Approaches to the History and Dialectology of Arabic in Honor of Pierre

Larcher
 Studies in
Semitic Languages
and Linguistics

Editorial Board

A.D. Rubin and Ahmad Al-Jallad

volume 88

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ssl

Pierre Larcher 2015
 Approaches to the History
and Dialectology of Arabic in
Honor of Pierre Larcher

Edited by

Manuel Sartori
Manuela E.B. Giolfo
Philippe Cassuto

leiden | boston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sartori, Manuel, 1975- editor. | Giolfo, Manuela E. B. editor. | Cassuto,

Philippe, 1959- editor. | Larcher, Pierre, honouree.
Title: Approaches to the History and Dialectology of Arabic in Honor of Pierre
Larcher / edited by Manuel Sartori, Manuela E. B. Giolfo, Philippe Cassuto.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Studies in Semitic languages and
linguistics ; volume 88 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2016034686 (print) | lccn 2016037067 (ebook) |
isbn 9789004311503 (hardback : alk. paper) | isbn 9789004325883 (E-book)
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Contents

Avant-propos: Madrague, ‫مضر بة‬, almadraba, φυννειο, tonnara, νταλιανι,

dalyan xi
Louis-Jean Calvet
Acknowledgements xix
Linguistic Bibliography of Pierre Larcher xx
Notes on the Contributors xliv

Introduction 1

part 1
Semitic Linguistics

1 Switching of Labials in Biblical Hebrew 15

Philippe Cassuto

2 The Analytics of Writing, Exemplified by Arabic, the Youngest of the

Semitic Scripts 29
Joseph Dichy

3 Arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of High Rhetorical Value: A New

Comprehensive View of the Nemara Inscription 57
Manfred Kropp

4 Dia-Planar Diffusion: Reconstructing Early Aramaic-Arabic Language

Contact 77
Jonathan Owens

5 The masʾala zunbūriyya from a Semitic and Afroasiatic

Perspective 102
Lutz Edzard
viii contents

part 2
Arabic Grammatical Tradition

6 «Man Zaydan?» À propos de quelques cas curieux de ḥikāya chez

Sībawayhi 119
Jean-Patrick Guillaume

7 Inflectional Endings by Means of Short Vowels among Arab

Grammarians: Clues for the Deconstruction of a Grammatical
Ideology 129
Manuel Sartori

8 One Word, Two Functions. The Concept of Functional Replacement

in Traditional Syntactic Analysis 149
Ramzi Baalbaki

9 Ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: Really Two of a Kind? Some Notes on Zaǧǧāǧī’s
Treatment 172
Francesco Binaghi

10 The Role of Metaphor in the Interpretation of Prepositions: The

Arabic min and the French de 195
Nadia Anghelescu

11 Une corrélation retrouvée: nécessaire vs possible 213

Catherine Pinon

12 The System of the Sciences of the Arabic Language by Sakkākī: Logic

as a Complement of Rhetoric 242
Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Wilfrid Hodges

13 Teaching Arabic to the Angels: A Scherzo by al-Maʿarrī on Heavenly

Morphology 267
Martino Diez
contents ix

part 3
Arabic and Semitic Lexicology

14 L’emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 289

Georgine Ayoub

15 The Noun Pattern ʾufʿūlatun in Arabic Philological Tradition 327

Reinhard Weipert

16 Gerboise: l’entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de Louis xiv 342

Elie Kallas

17 On the Semitic Origin of the English Word fustian 362

Fabrizio Angelo Pennacchietti

18 La lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa: Les questions lexicales

du Kitāb al-hawāmil wa-l-šawāmil 371
Lidia Bettini

19 «Traitement» de l’«organisation» en arabe moderne de presse, ou le

point de vue d’une linguiste sur l’apparente synonymie
ʿilāǧ/muʿālaǧa et tanẓīm/munaẓẓama 390
Marie Baize-Varin

20 Ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie? 410

Alain Girod

part 4
Arabic and Semitic Dialectology

21 Fuṣḥā Arabic Vocabulary Borrowed by Mardini Arabic via

Turkish 435
George Grigore

22 Aspect Marking in Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi 451

Kees Versteegh
x contents

23 Jewish Writing in Arabic in Arabic Characters in the Nineteenth and

Twentieth Centuries 474
MariaLuisa Langella

24 Between Linguistics, Poetry, and Ideology: The Literary Periodical

L-ʾArzyāda in the Lebanese Language (June 2009 – October 2014).
General Presentation, Intellectual Impacts, Index of Authors, and
“Lebanese” Lexis 493
Arkadiusz Płonka

25 The Seven Deadly Sins of Arabic Studies 516

Michael George Carter

Postface: Acclamatio heroica 534

Claude Gilliot

Index of Bible Verses 539

Index of Names 540
Index of Subjects 549
 avant-propos

Madrague, ‫مضر بة‬, almadraba, φυννειο, tonnara,

νταλιανι, dalyan

Louis-Jean Calvet

Sollicité pour intervenir dans cet ouvrage d’hommages à Pierre Larcher, je me

sens un peu comme un fantassin invité au bal de la générale, illégitime et peut-
être un peu flatté. Je ne suis en effet pas arabisant, même si la langue arabe ne
m’ est pas tout à fait étrangère, et n’ai donc pas de compétences particulières
pour apparaître ici. La seule chose qui pourrait légitimer ma présence est
l’ amitié que je porte à Pierre Larcher et je vais donc tenter de naviguer à vue,
en Méditerranée comme on verra, entre le témoignage amical et la recherche
scientifique, en l’occurrence étymologique et toponymique.
J’ai connu Pierre il y a une quinzaine d’années, lorsque j’ ai décidé de quitter
la Sorbonne, où j’étais professeur, pour aller enseigner à l’ université de Pro-
vence, et nous avons très vite sympathisé et entretenu des discussions, le plus
souvent autour d’un repas. Nous étions en général en accord sur le plan scien-
tifique (sur la variation inhérente, sur l’idéologie linguistique, en particulier
dans le domaine de l’arabe, sur les représentations, sur la dialectalisation « des
arabes» tendant vers l’émergence d’arabes nationaux, etc.) et en désaccord
sur le plan politique. Mais là n’est pas le problème. Je suis intervenu deux ou
trois fois dans son séminaire, par exemple pour présenter une analyse ryth-
mique des slogans de la «révolution» égyptienne. Et, lors de nos rencontres
ou de nos échanges épistolaires, je l’ai souvent sollicité, chaque fois que j’ avais
un problème d’étymologie arabe, et chaque fois il volait à mon secours avec
compétence et clarté. Il m’a en particulier beaucoup aidé pour la partie arabe
d’ un livre sur l’histoire linguistique de la Méditerranée sur lequel j’ étais en
train de travailler (Calvet 2016). Le hasard a fait que dans ces échanges, je lui
avais un jour signalé une marque d’eau que j’avais trouvée en Tunisie, maïn, lui
demandant si l’on pouvait y voir un jeu de mots, ou un mot valise pour « eau
de source». Il m’avait en quelque sorte répondu par un article (Larcher 2013),
partant de cette interrogation pour développer la notion de « dérivation pivot»
en arabe. Comme en miroir, mais avec moins de compétences que lui, j’ ai donc
pensé logique de lui envoyer en retour, avec la modestie qui s’ impose à un non
spécialiste de l’arabe, le résultat d’une réflexion pour laquelle j’ ai eu recours à
ses lumières. Une sorte d’accusé de réception amical.
xii calvet

Il existe depuis très longtemps en Méditerranée une technique de pêche

aux thons rouges de l’Atlantique qui au printemps franchissent le détroit de
Gibraltar et viennent frayer dans les eaux chaudes, se déplaçant en suivant
les côtes dans le sens trigonométrique (ou sens inverse des aiguilles d’ une
montre). Cette technique consiste à piéger les bancs de ce poisson en disposant
sur leur parcours une sorte de labyrinthe de filets et de pieux disposés en
«chambres» pour les amener dans la «chambre de la mort », les poissons se
trouvant alors au-dessus d’un filet. Des bateaux vont ensuite se placer tout
autour et tirer lentement pour tendre le filet et ramener les poissons vers la
surface de la mer où l’on pourra les tuer en les assommant (voir Beucher).
En voici une description plus «bureaucratique» donnée par Belkheir
Ikkache, administrateur principal des affaires maritimes algériennes :

Constituée par un barrage en filets établis perpendiculairement au rivage

se terminant par une enceinte formant un piège où se fait la capture, la
madrague est divisée par des filets transversaux tendus verticalement,
pourvus de flotteurs et de poids, formant ainsi des compartiments ou
chambres constituant le corps de ce vaste filet à enclos où sont justement
retenus les poissons.
Elle est composée des parties suivantes :

– la queue qui dirige le poisson vers les chambres ;

– le corps qui est constitué d’une série de chambres, dont deux chambres
d’entrée, une de chaque côté de la queue de manière à recevoir les
poissons;
– la chambre de mort est la poche où les poissons sont capturés ;

Et se caractérise par un corps, une chambre de mort et une queue com-

posée d’une queue de terre ou filet de terre et d’ une queue de mer ou filet
de mer1.

Cette technique, qui a été mise en scène par Roberto Rosselini dans son film
Stromboli (1950), semble remonter aux Phéniciens, avoir été amenée en Médi-
terranée occidentale par les Phocéens vers le vie siècle avant j.-c., et elle se pra-
tique encore aujourd’hui en Sicile, en Algérie et en Tunisie. On trouve d’ ailleurs
au musée archéologique de Nabeul une planche concernant cette technique
de pêche et son nom arabe, maḍraba, ‫مضر بة‬, avec un d emphatique sur lequel

1 Dans un mensuel algérien en ligne, Le Phare 1655–1656.

madrague, ‫مضر بة‬, almadraba, φυννειο, tonnara, νταλιανι, dalyan xiii

nous allons revenir. L’italien nomme mattanza cette technique (et le patron de
la pêche s’appelle d’un mot arabe, le raïs), et tonnara le lieu où on la pratique,
on l’appelle madrago ou mendrago en provençal (daté du xive siècle par Alain
Rey dans son Dictionnaire historique de la langue française) et madrague (daté
du xvie siècle par Alain Rey) en français. Ces deux derniers mots sont géné-
ralement donnés comme venant de l’arabe madraba, « lieu où l’ on frappe»,
étymologie confirmée par la forme espagnole almadraba que Joan Corominas
commente ainsi: «lugar donde se pescan los atunes », ultimo tercio s. xiv. Del
ar. Madraba «lugar donde se golpea» (lieu où l’on pêche les thons (…) de l’ arabe
madraba lieu où l’on frappe). Mais le Petit Robert donne comme étymologie
l’ arabe al-maẓraba, «enceinte». Il est vrai que la racine arabe ḍrb, « frapper »,
est indiscutablement présente dans la forme espagnole, mais deux problèmes
se posent. Tout d’abord pourquoi une technique empruntée aux Phéniciens et
apportée par les Phocéens aurait-elle un nom arabe? Et par ailleurs comment
expliquer le passage de la structure consonantique arabe mḍrb à la struc-
ture mdrg et le passage d’un a à un ã pour la forme provençale? Quant à
l’ hypothèse al-maẓraba, du verbe ẓaraba, «faire entrer dans un enclos », elle
pose également des problèmes phonétiques (il faudrait expliquer à la fois le
passage de z à d et de b à g).
Une étymologie doit pouvoir répondre à deux critères, l’ un phonétique et
l’ autre sémantique, le passage d’une forme a à une forme b devant s’ expliquer
à la fois sur le plan de la forme et sur le plan du sens. Dans les deux cas, maḍraba
(lieu où l’on frappe) et maẓraba (lieu où on regroupe, enceinte), le critère
sémantique est plus ou moins rempli puisque ces deux étymologies arabes
correspondent également à la technique de pêche que nous avons décrite. En
outre elles ne sont pas nécessairement exclusives l’ une de l’ autre. Les deux
emphatiques ḍ et ẓ alternent en effet fréquemment dans les différentes formes
d’ arabe, et cette alternance ne concerne d’ailleurs pas que les emphatiques ni
que l’arabe. En espagnol par exemple, le nom de la ville de Madrid est souvent
prononcé, dans des registres populaires, Madriz. Il est donc très possible que
l’ on ait une alternance maḍraba/maẓraba qui se renforce en s’ appuyant sur
une alternance sémantique d’autant plus acceptable que les deux options
définissent l’une comme l’autre de façon satisfaisante la pêche à la madrague.
J’ ai dit qu’une étymologie devait à la fois satisfaire à des critères phonétiques et
sémantiques, et nous avons là deux branches d’une alternative qui toutes deux
satisfont à ces deux critères. Nous pourrions alors avoir une réinterprétation
en arabe, sous deux formes phonétiques différentes et avec deux sémantismes
différents, d’une forme venue d’une autre langue. Mais laquelle ? Et comment
expliquer que le b des formes arabes se soit transformé en g dans les formes
française et provençale? Phonétiquement en effet, un b final suivi de a ne peut
xiv calvet

pas se transformer en g, seule une forme comme madrab (sans a final) ayant pu
donner madrag. Mais alors, pourquoi le b se serait-il maintenu dans les formes
ibériques?
Si nous consultons le dictionnaire de Frédéric Mistral, le Tresor dou Feli-
brige, nous y lisons: « madrago, mendrago (cat. esp. almadraba) » et en
fin d’article «Conférer madrago avec le lat. mandra, parc, le gr. Μανδρα, id. »
Μανδρα signifiait en grec classique «enclos, enceinte». Il est passé en latin
avec le sens de «troupe (convoi) de bêtes de somme » et se trouve en italien sous
la même forme et avec le même sens. Dans les deux cas nous avons donc un trait
sémantique acceptable si l’on songe à la technique de pêche que j’ ai décrite,
même si mandra n’a jamais signifié madrague en grec, ce qui n’empêche
d’ailleurs pas les auteurs de l’Histoire des engins et techniques de pêche de faire
remonter le mot madrague au grec mandra-ago (Beucher : 21). Il y a en fait en
grec moderne deux mots désignant la madrague: φυννειο (thunneio) et νταλιανι
(dalyani). Le premier peut se traduire par «thonier » et pourrait être à l’ origine
de l’italien tonnara. Le second, qui désigne à la fois la pêche à la madrague
et le lieu où on la pratique est considéré par les Grecs comme un mot turc,
dalyan, qui à l’inverse est considéré par les Turcs comme un mot grec, signe
d’un mystère étymologique. Même si les choses sont donc déjà compliquées
nous pouvons y ajouter encore une autre piste. Il y avait en hébreu biblique un
hapax legomenon (un mot qui n’apparaît qu’une fois), MaDReGa (Cantique des
cantiques 2,14) qui a en hébreu moderne le sens de marche d’ escalier, de degré,
et la langue phénicienne étant très proche de l’ hébreu on pourrait imaginer
cette étymologie, les «degrés» étant les différentes chambres dans lesquelles
on faisait passer les thons pour les mener à la « chambre de la mort ». Nous
avons donc différentes pistes, mais rien jusqu’ici de définitif.
En fait, pour comprendre l’histoire de ce mot il nous faut peut-être revenir à
l’origine de la madrague et à sa circulation. Jean-Paul Beucher nous donne sur
ce point une piste en retraçant la chronologie de la diffusion de cette technique
de pêche: «Inventée par les Phéniciens, la pêche à la madrague est utilisée
par les Grecs de l’Antiquité pour capturer le thon rouge qu’ ils consomment
notamment mariné dans l’huile. Les Arabes ont perfectionné ce système de
capture, répandu tout autour de la Méditerranée » (Beucher).
Nous aurions donc deux voies de diffusion de cette technique de pêche, et il
resterait alors à interpréter en termes linguistiques la succession qui va du phé-
nicien à l’arabe puis à l’espagnol, et peut-être au provençal et au français d’ une
part, et d’autre part du phénicien au turc, au grec, à l’ italien et, toujours peut-
être, au provençal et au français. Lorsque les Arabes ont emprunté cette tech-
nique de pêche d’origine phénicienne ils ont sans doute emprunté en même
temps le mot qui la désignait. Mais quel mot? Nous disposons ici d’ une autre
madrague, ‫مضر بة‬, almadraba, φυννειο, tonnara, νταλιανι, dalyan xv

hypothèse2, reposant sur le fait que le r (la lettre « Resh») était souvent ajoutée
en phénicien à une racine pour en modifier légèrement le sens. Ainsi, à partir
de KiSe, «siège», on formait KuRSa, «fauteuil». Il serait donc possible qu’ à par-
tir de DaG, « poisson» on ait formé *DeRaG, «banc de poisson » et *MiDRaGa,
« lieu où beaucoup de poissons sont enfermés». Ce scénario, qui n’est répétons-
le qu’une hypothèse, aurait l’avantage de résoudre avec élégance une partie de
la question. En effet, rien ne prouve que le mot espagnol almadraba et le mot
français madrague remontent au même étymon par la même voie, puisque le
g qui pose problème n’apparaît qu’en provençal et en français, et qu’ une éty-
mologie arabe est tout à fait acceptable pour l’espagnol, répondant à la fois
aux critères sémantiques et phonétiques. Il pourrait donc y avoir différentes
étymologies, ou plutôt différents parcours. On voit alors se dessiner un enchaî-
nement de formes au fur et à mesure que cette technique de pêche se répand
à travers la Méditerranée. Le phénicien *mdrg serait passé à l’ arabe maẓraba,
« enceinte pour pêcher les thons», avec un croisement vers maḍraba, le « lieu
où l’on frappe», l’appellation arabe hésitant donc entre la désignation d’ un
lieu (la structure de filets) et celle d’une technique de mise à mort (on frappe
les thons pour les assommer), puis serait passée en espagnol, en catalan et en
portugais, sous la forme almadraba.
Ce parcours phénicien-arabe-espagnol (ainsi que catalan et portugais)
semble bien attesté mais ne peut mener, nous l’avons dit, aux formes proven-
çales et françaises. Le problème de l’origine de madrago et madrague n’ est
donc pas encore résolu. Il est probable que le français madrague, daté du xvie
siècle, vient du provençal: le fait que les Provençaux, de par leur situation géo-
graphique sur la Méditerranée, aient été en contact avec la technique de la
madrague avant les locuteurs de la langue d’oïl est une évidence, confirmée
comme nous le verrons plus loin par la toponymie. Mais il nous manque encore
un chaînon entre le phénicien et le provençal: madrago ne peut pas venir du
grec, et il ne nous reste que l’hypothèse du phénicien *MiDRaGa, sans que nous
sachions comment cette forme serait arrivée sur les côtes provençales.
La filière qui mène du phénicien à l’espagnol en passant par l’ arabe est
donc solide, mais elle ne concerne que les rivages du sud de la Méditerranée.
Au nord, nous voyons bien comment le grec φυννειο a pu, par calque, don-
ner l’italien tonnara, mais nous ne savons pas d’ où viennent le grec νταλιανι
et le turc dalyan : nous avons ici un chaînon manquant. Savoir que nous ne
savons pas est cependant une forme de savoir, et le mystère de la madrague

2 Que m’a suggérée Philippe Cassuto, en soulignant que le corpus phénicien est limité et qu’il
ne s’ agit que d’ une conjecture.
xvi calvet

demeure (pour l’instant?), tandis que l’origine des formes espagnoles, cata-
lanes et portugaises semble résolue. Il est cependant intéressant qu’ une tech-
nique méditerranéenne partagée, transmise d’une culture à l’ autre au cours de
l’histoire, puisse avoir une étymologie à embranchement, et que les mots qui
la nomment dans les différentes langues concernées soient le fruit d’ emprunts,
de réinterprétation, d’adaptations phonétiques et de resémantisation même si,
nous l’avons vu, rien n’est prouvé.
Revenons à l’article de Pierre Larcher sur la dérivation pivot. Il y développait
les conditions formelles et sémantiques du «pivotement » : le mot pivot doit
être morphologiquement équivoque, susceptible d’ une double lecture, et doit
sémantiquement subir une réinterprétation métonymique. L’hypothèse déve-
loppée ci-dessus sur une forme phénicienne de type *MiDRaGa qui aurait été
interprétée en arabe de deux façons différentes, MaDRaBa et MaZRaba, consti-
tuerait alors non pas une dérivation pivot mais une interprétation alternative
menant à une sorte d’étymologie populaire à embranchement.
Après ce long développement qui s’apparente à une enquête policière, une
enquête pas entièrement aboutie puisque le « mystère» n’est qu’ en partie
résolu, passons maintenant de l’étymologie à la toponymie. L’ appareillage
compliqué des filets et des pieux utilisé pour la pêche à la madrague n’ était
guère démontable et restait sur place. Le nom de la technique de pêche est alors
devenu dans certains cas celui du lieu dans lequel elle se pratiquait. Nous avons
ainsi, pour nous en tenir d’abord à la côte française, la Madrague de Gignac,
près d’Ensues la Redonne, la Madrague Ville et la Madrague-de-Montredon à
Marseille, la Madrague de Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer, le port de la Madrague à Hyères,
la Madrague de Giens, de Carry, de Saint-Tropez, etc. Ajoutons-y à Aïn Benian
en Algérie le port d’el Djemila qui s’appelait à l’ époque coloniale La Madrague :
nous avons là une belle série de ce toponyme dont l’ étymologie encore incer-
taine, du moins pour moi, témoigne en tout cas d’ un mélange de langues assez
caractéristique de cette Méditerranée. Ajoutons-y pour l’ Espagne Almadrava
en Catalogne, Almadraba sur la côte andalouse, au nord de Cadix, etc. On
trouve, de la même façon, trois Dalyan sur la côte turque: l’ une en face de l’ île
de Bozcada (l’ancienne Ténédos), la deuxième près de Çesme en face de Chios
et la troisième dans le sud-ouest du pays près de l’ antique ville de Kaunos. Enfin
le mot italien tonnara a également donné leur nom à plusieurs lieux en Sicile,
comme la Tonnara di Favignana, dans les îles Egades, la Tonnara di Bonagia,
la Tonnara di Scopello, la Tonnara de Vendicari, la Tonnara di San Giuliano,
près de Trapani, Tonnara de Marzameni, la Tonnara Trabia, ainsi qu’ en Corse
la Tonnara, près de Bonifacio.
Nous avons donc une technique méditerranéenne de pêche au thon, lointain
héritage phénicien partagé par différents pays et portant des noms différents,
madrague, ‫مضر بة‬, almadraba, φυννειο, tonnara, νταλιανι, dalyan xvii

madrague, ‫مضر بة‬, almadraba, φυννειο, tonnara, νταλιανι, dalyan, dont certains
sont devenus des toponymes. Et ce faisceau de noms de lieux dessine l’ espace
de l’expansion d’une technique de pêche phénicienne. Un espace à la fois his-
torique et halieutique, qui s’ inscrit dans un espace géographique (le continent
liquide que constitue la Méditerranée, entre les terres, ou entre trois conti-
nents) et écologique (défini ici par le déplacement des thons rouges à l’ époque
de la fraie). Ajoutons enfin que c’est une analyse linguistique qui nous a permis
de mettre en lumière cet espace, lecture qui révèle, au delà du plurilinguisme
ou malgré lui, des filiations, des emprunts, un fonds commun néologique.
Comment décrire et théoriser cette situation ? Nous pourrions penser à
la notion d’hyperlangue telle que l’a utilisée Sylvain Auroux (Auroux 1997 et
Auroux et Puccinelli Orlandi 1998), cet espace/temps disposant d’ une certaine
structure que lui confèrent les objets et les sujets qui l’ occupent : des individus
ayant des compétences linguistiques, des relations de communication et des
relations sociales, le tout dans un environnement donné. Auroux précisait ainsi
sa notion: «L’intérêt de la notion d’hyperlangue est de prendre en compte
dans la détermination de l’activité linguistique, d’ une part, les sujets parlants
et leurs différences de compétence, d’autre part, l’ environnement culturel et
la réalité non-linguistique» (Auroux 1997: 112).
Cette approche pourrait par exemple s’appliquer à l’ histoire du latin en
Gaule, ou de l’arabe en Tunisie, comme Auroux l’ applique à celle du por-
tugais au Brésil, c’est-à-dire finalement à la constitution de formes linguis-
tiques «nationales», mais elle ne convient guère à ce qui nous retient ici, un
espace méditerranéen plurilingue mais cependant traversé par des régulari-
tés dans presque toutes les langues de la Méditerranée sémantiques (on peut
par exemple penser ici au lien sémantique entre l’ huile et l’ olive), ou topony-
miques (par exemple la déclinaison des «nouvelles villes » Νεάπολις, fondées
par les Grecs dont le nom se retrouvent en différentes langues, Naples, Nabeul,
Naplouse, etc.).
J’avais dans un ouvrage consacré à la présentation de la sociolinguistique
proposé, à propos de la notion de communauté linguistique avancée par Wil-
liam Labov, de raisonner plutôt en termes de communauté sociale envisagée
sous son aspect linguistique (Calvet 1993: 81 et ssq). C’ est-à-dire de partir d’ un
territoire et non pas d’une langue ou de langues, territoire qui peut être une
ville, une île, un pays, une zone frontalière, etc., et dont la définition peut être
parfois problématique: si le territoire d’une île par exemple est parfaitement
délimité, où commence et où finit celui d’une ville ? C’ est ce type d’ approche
que je viens d’esquisser, l’approche d’un territoire dont pour une fois la défini-
tion ne pose pas trop de problèmes: une mer close, la Méditerranée, qui nous
est en quelque sorte donnée. Et l’histoire linguistique de la Méditerranée, qui
xviii calvet

a produit aussi bien des langues nationales d’ origines diverses (latine, arabe
…) que des faits linguistiques moins visibles comme le couple huile/olive, les
néapolis, les madragues, ou encore les néologismes construits sur des racines
grecques ou latines, cette histoire donc constitue le versant linguistique d’ une
histoire politique et sociale faite de conflits, de dominations, de conquêtes, et
qui se poursuit, bien sûr, aujourd’hui.
Autour de ce bassin méditerranéen où les noms de certaines villes ou de
certaines techniques de pêche se font écho, se répondent, en parlant italien,
français, espagnol ou turc, nous parlons également un peu de grec, de latin ou
d’arabe, car il y a eu un monde arabo-gréco-latin que nous habitons et qui nous
habite encore. Les toponymes, mais pas seulement eux, viennent donc nous
rappeler d’où nous venons. Et l’histoire linguistique de cette entité territoriale,
de ce continent liquide, révèle une niche écolinguistique méditerranéenne,
avec son passé, que j’ai évoqué à partir de quelques traces linguistiques, son
évolution et son présent, qui constituent des thèmes de recherche passionnant.

Bibliographie

Auroux, Sylvain. 1997. ‘La réalité de l’hyperlangue.’ Langages 127: 110–121.

