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Abstract
The paper deals with the issues of the historical existence of the grammatical schools of Basra and Kufa, of the relationship between Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?) and his alleged most outstanding pupil, al-ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ (d. 215/830), and of the reputation of Sībawayhi as a grammatical authority in the 2nd/8th and early 3rd/9th centuries.
In the first part (section 1) evidence from biographical, historiographical, and literary sources demonstrates that the reputation of Sībawayhi was considerable, if not properly during his life, at least starting from the very first years after his early death, and that al-ʾAḫfaš was perceived as the heir and successor of Sībawayhi’s teaching at the very least already at the beginning of the 3rd/9th century.
In the second part (sections 2 and 3) a comparative study of the Qurʾānic quotations found in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb and in al-ʾAḫfaš’s Maʿānī al-Qurʾān shows, on a textual basis, that both authors express a common scholarship that can only be explained by admitting the existence, in 2nd/8th century’s Basra, of a scholarly circle of people concerned with the way of speech (naḥwiyyūn), if not properly a grammatical school, of which both Sībawayhi and al-ʾAḫfaš were obviously part.
Abstract
The ‘profile of the speaker’ is the lens through which the present study will look into the Arabic linguistic tradition after Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?). Where the speaker appears in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb as an originator and arbiter, it comes across as a learner in the works of his successors. Notwithstanding some later attempts at restoring the profile of the speaker as an originator, the study will show that the change of the profile of the speaker reveals a shift in approach to linguistic analysis away from Sībawayhi’s. The causes of this shift and its impact on the development of the Arabic linguistic tradition will be examined.
Abstract
The 4th/10th century logician al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) often mentions grammar. It has been suggested that his views on grammar put him at odds with the Arabic grammarians such as Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?). But on closer inspection we find that the views of al-Fārābī and Sībawayhi on grammar are complementary rather than opposed. Al-Fārābī is interested in languages at an abstract level—where they come from and what needs they meet; he hopes to give a general account by exploiting the notion of similarity. Sībawayhi by contrast takes the Arabic language as given and seeks to describe it in detail. It is not hard to illustrate some of al-Fārābī’s general points with examples taken from Sībawayhi. Perhaps the most significant differences between al-Fārābī and Sībawayhi in their views of grammar are al-Fārābī’s broader intellectual perspective and Sībawayhi’s greater scientific rigour.
Abstract
Overshadowed by the most famous al-Radd ʿalā al-nuḥāt by Ibn Maḍāʾ (d. 592/1196), the radd genre seems to have been particularly flourishing in al-Andalus and attests to the Andalusi intellectual activity in the field of grammatical studies. The article draws a list of 25 grammatical radd treatises, among which emerge the names of some of the most important Andalusi grammarians, either as authors or as targets of these refutations. The list also highlights the contribution to grammatical studies of some figures, such as the Sevillian Ibn Ḫarūf (d. 609/1212), who characterized themselves for their involvement in such debates. The article tries to evaluate the content and impact of these treatises: even though the great majority of these texts have not been preserved, indirect information provided by other grammatical works or biographical sources sheds some light on the issue. This allows to sketch the lines of possible intellectual networks and scholarly affiliations. Moreover, this points to two major opposing stances on Arabic grammar in al-Andalus: a polarity in terms of sources for grammatical teaching (al-Zaǧǧāǧī’s Ǧumal vs al-Fārisī’s ʾĪḍāḥ), and a deeper epistemological divide with regard to the purpose of grammar (auxiliary vs speculative science). These fraction lines might eventually relate with the textual history of Sībawayhi’s Kitāb.
Abstract
The aim of the present study is to examine the classification of mušabbah bi-l-mafʿūl (“pseudo-object”) by Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (d. 316/929) based on a consideration of the use and the transition of the grammatical concept of faḍla, which corresponds to laġw in the Kitāb of Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?). Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s major 10th-century work, Kitāb al-ʾUṣūl fī al-naḥw, is one of the oldest grammatical works that classified mafʿūl into five categories with well-defined terminologies. His treatise is characterized by the classification of each grammatical category based on the principles of comprehensive divisions and by the arrangement of chapters according to this classification. However, his manner of dividing mušabbah bi-l-mafʿūl is less assertive than his clear-cut classification of mafʿūl. According to his description, one may say that he recognized five types of “pseudo-objects”—ḥāl (“circumstantial qualifier”), tamyīz (“distinguishing element”), istiṯnāʾ (“disjunctive exception”), ḫabar kāna wa-ʾaḫawātihā (“the predicate of kāna and its related verbs”), and ism ʾinna wa-ʾaḫawātihā (“subject-noun of ʾinna and its related particles”)—as well as five types of “objects”—mafʿūl muṭlaq (“absolute object”), mafʿūl bihi (“direct object”), mafʿūl fīhi (“locative object”), mafʿūl lahu (“reason object”), and mafʿūl maʿahu (“accompaniment object”). He classified these pseudo-objects in terms of two aspects: the semantic relation between manṣūb and marfūʿ, and the grammatical category of ʿāmil (“operator”); that is, whether it is a true verb (fiʿl ḥaqīqī) or a non-real verb (fiʿl ġayr ḥaqīqī) or a particle (ḥarf). However, it seems that he fails to account for the reason why nidāʾ (“vocative”) and nafy bi-lā (“negation with lā”) are excluded from the category of “pseudo-objects”. Although Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s classification of mušabbah bi-l-mafʿūl was accepted by Ibn Ǧinnī (d. 392/1002) and al-Ǧurǧānī (d. 471/1078), some of the divided categories were modified, at least after the 7th/13th century, by grammarians like al-ʾAstarābāḏī (d. 688/1289 ?), Ibn Mālik (d. 672/1274), and their successors.