaʿlab al- 62f., 65 ẓurūf see ẓarf