Auroux, Sylvain and Puccinelli Orlandi, Eni. 1998. Langages 130, L’hyperlangue brési-
lienne.
Beucher, Jean-Paul et al. Histoire des engins et techniques de pêche, ifremer, http://
archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00002/11355/7928.pdf
Calvet, Louis-Jean. 1993. La sociolinguistique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
coll. «Que Sais-Je?»
Calvet, Louis-Jean. 2016. La Méditerranée, mer de nos langues. Paris: cnrs éditions.
Larcher, Pierre. 2013. ‘Un cas de dérivation «pivot» en arabe.’ Arabica 60/1–2: 201–207.
Acknowledgements

All contributors to this dedicated volume for Pierre have accepted with great
enthusiasm to join the project in 2013. We thank them wholeheartedly for
their availability and their generosity, as well as for their kindness in sending
their contributions in 2014, in order to offer the present book to Pierre on the
occasion of his 68th birthday.
We also wish to warmly thank Kees Versteegh for his most kind support. He
has indeed provided us with invaluable advice for the realization of this project.
Our heartfelt thanks go also to Katia Zakharia who, from Lyon—and while
she was preparing the literary tribute to Pierre Larcher, De miel et de colo-
quinte—, helped us from the beginning in designing and realizing this dedi-
cated volume.
We wish to thank Stephanie Paalvast from Brill for her most kind answers to
our many questions, and Marjolein Schaake from Brill ssl Series, who managed
with great efficiency and patience the last steps towards the completion of this
dedicated volume and Maarten Frieswijk from Brill ssl who helped us in the
very final step as well as Thalien Colenbrander.
Of course, nothing would have been possible without all the valuable help
and wise guidance from the part of Pierre’s beloved wife, Michèle, who was
indeed the very first to be informed of our intention. She helped us in every
phase of this dedicated volume. She was always available to respond to our
innumerable questions, and always with absolute confidentiality. She provided
us with a huge amount of invaluable information and helped us overcome
all difficulties. We wish to thank her wholeheartedly for all this, and also for
making it possible to keep Pierre unaware of the homage we offer him today.
Linguistic Bibliography of Pierre Larcher1

Dissertation and Doctorates

1972 ‘La signification des noms propres dans les Muʿallaqāt. Étude sémi-
ologique.’ Mémoire de maîtrise sous la direction de André Miquel.
Paris: University of Paris iii.
1980 ‘Information et performance en science arabo-islamique du langage.’
Thèse pour le doctorat de 3e cycle. Jury: Mohammed Arkoun, président,
professeur à l’université de Paris iii, Oswald Ducrot, directeur d’ études
à l’ ehess, André Miquel, professeur au collège de France, rapporteur,
Paris: University of Université de Paris iii, 603 p.
1996 ‘Essais de linguistique arabe (Poétique, histoire de la linguistique, lexi-
cologie, grammaire, critique)’. Note de synthèse des travaux présentés
pour l’obtention du doctorat d’État en lettres et sciences humaines.
Jury: Mohammed Arkoun, président, professeur émérite à l’ université
de Paris iii, Oswald Ducrot, directeur d’ études à l’ ehess, André
Miquel, professeur au Collège de France, rapporteur, Christian Toura-
tier, professeur à l’Université d’Aix-Marseille i et Gérard Troupeau,
directeur d’études à l’ ephe, corapporteur. Paris: University of Univer-
sité de Paris iii, 117 p.

Books, Books and Journal Direction

1991

1 (ed.) Bulletin d’Études Orientales. 43, De la grammaire de l’ arabe aux

grammaires des arabes. Damas: Institut français d’ études arabes de
Damas.
2 (with Guimier, Claude) (eds.) Les états de l’ adverbe. Travaux linguistiques
du cerlico, 3. Rennes: Presses Universitaires.
3 (with Guimier, Claude) (eds.) L’adverbe dans tous ses états. Travaux lin-
guistiques du cerlico, 4. Rennes: Presses Universitaires.

1 The publications are listed in chronological order of edition year. The original system of
transliteration is preserved. As for Pierre Larcher’s literary bibliography, see Zakharia, Katia
(ed.). 2013. Quaderni di Studi Arabi. Nuove serie 8, De miel et de coloquinte. Mélanges en
hommage à Pierre Larcher. Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente, 201–207.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxi

1994

4 (ed.) Bulletin d’Études Orientales. 46, Langue et littérature arabes. Damas:

Institut français d’études arabes de Damas.

1995

5 (with Baggioni, Daniel) (eds.) Du sens. Tours, détours et retours du sens

dans les sciences humaines d’aujourd’hui. Aix-en-Provence: Publications
de l’Université de Provence.

1997

6 (with Baggioni, Daniel) (eds.) Le contrôle social du sens en langue et en

discours: aspects lexicographiques, pragmatiques et rhétoriques. Aix-en-
Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence.

2000

7 (with Cassuto, Philippe) (eds.) La Sémitologie, aujourd’hui. Actes de la

journée doctorale du 29 mai 1997. Travaux Linguistiques du Claix, 16. Aix-
en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence.

2001

8 (ed.) Arabica. 48/4, Linguistique arabe: Sociolinguistique et histoire de la

langue.

2003

9 Le système verbal de l’arabe classique. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de

l’Université de Provence, coll. “Didactilangue”.

2007

10 (with Cassuto, Philippe) (eds.) La formation des mots dans les langues
sémitiques. Actes du colloque international d’ Aix-en-Provence des 12 et
13 mai 2003, Philippe Cassuto and Pierre Larcher (eds.). Aix-en-Provence:
Publications de l’Université de Provence, coll. “Langues et language 15”.
xxii linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

2012

11 Le système verbal de l’arabe classique. Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universi-

taires de Provence. coll. “Manuels” 2e édition revue et augmentée, [2003].

2014

12 Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, préface de Kees Versteegh, Études

arabes médiévales et modernes, pifd 281. Beyrouth: Presses de l’ Ifpo.
13 (with Cassuto, Philippe) (eds.) Oralité et Écriture dans la Bible et le Coran.
Aix-en-Provence: Publications Universitaires de Provence.

Journal Articles

1983

1 ‘Dérivation délocutive, grammaire arabe, grammaire arabisante et gram-

maire de l’arabe.’ Arabica 30/3: 246–266. [included in Linguistique arabe
et pragmatique, ch. vi, 121–140].

1985

2 ‘Vous avez dit “délocutif”?’ Langages 80. De l’ énonciation au lexique:

99–124. [included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xiv, 229–
265].

1988

3 ‘Quand, en arabe, on parlait de l’arabe … Essai sur la méthodologie de

l’histoire des “métalangages arabes” (i).’ Arabica 35/2: 117–142. [included
in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. i, 19–40].

1989

4 ‘Note sur trois éditions du Šarḥ al-Kāfiya de Raḍī l-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī.’

Arabica 36/1: 109–113. [included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique,
ch. x, 189–195].
5 ‘Recherches récentes en histoire de la grammaire arabe. Essai de bib-
liographie sélective.’ Compte-rendu de la Réunion des chercheurs sur le
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxiii

monde arabe et musulman. 4–6 juillet 1988—L’Arbresle (Lyon). Lettre d’in-

formation de l’afemam 5: 58–60.

1990

6 ‘Y-a-t-il un auxiliaire verbal en arabe?’ Travaux linguistiques du cerlico

2, L’Auxiliaire en question, Jean-Louis Duchet (ed.): 95–121.
7 (with Girod, Alain) ‘Passif grammatical, passif périphrastique et catégorie
d’auxiliaire en arabe classique moderne.’ Arabica 37/2: 137–150.
8 ‘Éléments pragmatiques dans la théorie grammaticale arabe post-classi-
que.’ Studies in the History of Arabic Grammar ii, Proceedings of the 2nd
Symposium on the History of Arabic Grammar, Nijmegen, 27 April–1 May
1987, Kees Versteegh and Michael G. Carter (eds.). Amsterdam: J. Ben-
jamins, 195–214. (Abstract in Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts,
26/1: 157, 1992) [included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. iv, 95–
112].

1991

9 ‘Du mais français au lākin(na) arabe et retour. Fragment d’ une histoire

comparée de la linguistique.’ Revue Québécoise de linguistique 20/1: 171–
193. (Abstract in Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, 25/3: 1232,
1991) [included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xvii, 317–336].
10 ‘Les mafʿûl mut’laq “à incidence énonciative” de l’ arabe classique.’ Tra-
vaux linguistiques du cerlico 4, L’adverbe dans tous ses états, Pierre
Larcher and Claude Guimier (eds.): 151–178. (Abstract in Linguistics and
Language Behavior Abstracts, 29/5: 10902, 1995) [included in Linguistique
arabe et pragmatique, ch. xvi, 291–316].
11 ‘D’une grammaire l’autre: catégorie d’adverbe et catégorie de mafʿūl
muṭlaq.’ Bulletin des Études Orientales 43, De la grammaire de l’ arabe aux
grammaires des arabes, Pierre Larcher (éd.): 139–159. [included in Linguis-
tique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xv, 267–290].
12 ‘Quand, en arabe, on parlait de l’arabe … (ii). Essai sur la catégorie de
ʾinšāʾ (vs ḫabar).’ Arabica 38/2: 246–273. [included in Linguistique arabe
et pragmatique, ch. ii, 41–65].
13 ‘Al-ʾĪḍāḥ fī Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal de Ibn al-Ḥāǧib. Note critique sur une édition
dite “critique” et réflexions connexes.’ Arabica 38/3: 369–374. [included in
Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xi, 197–206].
xxiv linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

1992

14 ‘Où en est la linguistique arabe en France? Etat des lieux et bilan critique.’
Compte-rendu de la réunion “Langues et littératures dans le monde arabe
et musulman” 26–28 Juin 1989—La Baume Les Aix, Lettre d’information de
l’afemam 7: 15–42.
15 ‘Présuppositions “syntaxiques” et “pragmatiques” dans la théorie gram-
maticale arabe postclassique.’ Compte-rendu de la réunion “Langues et lit-
tératures dans le monde arabe et musulman” 26–28 Juin 1989—La Baume
Les Aix, Lettre d’information de l’ afemam 7: 86–87. [included in Linguis-
tique arabe et pragmatique, ch. iii, 67–91].
16 ‘De Bally à Ducrot: note sur les concepts de “coordination” et “subordina-
tion” sémantiques.’ Travaux linguistiques du cerlico 5: 29–42.
17 ‘La particule lākinna vue par un grammairien arabe du xiiie siècle ou
comment une description de détail s’inscrit dans une “théorie pragma-
tique”.’ Historiographia Linguistica 19/1: 1–24. (Abstract in Linguistics and
Language Behavior Abstracts, 27/1: 1571, 1993) [included in Linguistique
arabe et pragmatique, ch. viii, 145–165].
18 (with Plancade, Michèle) ‘La “côte” n’est pas “facile” ou les écueils “phono-
graphiques” d’un apprentissage de l’arabe “classique”.’ Langues Modernes
3: 41–48. (Abstract in Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, 27/1:
535, 1993, included in Second Language Instruction/Acquisition Abstracts,
vol. 3–4, 1993, 93/0541).
19 ‘Quand, en arabe, on parlait de l’arabe … (iii). Grammaire, logique, rhé-
torique dans l’islam postclassique.’ Arabica 39/3: 358–384. [included in
Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xvi, 291–316].

1993

20 ‘Sommaire commenté de Kinga Dévényi et Tamás Ivyani (eds.) Proceed-

ings of the Colloquium on Arabic Grammar, The Arabist, Budapest Studies
in Arabic 3–4, Budapest, 1991, 375 p.’ Bulletin d’information de la shesl,
30: 62–64.
21 ‘Les arabisants et la catégorie de ʾinšāʾ. Histoire d’ une “occultation”.’ His-
toriographia Linguistica 20/2–3: 259–282.
22 ‘Un grammairien “retrouvé”: ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī. Note sur quatre
éditions récentes de ses ouvrages grammaticaux.’ Arabica 40/2: 248–253.
[included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xii, 207–214].
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxv

1994

23 ‘Les ʾAmālī de Ibn al-Ḥāǧib ou les “annales” d’ un grammairien.’ Arabica

41/2: 273–280. [included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xiii,
215–225].
24 ‘mā faʿala vs lam yafʿal: une hypothèse pragmatique.’ Arabica 41/3: 388–
415. [included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xviii, 337–362].
25 ‘Chronique du monde arabisant.’ Arabica 41/3: 430–431.
26 ‘Un phénomène de “surdérivation” en arabe classique: à propos de la xe
forme verbale istafʿala.’ Annales Islamologiques 28: 215–230.

1995

27 ‘Un traitement original du sens dans la tradition arabe: la sémantique bi-

hi.’ Du sens. Tours, détours et retours du sens dans les sciences humaines
d’aujourd’hui, Pierre Larcher and Daniel Baggioni (eds.). Aix-en-Pro-
vence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 143–150. [included in Lin-
guistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. v, 113–120].
28 ‘Où il est montré qu’ en arabe classique la racine n’a pas de sens et qu’ il
n’y a pas de sens à dériver d’elle.’ Arabica 42/3: 291–314.

1996

29 ‘Sur la valeur “expositive” de la forme ʾafʿala de l’ arabe classique.’ Zeit-

schrift für arabische Linguistik 31: 7–26. (Abstract in Linguistics and Lan-
guage Behavior Abstracts 31/1: 430, 1997).
30 ‘mā faʿala vs lam yafʿal: addendum.’ Arabica 43/3: 494–496. [included in
Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xix, 363–366].
31 ‘Y-a-t-il des verbes “privatifs” en arabe classique?’ Quaderni di Studi Arabi
14: 101–122.
32 ‘Dérivation lexicale et relation au passif en arabe classique.’ Journal Asia-
tique 284/2: 265–290.

1997

33 ‘Les mots du kadhafisme. Petite contribution linguistique à la politolo-

gie arabe.’ Le contrôle social du sens en langue et en discours: aspects lex-
icographiques, pragmatiques et rhétoriques, Daniel Baggioni and Pierre
Larcher (eds.). Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’ Université de Provence,
137–153.
xxvi linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

34 ‘L’interrogation en arabe classique.’ Annales Islamologiques 31: 109–122.

[included in Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, ch. xx, 363–380].

1998

35 ‘Éléments de rhétorique aristotélicienne dans la tradition arabe hors la

falsafa.’La Rhétorique d’Aristote. Traditions et commentaires de l’ antiquité
au xviie siècle, Coll. “Traditions de l’Antiquité classique” Gilbert Dahan
and Irène Rosier-Catach (eds.). Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 241–
256.
36 ‘Un cas remarquable de “délocutivité” en arabe classique.’ Mélanges pour
le 25ème anniversaire des études arabes à l’ Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail,
Textes recueillis par Abdellatif Ghouirate, Michel Quitout, Mansour
Sayah, Toulouse le Mirail: amam, 81–93.
37 ‘Une pragmatique avant la pragmatique: “médiévale”, “arabe” et “islami-
que”.’ Histoire Épistémologie Langage 20/1: 101–116. (Abstract in Linguistics
and language Behavior Abstracts 33/1: 165, 1999).
[Arabic Translation: ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Maǧdūb. 2012. ‘tadāwuliyya qabl al-
tadāwuliyya. hiya tadāwuliyya qarawusṭiyya ʿarabiyya ʾislāmiyya.’ ʾiṭlālāt
ʿalā al-naẓariyyāt al-lisāniyyāt wa-l-dalāliyya fī al-niṣf al-ṯānī min al-qarn
al-ʿišrīn, vol. 1, muḫtārāt muʿarraba bi-ʾišrāf wa-tansīq al-Duktūr ʿIzz al-
Dīn Maǧdūb. Carthage: al-Maǧmaʿ al-tūnisī li-l-ʿulūm wa-l-ʾadāb wa-l-
funūn]
38 ‘La forme iv ʾafʿala de l’arabe classique: faire faire et laisser faire.’ Zeit-
schrift für arabische Linguistik 35: 14–28. (Abstract in Linguistics and Lan-
guage Behavior Abstracts 33/2: 3004, 1999).
39 ‘Un phénomène de dérivation “formelle” en arabe classique? À propos de
la iiie forme verbale fāʿala.’ Annales Islamologiques 32: 125–143.
40 ‘La linguistique arabe d’hier à demain: tendances nouvelles de la recher-
che.’ Arabica 45/3: 409–429.
41 ‘Le concept de polyphonie dans la théorie d’ Oswald Ducrot.’ Les sujets et
leurs discours. Énonciation et interaction, R. Vion (ed.). Aix-en-Provence:
Publications de l’Université de Provence, 203–224.

1999

42 ‘Vues “nouvelles” sur la dérivation lexicale en arabe classique.’ Tradition

and Innovation. Norm and Deviation in Arabic and Semitic Linguistics, Lutz
Edzard and Mohammad Nekroumi (eds.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 103–
123.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxvii

43 ‘Syntaxe et sémantique des formes verbales dérivées de l’ arabe classique:

vues “nouvelles” et questions en suspens.’ Quaderni di Studi Arabi 17: 3–27.

2000

44 ‘L’arabe, langue sémitique.’ La Sémitologie, aujourd’hui, Actes de la jour-

née doctorale du 29 mai 1997. Travaux du Claix 16, Pierre Larcher and
Philippe Cassuto (eds.). Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’ Université de
Provence, 23–30.
45 (with Baggioni, Daniel) ‘Note sur la racine en indo-européeen et en sémi-
tique.’La Sémitologie, aujourd’hui, Actes de la journée doctorale du 29 mai
1997. Travaux du Claix 16, Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’ Université
de Provence, 121–131.
[English translation: ‘A note on the root in Indo-European Studies and
Semitics.’ Which Koran? Variants, Manuscripts, Linguistics, Ibn Warraq
(ed.). Amherst, n.y.: Prometheus Books (2011), 165–178.]
46 ‘Métamorphoses de la linguistique arabe.’ La Sémitologie, aujourd’hui,
Actes de la journée doctorale du 29 mai 1997. Travaux du Claix 16, Pierre
Larcher and Philippe Cassuto (eds.). Aix-en-Provence: Publications de
l’Université de Provence, 181–187.
47 ‘Coran et théorie linguistique de l’énonciation.’ Les usages du Co-
ran. Présupposés et Méthodes: Formgebrauch des Korans. Voraussetzungen
und Methoden. Actes du colloque d’Aix-en-Provence (iremam/Section
d’arabe de l’Université de Provence et Seminar für Universität Göttin-
gen, 3–8 novembre 1998 à la Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de
l’Homme, sous la direction de Claude Gilliot et de Tilman Nagel). Ara-
bica 47/3–4, 441–456.
[English translation: ‘The Koran and the Linguistic Theory of Utterrance.’
Which Koran? Variants, Manuscripts, Linguistics, Ibn Warraq (ed.). Am-
herst, n.y.: Prometheus Books (2011), 141–159.]
48 ‘Les relations entre la linguistique et les autres sciences dans la société
arabo-islamique.’ History of the Language Sciences, i, art. 45, ch. ix The
Establishment of Arabic Linguistics, E.F.K. Koerner et al. (eds.). Berlin et
New York: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 312–318.
[English translation: ‘Relationships between linguistics and the other
sciences in Arabo-islamic society.’ The Formation of the Classical Islamic
World 36: The Early Islamic Grammatical Tradition, Ramzi Baalbaki (ed.).
Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited (2007), 337–348.]
49 ‘Subordination vs coordination “sémantiques.” L’exemple des systèmes
hypothétiques de l’arabe classique.’ Annales Islamologiques 34: 193–207.
xxviii linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

2001

50 ‘Le concept de paix et ses expressions en arabe.’ Cahiers de la Paix 8.

Redéfinir la paix à l’aube du xxie siècle. Actes du colloque de l’ Université
de la Paix, Verdun 2, 3 et 4 décembre 1999: 95–105.
[English translation: ‘The concept of peace and its expressions in Ara-
bic.’ Which Koran? Variants, Manuscripts, Linguistics, Ibn Warraq (ed.).
Amherst, n.y.: Prometheus Books (2011), 179–192.]
51 ‘Les langues de la Libye: passé et présent.’La Revue des Deux Rives, Europe-
Maghreb 2, Les langues orales dans les pays méditerranéens. Situation,
enseignement et recherche: 43–51.
52 ‘Le parler des Arabes de Cyrénaïque vu par un voyageur marocain du xiiie
siècle.’ Arabica 48/3: 368–382.
53 ‘Moyen arabe et arabe moyen.’ Arabica 48/4, Linguistique arabe: Sociolin-
guistique et histoire de la langue, Pierre Larcher (ed.): 578–609.

2002

54 ‘Qasam et qasāma: un phénomène de lexicalisation paradigmatique du

schème grammatical en arabe classique.’ Arabica 49/1: 110–116.
55 ‘Masculin/féminin: sexe et genre en arabe classique.’ Arabica 49/2: 231–
234.
56 ‘Deux verbes singuliers de l’arabe classique: istarǧaʿa et istaʿāḏa.’ Arabica
49/3: 367–375.
57 ‘L’expression de l’autre et de l’ailleurs en arabe classique.’ Arabica 49/4:
494–502.
58 ‘ICHoLS ix (São paulo-Campinas, 27–30 août 2002)’, Historiographia Lin-
guistica 29/3: 455–468.

2003

59 ‘Diglossie arabisante et fuṣḥā vs ʿāmmiyya arabes: essai d’ histoire paral-

lèle.’ History of Linguistics 1999. Selected papers from the Eighth Interna-
tional Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS viii),
Fontenay-St. Cloud, France, 14–19 September 1999, coll. “SIHoLS 99”, Sylvain
Auroux and et al. (eds.). Amsterdam-Philadelphie: Benjamins, 47–61.
60 ‘Les verbes “privatifs” de la ve forme tafaʿʿala de l’ arabe classique: solution
d’un petit problème lexicologique.’ Arabica 50/3: 394–403.
61 (with Girod, Alain) ‘Un phénomène de grammaticalisation en arabe mod-
erne: le passif périphrastique.’ Travaux Linguistiques du claix 18: 147–167.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxix

62 ‘Language (Concept of).’ The Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, iii, Leiden:

E.J. Brill, 108–109.
63 (with Gilliot, Claude) ‘Language and Style of the Qurʾān.’ The Encyclopae-
dia of the Qurʾān, iii, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 109–135.
64 ‘Problèmes de lexicologie arabe: dérivation horizontale et sémantique
relationnelle.’ Comptes rendus du glecs 34 (1998–2002): 79–96.
65 ‘ʾayy(u) šayʾin, ʿayšin, ʿēš: moyen arabe ou arabe moyen?’ Quaderni di Studi
Arabi 20–21: 63–77.
66 ‘Traduction de la Risālat al-Kitāb de Sībawayhi.’ cours d’ agrégation
d’arabe années 2003–2004 et 2004–2005 (décembre 2003): 1–8. [Avail-
able at: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/research_projects/sibawiki/demo/lar.1
-7.pdf].
67 ‘Du jussif au conditionnel en arabe classique: une hypothèse dérivation-
nelle.’ Romano-Arabica 3, Arabic Linguistics: 185–197.
68 ‘La dérivation délocutive. Histoire d’une notion méconnue.’ Historiogra-
phia Linguistica 30/3: 389–406. (Abstract in Linguistics and Language
Behavior Abstracts 38/4: 6854, 2004).
69 ‘Les systèmes hypothétiques en law de l’arabe classique.’ Bulletin des
Études Orientales 55: 265–285.

2004

70 ‘Théologie et philologie dans l’islam médiéval: Relecture d’ un texte célè-

bre de Ibn Fâris (xe siècle).’ Cahiers de l’ ilsl 17, Le discours sur la langue
sous les régimes autoritaires: 101–114.

2005

71 ‘Le mot de ḥadīṯ vu par un linguiste.’ Das Prophetenḥadīṯ. Dimensionen

einer islamischen Litteraturgattung. Nachrichten der Akademie der Wis-
senschaften zu Göttingen. i. Philologische-Historische Klasse, Claude Gil-
liot and Tilman Nagel (eds.). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 7–13.
72 ‘L’autonymie dans la tradition linguistique arabe.’ Histoire Épistémologie
Langage 27/1: 93–114.
73 ‘Arabe Préislamique—Arabe Coranique—Arabe Classique. Un contin-
uum?’ Die dunklen Anfänge: neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen
Geschichte des Islam, Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-Rüdiger Puin (eds.).
Berlin: Verlag Hans Schiler, 248–265.
[English Translation: ‘Pre-Islamic Arabic–Koranic Arabic–Classical Ara-
bic: A Continuum?’ The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into its
xxx linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

Early History, Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-Rüdiger Puin (eds.). Amherst,

n.y.: Prometheus Books (2010), 263–282.]
74 ‘D’Ibn Fāris à al-Farrāʾ. Ou, un retour aux sources sur la Luġa al-Fuṣḥā.’
Asiatische Studien/Etudes asiatiques 59/3: 797–814.

2006

75 ‘Derivation.’ Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. i, Kees Ver-

steegh et al. (eds.). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 573–579.
76 ‘Que signifie ‘dériver’ en arabe classique?’ Current Issues in the Analysis
of Semitic Grammar and Lexicon i. Oslo-Gothenburg Cooperation 3rd–5th
June 2004, Lutz Edzard and Jan Retsö (eds.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
106–124.
77 ‘Le “segmentateur” fa-(inna) en arabe classique et moderne.’ Kervan-
Rivista internazionale di studi afroasiatici 3: 51–63.
78 ‘Neuf traditions sur la langue coranique rapportées par al-Farrā’ et alii.’
Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Proceedings of the 22nd Congress of
L’Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Authority, Privacy and
Public Order in Islam, Cracow, Poland, 2004, 148, B. Michalak-Pikulska and
A. Pikulski (eds.). Louvain: Peeters, 469–484.
79 ‘Un texte d’al-Fārābī sur la “langue arabe” réécrit?’ Grammar as a Win-
dow onto Arabic Humanism. A Collection of Articles in Honour of Michael
G. Carter, Lutz Edzard and Janet Watson (eds.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
108–129.
80 ‘Que nous apprend vraiment Muqaddasī de la situation de l’ arabe au
ive/xe siècle?’ Annales Islamologiques 40: 53–69.

2007

81 ‘ʾInšāʾ.’Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. ii, Kees Versteegh

et al. (eds.). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 358–361.
82 ‘Racine et schème, significations lexicale et grammaticale: quelques
exemples de non-bijection en arabe classique.’La formation des mots dans
les langues sémitiques. Actes du colloque international d’ Aix-en-Provence
des 12 et 13 mai 2003, Philippe Cassuto and Pierre Larcher (eds.). Aix-en-
Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 97–112.
83 ‘Linguistique arabe: état de la recherche.’ Arabica 54/2: 246–261.
84 ‘Sociolinguistique et histoire de l’arabe selon la Muqaddima d’ Ibn Khal-
dûn (viiie/xive siècle).’ Loquentes linguis. Studi linguistici e orientali in
onore di/ Linguistic and Oriental Studies in Honour of/ Lingvistikaj kaj
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxxi

orientaj studoj honore al Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, Pier Giorgio Borbone

et al. (eds.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 425–435.
85 ‘L’arabe classique: trop de négations pour qu’ il n’y en ait pas quelques-
unes de modales.’ La Négation, Travaux Linguistiques du Claix 20, Chris-
tian Touratier and Charles Zaremba (eds.). Aix-en-Provence: Publications
de l’Université de Provence, 69–90.
86 ‘Les origines de la grammaire arabe, selon la tradition: description, inter-
prétation, discussion.’ Approaches to Arabic Linguistics. Presented to Kees
Versteegh on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, Coll. “Studies in Semitic
Languages and Linguistics” 49, Everhard Ditters and Harald Motzki (eds.).
Leiden—Boston: E.J. Brill, 113–134.
87 ‘Linguistique et didactique de l’arabe classique: l’ exemple des dix for-
mes “dérivées” du verbe trilitère.’ Folia Orientalia 42–43: 11–27. Parution
2008.

2008

88 ‘Qu’est-ce que l’arabe du Coran? Réflexions d’ un linguiste.’ Cahiers de

linguistique de l’inalco 5 [2003–2005, années de tomaison], Linguistique
arabe, Georgine Ayoub and Jérôme Lentin (eds.): 27–47.
89 ‘Le sabre et la virgule de Chérif Choubachy. Compte rendu fait à Louis-
Jean Calvet.’ Les boîtes noires de Louis-Jean Calvet, Auguste Moussirou-
Mouyama (ed.). Paris: Écriture, 227–245.
90 ‘Un phénomène d’interaction forme/sens dans le lexique de l’ arabe clas-
sique.’ Arabica 55/1: 132–139. (Abstract in Linguistics and Language Behav-
ior Abstracts 43/1, 2009: ll00906).
91 ‘Dérivation arabisante et ištiqāq arabe: histoire d’ un malentendu.’Regards
croisés sur les mots non simples, Coll. “Langages,” Barbara Kaltz (ed.). Lyon:
ens Éditions, 85–94.
92 ‘Al-lugha al-fuṣḥâ: archéologie d’un concept “idéolinguistique.”’ Revue des
mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 124, Langues, religion et moder-
nité dans l’espace musulman, thème sous la direction de Catherine Miller
et Niloofar Haeri (eds.): 263–278.
93 ‘Les “complexes de phrases” de l’arabe classique.’ Kervan-Rivista inter-
nazionale di studi afroasiatici 6: 29–45.

2009

94 ‘Verb.’ Encycloepdia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, iv, Leiden: E.J.

Brill, 638–645.
xxxii linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

95 ‘Négation et rectification en arabe coranique: la structure mā faʿala … wa-

lākin …’ Modern Controversies in Qurʾānic Studies, Bonner Islamstudien
herausgegeben von Stephan Conermann, Band 7, Mohammed Nekroumi
and Jan Meise (Hg.) (eds.). Hambourg: E.B. Verlag, 123–140.
96 ‘Mais qu’est-ce donc que la balāġa?’ Literary and Philosophical Rhetoric
in the Greek, Roman, Syriac, and Arabic Worlds, coll. Europaea Memoria
Reihe i Studien Band 66, Frédérique Woerther (ed.). Hildesheim-Zürich-
New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 197–213.
97 ‘Les systèmes conditionnels en ʾin de l’arabe classique.’Bulletin des Études
Orientales 58 [2008–2009, années de tomaison]: 205–232.

2010

98 ‘Formules et dérivés “formulatifs” en arabe.’ Verbal Festivity in Arabic and

other Semitic Languages, Proceedings of the Workshop at the Univer-
sitätsclub Bonn on January 16, 2009, Lutz Edzard and Stephan Guth (eds.).
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 43–57.
99 ‘In search of a standard: dialect variation and New Arabic features in the
oldest Arabic written documents.’ The development of Arabic as a written
language, (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian
Studies 40), M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.). Oxford: Archaeopress, 103–112.

2011

100 ‘Un texte arabe sur le métalangage.’ A Festschrift for Nadia Anghelescu,
Andrei A. Avram et al. (eds.). Bucarest: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti,
306–317.
101 ‘What is a kalima? ʾAstarābāḏī’s Answer.’ version écrite de la communi-
cation au Primo Incontro di Linguistica Araba, Universita di Roma 3, 1–3
mars 2007 The Word in Arabic, coll. “Studies in Semitic Languages and Lin-
guistics” 62, Giuliano Lancioni and Lidia Bettini (eds.). Leiden: E.J. Brill,
33–48.
102 ‘khabar / inshâʾ, une fois encore.’ In the Shadow of Arabic: The Centrality
of Language to Arabic Culture. Studies Presented to Ramzi Baalbaki on the
Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, coll. “Studies in Semitic Languages and
Linguistics” 63, Bilal Orfali (ed.). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 49–70.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxxiii

2012

103 ‘L’arabe: une langue bimillénaire.’Le Nouvel Observateur, Hors-série n°79,

Des origines à nos jours. Les Arabes. Le prodigieux destin du peuple du
désert: 30–31, janvier-février.
104 ‘Langue et écriture arabes.’ Connaissance des Arts, Hors-série n°519 Musée
de l’Institut du Monde arabe, février, 20–23.
105 ‘Jihâd et salâm: guerre et paix dans l’islam, ou le point de vue du lin-
guiste.’ Faire la guerre, faire la paix: approches sémantiques et ambiguïtés
terminologiques, 136e Congrès national des sociétés historiques et scien-
tifiques, Perpignan, 2011, coll. “Actes des congrès nationaux des sociétés
historiques et scientifiques”, Isabelle Chave (ed.). Paris: Éd. du Comité des
travaux historiques et scientifiques, 63–74.
106 ‘Un cas de tératologie dérivationnelle en arabe classique? Le verbe ista-
kāna.’Romano-Arabica New Series 12, 55 Years of Arab Studies in Romania:
159–168.
107 ‘La forme v tafaʿʿala de l’arabe classique vue par le grammairien Raḍī al-
Dīn al-Astarābāḏī.’ Folia Orientalia 49, Studia Andreae Zaborski Dedicata:
269–282.

2013

108 ‘Un cas de dérivation “pivot” en arabe.’ Arabica 60/1–2: 201–207.

109 ‘La “langue de l’Inde” vue par al-Bīrūnī: un miroir de l’ arabe?’ Romano-
Arabica New Series 13, Arab Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Studies: 187–
209.
110 ‘Le nom propre dans la tradition grammaticale arabe.’Les non-dits du nom.
Onomastique et documents en terres d’Islam, Mélanges offerts à Jacqueline
Sublet, Christian Müller and Muriel Roiland-Rouabah (eds.). Beyrouth:
Presses de l’Ifpo, 303–318.
111 ‘Arabic Linguistic Tradition ii. Pragmatics.’ The Oxford Handbook of Arabic
Linguistics, Jonathan Owens (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 185–
212.
112 ‘Le Coran: l’écrit, le lu, le récité.’ Le Coran. Nouvelles approches, Actes de
la Journée d’étude Les études coraniques aujourd’hui. Méthodes, enjeux,
débats, Paris, iismm, 26 et 27 novembre 2009, Mehdi Azaiez avec la col-
laboration de Sabrina Mervin (eds.). Paris: cnrs Éditions, 243–255.
xxxiv linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

2014

113 ‘Ibn Baṭṭūṭa et le faqīh de Kāwiya (Geyve, Anatolie): “arabe ancien” et

“arabe nouveau”.’ Romano-Arabica 14: 235–246.
114 ‘L’étrange destin d’un livre. La soi-disant Grammaire arabe de Wright.’
Historiographia Linguistica 41/1: 109–126.
115 ‘Liwāṭ: “agir comme le peuple de Loth …”. Formation et interprétation
lexicales en arabe classique.’ Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 14: 213–
227.
116 ‘Le Coran: le dit et l’écrit.’ Oralité et Écriture dans la Bible et le Coran,
Philippe Cassuto and Pierre Larcher (eds.). Aix-en-Provence: Presses Uni-
versitaires de Provence, 53–67.
117 ‘Rhétorique “grecque” et “hellénisante” vues par Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-ʾAṯīr (viie/
xiiie siècle).’ Quaderni di Studi arabi nuova serie 9. The language(s) of
Arabic Literature. Un omaggio a Lidia Bettini, Lorenzo Casini et al. (eds.):
115–130.
118 ‘Wa-ʾin p, lākin(na) q: un croisement de deux systèmes argumentatifs en
arabe classique.’ Journal of Semitic Studies, Supplement 34, Arab and Ara-
bic Linguistics: Traditional and New Theoretical Approaches, Manuela
E.B. Giolfo (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 93–105.

2015

119 ‘Épigraphie et linguistique: l’exemple du graffito arabe préislamique du

Ǧabal ʾUsays.’ Romano-Arabica 15: 79–98.
120 ‘Les Maʿānī al-Qurʾān d’al-Farrāʾ ou la théologie tempérée par la philolo-
gie.’ Books and Written Culture of the Islamic World. Studies Presented to
Claude Gilliot on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday, Andrew Rippin and
Boberto Tottoli (eds.). Coll. “Islamic History and Civilization Studies and
Texts”, 113, ed. by Hinrich Biesterfeld, Sebastian Günther and Wadad Kadi.
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 39–55.
121 ‘Une occurrence ancienne de la structure kāna sa-yafʿalu en arabe écrit.’
Arabic and Semitic Linguistics Contextualized. A Festschrift for Jan Retsö,
Lutz Edzard (ed.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 198–213.
122 ‘L’arabe, plus qu’une langue?’ 54 États. Le magazine de l’ Afrique, n°24
Dossier spécial: Islam en Afrique. Au-delà des préjugés: 46–49, décembre.
123 ‘La dérivation “pivot” en arabe classique, une fois encore.’ Folia Orientalia
52: 233–247.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxxv

In Print

124 ‘“Et Allāh apprit à Adam tous les noms …” (Cor. 2, 31). L’origine du lan-
gage dans la pensée islamique.’ Proceedings of Annual siepm Colloquium,
held in Freiburg (Germany) 20–23 August 2014, The Origin and Nature of
Language and Logic in Medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Thought.

Forewords, Afterwords, Obituaries, Various

1991

1 ‘Post-scriptum.’ in Les états de l’adverbe Travaux linguistiques du cer-

lico, 3. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 9.
2 ‘Préface.’ to Bulletin des Études Orientales 43, De la grammaire de l’ arabe
aux grammaires arabes, Pierre Larcher (éd.). Damas: Institut français
d’études arabes de Damas, xiii–xvi.

1994

3 ‘Préface.’ to Bulletin des Études Orientales 46, Langue et littérature arabes.

Damas: Institut français d’études arabes de Damas, 11–17.

1995

4 (with Baggioni, Daniel) ‘Vingt ans après.’ Foreword of Du sens. Tours,

détours et retours du sens dans les sciences humaines d’aujourd’hui. Aix-
en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 7–16.

1997

5 (with Daniel Baggioni) ‘Contrôle ou réglage social du sens?’ Introduction

to Le contrôle social du sens Actes de la 4e table-ronde de l’ aprodelf, La
Baume-les-Aix 24–25 Juin 1994. Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’ Uni-
versité de Provence, 7–15.

1998

6 (with Françoise Douay) ‘Daniel Baggioni (1945–1998)’, Histoire Épistémolo-

gie Langage 20/1 [included in Buscila 49/1–3, 1999].
xxxvi linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

2000

7 (with Cassuto, Philippe) ‘Préface.’ to La Sémitologie aujourd’hui. Actes de

la Journée doctorale du 29 mai 1997. Travaux Linguistiques du claix, 16.
Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 9–12.

2001

8 ‘Introduction.’ to Arabica 48/4, Linguistique arabe: sociolinguistique et

histoire de la langue. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 417–418.

2003

9 ‘Gilbert Delanoue (1930–2002)’ Arabica, 50/2: 269–271.

10 ‘ICHoLS ix (São Paulo-Campinas, 27–30 Août 2002).’ Historiographia Lin-
guistica 29/3. 455–468.

2007

11 (with Cassuto, Philippe) ‘Préface.’ to La formation des mots dans les lan-
gues sémitiques. Actes du colloque international d’ Aix-en-Provence des
12 et 13 mai 2003, Philippe Cassuto and Pierre Larcher (eds.). Aix-en-
Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 5–12.

2014

12 ‘Introduction.’ to Linguistique arabe et pragmatique. Beyrouth: Presses de

l’Ifpo, 9–14.
13 (with Philippe Cassuto) ‘Préface.’ to Oralité et Écriture dans le Bible et le
Coran. Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence, 5–7.
14 ‘Préface.’ to Journal of Semitic Studies 34. Arab and Arabic Linguistics.
Traditional and New Theoretical Approaches, Manuela E.B. Giolfo (ed.):
v–vi.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxxvii

Book Reviews

1985

1 Review of Der arabische Dialekt der Šukriyya im Ostsudan by Stefan Reich-

muth. Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, Hildesheim-Zürich-New York:
Georg Olms Verlag (1983), 309 p. Arabica 32/2: 252–254.

1992

2 Review of Šarḥ šawāhid al-ʾĪḍāḥ li-Abī ʿAlī al-Fārisī by ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Barrī.
édité et présenté par ʿĪd Muṣṭafā Darwīš, révisé par Muḥammad Mahdī
ʿAllām, Le Caire: Académie de langue arabe (1985), 740 p. Arabica 39/1:
120–121.

1993

3 Review of Matériaux arabes et sudarabiques Nouvelle série, 2 (1988–1989),

3 (1991), sous la direction d’Antoine Lonnet, 263 p.; 4 (1992), sous la
direction de Martine Vanhove, 196 p., Paris: Diffusion C.I.D. Arabica 40/3:
443–446.

1994

4 Review of Comptes rendus du Groupe Linguistique d’études chamito-sémi-

tiques (g.l.e.c.s.). Tomes 29–30, Paris: Geuthner (1984–1986), 254 p. Arabica
41/2: 289–292.
5 Review of Développements récents en linguistique arabe et sémitique by
Georges Bohas et al. Damas: Institut français d’ études de Damas (1993),
145 p. Bulletin Critique des Annales Islamologiques 11: 1–6.
6 Review of Inventaire des inscriptions sudarabiques publié par les soins de
Christian Robin. Tome i Inabbaʾ, Haram, al-Kafīr, Kamma et al-Ḥarāshif,
fascicule a: les documents, 221 p. et fascicule b: les planches, Paris—Rome:
Diffusion de Brocard—Diffusion Herder (1992). Arabica 41/2: 292–293.

1996

7 Review of Šarḥ al-Tashīl li-Ibn Mālik (Ǧamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAbd

Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṭāʾī al-Ǧayyānī al-ʾAndalusī) 600–672 by ʿAbd al-
Raḥmān al-Sayyid and Muḥammad al-Maḫtūn. 4 parties en 2 volumes,
xxxviii linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

70 p. + 11 planches + 406 p.; 425 p.; 473 p.; 371 p., Ḥaǧr li-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-našr
wa-l-tawzīʿ wa-l-ʾiʿlān (1990). Arabica 43/3: 506–509.

1997

8 Review of Averroès et l’averroïsme, by Maurice-Ruben Hayoun and Alain

de Libera. Paris: Que-sais-je? n°2631 (1991), 127 p. Arabica 44/1: 154–159.
9 Review of Le voile du nom. Essai sur le nom propre arabe by Jacqueline
Sublet. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (1991), 207 p. Arabica 44/1:
159–163.
10 Review of Das Kapitel al-Mauṣūl (“Das relativum”) aus dem Manhaǧ assā-
lik des Grammatikers Abū Ḥaiyān al-Ġarnāṭī (1256–1344) by Christiane
Gille. coll. “Arabische Texte und Studien,” Band 7, Georg Olms Verlag:
Hildesheim-Zürich-New York (1995), 225 p. Arabica 44/2: 325–327.
11 Review of Arabs and Arabic in the lake Chad Region, Sprache und Ge-
schichte in Afrika by Jonathan Owens. Band 14, 1993 [année de tomaison]
(numéro spécial), Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag (1994), 4 cartes, 312 p. Ara-
bica 44/2: 327–329.
12 Review of The Explanation of Linguistic Causes, Az-Zaǧǧāǧī’s Theory on
Grammar, Introduction, Translation, Commentary by Kees Versteegh. coll.
“Studies in the History of the Language Sciences” 75, Amsterdam-Phila-
delphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company (1995), xvi + 310 p., isbn:
90-272-4562-2. Arabica 44/2: 329–331.
13 Review of L’Arabie antique de Karibʾîl à Mahomet. Nouvelles données sur
l’histoire des Arabes grâce aux inscriptions sous la responsabilité de Chris-
tian Robin, Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée, 61/3, Aix-
en-Provence: Edisud (1991), 166 p. Arabica 44/4, Voix et Calame en Islam
Médiéval: 572–575.
14 Review of Šarḥ al-Lumaʿ li-Ibn Barhān al-ʿUkbarī by Fāʾiz Fāris. 1e édition,
t. i et t. ii, Koweit: Al-Maǧils al-waṭanī li-l-ṯaqāfa wa-l-funūn wa-l-ʾadāb
(1984), 5–115+1–325 et 335–879 p. Arabica 44/4, Voix et Calame en Islam
Médiéval: 575–577.
15 Review of La Linguistique au Maghreb/Maghreb Linguistics by Jochen
Pleines. Rabat: Éditions Okad (1990), 381 p. Arabica 44/4, Voix et Calame
en Islam Médiéval: 577–579.
16 Review of Proceedings of the Colloquium on Arabic Grammar by Kinga
Dévényi and Tamás Iványi. The Arabist, Budapest Studies in Arabic 3–4,
Budapest (1991), 375 p. Arabica 44/4, Voix et Calame en Islam Médiéval:
580–582.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xxxix

1998

17 Review of Proceedings of the Colloquium of Arabic Lexicology and Lexicog-

raphy (c.a.l.l.) by Kinga Dévényi et al. The Arabist, Part one / Part two,
Budapest Studies in Arabic, 6–7: Budapest (1993 /1994), x + 260 / viii + 195
p. Arabica 45/3: 439–442.
18 Review of Structuralist Studies in Arabic Linguistics. Charles Ferguson’s
Papers, 1954–1994 by R. Kirk Belnap and Niloofar Haeri. coll. “Studies in
Semitic Languages and Linguistics”, 24, Leiden: E.J. Brill (1997), x + 276 p.,
isbn: 90-04-10511-5. Arabica 45/3: 442–445.

2002

19 Review of Arabic Grammar and Linguistics by Yasir Suleiman. Richmond:

Curzon Press (1999), viii + 245 p., isbn: 0-707-1007-8. Zeitschrift für ara-
bische Linguistik 41: 97–101 (Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
37/3, 2003: LLr01330)
20 Review of Classical Arabic Philology & Poetry. A Bibliographical Handbook
of Important Editions from 1960 to 2000 / Klassisch-Arabische Philologie
und Poesie. Ein bibliographisches Handbuch wichtiger Editionen von 1960
bis 2000 by Reinhard Weipert. Handbook of Oriental Studies / Handbuch
der Orientalistik, vol. 63, Leiden-Boston-Köln: E.J. Brill (2002), xii + 274 p.,
isbn: 90-04-12342-3. Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
95-96-97-98: 481–482.
21 Review of The Arabic Language by Kees Versteegh. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press (1997), 277 p., isbn: 0-7486-0694-7. Arabica 49/2: 245–
251.
22 Review of Landmarks in Linguistics Thought iii. The Arabic Linguistic
Tradition by Kees Versteegh. coll. “History of Linguistic Thought”, Londres
et New York: Routledge (1997), 206 p., isbn: 0-415-15757-9. Arabica 49/2:
251–255.
23 Review of Arabic Linguistic Thought and Dialectology by Aryeh Levin.
Dialectology, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Collected Studies in
Arabic and Islam 1, The Max Schloessinger Memorial Series, Jerusalem:
The Hebrew University (1998). Arabica 49/2: 255–258.
24 Review of Les verbes arabes (Al-Chāmil fī taṣrīf al-ʾafʿāl) by Sam Ammar
and Joseph Dichy. coll. “Bescherelle,” Paris: Hatier (1999), 285 p., isbn: 2-
218-71464-7. Arabica 49/2: 258–261.
25 Review of Parlers arabes du Fezzân. Textes, traductions et éléments de mor-
phologie rassemblés et présentés par Philippe Marçais, Dominique Caubet,
xl linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

Aubert Martin et Laurence Denooz by Philippe Marçais. Bibliothèque de

la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université de Liège, fascicule 281,
Genève: Librairie Droz (2001), xli + 287 p., isbn: 2-87019-281-9. Arabica
49/4: 513–515.
26 Review of Qui est arabophone? by Elie Kallas. Gorizia: Istituto di Sociolo-
gia Intemazionale di Gorizia (i.s.i.g.) (1999), 139 p. Arabica 49/4: 515–
517.
27 Review of Mittelalterliche arabische Sprachbetrachtung zwischen Gram-
matik und Rhetorik. ʿilmay al-maʿānī bei as-Sakkākī by Udo Gerald Simon.
Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag (1993), xiii + 412 p., isbn: 3-927552-
13-5. Arabica 49/4: 517–520.

2003

28 Review of Understanding Arabic. Essays in Contemporary Arabic Linguis-

tics in Honor of El-Said Badawi by Alaa Elgibali. The American University
Press (1996), 274 p., isbn: 977 42a 372 2. Arabica 50/1: 122–126.
29 Review of Arabic Morphology and Phonology. Based on the Marāḥ al-
ʾarwāḥ by ʾAḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Masʿūd. Presented with an Introduction, Ara-
bic Edition, English Translation and Commentary by Joyce Åkesson. Coll.
“Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics,” 35, E.J. Brill: Leiden-Bos-
ton-Köln (2001), xii + 444 p., isbn: 90-04-12028-9. Arabica 50/4: 545–547.
30 Review of A Handbook of Early Middle Arabic by Joshua Blau. The Max
Schloessinger Memorial Studies Monographs 6, Institute of Asian and
African Studies, Faculty of Humanities, The Max Schloessinger Founda-
tion & The Hebrew University: Jerusalem (2002), 262 p., isbn: 965-7258-
00-6. Arabica 50/4: 547–554.

2004

31 Review of On The History of Grammar Among the Arabs. An Essay in Liter-

ary History by Ignaz Goldziher. Translated and edited by Kinga Dévényi
and Tamás Iványi, Coll. “Studies in the History of the Language Sciences,”
73, Amsterdam-Philadephia: John Benjamins Publishing Company 153 p.,
isbn: 90-272-4560-6. Arabica 51/3: 385–389.

2006

32 Review of Language Processing and Acquisition in Languages of Semitic,

Root-Based, Morphology by Joseph Shimron. Amsterdam-Philadelphia:
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xli

John Benjamins Publishing Company (2003), 392 p., isbn: 90-272-2496.

Arabica 53/3: 404–410.

2007

33 Review of Semitic Studies in Honour of Edward Ullendorff by Goeffrey

Khan. coll. “Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics” 47, Boston-
Leiden: E.J. Brill (2005), vi + 367 p., isbn: 9004-14834-5. Revue des mondes
musulmans et de la Méditerranée 119–120: 308–312.
34 Review of Le Système verbal de l’arabe comparé au français. Énonciation
et pragmatique by Albert Abi Aad. Préface de Michel Le Guern, Paris:
Maisonneuve et Larose (2001), 186 p. Arabica 54/4: 600–602.

2009

35 Review of Sibawayhi by Michael G. Carter. Londres-New York: Oxford

Centre for Islamic Studies (2004), coll. “Makers of Islamic Civilization,”
159 p., isbn: 978-1-850-43671-3. Arabica 56/1: 125–129.
36 Review of La linguistique sociologique de Charles Bally. Étude des inédits
Préface de René Amacker. Publications du Cercle Ferdinand de Saus-
sure vi, Genève: Librairie Droz S.A. (2008), 768 p., isbn: 978-2-600-01152-5.
Historiographia Linguistica 36/1: 174–177.

2010

37 Review of Modern Arabic. Structures, Functions, and Varieties by Clive

Holes. Revised Edition. Georgetown Classics in Arabic Language and Lin-
guistics, Washington, d.c.: Georgetown University Press (2004), xix + 419
p., isbn: 1-058901-022-1. Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 64/3: 727–
732.

2011

38 Review of The Legacy of the Kitāb. Sībawayhi’s Analytical Methods within

the Context of the Arabic Grammatical Theory by Ramzi Baalbaki. Coll.
“Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics” 51, (2008), xi + 334 p., isbn:
978-90-04-16813-8. Orientalistische Literaturzeitug 106/2: 121–123.
39 Review of Approaches to Arabic Dialects. A Collection of Articles presented
to Manfred Woidich on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday by Martine
Haak et al. coll. “Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics” 38, Leiden:
xlii linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher

E.J. Brill (2004), xiv + 399 p., isbn: 90-04-13206-6. Arabica 58/6: 579–
585.
40 Review of Arabische Welt. Grammatik, Dichtung und Dialekte. Beiträge
einer Tagung in Erlangen zu Ehren von Wolfdietrich Fischer by Shabo Talay
and Hartmut Bobzin. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag (2010), 276 p. Quaderni
di Studi Arabi 5–6: 255–257.

2012

41 Review of The Arabic Language Today by Alfred Felix Landon Beeston.

Foreword of Clive Holes, éd. Karin C. Ryding & Margaret Nidell, Wash-
ington d.c.: Georgetown Univesrity Press (2006), xiv + 115 p., isbn: 978-1-
58901-084-0. Arabica 59/1–2: 181–184.
42 Review of The Arabic Language across the ages by Juan Pedro Monferrer-
Sala and Nader Al Jallad. Wiesbaden: Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag (2010),
182 p., isbn: 978-3-89500-765-1. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Mor-
genlandes 102: 396–399.

2014

43 Review of Texts from the Early Islamic Period of Egypt. Muslims and Chris-
tians at their First Encounter. Arabic Papyri from the Erzherzog Rainer
Collection Austrian National Library / nuṣūṣ al-ʿaṣr al-ʾislāmī al-qadīm, al-
muslimūn wa-l-masīḥiyyūn fī liqāʾī-him al-ʾawwal, bardiyyāt ʿarabiyya min
maǧmūʿat ʾIrzīrzūǧ Raynir al-maktaba l-waṭaniyya l-namsāwiyya by Lejla
Demiri and Cornelia Römer (éds). Vienne: Phoibos Verlag (“Nilus Studien
zur Kultur Ägyptens und des Vorderen Orients”, 15) (2009). Arabica 61/1:
186–189.
44 Review of Actes de vente d’esclaves et d’animaux d’Égypte médiévale by
Yūsuf Rāġib. Le Caire: Institut français d’ archéologie orientale, Cahiers
des Annales islamologiques ((23) 2002 et (28) 2006). Arabica 61/1: 197–200.
45 Review of A Critital Edition of the Grammatical Treatise Taḏkirat jawāmiʿ
al-ʾadawāt by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
(“Arabische Studien, herausgegeben von Hartmut Bobzin und Tilman
Seidensticker”, 8) (2012), 150 p., isbn: 978-3-447-06675-4. Arabica 61/5.
623–624.
linguistic bibliography of pierre larcher xliii

2015

46 Review of Kitāb Sībawayhi. Syntax and Pragmatics by Amal Elesha Marogy

et al. Leyde-Boston: E.J. Brill, Coll. “Studies in Semitic Languages and
Linguistics”, 56 (2010), xvii + 236 p., isbn: 978-90-04-17816-8. Arabica 62/1:
151–159.
47 Review of The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics: Sībawayhi and Early Ara-
bic Grammatical Theory by Amal Elesha Marogy (ed.). Leyde-Boston: E.J.
Brill, Coll. “Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics”, 65 (2012), xii +
236 p., isbn: 978-90-04-22359-2. Arabica 62/2–3: 411–415.
48 Review of Fundamentals of Arabic Grammar / ʾUṣūl al-naḥw al-ʿarabī by
Mohammed Sawaie. Londres et New York: Routledge (2014), 457 p., isbn:
978-0-415-71003-9 (relié), 978-0-415-71004-06 (broché), 978-0-315-88180-8
(livre électronique). Arabica 62/2–3: 429–431.
49 Review of Arabic: A Linguistic Introduction New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press (2014), 235×156×15mm, 197 p., isbn: 978-1-107-02331-4 (relié),
978-1-107-60694-4 (broché). Arabica 62/4: 590–593.
50 Review of Christmas in the Koran. Luxenberg, Syriac, and the Near Eastern
and Judeo-Christian Background of Islam by Ibn Warraq (ed.). Amherst-
New York: Prometheus Books 805 p., isbn: 978-1-61614-937-6. Arabica
62/5: 756–763.
Notes on the Contributors

Nadia Anghelescu
is Professor Emeritus of Arabic linguistics and Arab Culture at Universitatea
din Bucureşti, Bucharest, Romania.

Georgine Ayoub
is Professor of Arabic linguistics at Institut National des Langues et Civilisations
Orientales (inalco), Paris, France. She is researcher at Cermom in the same
university.

Ramzi Baalbaki
is Chair Professor of Arabic at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon
and Head of the Academic Council of the Doha Arabic Historical Dictionary,
Qatar.

Marie Baize-Varin
is Senior Lecturer of Arabic at Écoles Militaires de Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan, Uni-
versité de Rennes, Guer, and Research Associate at iremam-umr7310, Aix-en-
Provence, France.

Lidia Bettini
is retired Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Università di Firenze,
Florence, Italy.

Francesco Binaghi
is Lecturer in Arabic language and linguistics at Université Sorbonne nouvelle
– Paris 3, Paris, France.

Louis-Jean Calvet
is retired Professor of linguistics and sociolinguistics at Aix-Marseille Univer-
sité, Aix-en-Provence, France.

Michael G. Carter
is Honorary Professor of Arabic at the Center of Medieval and Early Modern
Studies, University of Sydney, Australia.
notes on the contributors xlv

Philippe Cassuto
is Professor of Hebrew and Semitic linguistics at Aix-Marseille Université and
Researcher at iremam-umr7310, Aix-en-Provence, France.

Joseph Dichy
is Professor of Arabic Linguistics at Université Lumière-Lyon 2 and Researcher
at laboratoire icar (cnrs/Lyon 2, ens-Lyon)

Martino Diez
is Lecturer in Arabic Language and Culture at Università Cattolica del Sacro
Cuore, Milan, Italy.

Lutz Edzard
is Professor of Arabic and Semitic linguistics at the University of Erlangen-
Nürnberg Institut für Außereuropäische Sprachen und Kulturen, Erlangen,
Germany, and retains for the time being a part-time position as Professor of
Semitic linguistics at the University of Oslo.

Claude Gilliot
is Professor Emeritus in Arabic and Islamic studies at Aix-Marseille Université
and iremam, Aix-en-Provence. He is also a Blackfriar (Dominican).

Manuela Elisa Bibiana Giolfo

is Researcher in Arabic language and literature, as well as lecturer in Arabic
language and philology at the University of Genoa, and Research Associate
at iremam-umr7310, Aix-en-Provence. She holds an ma in philosophy from
the University of Milan, and a PhD in Arabic linguistics from Aix-Marseille
University.

Alain Girod
is Lecturer in Arabic Language and Didactics at Aix-Marseille Université and
Researcher at iremam-umr7310, Aix-en-Provence, France.

George Grigore
is Professor of Arabic linguistics at Universitatea din Bucureşti and Director of
Center for Arab Studies, Bucharest, Romania.

Jean-Patrick Guillaume
is Professor of Arabic linguistics at Université Sorbonne nouvelle—Paris 3,
Paris, France.
xlvi notes on the contributors

Wilfrid Hodges
is Fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics,
Queen Mary University of London, England.

Elie Kallas
is Associate Professor of Arabic linguistics at the Università degli Studi di
Trieste, Trieste, Italy.

Manfred Kropp
is Professor of Semitic and Islamic Studies at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität,
Mainz, Germany.

MariaLuisa Langella
(DPhil in Arabic Sociolinguistics, amu, France) is Librarian of the Middle East
Centre, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, uk, and member of the
Oriental Faculty of the University of Oxford. She is also affiliated with the
iremam-umr7310, Aix-en-Provence, France.

Jonathan Owens
is Professor of Arabic linguistics, Universität Bayreuth, Germany.

Fabrizio Angelo Pennacchietti

is a retired Professor of Semitic Philology of Università degli Studi di Torino,
Turin, Italy.

Catherine Pinon
is an Arabic teacher and is Associate Researcher at iremam-umr7310, Aix-en-
Provence, France.

Arkadiusz Płonka
is Associate Professor of Arabic linguistics at Instytut Orientalistyki at Jagiel-
lonian University, Kraków, Poland.

Manuel Sartori
is teaching Arabic at Institut d’Études Politiques d’ Aix-en-Provence and is
Reasercher at iremam-umr7310, Aix-en-Provence, France.

Kees Versteegh
is Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Islam at Universiteit Nijmegen, Nether-
lands.
notes on the contributors xlvii

Reinhard Weipert
is Professor of Arabic and Semitic linguistics at Institut für den Nahen und
Mittleren Osten—Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany.
Introduction

Sagittarius luminum de thesauris linguae et de clari sermonis mari,1 one can-

not fail to notice the important place that Pierre Larcher occupies within our
sciences, and especially in reference to Arabic Grammar and Arabic Linguis-
tics. As the author of approximately 200 items in this field (not to mention
his output in the literary domain), he has been described as the alter ego of
Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī (d. 688/1289)2 of whom he is, without any doubt,
the best interpreter. Thus, it appears more than natural that leading schol-
ars and distinguished young researchers have come together to pay homage
to Pierre Larcher for a life devoted to the enlightening exploration of the
‘ocean’ of Arabic and Semitic Linguistics in the broadest and deepest sense ever
reached.
What strikes one about Pierre is the fact that his research interests are
extraordinarily wide-ranging and that at the same time he shows an extremely
high level of specialized skill in handling them: from pre-Islamic poetry to
linguistics, from morphology to logic, from lexicography to semiology, from
Indo-European to Semitic, from epigraphy to history of language, from the-
ology to philology, from philosophy to political theory, from Qurʾānic studies
to sociolinguistics, from fuṣḥā to ʿāmmiyya, and from ‘Arab linguistics’ to ‘Ara-
bic linguistics.’ Even more striking is the fact that Pierre was able to isolate
some issues of pivotal interest within such an immense universe, notably that
of pragmatics, and that of ‘Arab metalanguages.’ It seems that nothing relevant
could ever escape his keen sight and sharp intellect. One sees this, for exam-
ple, in his work on the relationship between linguistics and the other sciences
in Arab-Islamic society, and also in his treatment of the concepts of semantic
‘coordination’ and semantic ‘subordination’ in his deep reflections on moyen
arabe and arabe moyen, and also on ‘enunciation and interaction’ in Oswald
Ducrot’s theory, as well as on the grammatical works of a rhetorician such as
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī (d. 471/1078).
Last but not least, Pierre is not only an accomplished scholar, in the fields of
both linguistics and poetry; he is also a great man of culture, in every sense and

1 We are more than indebted to our colleagues and friends Claude Gilliot and Francesco Zappa
for their kind support in composing the Latin title—starting from the editors’ idea of Rāmī
al-lumaʿ fī ʿulūm al-luġa—which perfectly suits the scientific dignity of Pierre Larcher.
2 As Antoine Lonnet writes in the review he made for Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de
Paris (39/2, 1994, 355) of the special issue of Bulletin d’Études Orientales, ‘De la grammaire de
l’ arabe aux grammaires des arabes’ (b.e.o., 43, 1991) edited by Pierre Larcher.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_002

2 introduction

acceptance of this word. He is an incomparable scientific partner—responsive

and open to ideas that complement his, and at the same time vigorous in
defending his own views. For some of us, Pierre is not only a rolemodel but
also a catalyst for ideas in the positive sense, and more, he is a creator, allowing
space for the creativity of colleagues with whom he works. In sum, he is an
example to follow.

The first section of the present dedicated volume, Semitic Linguistics, proposes
a journey From Sem to Qedar, from Biblical Hebrew to Semitic, and Afroasiatic
passing by Arabic and Early Aramaic.
Philippe Cassuto, in ‘Switching of Labials in Biblical Hebrew,’ further takes
some ideas from Larcher’s article ‘The expression of peace in Hebrew’ in Re-
defining Peace in the Twenty-first Century (Nancy, 2001). Pierre Larcher had writ-
ten in the same vein an article entitled ‘The expression of peace in Arabic.’
However, Pierre considered two such expressions in Arabic: Silm and Salam,
whereas in Hebrew, Philippe Cassuto noted only the traditional Shalom. In
the present chapter, Cassuto argues that Shalom and Shalwa had very similar
meanings, and the contrast between them is purely lexical. It consists in switch-
ing the letters mem and waw, two labial letters. In considering the question, it
appears that many of these permutations exist in Semitic languages; and the
object and focus of Cassuto’s contribution is about this phenomenon: it is pos-
sible to trace the etymology of the Jewish month Marheshwan by comparing it
with the Akkadian. Another example is in Ugaritic. In the cuneiform tablets, the
deity Shpsh is mentioned. By swapping p with the labial m, it is easy to identify
Shpsh with the Hebrew Shemesh, sun, the equivalent of the Arabic word šams.
This article proposes consideration of other examples and, if possible, to estab-
lish whether or not rules for the labial permutations in Semitic languages can
be defined.
Joseph Dichy argues in ‘The Analytics of Writing, Exemplified by Arabic, the
Youngest of the Semitic Scripts’ that the categorization of Semitic writings as
alphabetic, consonantal, or even syllabic still remains problematic. The alter-
native “analytic paradigm” considers that writing systems result from metalin-
guistic abilities at work in the linguistic community. It involves two interwoven
aspects: (a) analyzing language, according to pleremic and cenemic conven-
tions and (b) representing the results through a visual artifact (semiographic
characterization). The basic secondary convention is that of the graphic word-
form, a complex unit related, in the semiography of Arabic writing, to variation
in the shape of letters—fundamentally divided into final vs. non-final.
In ‘Arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of High Rhetorical Value: A New Comprehen-
sive View of the Nemara Inscription’ Manfred Kropp recalls that the inscrip-
introduction 3

tion of Nemara has been, ever since its discovery in 1902, the object of scien-
tific research in more than 100 contributions. Part of a cenotaph dedicated
to the Arab king Marʾ al-Qays Ibn ʿAmr, dated 328 ad, the text of five lines
engraved in a tabula ansata on a lintel of basalt is written in late (Classical)
Nabataean script, but exhibits a transition to early Arabic script. The language,
though, is clearly Arabic, if not identical with later Classical Arabic. The doc-
ument is a primary source for events in the Arabian Peninsula and its adja-
cent regions in the fourth century ad as well as for the history of the Arabic
script and language. Thus the study of it has concentrated mainly on elu-
cidating precious historical and linguistic details. What has been neglected
to a certain extent is the general character of the text and its evident func-
tions for the contemporary reader. The article proposes to interpret it as an
early and already accomplished masterpiece of Arabian faḫr and mubālaġa
of high rhetorical value. From this, the author derives two guidelines for read-
ing the passage. The function requires a fluent and well constructed syntac-
tical texture concentrated without deviations on the deeds and exploits of
this “accomplished” Arab king. As for the historical facts, they have to be
taken under the cautious premises of being reported in the context of Arabian
mubālaġa.
In ‘Dia-Planar Diffusion: Reconstructing Early Aramaic-Arabic Language
Contact,’ Jonathan Owens gives three explanations for relatedness between his-
torical linguistic stages: inheritance, diffusion, or independent parallel devel-
opment. In his paper he argues that in the period leading up to and entering
the early Islamic era, Aramaic played an important role in influencing different
variants of Arabic. By focusing on the phonological domain, he adduces data
from all varieties of Arabic, as well as from Old and Middle Aramaic eras.
Next, Lutz Edzard presents in ‘The masʾala zunbūriyya from a Semitic and
Afroasiatic Perspective’ a comparative Semitic and Afroasiatic scenario on
the one hand and a typological comparison with Germanic and Romance
languages on the other. As for the initial masʾala, the solution offered by al-
Kisāʾī clearly must be admitted, at least, as a valid alternative. Sībawayhi was
bound by the Baṣran tradition, which would not tolerate ʾiyyā- in a predicate
position, and simply could not allow for a variety of possibilities, in the way
that al-Kisāʾī could. In sum, the masʾala zunbūriyya continues to be relevant for
modern linguistic theory, and vice versa.

The second section of the present volume, Arabic Grammatical Tradition, is

a Travel along Grammar and its Representations, and is dedicated to matters
of morpho-syntactic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, rhetoric and logic nature,
the treatment of which reveals how ‘grammar,’ and the place it occupies within
4 introduction

the system of the sciences of language, is related to ‘models of representation,’

i.e. the philosophical and hermeneutical presuppositions underlying any anal-
yses.
In an article following the theme developed by L. Edzard on case ending,
Jean-Patrick Guillaume’s ‘“Man Zaydan?” À propos de quelques cas curieux de
ḥikāya chez Sībawayhi’ argues that the concept of ḥikāya (“literal quotation”)
plays a minor role in Arabic grammatical theory, usually in order to explain an
anomaly in the distribution of case markers. In many cases, the data treated in
this context are inherited from Sībawayhi’s Kitāb, and reflect a living, sponta-
neous oral usage characteristic of Old Arabic, a fact which became increasingly
difficult for later grammarians to grasp as Old Arabic evolved into Classical Ara-
bic, a purely scholarly language. Guillaume’s paper focuses on two different
sets of facts mentioned by Sībawayhi, in which ḥikāya functions in a dialogue
in order to point towards a violation of the relevance principle, usually with a
nuance of ‘disapprobation’ (ʾinkār). It aims to show that Sībawayhi’s analysis, in
spite of the rather primitive metalanguage he uses, is quite self-consistent and
shows a remarkable perceptiveness of the pragmatic dimension of language.
In ‘Inflectional Endings by Means of Short Vowels Among Arab Grammari-
ans: Clues for the Deconstruction of a Grammatical Ideology,’ Manuel Sartori
aims to present his own argument, based on some Arab grammarians, to show
how the sacrosanct desinential inflection (ʾiʿrāb) is actually a grammar con-
struct, a creed which grammarians, whether believers or convinced disciples of
believers, invite us to take as an untouchable reality. Dealing only with inflec-
tional endings by means of short vowels, Sartori’s paper recalls the strength of
the pause (waqf ) compared to effective realization of inflection and focuses
its analysis on the rules of case ending agreement between the noun and the
attributive qualifying adjective. It shows then that the Ancient grammarians,
whether Zaǧǧāǧī (d. 337/949), Fārisī (d. 377/987), Ibn Ǧinnī (d. 392/1002), or
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧūrǧānī (d. 471/1078), when addressing an agreement that was
already well-known and highly regulated, demonstrated other possibilities, the
number and variety of which show how little relevance inflectional endings
have, thus providing arguments for those sceptical about ʾiʿrāb.
Ramzi Baalbaki’s ‘One Word, Two Functions. The Concept of Functional
Replacement in Traditional Syntactic Analysis’ starts with the observation that,
according to the Arabic rules of parsing, each noun, and by extension each
nominal or verbal sentence which fulfils a grammatical function that can be
expressed in the form of a noun (e.g. mufrad), is assigned one, and only one,
maḥall. Thus the notion of maḥall represents a specific grammatical func-
tion performed by one element of the construction. However, Baalbaki notes
there are constructions in which one noun apparently performs two functions
introduction 5

and thus occupies two maḥalls. In the frequently cited construction ḍarbī l-
ʿabda musīʾan, musīʾan is a circumstantial accusative (ḥāl) which also fulfils
the function of the predicate (ḫabar), hence the expression ḥāl saddat masadd
al-ḫabar. Functional replacement, expressed by terms such as sadda masadd,
nāba manāb, ʾaġnā, etc., has its roots in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. Baalbaki’s paper
discusses Sībawayhi’s use of this analytical tool, traces its expansion in the Ara-
bic grammatical tradition, and identifies thirteen types of constructions which
grammarians interpret based on it. In line with their interest in standardization
and rule formulation, later authors in particular introduced complex rules per-
taining to some of these types. Constructions that are extremely unlikely to be
used in actual speech were also made up in order to examine the theoretical
implications of functional replacement. The paper also argues that the main
purpose of the grammarians in introducing the notion of functional replace-
ment is to defend the theory of ‘one-element-one-maḥall’ since the admission
that one element can have two maḥalls would shatter one of their most essen-
tial axioms in syntactical analysis.
Francesco Binaghi’s ‘Ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: Really Two of a Kind? Notes on
Zaǧǧāǧī’s Treatment’ investigates the categories of ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi as they
occur in the Arabic grammatical tradition. The analysis of selected passages
and examples from Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s ʾUṣūl and Zaǧǧāǧī’s Ǧumal leads to conclu-
sions that these two terms are not synonyms: ẓarf indicates the semantic role
of locative and temporal, whereas mafʿūl fī-hi designates a syntactic function
and thus represents only a subset of all the possible occurrences of ẓarf. Ibn
al-Sarrāǧ defines the mafʿūl fī-hi as the verbal adjunct of time and place in the
accusative case, whereas Zaǧǧāǧī defines it in terms of the scope it has (the
predicative core of the sentence). Zaǧǧāǧī also makes use of these two terms
for the definition of the noun as a part of speech, especially in his ʾĪḍāḥ. At this
level of linguistic analysis, the two terms reverse their extension: in Zaǧǧāǧī’s
theoretical structuration of the different occurrences that define a noun, the
ẓarf becomes a subset of mafʿūl fī-hi, since the mafʿūl (in the broader sense)
constitutes one of the possible occurrences of the noun.
The section continues with Nadia Anghelescu’s ‘The Role of Metaphor in
the Interpretation of Prepositions: the Arabic min and the French de.’ This
chapter contains an interpretation of the manner in which specialists in the
science of language, old Arab grammarians, and modern French researchers,
have analyzed prepositions with similar functions: Arab min and French de.
Anghelescu is concerned with the way in which these grammarians approach
grammaticalization within a category of linguistic elements which already
fulfils a certain grammatical function, i.e. prepositions. Prepositions with a
similar initial meaning (beginning in space and then in time) acquire new
6 introduction

meanings of a similar type in both languages, among which the indefinite

quantifier function takes an important place. All these evolutions result from
the conceptualization of space. Research itself resorts to the spatial metaphor,
and the ingenious interpretation of the preposition min delivered by a 13th
century author, Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī, is conclusive in that respect.
Next, Catherine Pinon’s ‘Une corrélation retrouvée: nécessaire vs possible’
directly echoes a major chapter of Pierre Larcher’s Le système verbal de l’ arabe
classique: “Une corrélation oubliée: nécessaire vs possible”. By focusing on
the expression of ‘possibility’ and ‘necessity’ within a digital corpus of con-
temporary written Arabic, the paper shows that the perfect kāna is used to
mark ‘necessity,’ while the imperfect, in its three forms, is used to mark some-
times ‘necessity’ and sometimes ‘possibility.’ It is argued that utterances can
be modalized to different degrees and that modalization can be lexically or
structurally reinforced. As an example, qad yakūnu and rubbamā yakūnu struc-
tures are examined in detail and hypotheses are proposed about the nuances in
expressing the modality of ‘possibility.’ This paper also observes the presence in
contemporary written Arabic of apocopated verbal forms of yakun used with a
modal value of ‘necessity’ in utterances that would previously have resorted to
the perfect form. As for negations, it is noted that lā yakūnu appears as strongly
modalizing vis-à-vis laysa, and that the negation lān yakūna sometimes carries
a modal value in addition to the temporal value of ‘future.’ Although fundamen-
tal, the issue of ‘modalities’ is rarely present in grammars. Pinon’s study comes
complete with a review of the issue in Arab and Arabic grammars, which she
compares with the results of her analysis.
Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Wilfrid Hodges’ ‘The System of the Sciences of
the Arabic Language by Sakkākī: Logic as a Complement of Rhetoric’ finds
its inspiration in Pierre Larcher’s chapter ‘Arabic Linguistic Tradition ii: Prag-
matics,’ in J. Owens (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics (2013). In
Sakkākī’s (d. 626/1229) Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm “The key to the sciences,” the sciences
of language are presented as a complex system whose core includes the two
sciences of morphology (ṣarf ) and of syntax (naḥw), that is to say grammar;
the two sciences of meanings (maʿānī) and of expression (bayān)—that is to
say rhetoric—and the two sciences of definition (ḥadd) and of argumentation
(istidlāl)—that is to say logic. The complexity of the system lies in the fact
that syntax (ʿilm al-naḥw) finds its complement (tamām) in semantics (ʿilm
al-maʿānī) which in turns finds its complement in logic (ʿilmā al-ḥadd wa-l-
istidlāl). An axis of ‘syntax-semantics-logic’ is thus drawn, which brings logic
within the field of linguistics. The ‘systemic’ intersection between rhetoric and
grammar, and the ‘meta-systemic’ intersections between rhetoric and litera-
ture from one part and that between rhetoric and religious sciences from the
introduction 7

other have been a subject of strong interest. However, the same cannot be said
for another intersection, ‘systemic’ by Sakkākī: that between rhetoric, namely
semantics (ʿilm al-maʿānī) and logic (ʿilmā al-ḥadd wa-l-istidlāl). The latter is
what Giolfo and Hodges explore in their paper, mainly basing themselves on
Sakkākī’s Miftāḥ, on Rāzī’s (d. 606/1209) logic (Mulaḫḫaṣ), as well as on Ibn
Sīnā’s (d. 428/1037) logical works.
Finally, this section ends with a grammatical discussion between ʾAbū al-
ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (d. 449/1058) and some angels in Martino Diez’s ‘Teaching Ara-
bic to the Angels: A Scherzo by al-Maʿarrī on Heavenly Morphology.’ In his
paper, Diez translates and comments on a section of the introduction to the
Risālat al-Malāʾika where the poet, together with some men of letters, tries
to convince the Guardian of Paradise to grant them access to heavenly joys
because of their linguistic skills. He discusses in particular the derivation and
the morphological behaviour of some objects that can be found in Heaven, such
as the Tūbā tree or the houris. This introduction, a deeply ironic text, targeting
Islamic popular beliefs concerning the Afterworld, grammar and grammarians,
and, most importantly, the author himself, offers an interesting picture of the
methods followed in ʿilm al-taṣrīf (‘morphology’), a field of scholarship which
received considerable attention by the first generations of grammarians, but
later came to be neglected in favour of other disciplines.

As a follow-up to the previous contribution, the third section of this dedicated

volume, Arabic and Semitic Lexicology, could have been titled In a Garden paved
with Words. In this Garden, three topics in relation with lexical issues are dis-
cussed: the first is etymology, then the issue of synonymy or polysemy, and
finally the question of Arabic as a medium for other languages, as well as its
writing in Latin characters. Georgine Ayoub first, with ‘L’emprunt dans le dic-
tionnaire arabe des premiers siècles,’ examines the treatment of loanwords in
some theoretical works of the first three centuries ah. Between anthropological
considerations (that of the relation to the other) and religious ones (that of the
sacrilegious relation to the sacred text), this study shows how two complemen-
tary approaches are drawn at the end of the 8th century, the first proposing
to detect by a phonological characterization the neologism (muḥdaṯ, muwal-
lad), whether foreign or forged; the second to describe the linguistic process at
work in “Arabization,” understood as the linguistic integration of foreign words.
Ayoub shows how lexical study is part of the cultural context in religious sci-
ences of the time to explain the vocabulary of the Qurʾān, and studies in three
dictionaries the analysis of twelve terms the first exegetes said to be foreign.
In ‘The Noun Pattern ʾufʿūlatun in Arabic Philological Tradition,’ Reinhard
Weipert focuses on another kind of dictionary work referred to as muṣannaf,
8 introduction

containing collections of words based on particular noun patterns, and not

only according to the root of the word. Based on sources like the K. al-Ġarīb al-
muṣannaf by ʾAbū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām (d. 224/838), the K. Ǧamharat al-
luġa by Ibn Durayd (d. 321/933), and the Dīwān al-ʾadab by al-Fārābī (d. 350/961),
Weipert conducts a semantic study that reveals that more than two-thirds of
ʾufʿūlatun pattern words belong to a single semantic field related to speech acts
and human forms of verbal expression. He then shows that the last third is in
fact composed by quite a few old, genuine Arabic words of unknown etymology,
some foreign words, and a small number of feminine nouns or singulatives
(nomina unitatis) derived from the noun form ʾufʿūlun. Here he indicates that
words with the most diverse meanings are formed on this latter pattern and
should be strictly kept separated from the invariable ʾufʿūlatun form.
Echoing the preface of the present volume, and thanks to his translation
of an unpublished manuscript, that of Hanna Diyab, the aleppine interpreter
of doctor Paul Lucas (1664–1737), Elie Kallas invites us, in ‘Gerboise : l’ entrée
du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de Louis xiv,’ to reconsider the origin of the
term ‘gerboise’ (jerboa) in French. Indeed in the description of his travels from
Aleppo to Versailles, Diyab provides more details about the introduction of the
jerboa, both the animal and the term, at Louis xiv court. Kallas shows here
that the introducer might not be Paul Lucas, and furthermore that the form of
the term in French might be linked to the identity of the jerboa presented to
Louis xiv.
In the same vein, but this time for English, Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti’s ‘On
the Semitic Origin of the English Word fustian’ addresses the etymology of
the English term ‘fustian’ and its cognates, and explores three possible origins
including Arabic, French and Semitic. With evidence, he traces the history of
the import of that word and its cognates in English through other languages
and shows that only the Semitic origin would be valid.
Turning to synonymy issues, Lidia Bettini focuses in ‘La lexicographie arabe
entre ʾadab et falsafa : Les questions lexicales du Kitāb al-hawāmil wa-l-šawā-
mil’ on the lexical questions which ʾAbū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023) asks
ʾAbū ʿAlī Miskawayh (d. 421/1030) in their Kitāb al-hawāmil wa-al-šawāmil.
What is at stake here is to determine, if possible, the nuance ( farq) existing
among words perceived as semantically close. After examining the theoreti-
cal views of Miskawayh on the question of synonymy, Bettini focuses on five
couples of considered synonyms compared to the analogous data offered by
authors such as ʿAskarī (d. after 400/1010), Rāġib al-ʾIṣfahānī (d. late 5th/11th),
and Kaffawī (d. 1094/1683).
Marie Baize-Varin in ‘“Traitement” de l’“organisation” en arabe moderne
de presse, ou le point de vue d’une linguiste sur l’ apparente synonymie ʿilāǧ/
introduction 9

muʿālaǧa et tanẓīm/munaẓẓama’ revisits an earlier paper of hers and addresses

once more the issue of the apparent synonymy existing between pairs like
ʿilāǧ/muʿālaǧa and tanẓīm/munaẓẓama. She shows that within these pairs, new
occurrences challenge the non-synonymy conclusion based on morphology
and indicates that the distinction should be made in terms of cultural consid-
erations, particularly in relation to pairs like specificity/generality and legiti-
macy/illegitimacy.
In ‘Ḥayṯu: une inextricable polysémie?’, after a first pessimistic report on
ḥayṯu and bi-ḥayṯu and their inextricable polysemy, Alain Girod aims to ex-
plore, thanks to a new corpus consisting of a special issue of the Financial Times
devoted to Egypt, written in English but translated into Arabic by al-Maṣrī al-
yawm, a surprising track that allows us to account for the multiplicity of uses
of this word in the Arabic contemporary press.

Finally, the fourth and last section of this volume, Arabic and Semitic Dialec-
tology, leads to A Ramble into Dialectology. George Grigore presents his paper
‘Fuṣḥā Arabic Vocabulary Borrowed by Mardini Arabic via Turkish’ in Mardini
Arabic. Spoken in Mardin, a little town in South-eastern Turkey, it has been
influenced—at all levels—by the Turkish language, the official language of the
area, replacing, for the Arab inhabitants of Mardin, the Fuṣḥā Arabic in all its
social functions. This dialect massively borrowed Arabic words from Turkish,
which in turn were borrowed by Turkish from Classical Arabic. These Classi-
cal Arabic words entered Mardini Arabic via Turkish language, which gave this
Peripheral Arabic dialect an odd image resulting from the mixing of a vocabu-
lary of dialectal and Classical Arabic.
In ‘Aspect Marking in Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi,’ Kees Versteegh studies the
development of aspect markers in an Arabic pidgin, Juba Arabic, spoken in
South Sudan, and an Arabic creole, Ki-Nubi, spoken in Kenya and Uganda,
both deriving from the 19th century contacts between the Anglo-Egyptian army
in Sudan and the indigenous recruits. He claims that the earliest varieties of
Arabic used in communication in this area did not have any grammatical-
ized aspectual markers. At a later stage, a general modal marker, bi, was bor-
rowed from Sudanese Arabic. When a second marker, gi, was introduced for
the marking of non-punctuality, it took over the marking of habituality from
bi.
In ‘Jewish Writing in Arabic in Arabic Characters in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries,’ addressing the issue of Arabic as a medium for other lan-
guages as well as the writing of Arabic in other characters, MariaLuisa Langella
describes a linguistic, literary and graphic practice consisting of the use of Ara-
bic language and characters by Jews during the 19th and 20th centuries. This
10 introduction

practice is one aspect of the long-standing relationship between the Jews and
the Arabic language, and constitutes a distinctive phenomenon that has so far
had little research attention. Langella shows that its analysis has revealed the
limited scope of the phenomenon from a chronological and geographical point
of view, as well as from the point of view of the number of writers concerned;
however, these limitations seem to be offset by a certain dynamism, which can
be observed through the variety of the types of writings listed.
Arkadiusz Płonka’s ‘Between Linguistics, Poetry, and Ideology: The Literary
Periodical L-ʾArzyāda in the Lebanese Language (June 2009 – October 2014).
General Presentation, Intellectual Impacts, Index of Authors, and “Lebanese”
Lexis’ offers us a presentation of the literary monthly periodical l-ʾArzyāda
which has been the only journal published in Lebanese since June of 2009. The
journal is a rare and valuable corpus of poetry and prose written by nearly 90
authors. It also contains metalinguistic essays, translations of mainly European
poetry and a directory of proverbs and words considered in the journal as typ-
ically “Lebanese.” Płonka considers the Saʿīd ʿAql’s use of the Latin alphabet as
a vehicle for writing Arabic, and in particular provides an index of the authors,
most of them little-known to non-specialists of Arabic/Lebanese literature. He
also provides a Lebanese language glossary.
Finally, Michael G. Carter’s ‘The Seven Deadly Sins of Arabic Studies’ con-
cludes the present volume by discussing a number of features of the study of
Arabic linguistics over the last two and a half centuries or so, which, in Carter’s
opinion, have had negative effects both on our understanding of the Arabs’ own
grammatical theory and on the teaching and learning of Arabic. After eliminat-
ing some well-known topics, namely Flügel’s renumbering of the verses of the
Qurʾān, the invention of Middle Arabic, and the introduction of the notion of
diglossia into pedagogy, the paper looks at seven broad themes which might
be considered deadly sins in this context; these, if not corresponding to all
seven ethical categories directly, may at least represent the sin of pride. They
are (1) transliteration issues, (2) case and mood names, (3) word classes and
parts of speech, (4) verb morphology, (5) definiteness, tanwīn, and inflection,
with digressions on patterns of definiteness marking, and relative sentences,
(6) “government,” and (7) predication and sentence structure, with digressions
on cohesion, and adjectival agreement.

In conclusion, we wish to salute the memory of our colleague Andrzej Zaborski,

Professor of Afroasitic linguistics, Jagiellonian University (Krakow), who passed
away on September 30, 2014. We take this occasion to express our sadness at this
loss, and our respect for his achievements. He was a great creative scholar. He
had intended to contribute to the present volume a chapter entitled ‘The Verb
introduction 11

in Akkadian and in Classical Arabic—Innovation and Archaism,’ but the work

was never completed. His provisional abstract read as follows:
Although Akkadian has the oldest records, nevertheless it represents many
innovations in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Classical Arabic and some
non-classical dialects have preserved archaisms which had been lost in Akka-
dian. Several Akkadian verbal categories are rather innovations from both a
Semitic and Hamitosemitic/Afroasiatic perspective and only some of them
are retentions. Parallels between Akkadian iparrVs-u and Ethiopian yeqattel,
as well as yeqotel of the Modern Semitic of Southern Arabia are only partial.
A more diversified system of Classical Arabic is older, e.g. the Arabic (and
West Semitic in general) Perfect is not an innovation. Classical Arabic is not
‘Jungsemitisch,’ but rather ‘Old Semitic.’ The new relative chronology imposes
changes in the genetic classification of the Semitic languages.

The Editors
 part 1
Semitic Linguistics

∵
 chapter 1

Switching of Labials in Biblical Hebrew

Philippe Cassuto

1 Introduction

This paper is a development of my previous article, ‘Le concept de paix et ses

expressions en hébreu’ in Redéfinir la paix à l’aube du xxie siècle (Cassuto 2001:
85–93). Pierre Larcher wrote an article in the same context entitled ‘Le concept
de paix et ses expressions en arabe’ (Larcher 2001: 95–105). Pierre Larcher’s
analysis was based on a pair of Arabic words: silm and salām, while in Hebrew
there was only the traditional shalom. While seaching for a Hebrew analogue,
I was unable to find an equivalent pair in Hebrew as easily as Pierre Larcher
did in Arabic. The closest pairing of words I have identified is shalom and
shalwa, which have a highly similar meanings. This was possible because of
the switching between the letters mem and waw—two labials. After deeper
observations, it appeared that numerous permutations of this type exist in
various Semitic languages. My analysis explores this phenomenon.

Cette intervention est le fruit d’une collaboration avec mon collègue

Pierre Larcher. Elle a mûri au long de conversations et d’ échanges entre
nos domaines respectifs. Dès le début, il nous a semblé que le concept
de couple pouvait être très riche. Pierre Larcher l’ a vite dégagé en arabe
avec le couple salām /silm. Pour l’hébreu, aucun couple n’apparaissait
de façon aussi claire et évidente. Mais avec un minimum de connais-
sances en langues sémitiques comparées, il m’a été possible de dégager
un couple de même nature. Pour ce faire, il faut savoir que dans le pas-
sage des mots de l’akkadien vers l’hébreu, souvent les lettres waw et
mem sont interchangeables. Ainsi le mois babylonien warẖu shamanu (la
huitième lunaison) est il devenu le mois juif de marẖeshwan, le waw ini-
tial devenant un mem initial et le mem interne étant transcrit par un waw.
Pour l’hébreu shalom, on peut donc concevoir un élément de paire qui
aurait changé son mem en waw. Or, il en existe un, il s’ agit de shalwa, avec
le suffixe typique du féminin.1

1 Cassuto 2001: 85–86. English translation: ‘This paper is the product of insightful collabora-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_003

16 cassuto

There are four labials in Hebrew: bet, waw, mem, and pe. Any Hebrew scholar
would also point out that the conjunction waw becomes the vowel u, before
the cognate labials bet, kaf, and pe. This rule can be observed in the Gesenius’
Hebrew Grammar:

e (c) Before words with simple Shewa under the first consonant (except
in cases under f ), the waw becomes the vowel û (cf. § 26 a), e.g. u-le-khol
and to all, so also (except in the cases under g) before the cognate labials
bet, mem, pe, hence u-melekh …
gesenius et al. 1963: 306

I made the following translations of Hebrew verses of the Bible. I used the
Dotan’s edition of the Hebrew bible (Dotan 1973). The English translation I
used for reference was taken from The New Revised Standard Version (nrsv)
Reference Bible with the Apocrypha (Verbrugge 1993).
This paper is structured in two parts: the first concerning the couple shal-
wa—shalom and the second regarding the Massoretic lists of qere-ketiv2 involv-
ing labials.

2 The Couple shalwa—shalom

The word shalwa occurs 9 times in the Hebrew bible and the word shalom
appears approximately 230 times. Below are the 9 occurrences of the word
shalwa.

tion with my colleague Pierre Larcher. It matured from long conversations and exchanges
between our respective fields. From the beginning, it appeared to us that the concept of pairs
was very promising. Pierre Larcher promptly illustrated this concept in Arabic through the
couple salām/silm. On the other hand, in Hebrew, such a pair was not as apparent and clear.
However, with a minimum of knowledge on compared Semitic languages, it became possi-
ble for me to distinguish such a pair. This was possible because the letters waw and mem
are interchangeable when switching from Akkadian to Hebrew. Thus, the initial waw in the
Babylonian month warẖu shamanu, becomes an initial mem in the Jewish month marẖesh-
wan, and the internal mem is transcribed as a waw.’ Hence, it would be pertinent that a pair
element exists for the Hebrew shalom, changing its mem into waw. Indeed, such a pair exists:
shalwa, with the typical feminin suffix.
2 Literally, qere-ketiv means lecture-scripture (lessons).
switching of labials in biblical hebrew 17

Jeremiah 22.21

dibarti ʾelayikh be-shalwotayikh ’amart lo’ ’eshma‘

I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, “I will not listen.”

Ezekiel 16.49

gaʾon shivʿat leẖem we-shalwat ha-sheqet haya lah we-li-venoteha

She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease.

Psalm 30.7

wa-ʾani ʾamarti ve-shalwi bal ʾemot le-ʿolam

As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”

Psalm 122.7

yehi shalom be-ẖelekh shalwa be-ʾarmenotayikh

Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.

Proverbs 1.32

ki meshuvat petayim tahargem we-shalwat kesilim teʾabedem

For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys
them.

Proverbs 17.1

tov pat ẖereva we-shalwa vah mi-bayit maleʾ zivẖe riv

Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.
18 cassuto

Daniel 8.25

we-ʿal sikhlo we-hitsliaẖ mirma be-yado u-vilvavo yagdil u-ve-shalwa yash-

ẖit rabim we-ʿal sar sarim yaʿamod u-ve-ʾefes yad yishaber

By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his
own mind he shall be great. Without warning he shall destroy many and
shall even rise up against the Prince of princes. But he shall be broken,
and not by human hands.

Daniel 11.21

u-baʾ ve-shalwa weheẖeziq malkhut ba-ẖalaqlaqot

He shall come in without warning and obtain the kingdom through

intrigue.

Daniel 11.24

be-shalwa u-ve-mishmane medina yavoʾ

Without warning he shall come into the richest parts of the province.

Although the word shalom occurs approximately 230 times in the Hebrew
bible, it is less than could be expected. I believe it would be insightful to
observe verses with shalom in close proximity to verses with shalwa. Below are
examples of such verses:

Jeremiah 20.10

kol ʾenosh shelomi shomere tsalʿi

All my close friends are watching for me to stumble.

Ezekiel 7.25

qefada va u-viqshu shalom wa-ʾayin

When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none.
switching of labials in biblical hebrew 19

Psalm 41.10

gam ʾish shelomi ʾasher bataẖti vo ʾokhel laẖmi higdil ʿalay ʿaqev

Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted
the heel against me.

Psalm 122.7

yehi shalom be-ẖelekh shalwa be-ʾarmenotayikh

Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.

Proverbs 3.2

ki ʾorekh yamim u-shenot ẖayim we-shalom yosifu lakh

For length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give
you.

Proverbs 3.17

derakheha darkhe noʿam we-khol netivoteha shalom

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

Daniel 10.19

wa-yoʾmer ʾel tira’ ʾish ẖamudot shalom lakh ẖazaq wa-ẖazaq

He said, “Do not fear, greatly beloved, you are safe. Be strong and coura-
geous!”

In the nrsv, the foundational meanings for shalwa are outlined as: prosperity,
prosperous, security, complacency, quiet, and without warning. For shalom, the
foundational meanings are: peace, close friend, bosom friend, security, welfare,
and safe. Shalwa and shalom both possess the meaning of ‘security.’ It thus
becomes evident that only a pair of words of the same origin may have such
close meanings.
20 cassuto

3 Qere-Ketiv Involving Labials

In the Hebrew Bible, nearly 1300 written words in the text, ketiv in Aramaic, can
also be read qere in Aramaic.
This issue has been subject to debate since the Antiquity, and is still disputed
today. With the development of a critical school for the Bible in the 17th century,
great thinkers have expressed discerning opinions on Massora. I want to point
out in Spinoza and Pascal’s interpretations in particular.
Spinoza wrote in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus:

Quod autem notae marginales, quae in Hebraeis Codicibus passim inveni-

untur, dubiae fuerint lectiones, nemo etiam dubitare potest, qui attendit,
quod plereque ex magna literarum Hebraicarum similitudine qua habet
Kaf cum Bet, Jod cum Vau, Dalet cum Res &c. E.G. ubi lib. 2 Sam. Cap. 5 v.
penult. Scribitur in margine beshomakha cum audies & Cap. 21. Jud. v. 22
ki yavoʾu ʾavotam ʾo ʾaẖeyhem lariv & quando earum patres vel fratres in
multitudine (h.e. saepe) ad nos venrint &c. habetur in margine lariv ad lit-
igandum …
At postquam malita & luxus regnavit, illa quae sine obscaenitate ab
antiquis dicta sunt, in obscaebis haberi inceperunt. Hac autem de causa
Scripturam ipsam mutare non erat opus, attamen ut plebis imbecillitati
subvenirent, introduxerunt, ut nomina coitus & excrementorum hon-
estius in publico legerentur, videlicet sicuti in margine notaverunt.3
spinoza 1670: ch. 9

Pascal was also interested Masoretic notes. An example is the following argu-
ment from his book Les pensées:

Il n’est pas permis d’attribuer à l’Écriture les sens qu’ elle ne nous a pas
révélé qu’elle a. Ainsi de dire que le ‫ ם‬d’ Isaïe signifie 600 cela n’est pas
révélé. Il n’est pas dit que les ‫ צ‬et les ‫ ח‬déficientes signifieraient des
mystères. Il n’est donc pas permis de le dire. Et encore moins de dire
que c’est la manière de la pierre philosophale. Mais nous disons que
le sens littéral n’est pas le vrai parce que les prophètes l’ ont dit eux-
mêmes.
pascal 1963 [1669]: 272

3 Spinoza wrote his samples in Hebrew letters as its seen in the first edition.
switching of labials in biblical hebrew 21

When Pascal wrote ‘le ‫ ם‬d’Isaïe signifie 600,’ he was referring to the word, or
two words, leMarbe in Isaiah 9.6:

LeMarbe ha-misra u-le-shalom ʾeyn qets ‘al kise’ dawid we-ʿal mamlakheto

His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for
the throne of David and his kingdom.

Interestingly enough, this verse actually belongs to a Masoretic list (mm 214),4
which lists words written in a single word that must be read as two words, as
well as two written words that must be read as a single word. The word leMarbe
is an example of the second case. To mark the word’s two-word writing, the
Masoretes used a final mem, transcribed by m written as a capital letter. In
reference to this case, Gesenius et al. stated:

5. Pecularities in the tradition of the o.t. text, which are already men-
tioned in the Talmud, are— …
(5) Mêm clausum in leMarbe Is.9.6, and Mêm apertum in Neh.2.13.
gesenius et al. 1963: 31

Therefore, as every Hebraist did in his times, Pascal also knew the story of
leMarbe. In my book (Cassuto 1989), I attested that no Masoretic lists of qere-
ketiv concern the labial pe, and very few concern the two labials bet, (two lists)
and mem (only one list). It is a different matter for the labial waw, which is not
only a labial, but also a matres lectionis.
In this section, I present all the qere-ketiv Massoretic lists concerning the two
labials bet, and mem:

– Words in the Bible written without a necessary mem,

– Words in the Bible written with an unnecessary bet,
– Words in the Bible written with kaf and read as bet.

I choose to present three qere-ketiv Massoretic lists concerning the labial waw:

– Words in the Bible written without waw in the beginning of a word but read
with a waw,
– Words in the Bible written with a unnecessary waw.

4 mm is the abreviation of the latin Massorah Magna for the hebrew Massorah Gedolah, and
the number is like that in Weil’s book [Weil: 1971].
22 cassuto

My presentation of the qere-ketiv Massoretic lists is as presented in my book

(Cassuto 1989). As Gérard Weil suggested, mm is the abbreviation of the latin
Massorah Magna for the Hebrew Massorah Gedolah, and numbers are as follow
in his book (Weil 1971).

3.1 Six Words in the Bible Written without Mem

mm 1646 (1Samuel 20.38) is a list of six occurrences of words with a deficient
mem (Cassuto 1989: 103). Following is what I observed about this list:

Cette liste est composée de deux éléments. Le premier indique des qere-
ketiv où une ou plusieurs lettres doivent être lues comme mem (les six
premières références). Le second indique pour Ezechiel 44.24 un mot
auquel il faut ajouter un mem. La référence à 2 Chroniques 29.12 ou 1
Chroniques 6,20 reste obscure. Pour ces raisons, ge Weil a corrigé le titre
de la note waw en zayin, et a éliminé la référence à Chroniques.
cassuto 1989: 103

w ẖasirin mem we-simanhon—Six occurrences with deficient mem and their

references:

Joshua 5.1—mipne bene israʾel because of the Israelites—‘ovrenu

[‘ovram] they had crossed over5
1Samuel 20.38—ha-ẖitsim the arrows6
1Kings 1.47—ʾelohim God7
2Kings 8.17—shana years—de-yoram of Joram8
Isaiah 30.32—maʿavar stroke9
2Kings 12.12—ha-mufqadim who had the oversight10

5 The qere ʿovram was translated by “they had crossed over” instead the ketiv ʿovrenu, “we
had crossed over.”
6 The qere ha-ẖitsim was translated by “arrows” instead the ketiv ha-ẖetsi, “half.”
7 The qere ʾElohim was translated by “God” instead the ketiv ʾEloheykha, “your God.”
8 The qere shana was translated by “years” instead the ketiv shanim, “years.” Indeed in
Hebrew, it is possible to use the singular instead the plural for a unit name.
9 The word stroke is the first word of the verse with a substantial meaning and it is used
here to mark the reference and not the qere-ketiv lesson. It is possible to translate the
qere bam by “(he will fight with) them” instead the ketiv bah, “(he will fight with) her.” The
nrsv chose to translate “(he will fight with) him”.
10 The qere ha-mufqadim was translated by “who had the oversight” instead the ketiv ha-
pequdim, which has the same meaning.
switching of labials in biblical hebrew 23

2Chronicles 29.12 or 1Chronicles 6.20—de-maẖat ben Mahath son of 11

Ezekiel 44.24—le-mishpat judgment.12

3.2 Four Words in the Bible Written with an Unnecessary Bet

mm 1754 (2Samuel 10,9) is a list of four occurrences with a unnecessary bet
(Cassuto 1989: 104).
dalet yetir bet we-laʿ qere we-simanhon—Four occurrences with a unneces-
sary bet and here are their references

2Samuel 10.9—behure [bi-]yisraʾel the picked men of Israel13

2Kings 22.5—ha-mufqadim [be-]vet yhwh who are at the house of the
Lord—qedama di-pesuqa first in the verse14
Jeremiah 52.11—wa-yitenehu [be-]vet ha-pequdot and put him in
prison15
Proverbs 28.8—beneshekh u-[ve-]tarbit by exorbitant interest16

3.3 Three Words in the Bible Written with Kaf and Read with Bet
mm4255 (2Chronicles 33,16, Cassuto 1989: 105) is a list of three occurrences
written kaf and read bet.
g ketiv kaf u-qer b wesimanh—Three occurrences written kaf and read bet
and here are their references

2Samuel 12.31—be-malkan [ba-malben] to the brickworks de-sam of

Samuel17

11 The expression Mahath son of occurs twice in the Hebrew Bible: 2Chronicles 29.12 and
1 Chronicles 6.20, but it is no qere-ketiv related to the letter mem in those two instances.
12 The qere le-mishpat was translated by “judgment” instead the ketiv li-shpot, “judge.”
13 The qere yisraʾel was translated by “of Israel” instead the ketiv bi-yisraʾel, “of Israel.” The
meaning is the same with or without the particle bi-.
14 The qere bet was translated by “at the house” instead the ketiv be-vet, “at the house.” The
meaning is the same with or without the particle be-. The note indicates also “qedama
di-pesuqa first in the verse,” because this expression occurs twice in this verse and the
qere-ketiv note is about the first occurrence, and not about the second one.
15 The qere bet [ha-pequdot] was translated by “in prison” instead the ketiv be-vet [ha-
pequdot], “in prison.” The meaning is the same with or without the particle be-.
16 The qere we-tarbit was translated by “by exorbitant interest” instead the ketiv u-[ve-]tarbit,
“by exorbitant interest”. The meaning is the same with or without the particle be-.
17 The qere ba-malben was translated by “to the brickworks” instead the ketiv be-malkan,
“in their king.” The note added “of Samuel” not to be confused with the occurrence of ba-
malben in Jeremiah.
24 cassuto

2Chronicles 33.16—wa-yakhen [wa-yiven] ʾet mizbah yhwh he also

restored the altar of the Lord18
Proverbs 21.29—hu’ yakhin [yavin] derakhaw [darko] give thought to19
their ways

3.4 Fourteen Words in the Bible Written without Waw

mm 3804 (Daniel 2.43, Cassuto 1989: 116) is a list of twelve occurrences written
without waw at the beginning of a word, but read with waw. Below is what I
discerned of this list:

Il manque la référence de Daniel pour arriver aux douze annoncées en

titre. Le fait qu’elle ne figure pas physiquement peut s’ expliquer par le
fait que cette dernière référence se trouve juste après la liste massoré-
tique
cassuto 1989: 116

yb ẖas w be-raʾsh tevot u-qer wesimanh—Twelve occurrences written without

waw in the beginning of a word but read with waw and here their references

2Kings 4.7—we-ʾat banekhy [u-vanayikh] and you and your children20

Isaiah 55.13—[we-]taẖat instead [we-]taẖat ha-sirpad instead of the
brier21
Job 2.7—[we-]‘ad qodqodo to the crown of his head22
Proverbs 23.24—[we-]yoled ẖakham he who begets a wise son23

18 The qere wa-yakhen was translated by “he also restored” instead the ketiv wa-yiven, “he
also built.”
19 The nrsv noted here: Another reading is establish. That is the only case in our little corpus
where the nrsv indicates also the meaning of the ketiv beside these of the qere.
20 The qere u-vanayikh was translated by “and your children” instead the ketiv banekhy, “your
children.”
The ketiv banekhy is written with a superfluous yod that is the trace of the old flexion
for a plural name, 2nd singular feminine pronoun.
21 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv taẖat, “instead,” and not the qere we-taẖat “and
instead.” The note repeats taẖat [ha-sirpad] to not confuse with the precedent taẖat that
begins this verse.
22 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv ‘ad qodqodo, “to the crown of his head,” and not the
qere we-ʿad qodqodo “and to the crown of his head.”
23 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv yoled ẖakham, “he who begets,” and not the qere
we-yoled ẖakham “and he who begets.”
switching of labials in biblical hebrew 25

Proverbs 27.24—we-ʾim nezer le-dor [wa-]dor nor a crown for all

generations24
Lamentations 2.2—bilaʿ yhwh [we-]loʾ ẖamal the Lord has destroyed
without mercy25
Lamentations 5.5—[we-]loʾ hunaẖ lanu we are given no rest26
Lamentations 5.3—[we-]ʾeyn ʾav fatherless27
Lamentations 4.16—[u-]zeqenim lo’ ẖananu no favor to the elders28
Lamentations 5.7—ẖateʾu [we-]ʾeynam (our ancestors) sinned; they are
no more29
Lamentations 5.7—[we-]ʾanaẖnu and we (bear their iniquities)30
(Daniel 2.43)—([we-]di ẖazayta as you saw)31

mm 3945 (Nehemiah 3.30, Cassuto 1989: 116) is a list of two words in the book
of Nehemiah written without a needed waw. This list has no title, nor number
of occurrences.

Nehemiah 3.30—(ʾaẖaraw [ʾaẖare] heẖeziq) ẖanaya ben shelemya after

him Hananiah son of Shelemiah32
Nehemiah 3.31—we-shel ʾaẖaraw33 (ʾaẖaraw [ʾaẖare] heẖeziq malkiya
ben ha-tsorefi) (after him Malchijah, one of the goldsmiths)34

24 The nrsv translates “for all generations.” With such a translation, it is impossible to
differentiate the qere le-dor wa-dor, “from generation and to generation” and the ketiv
le-dor dor, “from generation to generation.”
25 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv lo’, “without,” and not the qere we-lo’ “and without.”
26 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv lo’, “we are given no rest,” and not the qere we-lo’
“and we are given no rest.”
27 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv ʾeyn ʾav, “fatherless,” and not the qere we-ʾeyn ʾav “and
fatherless.”
28 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv zeqenim lo’ ẖananu, “no favor to the elders,” and not
the qere u-zeqenim loʾ ẖananu “and no favor to the elders.”
29 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv ʾeynam, “they are no more,” and not the qere we-
ʾeynam “and they are no more.”
30 The nrsv chose to translate the qere we-ʾanaẖnu, “and we (bear their iniquities),” and not
the ketiv ʾanaẖnu “we (bear their iniquities).”
31 The nrsv chose to translate the ketiv di, “as,” and not the qere we-di “and as.”
32 The nrsv chose to translate the qere ʾaẖaraw, “after him,” and not the ketiv ʾaẖare “after.”
33 “we-shel ʾaẖaraw” means the verse after the present verse, indeed Nehemiah 3.31 that’s
after Nehemiah 3.30.
34 The nrsv chose to translate the qere ʾaẖaraw, “after him,” and not the ketiv ʾaẖare “after.”
26 cassuto

3.5 Words in the Bible Written with an Unnecessary Waw

mm 3882 (Ezra 2.1, Cassuto 1989: 120) is the list of the two occurrences of
nevukhadnetsar and Nebuchadrezzar, with a superfluous waw.
b ket(iv) nevukhadnetsaWr yetirin w wesimanh—Two occurrences of the
word Nebuchadrezzar with a superfluous waw and here are their references

Jeremiah 49.28—le-qedar u-le-mamlakhot ẖatsur Concerning Kedar and

the kingdoms of Hazor35
Ezra 2.1—we-ʾele bene ha-medina now these were the people of the
province36

mm 1291 (Josuah 9,7, Cassuto 1989: 120) is the list of the two occurrences of
ʾekhrot written fully.
ʾekhrot b mal—Two occurrences of ʾekhrot written fully [ie with a waw for the
vowel o]

Isaiah 61.8—we-natati peʿulatam (beʾemet u-vrit ʿolam ʾekhrot lahem)

I will faithfully give them their recompense, (and I will make an
everlasting covenant with them)37
Josuah 9.7—be-qirbi ʾata (yoshev we-ʾeykh ʾekhrot lekha [ʾekhrot-lekha]
berit) you (live) among us; (then how can we make a treaty with
you?)38

I noted the following regarding this list: ‘L’occurrence d’ Isaïe 61,8 ne faisant pas
l’objet d’un qere-ketiv, voici la répétition de cette liste sous Isaïe 61,8’ (Cassuto
1989: 120).

Now, the same list mm 1291 in Isaïe 61.8 (Cassuto 1989: 120).
ʾekhrot b mal—Two occurrences of ʾekhrot written fully [ie with a waw for the
vowel o]

35 The qere nevukhadnetsaWr was translated by “Nebuchadrezzar” instead the ketiv nevu-
khadnetsar, “Nebuchadrezzar.”
36 The qere nevukhadnetsaWr was translated by “Nebuchadrezzar” instead the ketiv nevu-
khadnetsar, “Nebuchadrezzar.”
37 The word ʾekhrot, “I will make” in the nrsv, in this verse can be written with or without
waw. The meaning is the same and the two spellings are grammatically correct, because
it is possible to write the vowel o, ẖolam, with or without waw.
38 The qere and the ketiv ʾekhrot “we make a treaty with you” have the same meaning. The
nrsv translate this as “we” instead of “I.”
switching of labials in biblical hebrew 27

Josuah 9.7—we-ʾeykh ʾekhrot lekha [ʾekhrot-lekha] berit then how can

we make a treaty with you?39
Isaiah 61.8—u-verit ʿolam ʾekhrot lahem and I will make an everlasting
covenant with them40

This last Masoretic note in both versions is a great example of a mixture of two
notes from different kinds and origins. In fact, the word ʾekhrot occurs five times
in the Hebrew Bible. Two of them are written with waw (those of the Masoretic
lists: Josuah 9.7 and Isaiah 61.8), and three are written without waw (1 Samuel
11.2—I will make a treaty with you, 2Samuel 3.13—I will make a covenant with
you, and Jeremiah 31.33—but this is the covenant that I will make).
Only in the occurrence in Josuah 9.7, the qere and the ketiv ʾekhrot “we will
make a treaty with you” have the same meaning; however the ketiv with waw is
not grammatically correct, whereas the qere without waw is, as there is a maqef
between the two words to connect these words. Indeed, the word ʾekhrot lost
its accent. The vowel o, ẖolam, is possible only in the stressed syllable. With
the maqef, the second syllable of ʾekhrot is therefore not stressed and the only
possibility to mark the vowel o in a non-stressed syllable is a qamats qatan.
This vowel qamats qatan cannot be supported by a waw. For this reason, the
occurrence of Joshua has a Masoretic note in the margin—such a note is called
a massora parva, little massorah. In conclusion, the Masoretic notes mm 1291
do not apply to qere-ketiv, but to the full or defective writing of the letter waw.
To conclude this section, there are a few lists of qere-ketiv on labials, except
for waw. These lists are more complex than they seem and many researchers
have not always fully understood their nature, not only concerning labials.

4 Conclusion

My aim in this paper on labial switching was to develop my article ‘Le concept
de paix et ses expressions en hébreu,’ essentially concerning the pair of words
shalwa—shalom. I revealed the importance of labial switching in the Masoretic
notes on qere-ketiv. These notes on qere-ketiv have even attracted the attention
of authors Pascal and Spinoza.

39 The qere and the ketiv ʾekhrot “we make a treaty with you” have the same meaning. The
nrsv translate this as “we” instead of “I.”
40 The word ʾekhrot, “I will make” in the nrsv, in this verse can be written with or without
waw. The meaning is the same and the two spellings are grammatically correct.
28 cassuto

My collaboration with Pierre Larcher did not end on December 4, 1999 with
the conference Redéfinir la paix à l’aube du xxie siècle. We have continued our
collaboration into the 21st century, with the writing of no less than three books:
La sémitologie aujourd’hui (2000), La Formation des mots dans les langues sémi-
tiques (2007), Oralité et écriture dans la Bible et le Coran (2014). The release of
our next book is expected for 2021. It is an exceptional opportunity for me to
have found such a scientific partner, and an even greater honor to have made
such a friend.

Bibliography

Bibles
Dotan, Aron. 1973. Tora, neviʾim u-khetuvim. Tel Aviv: adi Publishers.
Verbrugge, V. 1991. nrsv (The New Revised Standard Version) Harper Study Bible. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan.

Other Sources
Cassuto, Philippe. 1989. Qeré-Ketib et listes massorétiques dans le manuscrit b 19a. Frank-
furt am Main: Peter Lang, coll. “Judentum und Umwelt.”
Cassuto, Philippe. 2001. ‘Le concept de paix et ses expressions en hébreu.’ Redéfinir la
paix à l’aube du xxie siècle. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, coll. “Les Cahiers
de la Paix 8,” 85–93.
Cassuto, Philippe and Larcher, Pierre. 2000. La sémitologie aujourd’hui. Aix-en-Pro-
vence: Presses Universitaires de Provence.
Cassuto, Philippe and Larcher, Pierre. 2007. La Formation des mots dans les langues
sémitiques. Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence.
Cassuto, Philippe and Larcher, Pierre. 2014. Oralité et écriture dans la Bible et le Coran.
Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence.
Gesenius, Wilhem et al. 1963 [1910]. Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press. 6th revised and augmented ed.
Larcher, Pierre. 2001. ‘Le concept de paix et ses expressions en arabe.’ Redéfinir la paix
à l’aube du xxie siècle. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, coll. “Les Cahiers de
la Paix 8,” 95–105.
Pascal, Blaise. 1963 [1669]. Pensées. Paris: Le Seuil, éd. Lafuma.
Spinoza, Barukh. 1670. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Amsterdam: Jan Rieuwertz.
Weil, Gérard Emmanuel. 1971. Massorah Gedolah iuxta codicem Leningradensem b19a.
Rome: Pontificum Institutum Biblicum.
 chapter 2

The Analytics of Writing, Exemplified by Arabic,

the Youngest of the Semitic Scripts

Joseph Dichy*

1 Introduction

Although considerable progress has been reached in the elaboration of theoret-

ical concepts for the analysis of writing systems in the last few decades, the gap
between general linguistics and the linguistics of writing paradoxically remains
un-bridged. This issue is even more significant in the study of Semitic scripts,
such as Arabic.
The belief that writing is (a) a mere representation of spoken utterances
and (b) a code that has evolved ‘from pictograph to alphabet,’ in the phrasing
of G. Driver (1948), has slowly begun to decline only in the last 30 years.
This idea is related to ‘the alphabetic hypothesis’ (Coulmas 1989: 159–162)
or ‘the Alphabet Effect theory’ (Fischer, 2001: 165), which links the overall
progress of human thought—with explicit reference to Western cultures—
to the emergence of alphabetic writing, as opposed to logographic, syllabic,
or consonantal ones. The underlying assumption is that ancient Greek script,
with its full notation of vowels, can be deemed the alphabetic writing par
excellence—in opposition to that of Semitic writings. Many authors, whose
works remain the basic references of the history of writing1 (the word is still
often, significantly enough, spelled without an ‘s’), support this view. As a

* I am indebted to J.-P. Jaffré for invaluable insight and to Cl. Boisson for his enlightening
approaches to metalinguistic issues (Boisson 1999). Unless otherwise indicated, the author
is responsible for the translations from either French or Arabic.
1 These include distinguished authors of reference books on the history of writing, such as
M. Cohen (1958), I.J. Gelb (1952, reed. 1963ff.), D. Diringer (1948, reed. 1968), D. Driver (1948,
reed. 1976), J. Février (1959). The famous anthropologist J. Goody (1993: chapter 2, in consis-
tency with Goody and Watt 1968) only partly escapes the ‘Alphabet Effect theory,’ and goes on
quoting such ethnically centred thinkers as M. McLuhan (The Gutenberg Galaxy, 1962: 61–63)
whose position has been described as ‘the alphabetic hypothesis in its crudest form’ (Coul-
mas 1989: 160) or E.A. Havelock (e.g. Origin of Western Literacy, 1976). See, for further analysis
and discussion, Coulmas (1989: 159–162), Olson (1994: chap. 1) and Dichy (1990a).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_004

30 dichy

consequence, Semitic writings have not been considered as ‘alphabetic in the

full sense of the term’ (M. Cohen 1958; Février 1959), and have come to be
regarded as “consonantal” (Diringer 1948; Driver 1948) or even “syllabic” (Gelb
1952). In fact, the question of how Semitic writings can be categorized still
remains a point of debate—at least in part because most authors of reference
books on the development of writing (see note 1) are specialists of Semitic
languages, hence the paradox mentioned in the opening lines.
Overcoming this situation has proved to be much more difficult than ex-
pected in the still predominant framework of what I would call the ‘pictograph-
to-alphabet paradigm.’ On the basis of other approaches, an alternative posi-
tion more concerned with the linguistic description of writings2 than with gen-
eral historical perspectives is introduced here. These approaches deliberately
relate the adequacy of a given writing system to its own particular structure
(Gleason 1961: 25.1), rather than to an idealistic pictograph-to-alphabet evo-
lutionary scheme. Relating a given script to its own system is a fundamental
assumption of the analytics of writing, another phrasing of the concept of scrip-
tural analytics introduced in Dichy (1990a). The ‘analytic paradigm,’ presented
in section 2, will then be exemplified by an analysis of the Arabic writing system
in section 3.

2 The Concept of Scriptural Analytics3

The analytics of writing are conceptually grounded on a question as simple as

what makes it possible for writing to emerge and to be used in a given language?
In a more technical sense, the fundamental issue concerns the cognitive pro-
cesses accounting for the possibility of writing, from the points of view of (a)
its emergence and codification in a given language, and (b) its current use. The
underlying hypothesis is that the codes and conventions of the current writing
system of a given language reflect the analytic processes that were successively
responsible for its emergence and for later modifications.
Cognition is not considered here from a purely psychological ‘inner’ stand-
point. The social and individual sides of cognitive processes are closely interwo-
ven in many aspects of human activity. These aspects include both the current

2 See among a few others, Vachek 1939, 1973; Gleason 1961, chapters 25–26; Haas 1970, 1976,
1983; Pulgram 1976; Coulmas 1989; Catach 1982, 1988, 1990–1991; Sampson 1985; Jaffré 1988;
Dichy 1980, 1990a; Jaffré and David, eds, 1993; Ducard, Honvault & Jaffré 1995. See also the
contributions of Klima, Martin, Caroll, Lotz, in Kavanagh & Mattingly 1972.
3 This section is a widely revisited overview of Dichy 1990a: chapters iv and v.
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 31

practice and the acquisition process of a given writing, as demonstrated in

the pioneering works of Vygotsky (1934, French transl. 1985: 258–278; 1935: 111;
Schneuwly 1985). This is also illustrated in the experiments based on Goody and
Watt (1964) and Vygotsky’s works, which were conducted by Scribner and Cole
exploring the influence of literacy on users of the Vai writing system (Scribner
and Cole 1981; Goody 1993: chap. 9 and 10; Olson 1994: chap. 2).
The approach leading to the concept of scriptural analytics nevertheless
differs drastically from the discussion regarding how the emergence of writ-
ing may influence social and individual cognition controversially initiated by
J. Goody (1977, 1986, 1993). It appears more relevant to the analysis of writing4 to
reverse the terms of the discussion: the focus thus becomes the social and cog-
nitive processes that are responsible for the emergence and practice of writing,
the nature of which we will now examine.

2.1 The Legacy of the 18th Century: Rousseau vs. Condillac’s Views on
Writing
The inheritance from the 18th century concerning the linguistics of writing
is, briefly stated, essentially concerned with the ‘evolutionist theory’ in the
development of language. The elaboration of script was generally considered
as an extension of language due to the progressive development of social need
and the slow emergence of human societies.5
There are two sides to this heritage. The first is well-known, and could be
described as the pictograph-to-alphabet paradigm: evolution in the develop-
ment of the ‘great invention of writing’ (M. Cohen 1958) appears in this view to
be directional. It moves, as the history of mankind advances, from a lesser to a
higher degree of abstraction, the former being correlated to pictographic and
ideographic representations of speech, the latter to alphabetic writing:

These three manners of writing correspond exactly enough to the three

states in which men can be found assembled into nations. The painting

4 Goody’s analyses are closely related to the pictograph-to-alphabet view of the evolution
of human cognitive abilities and knowledge. As will be made clearer to the reader below,
reversing Goody’s questioning about the relations between language and human activity and
abilities is typical of the analytic paradigm.
5 See, e.g. Maupertuis (1748, in Porset 1970), Condillac (1746), Rousseau (1781, and Derrida’s 1967
analyses). Other theories have been proposed in the 17th century, according to which both
oral and written languages appeared simultaneously, or even that the prime conventional
symbols were of hieroglyphic nature (Warburton, 1744, §5—see, e.g. Ch. Porset’s invaluable
notes to his edition of Rousseau’s Essai).
32 dichy

of things agrees with savage peoples, word- and phrase-signs agree with
the barbarian, and the alphabet, with the civilized.
rousseau, Essai sur l’ origine des langues: chap. v

Consistent with this ethnocentric view (still very much apparent, even today, in
the ‘Alphabet Effect Theory’ mentioned above), Rousseau describes alphabetic
script in terms that assume a “natural” relation between analytic abilities,
“civilized” peoples, and decomposing speech into phonetic segments:

The third [way of writing] consists of decomposing the speaking voice in a

certain number of elementary parts, either vocal or articulate, with which
one can form all imaginable words and syllables. (…) This precisely is not
painting speech, it is analysing it.
rousseau, Essai: chap. v

Following Rousseau’s view, the pictograph-to-alphabet paradigm is brought to

assume that the analytical aspect of writing is solely based on spoken utterance.
This view is related to what has been described as ‘logocentrism’ (Derrida 1967).
Derrida’s analyses have highlighted the metaphysic background of Rousseau’s
(and many other author’s) belief that human language is fundamentally oral,
the correlate of which is the idea that writing can be deemed a mere symbol-
ization of speech, of secondary nature.
The other aspect of the “evolutionist” heritage, which has, to my knowledge,
been widely overlooked, is of much greater interest to the linguistics of writing.
Its most elaborate expression may be Condillac’s. He describes language both
as an analytical and an evolutionary process. As depicted by Joly (1982: 244
and 253), Condillac considers language from a genetic perspective, at three
levels:

1. the emergence of language in the history of mankind. Significantly, the title

given by Condillac to part 2, section 1 of his Essai sur l’ origine des connais-
sances humaines is: ‘The origin and progress of language’;
2. the psychology of learning and the acquisition of (specific) languages. Condil-
lac parallels the development of mankind and that of the child (e.g. Gram-
maire, part i, chap. ii, note 2). This is not only a naïve view; it is also related to
Condillac’s deep concern with pedagogy and the acquisition of knowledge
(id., chap. v);
3. the practice of language in its relation to thought. ‘Analysing thought’ is ‘the
first object of language’; languages are ‘analytical methods’ (Grammaire,
part i, chap. vi).
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 33

The object of this analytical process is ‘pre-discursive thought,’ based, in the

sensualist philosophy of Condillac, on perception. Both pre-discursive thought
and the discursive use of linguistic signs are necessary prerequisites of the
concept of analysis (Joly 1982). Condillac provides a highly precise definition
of the operations involved at the three levels mentioned above:

Analysing … consists in composing and decomposing our ideas in order

to establish different kinds of comparisons, by means of which one can
discover the relations that stand between them, and the new ideas they
are liable to produce.6 (…) It is not with the help of general propositions
that [this kind of] analysis seeks truth, but always though a sort of com-
putation, i.e. through composing and decomposing notions, in order to
compare them in the most suitable manner, with respect to the discover-
ies one has in mind. (…) The only way to acquire knowledge is to go back
to the origin of our ideas, follow their generation and compare them from
[the standpoint of] all possible relations; this is what I call analysing.
condillac, Essai: § 66–67

The title of the present study (‘the analytics of writing’) partly refers to the
computational aspects of this analytic approach to language. When it comes
to writing (Essai: §127–137), it is interesting to note that, in consistency with
this general conception of language, Condillac is only concerned with anal-
ogy, metaphoric processes (§129), and the analytic operations leading from
‘painting’ to ‘symbolic writing’ (§131–132), i.e. with the codifying of ideographic
scripts, with reference to ancient Egyptian and Chinese. In contrast with the
views of Rousseau and other “logocentric” thinkers, Condillac’s conception can
be considered as a forerunning reference of an alternative paradigm in the lin-
guistics of writing: the analytic paradigm.

2.2 Writing as a Cognitive Process Calling Partly on Metalinguistic

Activity
In terms partly inspired by Condillac, one can describe writing systems as
‘artefacts [a] based on, and [b] included in, the artefact of the related language.’
Statement [a] refers to the emergence of a given writing, and [b] to the overall

6 It is essential to note that the computational definition of analysis in Condillac’s works

includes what we would nowadays call synthesis. In E. Kant’s system of definitions, ‘producing
new ideas’ on the basis of the process of ‘composing and decomposing’ would correspond to
‘synthetic judgement’ (Kant, e.g. Prolegomena, § 22).
34 dichy

status of the writing system in the language. Both points are indeed connected,
the main question concerning the nature of the relations involved.
Let us consider first the emergence of a writing (level 1 of Condillac’s perspec-
tive on language above). The evolutionist idea was strongly revisited in 20th
century linguistics, in terms that can only be hinted at here. Abandoning the
pictograph-to-alphabet conception, as well as its fallacious correlate accord-
ing to which writing is a mere secondary representation of speech, one can
nevertheless consider a given writing as an extension of a given language. The
idea that after the emergence of a writing system, the languages concerned dif-
fered from what they were before is more and more often admitted nowadays,
although the nature of the difference still remains an open question to special-
ists unfamiliar with the specificities of the linguistics of writing. N. Catach has
called this process ‘the l’ theory,’ according to which:

Every language l, with an oral form a and a developed writing system b

becomes l’.
catach 1988: 243

Statement [a] above is, to some extent, a rephrasing of the ‘l’ theory.’ The main
issue, then, is that of the relations between l and l’, in the practice of language
users (level 3 in Condillac’s genetic perspective). In the terms of the School of
Prague, the ‘written’ and ‘spoken norms’ are functionally complementary in
human communication, which is enough to relate them to a single language
(Vachek 1973: 30–31).7
Going beyond that basic functionalist view, one can observe that users of
a language provided with a writing system are brought to be alternatively
listeners, speakers, readers, or writers, according to the language activity they
are engaged in (Catach 1988: 254). The complexity of these activities, some of
which involve transfer from speech to writing and vice-versa,8 is responsible
for the multifaceted set of connections between writing and speech and for
the structure of orthography in a given language. Catach (1988) relates the

7 The 1939 preface of Troubetzkoy’s Principles of Phonology indicates that the volume was to be
followed by a second one, on writing. The project was interrupted by the death of the author.
8 Transfer between ‘spoken and written utterances’ has been described as ‘intralingual trans-
lation’ (Haas 1970; also, Vachek 1973: 31). I have highlighted eleven “basic” and “complex
language abilities”, corresponding to eleven language activities, four of which match the well-
known “four skills” (listen, speak, read and write), and seven others call on a combination of
two basic activities, e.g. read aloud, write under dictation, repeat, copy, reformulate in writing
a spoken message, reformulate orally a written message, etc. (Dichy 1990c).
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 35

‘poly-system’ of writing to these activities themselves, and to the fact that they
are interconnected: in short, the poly-system of a given writing accounts for
the fact that some written signs directly refer to meaning, while others refer
to sounds (Haas 1983, after Hjelmslev 1938, who called the former “pleremic,”
and the latter “cenemic”). Although pleremic signs are the basic structure of
ideographic scripts, and cenemic ones are the basis of syllabic and alphabetic
scripts, both writing systems feature a certain degree of combination of both
‘cenemic and pleremic principles’ (Haas 1983).9
A given language can, thus, be seen as a complex knowledge system, the
organisation of which includes written and oral realisations, as well as the
connections between the lexicons and rules involved in these realisations.10
One aspect of this complex system is metalinguistic abilities.
The term “metalinguistic” and the concepts of “metalinguistic abilities” and
“metalinguistic activities” are crucial to the definition of the analytics of writ-
ing. The relation between what we would nowadays call cognitive develop-
ment, language activity, and metalinguistic abilities11 was first expressed by
Lev Vygostky (1934), although the adjective “metalinguistic” does not, for obvi-
ous chronological reasons, appear in his works. Present-day linguistics owe the
Russian psychologist (a) the idea that the process of writing both admits and
entails control over the production of linguistic utterances, and (b) the descrip-
tion according to which the activity of writing dissociates the production and
reception of messages, thus allowing the scriber time for backtracking, and for a

9 For evidence in French orthography, see Catach et al. (1980) and Catach (1978); for updated
theoretical and acquisitional synthesis, see Ducard, Honvault and Jaffré (1995). For “poly-
dimensionalism” in English see Venezky (1970).
10 I have shown that a language that includes a writing could be described as a complex
knowledge system, the structure of which is compatible with different types of language
activities. Such a definition entails the idea that writing systems are internal to languages
(Dichy 1990a: 256–272).
11 The concept of metalanguage comes from logic, and first appeared in the writings of
Tarsky (in Polish and German) in the early 1930’s (Rey-Debove 1997: 4–7. For a carefully
referenced early history of the concept see Boisson 1999). The present discussion focuses
on metalinguistic language activities related to various metalinguistic abilities (Gombert
1990), and not on the logical concept of metalanguage. We follow, on the whole, Jakob-
son’s use of “metalanguage” and “metalinguistic” (Jakobson 1960, 1964). Technically speak-
ing, metalinguistic language activity involves predicative relations taking either linguistic
utterances or parts of the system of a natural language as an object, and hence naming it.
The process involves a number of operations. In Jakobson’s definition, selection and com-
bination are two metalinguistic operations fundamental in language behaviour (Jakobson
1964—see § 2.3 below).
36 dichy

conscious control over the form and meaning of written utterances (as opposed
to spoken ones). Vygotsky’s discussion relates conscious control of written pro-
duction to school education, and underlines the fact that such a control can be
observed from the very first stages of the acquisition of writing (Vygotsky 1934,
French transl. 1985: 258–265).
Language activities, in the complex knowledge structure briefly outlined
above, can be expected to require transfer from speech to writing, and vice-
versa, thus involving cognitive processes of the same kind as described by
Vygotsky. Some of these processes can be related to metalinguistic abilities,
such as the autonymous use of the name of a letter, choosing between one
phrasing and another, checking on the spelling of a given word, spelling a word
aloud, letter-by-letter reading in order to identify a word, recalling the ortho-
graphic rule for the correct spelling of a French participe passé, etc. Metalin-
guistic abilities thus appear to be at stake in many aspects of language activities
involving writing. These aspects can be related to Condillac’s genetic perspec-
tive on language, namely, its acquisition (level 2) and practice (level 3).
Concerning the emergence and codification of a given writing system, I will
endeavour to demonstrate that the primary conventions and rules in force in
a given writing reflect, at least to some extent, the “analysis” responsible for
its emergence (Condillac, 1798: §66–67). Moving from a purely oral language
l to an l’ language including writing can only occur through a process of met-
alinguistic nature. Changes in languages can occur without any metalinguistic
process, as can be seen, e.g., in phonetic evolution. This is not the case with
the emergence of a new coding system, such as a writing system—involving
in addition, as I will try and illustrate in the case of Arabic, two substances of
respectively phonic and graphic nature. Both form and meaning of l are the
object of analytic and synthetic processes, giving birth to an extension of l into
l’.

2.3 The Emergence of a Writing System, a Process of Metalinguistic

Nature
The idea that the l to l’ extension calls on processes that can be described as
metalinguistic nevertheless encounters what could be called, after G. Bache-
lard, two ‘epistemological impediments’:

1. Epigraphists that are more acquainted with archaeology or history than with
linguistic theory may focus on “tinkering” (French word ‘bricolage’) in the
development of writing rather than on the systematic aspects underlying the
scriptural data they carefully observe. The fact is, the structures of Arabic
writing outlined in section 3 presumably did not appear as an organised
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 37

whole, i.e. as a system. The emergence of a writing system, as it can be

observed on the basis of Arabic epigraphic data, remains to be studied. Until
such studies become available, some epigraphists are likely to consider the
description of the writing system of a language such as Arabic as either
difficult to understand or of little relevance.
2. The issue of whether metalinguistic activity could develop before writing
has been raised, among others, by Goody. The idea that the existence of a
developed writing system i.e. “literacy” is a necessary condition of metalin-
guistic activity (Goody and Watt 1968) seemed, until the mid-1990’s, to have
been widely admitted (see, e.g., Goody 1993; Auroux et al. 1996). It is of course
reasonable to consider that various developments of human knowledge and
cognition are related to the practice of writing. However, as shown by Olson
(1994), many cognitive processes believed to be connected to writing had
in fact already appeared in the context of oral cultures (Carruthers 1990).
In 20th century observations, they seem to be due to schooling rather than
literacy (Scribner and Cole 1981). As a result, the relations between ‘writing
and reading’ and ‘conceptual and cognitive developments’ need to be recon-
sidered anew, far from the conceptions of literacy centred on the models of
Western cultures advocated by McLuhan, Havelock, or Goody (Olson 1994).

Metalinguistic activity involves the production of various types of utterances.

Boisson (1999: 159–163) lists 13 of them, many of which belong to casual lan-
guage use. Jakobson’s well-known definition of the metalinguistic function of
language underlines the fact that metalinguistic utterances can be part of com-
mon speech, and do not only belong to specialized linguistic or logical dis-
course (Jakobson 1960). In his studies on aphasia, he goes on to show that
metalinguistic activity is part of the faculty of language: one type of aphasia
is directly concerned with deficiency in metalinguistic ability. In these cases,
one of the two fundamental operations underlying verbal behaviour is affected:
selection, which is based on similarity relations (combination being based on
contiguity relations—Jakobson 1964).
The metalinguistic developments involved in the emergence of a writing
system are of the kind outlined by Jakobson, and do not refer necessarily to
high-level cognitive activity, such as those that can be observed in the writing
of dictionaries or grammatical treatises. As will be underlined in the next
subsection, they draw on basic operations that can be considered as related
to selection and combination. Nevertheless, the way in which the operations
at stake in the emergence of a writing system can be related to selection and
combination is to be considered carefully: Jakobson’s description is concerned
with metalinguistic abilities in usual or deficient linguistic activity, or with
38 dichy

the first stages of child language. In the emergence of a writing system, the
concepts of selection and combination are actualized in a specific way, which
I will attempt to outline in subsection 2.4, and illustrate in the case of Arabic in
the next section.

2.4 The Basic Operations Involved in the Emergence of a Writing System

The emergence of writing in a given language can be described as a process
implying two sets of operations of, respectively, analytic and synthetic nature.
These two aspects are closely interconnected, and need to be isolated solely for
the sake of analysis.

2.4.1 Analytic Operations: Segmentation, Identification and the

Inventory Principle
The analysis of a given language that will lead to the building of a writing
system, can—on the whole—be related to the metalinguistic operations of
selection. The object of analysis is either:

– meaning, focusing, in turn, on either lexical or grammatical morphemes.

This can be called pleremic analysis (after Hjelmslev 1938 and Haas 1983);
– or form, focusing on sounds (cenemic analysis).

Pleremic analysis is the basis of ideographic writings, the best-known examples

of which are Chinese and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic scripts. Cenemic-
based analysis gives birth to syllabic or alphabetic writings. As already recalled,
writing systems are not purely pleremic or cenemic, but feature a certain
degree of mixture between these two principles. This general feature can be
further explained in the light of the fundamental cognitive operations that are
at stake in the emergence of writing systems. The well-known complementary
operations of basic linguistic analysis, segmentation (syntagmatic analysis)
and identification (paradigmatic analysis), are connected, in the analytics of
writing, to what I have called the Inventory Principle. The synthetic aspect of
the devising of a new script can only operate under the condition that the
items identified in the analysis process belong to known sets of units, i.e. to
inventories.
Inventories can be divided into (1) closed-list and (2) open-list ones. Cenemic
analysis identifies closed-list inventory items, which correspond, according to
the writing in consideration, to (1a) phonic segments such as syllables, parts of
syllables, di-phones, phonemes, etc. Noticeably, alphabets can be considered
as inventories based on conventions specific to the writing system in consid-
eration. Pleremic analysis identifies either (1b) closed-list items, belonging to
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 39

the grammatical morphemes of the language, and including, in some writings,

signs referring to lexical categorizations appearing as “determinatives,” or (2)
open-list items, corresponding to lexical morphemes. It is essential to note that
identification of items belonging to (1a) and (1b) inventories call on grammat-
ical abilities, i.e. on the systematic aspects of linguistic knowledge, whereas
inventories of type (2) are based on lexical abilities. On the other hand, the
“poly-systematic” aspect of orthographies such as, e.g., that of French, involves
a great number of morphograms belonging to (1b).
Inventories, needless to say, are based on analytic abstractions. These ab-
stractions are responsible for the criteria according to which items are cat-
egorized and listed, as well as for the hierarchy of the criteria involved, and
the levels of analysis taken into account. Subsequently, the type of abstraction
operating in the emergence of a writing system accounts for the pleremic or
cenemic conventions on which that system is based. Cenemic-based writings
analyze spoken utterance by way of focusing on either “syllabic” or “phonemic”
units, which do not correspond to contemporary linguistic analysis, but rely on
the “phonological background” of the speakers of the language (Gleason 1961:
chap. 25). The notion of phonological background will be illustrated below in
the specific case of Semitic writings.

2.4.2 Synthetic Operations: Semiographic Characterisation

The second aspect of the emergence of writing systems, which can be roughly
related to combination, is that of symbolization through graphic representa-
tion. The items identified by analysis are projected on the two-dimensional
space of writing. This process involves synthetic operations of a specific kind,
the basic feature of which is the projection of the linguistic items identified on
another substance.
The emergence of a writing system thus adds to the analytic operations of
segmentation and identification based on the constitution of inventories, syn-
thetic operations of a representational nature. This symbolization is submitted
to graphic constraints that vary from one writing tradition to another, as will be
illustrated here in the case of Arabic.

3 The Analytics of Arabic Writing

Let us now consider the actualization of scriptural analytics in Arabic. The

writing system of the language offers interesting conditions for the analysis of
the emergence and orthographic structure of a Semitic script. The youngest of
the Semitic writing systems, Arabic script, was probably borrowed prior to the
40 dichy

beginning of Islam from a variety of Syriac used by Christian Arabs living in the
territories of present-day Iraq, Syria, and Jordan from a variety of Syriac (Robin
1991). Unlike more ancient alphabets of the same family, such as Phoenician,
Hebrew, Aramaic, etc., the actual emergence and codification of Arabic writing
as we know it occurred between the 7th and 9th century.12 The period produced
a substantial amount of textual evidence of both historiographic and linguistic
nature, and is referred to extensively in a considerable number of later sources,
including grammatical treatises and lexicographic summæ (reviewed in Dichy
1990a and b). The codification of the writing system was a necessary condi-
tion of these recordings, of which they were, in the first centuries of Islam,
contemporary. The main result of this situation, for the analysis of the writing
system of Arabic, is that both emergence and codification processes—which
included the devising of sophisticated diacritical conventions—can be exam-
ined through textual evidence which included grammatical and linguistic trea-
tises, whereas they rely much more heavily on sheer abduction when it comes
to other earlier Semitic writing systems.
The borrowing of an earlier Semitic alphabet entailed a good deal of adapta-
tion, as the Arabic language has 28 consonants and six vowels, three of which
are phonologically long and three others, short. The Syriac writing from which
the Arabic script originated had only 22 graphemes (Robin 1991; Baʿalbakī 1981).
The extent of this adaptation is the basic reason why the fundamental opera-
tions of the analytics of Semitic writing can still be observed in Arabic.

3.1 The Analytic Conventions of Arabic Script

The idea that a given writing system reflects the “phonological background” of
the speakers of the related language (Gleason 1961: chap. 25) does not, on the
whole, apply to pleremic-based scripts. It fully applies, on the other hand, to
cenemic-based writings, particularly when it comes to alphabetic scripts. In
the case of Arabic and other Semitic writings, the most often asked question
is the lack of short vowels in the inventory of “letters.” As already mentioned,
this question is often connected to the pictogram-to-alphabet paradigm, in
which frame, the reason why short vowels and a few other signs are not noted
in standard writing can only be explained through attachment to tradition or
to such statements as ‘people did not write these signs because they did not
know them.’ Considering the phonological background of the speakers of the

12 Ch. Robin has also underlined the fact, based on recently discovered inscriptions going
back as far as the 8th century b.c., that Arabic had also been written using a South-Arabian
alphabet, which was more adapted to its structure than the borrowed Syriac script (Robin
1991: 127–129).
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 41

language and relating the writing system to its own structure and fitness criteria
(Gleason 1961: 25.1) is a radically different approach. As I will explore in the case
of Arabic, this approach allows for an analytic representation of the abstraction
responsible for the inventory of basic written symbols.

3.1.1 The Primary Analytic Convention: Phonographic Segmentation

and the Inventory Principle
One of the fundamental features of the sub-family of Semitic languages that
gave birth to alphabetic writings, such as Ougaritic, Phoenician, Ancient He-
brew, Aramaic, etc., is the structure of the syllables considered as ‘legal’ by the
system of the language.
In Arabic, the basic set of syllables13 is: Cv, CvC, Cv: (Roman 1981, 1983: 718–
824). Subsequently, syllable heads are always mono-consonantal. The coda of
the basic set of syllables can be either:

– a short vowel (v),

– a long vowel (v:),
– a short vowel followed by a consonant (vC).

In the phonological background contemporary to the emergence of Arabic

script, this crucial feature was interpreted in a way that gave birth to the pri-
mary analytic convention of the writing system, that of the phonographic seg-
mentation of spoken utterances (lafẓ) into “letter-segments” (ḥurūf, sing. ḥarf ).
Segmentation into ḥurūf is, significantly enough, met in two types of spelling,
classical Arabic metrics and writing (Dichy 1990a and b). The basic convention
of classical Arabic metrics divides the fundamental syllables of the language in
two types:

1. “Short units,” that include a consonant and a short vowel (Cv), called ḥarf
mutaḥarrik, “movent letter-segment,” or “letter-segment in motion.” In this
primary representation, what we consider as a short vowel is called ḥaraka,
“motion,” and is not isolated from the “segment” (ḥarf ) that it ‘sets into
motion.’ Example: َ‫≤ بـ‬Ba≥.14

13 Contextual conditionings can lead to syllables such as CvCC or Cv:CC. By convention, ‘c’
is for “consonant”; ‘v’ and ‘v:’ are, respectively for “short” and “long vowel.”
14 By convention, ‘≤’ and ‘≥’ indicate transliteration from Arabic writing into Latin characters.
Capital letters are for Arabic graphemes noted in the actual body of words, lower-case
letters are for secondary graphemes, noted as diacritics.
42 dichy

2. “Long units,” consisting of a “short unit” (i.e. a consonant and short vowel—
Cv) followed by a ‘quiescent (or motionless) letter-segment’ (ḥarf sākin).
The latter can be either (a) a closing consonant, or (b) a ‘letter-segment of
prolongation’ (ḥarf madd), i.e. a segment of prolongation of the short vowel,
or “motion”, associated to the opening consonant of the syllable. Examples,
respectively: ‫≤ ب َل‬BaL≥ and َ‫≤ با‬BaA≥—where “a” is for the ‘letter-segment of
prolongation’ of the “motion” a (‫ـ‬ َ ).
The primary convention of the writing system is the same as the one for
metrics. Zaǧǧāǧī (d. 337/949) states that:

One must know that spelling (hiǧāʾ) is of two sorts, [operating] respec-
tively for the ear and for the eye. The spelling for the ear is used in the
establishing of poetic meters. The spelling for the eye is an image (ṣūra)
that has been instituted (wuḍiʿat) for the segment-letters of the alpha-
bet (ḥurūf al-muʿǧam).
zaǧǧāǧī, Ǧumal: 271–272

Both spellings are autonymic, and call on metalinguistic abilities. In both cases,
the name of the segments spelled out is the same. The former operation is
purely oral (“for the ear”), whereas the latter involves graphic representation
(ṣūra, “image”). The phrase ḥurūf al-muʿǧam, “letters of the alphabet” can be
clearly related to the Inventory Principle. I have previously shown that the basic
phonographic convention of the Arabic writing system and that of classical
Arabic metrics coincide to a large extent (Dichy 1980). They share the same
analytic operation of segmentation of the spoken utterances, based on the
same inventory of segmental units called ḥurūf, which correspond to both the
basic units of metrics and to the letter-segments of script (Dichy 1990b). This
homology can be described as “the metric foundation” of the letter-segment.15
The Inventory Principle implicitly underlies Ibn al-Ḥāǧib’s definition of what I
call the primary convention of the writing system of Arabic:

al-ḫaṭṭ taṣwīr al-lafẓ bi-ḥurūf hiǧāʾi-hi. Writing is the representation (taṣ-

wīr) of utterances (lafẓ) by [means of] the segments of their spelling.
ibn al-ḥāǧib, al-Šāfiya, vol. 3: 312

15 The metalinguistic nature of the phenomena at stake in the emergence of the writing
system of Arabic should not of course be mistaken with a metalanguage, such as the
science of metrics elaborated in the Arabic culture in the 8th century. The above use of the
term metrics only refers to the prosodic aspects of the metalinguistic abilities involved in
writing, as well as in the production of verse.
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 43

i.e., according to the letter-segments utterances that it can be spelled with.

The “segments of the spelling,” ḥurūf al-hiǧāʾ, is another wording, in Medieval
Arabic linguistic tradition, of the “letters of the alphabet,” ḥurūf al-muʿǧam.
By interpreting the analytical aspect of this basic phonographic convention
in contemporary terms, one can cast light on the principle underlying the
inventory of the letter-segments of the alphabet (written in the body of words).
The same phonological abstraction operates in the basic spelling convention
of metric analysis, and in the primary convention of the analytics of Arabic
writing, through the selection of the initial consonant of the syllable and of the
closing consonant or vowel-prolongation segment. This convention of prosodic
nature thus appears to be sensitive to syllabic rhythm, i.e. to the consonantal
opening and to the closing of the syllable (whether the latter be a consonant or
a vowel prolongation segment). It does not, consistently, put any focus on the
vocalic pitch of the syllable, although the phonology of Arabic did integrate
the concept of vowels in the period of codification of the writing system (Dichy
1990 a and b), which is indeed already suggested by the identification of vowel
“prolongation segments” (ḥurūf al-madd).

3.1.2 The Basic Secondary Analytic Convention: Morphographic

Segmentation into Words
The writing system of Arabic adds to the above primary phonographic con-
vention a complementary secondary convention: the segmentation of spoken
utterances into graphic word-forms. It is essential to note that word bound-
aries have always been signalled in some way or another by alphabetic Semitic
writings—as opposed, e.g. to ancient Greek script, which was realized as scrip-
tio continua. There are two aspects to this convention, according to the lan-
guage activity involved:

1. From the “phonographic translation” standpoint (Haas 1970), i.e. from

that of the production of written discourse, the issue concerns the ortho-
graphic side of the analysis of spoken utterances. This is how Ibn al-Ḥāǧib
(ob. 1249) phrases the convention according to which speech is segmented
into words:

wa-l-ʾaṣl fī kull kalima ʾan tuktab bi-ṣūrat lafẓi-hā bi-taqdīr al-ibtidāʾ

bi-hā wa-l-waqf ʿalay-hā. The principle (ʾaṣl) [applying] to each word
(kalima) is that it should be written according to the image (ṣūra) of
its utterance (lafẓ) by assuming that it is in [both] initial (ibtidāʾ) and
pausal (waqf ) position.
ibn al-ḥāǧib, al-Šāfiya, vol. 3: 315
44 dichy

The structure of Arabic orthography, described among a few other texts

(Dichy 1990a: 404–460) in Ibn al-Ḥāǧib’s Šāfiya, includes a fair number of
conventions and rules operating at word boundaries. These rules are intro-
duced by the above “principle” (ʾaṣl). The basic secondary analytic convention
of the writing system thus appears to be the morphographic segmentation of
speech into word-forms.
2. From the standpoint of the language activity of reading (recognition of
script), written word-forms are complex morphographic units. The standard
word-form in Arabic comprises one lexical nucleus and one only, right and
left of which specified sets of affixed and cliticized bound morphemes can
eventually be found (D. Cohen 1961; Desclés, (ed.) 1983; Dichy 1990a, 1997a).
The structure encompasses:
– proclitics (pcl), which consist of mono-consonantal conjunctions (such
as wa-, ‘and’, li-, ‘in order to’), prepositions (e.g. bi-, ‘in, at’ or ‘by’, li-, ‘for’),
the pre-verb sa- (indicating the future), the article ʾal-, etc.;
– a prefix (prf). The category, after D. Cohen’s representation of the word-
form (1961), only includes the prefixes of the imperfective, e.g., ya-, pre-
fixed morpheme of the 3rd person;
– a stem. Stems are divided in two general categories (Dichy 1997b):
– Type 1 stems: this first subset consists of major lexical categories
(nouns, adjectives, verbs and deverbals) that are liable be represented
in terms of a Pattern and of a 3-c or 4-c Root (an ordered triple of con-
sonants, [3-c Roots] or, by extension of the system, a quadruple [4-c
Roots]).16 The pattern is, roughly, a template of syllables, the con-
sonants of which are that of the 3-c or 4-c Root, with the addition of
mono-consonantal affixes belonging to mono-consonantal roots, such
as the ‘echo-morpheme’ t (Roman 1990, 2011). The stem takabbar, ‘to
be haughty,’ e.g. consists of the 3-c Root /k-b-r/ and of the Pattern
/taR1aR2R2aR3/, where r1, r2 and r3 stand for ‘radical consonant 1, 2,
3’, and are instantiated by the Root (r1 = k, r2 = b, r3 = r).
– Type 2 stems: the second subset of stems only contains nouns that
cannot be represented in pattern and root, e.g., ʾIsmāʿīl, ‘Ishmael,’
fīziyāʾ, ‘Physics.’ This category of stems covers a subset of the nouns.

16 The ‘root and pattern’ issue will not be discussed in this paper. Both concepts have to be
severely limited and submitted to the constraints of formal definition (Dichy 1997b). See
also: Cassuto and Larcher 2000 and Larcher 1999. There are strong reasons to think, on the
other hand, that they should by no means be abandoned (see, e.g., for psycho-cognitive
evidence on roots and patterns in Hebrew: Frost et al. 1997, 2000, and in Arabic: Grainger
et al. 2003).
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 45

To understand why the root and pattern representation remains cru-

cial, one must keep in mind that, in Arabic as well as in classical
Hebrew and other Semitic languages of the same group, all verbs and
all deverbals are analyzable into roots and patterns (Dichy 1990a).
– suffixes (suf), such as verbal inflexions, nominal cases, the nominal
gender and number endings, the relative adjectival or nominal ending
+iyy, etc.;
– enclitics (ecl). In Arabic, enclitics are complement pronouns.

The figure below illustrates this structure, in the case of type 1 stems:

maximal word-form

minimal word-form

##pcl #prf + stem (type 1) + suf# ecl##

⟨root, pattern⟩

##Li #Tu + ḤaAWiL + uW# Hu##

⟨/ḤWL/,R1aAR2iR3⟩

‘For’ ‘you’ ‘[to] try’ ‘plural’ ‘it/him’

‘masculine’

figure 2.1 Structure of the Arabic Word-form (Dichy 1997a)

Conventions: ‘##’ is for “graphic word-form boundary” (appearing in writing as

a blank space or as equivalent punctuation symbols); ‘#’ is for “clitic boundary”;
‘+’ is for “pre- or suffix boundary”. The “minimal word-form” is only constructed
with pre- and suffixes, while the “maximal word-form” also incorporates clitics.
Complex as it may appear, the above structure is regular, and can be ac-
counted for by a Word-formatives Grammar (Desclés (ed.) 1983; Dichy 1990a:
chap. x; 1997a). It is, subsequently, very restrictive: word-forms in Arabic can
include one lexical stem and one only. (A few exceptive compound items exist,
but they are kept marginal by the structure of the language, unlike what has
happened in contemporary Hebrew, as opposed to the Biblical and Medieval
state of the language).17

17 The same few examples of compound words in use can be found quoted everywhere,
46 dichy

3.1.3 Other Orthographic Conventions

The orthography of Arabic is by no means to be compared to the French one
in terms of the complexity of rules (Catach et al. 1980), or to English, for the
amount of lexical information associated to the spelling of words (e.g. Venezky
1970; Caroll, in Kavanagh and Mattingly (eds.) 1972). The primary orthographic
convention only encounters a small number of rules and lexically indexed word
entries. In the Commentary by al-ʾAstarābāḏī (d. 688/1288) of the Compendium
of the two sciences of Morphology and Writing (al-Šāfiya fī ʿilmay al-taṣrīf wa-l-
ḫaṭṭ) due to Ibn al-Ḥāǧib (d. 646/1249), the highly comprehensive chapter on
Orthography does not take more than twenty-one pages (vol. 3: 312–333). As
Ibn al-Ḥāǧib’s definition suggests, a subset of orthographic rules operate at the
right and left sides of the word-form. Significant (simplified) examples are:

– The article is invariably written in vowel-less standard script with the letters
ʾalif and lām, although it is liable to be realised in spoken utterances as a
mere gemination of the first consonant of the nominal stem (as in Hebrew)
or /l/, according to the phonetic features of the consonant in consideration.
The ʾalif is realised as a hamza (i.e. as a glottal stop) in the initial position,
and not at all in other contexts (where sandhi junctions are observed) …
– The feminine ending +a—which should be best transliterated as ≤+a&≥—
is written as tāʾ marbūṭa (‫ )ة‬in final word position (including before the
accusative case-ending +an, which is usually followed by an additional ʾalif );

which is a good hint at the low productivity of poly-lexical building of compound words,
despite some academic endeavours. In Arabic, the most frequent poly-lexical compound
is raʾs māl, ‘capital.’ The word was first written in two words (‫ )رأس مال‬and later in one
(‫)رأسمال‬, and has been the basis of the derivation, by lexicalized suffixation (Dichy 1997a),
of raʾsmāl+iyy+a& (‫)رأسمالية‬, ‘capitalism,’ significantly realised as a single graphic word.
Other examples are: zamakān, ‘space-time,’ constructed with zamān, ‘time,’ and makān,
‘space’; barmāʾī, ‘amphibious,’ from barr, ‘earth, land,’ and māʾ, ‘water.’ A basic constraint
is that of the monosyllabic structure of the lexicalized element in prefixed position:
‘supersonic,’ built from fawq, ‘over,’ and ṣawt, ‘sound, voice,’ is realised as fawṣawtī, with a
truncation of the first element of the compound fawq, which has become / faw/ (the same
process can be observed in the previous examples). The compound lānihāya&, ‘infinite’
(which includes the negation lā, and the noun nihāya&, ‘end’) has entered the language
as early as the 9th century. Noticeably enough, the latter is not poly-lexical. The morpho-
lexical system of Arabic or Biblical and Medieval Hebrew strongly resists the integration
of poly-lexical compounds. The main reasons seem to be the incompatibility of such
compounds with root-and-pattern derivation of stems (P. Kirtchuk 1997) as well as with
the complex word-form structure of Arabic (Dichy 1990a) and Hebrew (Sampson 1985:
89–92).
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 47

it is realised as medial t (‫)ـتـ‬, and pronounced [t] in other contexts. The shape
of the tāʾ marbūṭa, which obviously derives from that of final hāʾ, is related
to the phonetic realisation of tāʾ marbūṭa as [a] or [ah] at the end of words
(compare with Hebrew fem. ending +ah). The Arabic grammatical tradition
significantly calls this phono-grapheme hāʾ al-sakt, “hāʾ of silence.”18
– Other examples of orthographic end-of-words phenomena include the final
ʾalif maqṣūra (‫ )ى‬vs. ʾalif ṭawīla (‫)ا‬, the spelling of case endings, verbal
endings when the final consonant is a w or a y, etc.

In addition to the above, one main difficulty of Arabic orthography is related to

the spelling of the hamza (phonetically, a glottal stop) which varies according
to a set of rules taking into account various immediate contextual elements,
among which the preceding and the following vowels.

3.2 Semiographic Characterisation in Arabic

The projection of the units identified through the primary and secondary
conventions of Arabic on the graphic substance is the second side of the
analytics of writings. In the emergence of the writing system, it gives birth to
the actual visual aspect typical of the writing in consideration: its semiographic
characterisation.
Semiographic conventions were codified, in Arabic, on the basis of (a) the
structure of the Syriac writing from which it has borrowed its initial cursive
style, (b) the primary phonographic convention, which resulted in the use of
secondary diacritics for the notation of vowel-signs and (c) the basic secondary
convention which produced the visual aspect of graphic words and the related
variation in the drawing of letters.

3.2.1 The Inherited Cursive Style of Writing and the Primary Diacritics
As already recalled, Arabic has drawn, in the beginning of Islam, from a writing
borrowed from a previous script of 22 letters (Baʿalbakī 1981: chap. 5, 166–168;
Robin 1991). The main consequences are the following:

1. The previous alphabet needed to be extended to the notation of the letter-

segments, which were identified according to the primary phonographic

18 In consistency with these facts, the above transliteration of ‫ ة‬as ≤&≥, originally due to
D. Cohen (1961), has been taken up in many works, among which Desclés et al. (1983) and
Dichy (1990a and b). Owing to the fact that this work is not devoted to transliteration or
the analysis of written Arabic word-forms, we simply note the end of feminine nouns or
of other words ending with tāʾ marbūṭa, by a.
48 dichy

convention (§3.1.1 above). The inventory consists of 29 segments (including

the hamza, the notation of which was codified later, and the glide conso-
nants w and y), and 3 vowel prolongation segments.
2. The initial alphabet belonged to the Syriac group of writings, the style of
which can be described as strongly cursive: Arabic script has inherited a
cursive structure that organises graphic words along a central plain line,
interrupted—on the whole—by word boundaries.
3. Adding new letter shapes without modifying the style of writing is more dif-
ficult in a cursive writing. Hence, most likely, the use of diacritical dots to
differentiate letters sharing the same drawing, such as: b/t/ṯ, respectively ‫ث‬
/ ‫ ت‬/ ‫ب‬. It is to be noted that a prime use of a diacritical dot to differenti-
ate between the letters d and r already appeared in Nabatean inscriptions
(Baʿalbakī 1981: 174).
In the first period of codification of the writing system, the ancient order of
Semitic alphabets was modified,19 and a new order was introduced, which
grouped letters of the same shape distinguished by diacritical dots, as can
be seen in the following presentation of the Arabic alphabet in traditional
order (from right to left):

table 2.1 Grouping of letters sharing similar final shapes in the traditional alphabet order

‫ض‬/‫ص‬ ‫ش‬/‫س‬ ‫ز‬/‫ر‬ ‫ذ‬/‫د‬ ‫خ‬/‫ح‬/‫ج‬ ‫ث‬/‫ت‬/‫ب‬ ‫ا‬

ḍ/ṣ š/s z/r ḏ/d ḫ/ḥ/ǧ ṯ / t /b ʾalif

‫ي‬ ‫و‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ن‬ ‫م‬ ‫ل‬/‫ك‬ ‫ق‬/‫ف‬ ‫غ‬/‫ع‬ ‫ظ‬/‫ط‬

y w h n m l/k q/f ġ/ʿ ẓ/ṭ

4. Note that there are only 28 letters in the traditional alphabet, because ʾalif
stands for the glottal stop (hamza) as well as for the prolongation segment
of the vowel a, and the letters wāw and yāʾ stand respectively for both the
consonants w and y and for the prolongation segment of the vowels u and i.
In the case of the hamza consonant, a symbol was added later, together with

19 The original order has been kept, until today, for letter-numbering, alongside with the
numeral order.
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 49

the codification of the notation of vowels and other secondary diacritics

(see next sub-section), whereas the ambiguity in vowel-less script between
consonants w and y and the corresponding prolongation letter-segments
remained.
5. Contrary to the principle of a cursive line unifying the word-form, six letters
are differentiated by a raising of the hand in the middle of the word. These
are: ʾalif, d, ḏ, r, z and w. This feature seems to have been at least partly
inherited from previous writings (Baʿalbakī 1981: 171–172).
6. In traditional calligraphy, primary diacritics consist of dots realised as small
squares the width of which is the same as that of the plain line of the cursive
script. The graphic realisation of these dots thus visually signals them as
parts of the letters, i.e. as primary diacritics.20

3.2.2 The Secondary Diacritics

The primary phonographic convention results in the absence of short vowels in
the inventory of the alphabet. During the first three centuries of Islam (i.e. 7th–
9th cent. c.e.), a sophisticated system of secondary diacritics was elaborated,
mainly for the full notation of the Koran.
Secondary diacritics are not noted in the body of words, and are omitted
in standard writing. They only appear, in addition to the Koran, in some edi-
tions of classical or religious texts, in Primary school readers, etc. Secondary
diacritics are also sometimes added in order to avoid ambiguities in specific
words.
These diacritics did not only consist of short vowels. They included at first a
notation of the hamza consonant, associated with a letter ʾalif, wāw, a dot-less
yāʾ or written without such a “support” (kursī). This notation entailed the small
set of orthographic rules mentioned in §3.1.3. Except at the beginning of words,
in some cases, the writing of the hamza is not omitted in standard writing, as
is the case with secondary diacritics: the hamza consonant is not exactly part
of the body of words, but has become attached to it.
Another crucial symbol not derivable from the primary orthographic con-
vention is that of the doubling of a consonant, the šadda (‫ـ‬ ّ ). This is an ancient
feature of Semitic writings—as well as of the initial Greek script (as remarked
by F. de Saussure, Cours: 65), which was not unlikely borrowed from Semitic
tradition.

20 In the first centuries of Islam, though, these diacritics were omitted in standard formal
correspondence: learned readers were reputed to do without them (Dichy 1990a: 442–
446).
50 dichy

As a result of a combination of the primary phonographic convention and

the basic secondary convention of the segmentation of speech into word-forms,
an important subset of case endings is not written in the body of words.
A few other signs should be mentioned, such as the waṣla, “union hamza”
(over silent ʾalif ), the madda, “prolongation” (put over an ʾalif, the sign indi-
cates a hamza followed by a prolonged vowel a: ‫)آ‬, and the sukūn, “silence,”
“quiescence” (which indicates that the letter-segment closes a syllable).
In contrast with diacritical dots, secondary diacritics are written with the
edge of the calligrapher’s calamus, which signals them as secondary, or visual
“background” signs.

3.2.3 Final vs. Non-Final Realisation of Basic Graphemes

In the semiography of Arabic writing, the basic secondary convention relates
the structure of the graphic word-form to a special type of variation in the shape
of letters. It is commonly said, and taught, that Arabic letters have as many as
four different shapes, according to their position in words. In fact, the contrast
is between the final and non-final shape of letters. On old time typewriters,
a given character only had two key-board positions, respectively, in initial or
medial, and in final position, except for ʿayn and ġayn, which needed three,
and ʾalif, dāl, ḏāl, rāʾ, zāy, and wāw (i.e. the five letters associated to a raising of
the hand in the middle of the word—§3.2.1, 5 above), which only required one.
Out of the 28 letters listed above, 20 offer a strong difference of shapes
between their initial or medial position in the word, and their final position.
This is correlated to a system of contrasts and similarities between different
types of final letter shapes.
In the table below, similarities are shown horizontally. Contrasts are sug-
gested by vertical positions. The main feature illustrated by these contrasts and
similarities is that the envelope of words is marked, not only by blank spaces,
but also by the way in which cursive writing is broken, through stylized pat-
terns of final letter shapes. Final vs. non-final shapes of letters thus underline
the semiographic structure of the word-form.21

21 In contrast with what has been observed in languages written with Latin characters, the
envelope of words plays a very important part in word recognition in Arabic (Grainger et
al., 2003) as well as in Hebrew (Frost et al. 1997).
the analytics of writing, exemplified by arabic 51

table 2.2 Contrast in the shape of letters in final position

Final letters main shape patterns Letters sharing the same final shape patterns

(b) ‫ب‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ث‬/‫ت‬/‫ب‬

(n) ‫ن‬ ‫ض‬/‫ص‬ ‫ش‬/‫س‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬
(y) ‫ي‬ ‫ى‬ ‫ي‬
(ǧ) ‫ج‬ ‫غ‬/‫ع‬ ‫خ‬/‫ح‬/‫ج‬
(h) ‫ة‬ ‫هة‬
(m) ‫م‬ ‫م‬
(ṭ) ‫ط‬ ‫طظ‬
(ʾalif ) ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬
(d) ‫د‬ ‫دذ‬
(r) ‫ر‬ ‫و‬ ‫رز‬

4 Conclusion

The two complementary aspects of the analytics of writing in cenemic-based

systems (analytic conventions operating at phonographic and morphographic
levels, synthetic aspects of semiographic characterisation) offer an alterna-
tive approach to the question of the categorization of Semitic writings as
consonantal—or even syllabic without specification of vowels (Gelb 1963). In
the light of the analytic paradigm, a description of the abstractions that under-
lie the inventory of the segments of the alphabet can be proposed: the pri-
mary phonographic convention of the Arabic writing system is based on the
same segmentation principle as that of classical metrics. Both reflect the syl-
labic structure of the language and the phonological background of its speak-
ers.
The concept of language activity, including metalinguistic aspects, is also
related to the analytic paradigm since the forerunning approach of Condillac. It
allows considering the semiographic characterization of a given writing system
from the standpoint of the reader on the one hand, and of the writer on the
other. One can remark that the writing of Arabic, compared to French, results in
a much simpler orthography. The language activity of writing under dictation,
for instance, is rather easy to learn in Arabic: orthography can be considered
as completely acquired somewhere between the third and fifth year of Primary
school, which is usually not the case in French. On the other hand, the writing
system of French renders the language activity of reading aloud much easier,
52 dichy

compared to the writing system of Arabic. Reading aloud often remains in

Arabic, even at university level, a tricky exercise, owing to the lack of secondary
diacritics in standard writing.
The fact is that standard texts keep to the conventions exposed above, in
modern times as well as in Medieval Arabic usage. The segmentation conven-
tions based on the phonological background of speakers offer a first explana-
tory hypothesis. A further assumption may be that Semitic writings were con-
fronted since their earliest epoch, to an important degree of dialectal variation.
The same can be said of Arabic, since the first Medieval period. It may be that
the fundamental segmentation conventions allowed the writing system a suf-
ficient degree of stability, even when phonetic realizations differed.22 Chinese
is a well-known model of a cross-variation pleremic writing system, based on
the fundamentally mono-consonantal structure of words. Semitic writings may
correspond to another cross-variation model, based on the inventory of sylla-
bles, and correlated in Arabic and Hebrew, to the structure of the word-form.

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 chapter 3

Arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of High Rhetorical

Value: A New Comprehensive View of the Nemara
Inscription
Manfred Kropp

1 Introductory Remark and Dedication

Since its discovery and editio princeps in 1902, now more than hundred years
ago, more than one hundred scholarly papers have investigated the Nemara
inscription. Many of these readings and linguistic and historical interpretations
have been the subject of scholarly dispute und dissension.
Intimidated, if not frightened, by the announcement of my eminent Ameri-
can colleague Michael Zwettler, that he is preparing a full-fledged monograph
on the Nemara inscription of which he has already presented three rather volu-
minous chapters in the form of pre-published articles, it is only with some
reluctance that i, as mainly a meek Éthiopisant, am offering this minor con-
tribution to the volume of studies in honour of the eminent Arabist Pierre
Larcher. It contains my findings and thoughts on this early example of Arabic
faḫr “boast” and mubālaġa “hyperbole” since the publication of my previous
instalments.

2 Preliminary Considerations

While, until now, interpretative studies of the Nemara inscription have con-
centrated on analyzing every linguistic and historical detail of the text in order
to squeeze out primary source details about the political, cultural, and linguis-
tic history of the Arabian peninsula in the 4th century ad, taking more or less
all the information for granted and true, in the following, an approach from
another angle is given preference. The text will be seen and analyzed not in its
fundamental details, but as a well-constructed and organised complete piece of
Arabian rhetoric, precisely of faḫr “boast” and mubālaġa “hyperbole.” Accord-
ing to this textual genre, in fact, the details are subordinated to the general
purpose—its persuasive and propagandistic character. In this address meant
for everlasting glory in the future and—as indicated by the language—for Ara-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_005

58 kropp

bian posterity details seemingly hypercorrect and precise may be half true,
exaggerated, and even purely invented. Thus, to do justice to this early mas-
terpiece of Arabic literature one has to define the guidelines of the rhetorical
discourse and demonstrate how the logical, syntactical, and stylistic construc-
tion and devices serve this purpose. In other words: an analysis which detects or
decodes a fluent, theme-driven and linear texture from the first word to the last
syntagma is to be preferred to a disorganised agglomeration of details which
certainly is most precious for a modern historian but less impressive to the pre-
sumed contemporary Arabic reader, the ultimate target of the whole effort in
composing and publishing.
Following this programmatic approach the article presents, after the first
elementary information on the Nemara inscription, an overall translation and
interpretation offering a number of elements not contained in the numerous
studies since its discovery. The arguments for this are given, discussing palaeo-
graphic, orthographic, and grammatical peculiarities, as well as matters of style.
In the last section, there are considerations about personalities, peoples and
tribes, places, and other material facts mentioned. These last ones will in most
cases only be alluded to, being that they are mainly discussed in the previ-
ous studies. This does not mean that they don’t need further research in the
future in the light of incessant new epigraphic material being discovered all
over the Arabian peninsula. But the interpretation of all this stands now under
the general suspicion of pure name-dropping in the text, albeit not without
plausibility.

3 Necessary Basic Information

The inscription of en-Nemara is preserved in the Louvre Museum (no: a 4083)

and unfortunately has been broken into two pieces due to an accident during
its transport to the Maison du Monde Arabe for a recent exposition. It consists
of 5 lines, ca. 50 words and 177 signs (ligatures counted separately) written in
a tabula ansata in near to “standard” Nabataean script but in a language near
to what later was labelled “Classical (North) Arabic.” The surface of the basaltic
stone is uneven and porous, a great number of natural little holes can deceive
the eye and may appear as elements of the script. The stonemason did not
bother with the evenness of his writing surface and did not pay much attention
to the precision of his work. The letters occur in widely divergent shapes and
the disposition and dimensions of the words vary a significant amount. Only
recently have some excellent photographs taken by the department of Oriental
Antiquities in the Louvre been published. Nevertheless, even these cannot
arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of high rhetorical valu 59

illustrate all the relevant aspects of the inscription. Thus a positive molding and
a new drawing, revised and corrected through repeated personal observation of
the stone itself, and these photographs remain an urgent desideratum. Perhaps
xray Fluorescence Radiation Analysis could yield new insight; by this method
it could be possible to distinguish between natural unevenness of the surface
and the precise traces of the chisel on the stone.
To these uncertainties in the material reading are compounded by the ambi-
guities of the writing system itself. We are dealing with the Nabataean alphabet
in evolutionary transition towards the Arabic script (lām-ʾalif in line 1), which
perhaps shows some traces of the Syriac Alphabet (t in line 3, b in line 4).
Certain letters in the original Nabataean alphabet already represented sev-
eral phonemes. When transferred to the Arabic language, a number of letters
represented up to six Arabic phonemes non-existent in Nabataean (Aramaic).
The current Arabic alphabet clearly reflects this situation: the diacritical dots
above and beneath are used to distinguish the whole range of 28 consonantal
phonemes of Arabic.
Before presenting my new interpretation I want to make some methodolog-
ical remarks. First of all, I want to make a note on the presuppositions that
have influenced the previous interpretations to a considerable extent. Even the
sparse indications at our disposal about the historical context of the monument
of Marʾ al-Qays have been neglected, as, for example, the exact geographical
position. The remnants of the original mausoleum are situated in the proxim-
ity of the limes arabicus (ca. 100km southeast of Damascus in the Wādī al-Ṣawt)
but definitely outside of what had once been Roman territory; a small fortress
on the frontier was situated nearby.1 The text itself addresses only Arabic read-
ers (but speakers of ‘Safaitic’ would not have been able to read it either!). It is
not by chance that it is not bilingual and that it is not written in Nabataean,
as is the case with quite a few inscriptions found in the same region, as well
as many Safaitic inscriptions nearby. The report is about an Arab king, in an
explicitly Arabic language, addressing Arabic posterity. These elements must
be taken into consideration carefully if one wants to see Byzantium or Persia
mentioned as sovereigns of the proud Arab king.
The same holds true for the style of the text, directly serving its purpose:
the presentation and the condensed, lapidary biography of the dead. A clear
and precise report following the name and titles and ended by the date of
death, is probably closer to what the dedicants once meant than to a tortuous
phrasing, changing subject from one period to the other, alternating passive

1 See Gaube 1974: 4–6.

60 kropp

and active voices, etc.2 A last note: for several centuries during the history of
pre-Islamic Arabia and its adjacent regions there are only a few inscriptions
written in different languages. Add to these some brief casual mentions in
the Byzantine chronicles and fantastic reports of the Arabic tradition itself,
collected and written down much later in the Islamic period and not always
worthy of critical consideration. Add further to this some rather vague allusions
in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, itself not free from doubts about authenticity. To
link together personalities and events mentioned in these sparse documents at
any price seems exaggerated: they could well be separated by space and time in
the past. In our case, for example, it seems hazardous to insist on the identity
of the king Marʾ al-Qays of Nemara with the homonymous prince of al-Ḥīra
under Persian influence, even if they may have been contemporaries—always
according to a traditional Arabic chrononology. This identity cannot be taken
for granted; it must result, irrefutably, from a careful analysis of the text itself.
Recent discoveries on the Arabian peninsula have shown that a capital of an
Arabian kingdom flourished in the 3rd and 4th century ad at Qaryat al-Fāw,
and a good number of Sabaean inscriptions allow one to perceive a richer and
more diversified history of pre-Islamic Arabia than the Arabic tradition itself
presents to us.3

4 The Text and Its Interpretation

Several levels in establishing the text are to be distinguished. The first one is
the material reading of the letters themselves in Nabataean script, leaving as an
open question the ambiguous ones. As we will see at this stage, there are not
many divergences among the proposed readings; quite surprising, seeing the
extreme difficulties of the inscription. The second step will be the decision on
the ambiguous letters according to context and intended interpretation. This
decision is linked to the problem of separation of words, which in itself is not
too difficult. The third step, coming near to a translation and an overall inter-
pretation, is to transform this skeleton of consonants and matres lectionis into
a vocalized Arabic text (which is in fact the same as translating it). The pre-
cise grammatical form for every word has to be chosen in order to construct
a logical phrasing. Here, naturally, many divergences come up—totally differ-
ent versions and interpretations have been advanced, and it is here, naturally,

2 Cf. Shahid 1979: 40 who has the same considerations.

3 Cf. al-Ansary 1982.
arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of high rhetorical valu 61

that I have tried to suggest new ones that have a certain degree of plausibility,
though, to be sure, do not exclude other possibilities.
In the following diplomatic edition of the text, the bold face represents the
ambiguous letters, a superline indicates ligature between two letters, underlin-
ing a link in cursive script: separation of words has not yet been introduced.
The following is a list of ambiguities:
b (initial) = b; n (very similar to y); d = d; ḏ; r (very similar to initial l); =
ʿ, g; ḥ = ḥ, ḫ; s = s; š; l (final) = l, n; t = t, t̄ ; ṫ (not attested) = ṫ, ż; ṡ (not
attested) = ṡ, ḋ. The Nabataean script has no strict rules for binding the letters;
in extreme cases there is a line linking together every letter in a single line to a
textus continuum.4

figure 3.1 Diplomatic edition of the Nemara inscription

As may immediately be seen, the ligatures do not correspond exactly to word

boundaries. Exceptions are line 5, 16–21 (loan from Aramaic), and 5, 22–26,
orthography spelling of the type bi-llāhi which was not received in the standard
form of Classical Arabic, but which is present in the inscriptions of Qaryat al-
Fāw.5 It is noteworthy as well that the rules for binding letters or separating

4 It is nevertheless possible to notice orthographical customs and tendencies of development

in the late inscriptions, especially those ones under Arabic influence; cf. Diem: §§243–247.
5 Cf. Kropp 1990: 20–21.
62 kropp

them within a word in this inscription do not coincide totally with the later
Arabic standard. There are cases where there is linking against the precise rules
of Classical Arabic (2, 29–32; 5, 1–3 to be discussed later; 5, 16–21), and vice-
versa (perhaps 1, 36–37, see beneath; 4, 10–11 the final form of the letter l linked
to a following h). An undisputed Arabic innovation in the shape of the letters,
persisting in later Arabic, is the final h (1,29; 3,37; 4,34; 5,32). The lām-ʾalif finds
its first attestation so far and is explained easily as deriving from the Nabataean
form of ʾalif ; this complies fully to the Arab grammarians who pretend that
the stroke to the right is the ʾalif.6 On the whole, however, a major number of
concordances prove that the writing system of the inscription of Nemara is an
evolutionary step towards the classical Arabic writing system; only the different
shapes and rules for distribution of y and k were still to be integrated.

5 Facts about This Inscriptions Commonly Agreed Upon

It is a memorial inscription for the cenotaph (aram. nǝfǝš, arab. nafas/š (?)
“memorial stele”—this example already exhibits the typical linguistic ambigu-
ity so characteristic for this text in early Arabic) of an Arab king named Marʾ
al-Qays bar ʿAmr, and dated to the 7th Kaslūl of the year 223 of the era of Bosra
corresponding to 7th december 328ad. This last date is most probably the date
of the king’s death.7
It is a typical “Tatenbericht” of a powerful monarch, following the classical
scheme: title(s)—deeds and exploits—death.
Several names of Arab tribes, as well as the name of another king and an
Arab town figure in the narration: the two tribes of Asad (but there are admit-
tedly some doubts) and Nizār as the tribes and their kings he is ruling, Maḏḥiǧ
as a tribe he is campaigning against and Naǧrān, the town of Šammar, king of
Maʿadd, at the gates of which he is defeating the Maḏḥiǧ, or he is laying siege
to. Prominent absentees when compared to the information given by Sabaean
inscriptions are Kinda and Ġassān, nearly always mentioned together with the
aforementioned tribes. It has to be stressed that the tribes mentioned in these
inscriptions are only homonymous to the tribes known in the later Arabo-
Muslim traditions. What is told there about their origins and filiations as well as

6 Cf. Dussaud 1902: 724; Lidzbarski 1903: 34, n. 2.

7 Adopting one of the proposed diverging interpretations of the last words in the text—good
wishes for the king’s posterity or his friends, the date of the erection of the cenotaph would
not be excluded. But exactly my new and hitherto not proposed interpretation makes it clear,
that the date of death is meant.
arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of high rhetorical valu 63

the groupings and sub-groupings represents a good deal constructions built up

on political and social circumstances and needs of later, Muslim, times. Seen
that the “accomplished” Arab king of the Nemara inscription does not give
a tribal or a clan affiliation the hypothesis of belonging to one of these two
latter may have some probability and should be seriously considered before
accepting too hastily the identification with the Laḫmid or Naṣrid Marʾ al-Qays
Ibn ʿAmr. One could conclude that they were implicitly present as the tribe or
clan of Marʾ al-Qays, a piece of information for the contemporary reader that
need not be mentioned explicitly. A short look in the indices of traditional Ara-
bic works on nasab “genealogy” as Hišām Ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī’s Ǧamhara
and others reveal quite a number of homonymous personalities belonging to
Ġassān and Kinda. The special custom of the monarch to establish his sons as
deputy governors among the different tribes is well attested for the kings of
Kinda (cf. Robin 1996). The whole presentation and interpretation of histori-
cal events in the border regions of the Arabian peninsula are quite uncertain
and depend to an important extent on the interpretation and identification of
Marʾ al-Qays Ibn ʿAmr as a Laḫmid and—even more speculative—his defec-
tion from the Persians to the Romans, as presumably described according to
some interpretations, in line 4 of the Nemara inscription. A presumed Marʾ
al-Qays Ibn ʿAmr, king of ḫṣṣtn in the inscription ry 535 = Ja 576 reveals an
incorrect reading; it is Marʾ al-Qays Ibn ʿAwf (cf. Beeston 1986: 120).

An Arab phrase of high literary style, which characterizes in fact the whole
report: fa-lam yabluġ malik mablaġa-h. The negative past as lam + short imper-
fect (apocopate) today is regarded as belonging to Classical “written” Arabic,
in contrast to the spoken Arabic languages which do not use this form. The
inscription of ʿAyn ʿAbada and the bilingual Greek-Arabic fragment of Psalm 78
published by Violet (1902) demonstrate that this feature belonged to ancient
spoken Arabic of the Neo-Arabic peoples, analytical type.
Already transcribing into vocalised Arabic the disputed problems arise. One
could vocalise according to the rules for ʾiʿrāb (desinential flexion), presuming
a language similar, and not only in this respect, to classical Arabic. There are
good reasons, on the other hand, to presume a language without ʾiʿrāb, as
modern spoken Arabic languages are and at least some of the ancient Arabic
variants were. Thus the quality of the binding vowel in mablaġ-a-h is purely
hypothetical.
These undisputed parts are about a quarter of the inscription.
64 kropp

6 Proposed Reading

For the following translation, the texts are the result of deepened analysis
whose detailed steps and arguments are not given here. The basic elements
for their establishment are given in the subsequent explanatory notes.

1 tī nafas/š Marʾ-al-Qays bar ʿAmr(w[gen]) malik al-ʿArab kullu/o-h ḏū ʾasar

al-tāǧ
2 wa-malak al-Asdī/ēn wa-Nizār(w[acc]) wa-mulūk-hum w-harrab Mad-
̱ḥiǧ(w[acc]) ʿadkay wagā
3 bi-zuǧǧu/o-h fī rutūǧ Naǧrān madīnat Šammar(w[gen]) malik Maʿc-
add(w[gen]) wa-yabbal banī-h
4 al-šuʿūb wa-wakkal-hon fa-rasaw bi-dawām fa-lam yabluġ malik mablaġa/u/
o-h
5 ʿadkay halak sanat 223 yawm 7 bi-Kaslūl bi-l-saʿd dû walada/u/o-h.

7 Remarks on the Basic Presuppositions Valid for Language and

Orthography

The language of the text is certainly Arabic, but according to my leading hy-
pothesis, of the “neo-Arabic” type, that is to say without ʾiʿrāb synthetical flexion
of nouns and verbs.
There is no trace of -ā(n) as indetermined acc.m.sg. (line 2: Nizār; Maḏḥiǧ
(?) see. below matres lectionis). Accordingly, short end vowels have been
dropped. Before suffixes beginning with a consonant, one may think of reten-
tion of an archaic case vowel or simply of a binding vowel whose quality is
determined by the dominant vowel of the suffix or by euphonic reasons. As
for the orthography of the article al- the ʾalif is nearly always written, the
assimilation to the ḥurūf šamsiyya (sibilants and others) as first consonants
of the following noun is not written. In the univerbal unit of a preposition as
e.g. bi- and the following determined noun, the ʾalif is dropped (line 5: bi-l-
saʿd).
Matres lectionis: the long vowels ī and ū are written in median and final
position. The long vowel ā in median position is clearly not written (line 1: tāǧ;
line 2: Nizār etc.). As expected and in the tradition of Nabataean writing applied
to the Arabic language (cf. the inscription of ʿAyn ʿAbada with several exemples)
final ā should be written with ʾalif. There is one example in the verb waǧā
(end of line 2). This interpretation is preferred to the hypothesis of retention
of final or intervocalic hamza. As there was probably no long history of Arabic
arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of high rhetorical valu 65

orthography, a historical writing—which would lead to the same result—is

excluded in favour of alif as mater lectionis for ā. This has twice important
consequences for the interpretation of the text (line 1: kulli-h and not kull-hā;
line 4: rasaw and not rasā wa-). In this last example one may realize the absence
of ʾalif al-wiqāya (alif otiosum) in the verbal perfect, 3 p.m.pl.
Wawation: The so-called wāw ʿAmr(w)—exactly this eponym for the gram-
matical term of later Arab grammarians is to be found in the text (line 1)—has
a clear function in the inscription. It is attached to proper, personal, or collec-
tive Arab names that are not provided with the article. There is no relation to
the grammatical status (case), thus it could be seen as a graphical complement
indicating Arab proper names where the Arabic shibboleth, the article al- is
lacking.8

8 The situation is quite different in near to contemporary mixed Nabataeo-Arabic inscriptions

stemming from Hegra (Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ). Suffice it to cite John Healey (1989: 82): ‘Nabataean
wawation. This phenomenon, the seemingly now superfluous waw suffix, reveals itself to a
remarkable degree in this inscription (i.e. js 17). It is extremely well attested in Nabataean
inscriptions with personal names, but, this inscription apart, only in a minute number of
other nouns (cf. e.g. js i8). This cannot be the place to rehearse all the various theories
concerning Nabataean wawation, none of which in any case would appear to be satisfactory.
All one can add after an analysis of wawation in js i7 is that the phenomenon becomes even
more mysterious. There is not ready solution to the problem emerging from an investigation
of js i7, 38 but, since the inscription is unique in the frequency of wawation, a list of its
appearances and the relevant circumstances would perhaps be useful.

l. 1 qbrw—qabrun, an indefinite noun with nunation, nominative case

kʿbw—Kaʿbu, personal name without nunation, nominative case
l. 3 ʿbdmnwtw—ʿAbdi Manata, personal name without nunation, genitive case
l. 4 ʾlhgrw—al-Hijri, place name with definite article, genitive case
l. 7 ʾlqbrw—al-qabra, noun with definite article, accusative case.’

On the contrary there is no clear and unambiguous cxample for this phenomenon in the
inscription of ʿAyn ʿAbada (cf. Kropp 2015, forthcoming). I owe most valuable comments on
this and on the name Šammar (or similar) in line 3 to Ahmad al-Jallad in a personal letter
from 13th of January 2015.
66 kropp

8 The Syntactical Structure of the Text as the Result of Its Rhetorical

and Propagandistic Program

Before entering into details of the discussion around the disputed parts below,
I presented here a proposal for the analysis of the overall structure of the text,
already presenting some choices for the disputed parts to follow.
There is an initial deixis to the object/building it belongs to (tī “this is”)
followed by the name the owner and his title or epitheton (line 1, except the
last words). Then follows a sequence of four relative clauses (till the middle of
line 4)—opened by the relative pronoun ḏū (not classical Arabic, but attested
in several ancient Arabic dialects) and subsequently linked by the conjunction
wa-. These relative clauses have a causal connotation9 and give the detailed
reasons for conferring him the honorific title mentioned before, exactly the
deeds and exploits of this monarch. At the same time this logical connection
strongly advocates the proposed interpretation of this title against several
others adopted before by different scholars.
Two independent phrases opened by the conjunction fa- “and then; and
therefore; hence” are statements about the lasting results of these actions
(line 4).
There are two further subordinated temporal clauses introduced by the con-
junction ʿadkay (in my interpretation) “till” in the first case with augmentative
connotations—as Arabic ḥattā “till even.” What has been a kind of final invo-
cation for the welfare of the king’s posterity or friends in the interpretations
hitherto proposed and rather awkwardly added asyndetically, becomes the last
elegantly placed and expressed element in the phrase about the passing away
of the hero. There is a rhetorical crescendo to be seen from the initial boasting
title “every inch a king of Arabs, a real and accomplished king of Arabs” passing
through the enumeration of achievements which justify this boast and ending
in the exclusive statement “no other king ever was his match” coming to the
really secular, worldly, absolutely not religious conclusion “passed away … in
the prosperity he created,” full of satisfaction, indeed, “not tired” but “full and
satisfied of life.”

9 Cf. Spitaler 1962.

arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of high rhetorical valu 67

9 Proposed Translation

1. This is the memorial of Marʾ al-Qays bar ʿAmr(w) king of Arabs (= Arab king),
every (inch of) him, who = because
→ he bound the diadem (around his head as a king)
2.
→ and reigned as a king over the two (tribes of) Asad and Nizār and their
kings
→ and put to flight (the tribe of) Maḏḥiǧ, until he (even) castrated (them)
3. (easily and only) with the iron lower part of his (spear) in the gates of Naǧrān,
the town of Šammar, king of the (tribe of) Maʿadd,
→ and handed down to his sons
4. (the government of) the sedentary peoples and made them deputies (of
his reign), and then and therefore they were firmly rooted steadily (as his
deputies).
→ And then and therefore no king ever matched his achievements,
5. until he passed away in the year 223, on the seventh day of (the month) Kaslūl
in the prosperity he created.

10 Some Detailed Remarks and Comments

line 1: tī: Form of the demonstrative pronoun, fem.sg. attested in Classical

Arabic and Arabic dialects as well as in Nabataean (cf. Wright 1896: i, 256;
Cantineau: i, 72; ii, 155a).
nafaš: The pronounciation of this Nabataean (Aramaic) loan word in early
Arabic is unclear, as it is linked to the Arabic (and common Semitic) root nfs.
If the loan concerned only the semantic side, one has to presume the pronun-
ciation naf(a)s, thus interfering with genuine Arabic nouns (“soul; person”). It
could well be that the pronunciation nafaš from from Nabataean nefeš clearly
indicated foreign orign of the term; the orthography in any case is ambigu-
ous. A nefeš is a memorial monument, cenotaph, in shape of a stela or similar,
which can be placed above the tomb, but may be separated from it and inde-
pendent (cf. MacDonald 2003: 40–41; 155 no. 154; Kropp 2013: 216–224). Marʾ
al-Qaysʾes cenotaph as far as can be seen from the first archaeological descrip-
tions most probably was not the tomb of this monarch. One would expect the
word qabr or kafr “tomb” at least mentioned in second place. This explains
as well the absence of any religious formula in the text, especially a taḫwīf “a
curse formula” which puts the tomb under divine protection and threatens any
violator of the tomb’s peace by a terrible wrath (numerous examples in the
68 kropp

Nabataean tomb inscriptions from Hegra). The absence of any religious flavour
and a straightforward worldly thinking and behaviour is characteristic for Arab
pre-Islamic poetic and heroic thought.
Marʿ al-Qays bar ʿAmr see remarks above.
malik al-ʿArab kullu/o-h: “the king of all Arabs” has been the formula which
made the Nemara inscription famous, among modern Arab nationalists as well.
As shown above in the remarks on script and orthography, the necessary read-
ing kulli-hā is excluded by the orthographic conventions of the text. There is
the possibility to read ġarb (or Nabataean, Aramaic ʿarb) in the sense of “west-
ern Region; occident” (cf. Zwettler 1993). This is possible, and the geographic
and ethnic term is well attested in Hatraean inscriptions for example. But the
concept does not really fit into the following report of the king’s dominions and
campaigns in Central and Southern Arabia. Seen the overall rhetorical and pro-
pagandistic character of the text the interpretation as “king of (the) Arabs, and
all of it, completely, accomplished, full, real”—as a German I am tempted to see
an analogy to titles like “Wirklicher Geheimer Rat”—is an even more ambitious
pretension than “king of all the Arabs,” which directly leads to the following jus-
tifying arguments, where, adding to this pretension, “king of kings” is to be read.
ḏū asar at-tāǧ: “who bound the crown”; cf. Zwettler’s (2006) article where
the author adducts copious and convincing material and parallels in mostly
Aramaic sources for this expression. It is clear Aramaicism in Arabic, which
would prefer ʿaqada al-tāǧ.
Beeston 1979 proposed to read: ḏū asrā ʾilā Ṯāǧ (a town in Eastern Arabia).
This reading is twice excluded by the orthographic conventions (mater lectionis
for ā; see above); at the same time it must be observed again that the word
boundary in this inscription does not coincide with the ligatures between the
characters.
line 2 and 5: ʿadkay: The only anomaly of this reading lies with the letters d-k
linked from right to left. But as already remarked above the linking rules are
fluent in Nabataean script having as an extreme a constant line on which all
the letters are aligned. The conjunction ʿadkay is attested in the inscription of
ʿIǧl Ibn Hofi-ʿAmm from Qaryat al-Faw, written in Sabaean letters but clearly
and Northarabian language (cf. e.g. Kropp 1990b).
Bellamy 1993: 38–39, citing several other proposals (ʿukday: “wirklich” or:
“forever”), proposes ʿakkaḏā (from ʿan kaḏā) “thereafter.” The syntactic context,
however, requires a subordinated temporal clause.
line 2 end–3: waǧā bi-zuǧǧu-h: As for other proposed readings and interpre-
tations, see Bellamy 1989: 39–40; Kropp 1993: 70–72. I follow Bellamy’s reading
only for the lexeme zuǧǧ “lower iron point of the spear.” His interpretation of
the passage misses the syntactical structure, while not recognising or admit-
arabian faḫr and mubālaġa of high rhetorical valu 69

ting the reading ʿadkay as a temporal conjunction (two times in the text), there
separating wa-ǧāʾa “and he came.” It is important to see the connotations and
allusions of the two lexemes waǧā (Classical Arabic: waǧaʾa) and zuǧǧ, in order
to catch the fine example of mubālaġa “hyperbole” in this faḫr, or, if you prefer
mufāḫara, tafāḫur, and iftiḫār (not by chance the language developed this nice
series of near to synonymous lexical terms!) “boast of oneself” and at the same
time hiǧāʾ “vilipending and offending the other.” waǧaʾa means “to smite,” but
with the specific sense “to castrate (an animal)” (Lane 2921b) and zuǧǧ means
the lower iron part of a spear / lance to be rammed in the earth for standing.
In poetic and proverbial use it is opposed to the sharp spear head for (real)
fighting, as the poet says (Lane 1215c): ‘And he who refuses to yield to the points
of the iron feet of the spears shall yield to the upper extremities thereof mounted
with every sharp spear head. ISk says, he means that he who refuses to yield to a
small thing will encounter a great thing [and other similar explanations].’ The
Maḏḥiǧ were not even to be defeated in real fighting, they were easily castrated
using only the lower iron part of the spear.
line 3: Divergent readings and interpretations (‘qui répartit entre ses fils les
tribus’ or ‘qui les préposa aux tribus’ or ‘die Stämme huldigten seinen Söhnen’
or ‘he dealt gently with the nobles of the tribes’) discussed in detail in Kropp
2006. Until a better proposal is presented, I cling to my reading ybl (instead
of nzl, byʿ, nbl, or nḥl) as another Aramaicism in the text, even if the initial
letter lacks the characteristic initial form of y.
line 4: reveals the most crucial one. The interpretation of this line is based
on the assumptions of the Laḫmid prince serving both Persians and Romans,
or the defection of this prince from being a Sasanian vassal to offering his
services to the Romans (‘et plaça celles-ci (ses fils) comme corps de cavalerie
au service des Romans’ or ‘sie hielten zu Rom’ or ‘and they became phylarchs
for the Romans’; for details see Kropp 1993: 75–78). All these proposals suffer
from serious grammatical anomalies. My attempt is based on simple Arabic
words und fits grammatically and from the point of view of contents and
style smoothly in the context. It elucidates, if confirmed, another orthographic
convention: there is no trace of ʾalif al-wiqāya (see above).
line 5: The proposed readings and interpretations were ‘que le bonheur soit
sur sa postérité’ or ‘oh, the good fortunes of those who were his friends’ or ‘(erected
this monument) for (their) happiness and success his descendants’ (for details see
Kropp 1993: 77–78; the last cited one was my own). As is so often the case, the
simple and evident interpretation, once found, was missed for long a time. The
conclusive formula is not separated from what precedes, neither in content nor
grammatically. It expresses, after the date of death, a last essential circumstance
in the life of the text’s hero.
70 kropp

11 To Sum Up

The article is not intended to resolve all of these problems. But there will be
a number of rather new solutions and insights. As for the historical contents,
the elimination of Persia and Byzantium from the text is essential, as well as
the doubt about the Laḫmid identity of the king Marʾ al-Qays. The fact that the
same king entrusts the government of several sedentary communities to his
sons is more congruent with what we know about the history of the Kindite
kingdom in Central Arabia. As for the linguistic part of the interpretation
proposed, one has to note several Aramaicisms—besides bar and ǝsar (al-tāǧ)
now yabbǝl (line 3).
In this short instalment I have intentionally passed over and left out a
number of readings and interpretations proposed in the last hundred years
and in numerous scholarly contributions. That is why a rather comprehensive
bibliography of studies (articles, chapters and discussions in books etc.) is given
at the end. Most of the relevant details can be easily traced in some of the latest
and most comprehensive articles, such as Bellamy (1989), Kropp (1991; 1993;
2006); Zwettler (1993; 2000; 2006).

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 chapter 4

Dia-Planar Diffusion: Reconstructing Early

Aramaic-Arabic Language Contact

Jonathan Owens

1 Methodology and Basic Explanations

There are three explanations for relatedness between historical linguistic

stages: inheritance, diffusion, or independent parallel development. Inheri-
tance is brought about by transmission from generation to generation, and bor-
rowing by diffusion between groups of speakers in contact. Independent paral-
lel development can be divided between happenstance occurrence and devel-
opment due to universal tendency, only the latter being of linguistic interest.
Inheritance and diffusion are logically related. In this dyad, inheritance is
the axiomatic term as the assumption that varieties can change and diverge
through time is a primitive. Diffusion depends on it, since diffusion by defi-
nition occurs between unrelated (at some level) varieties, i.e. an independent
establishment of inherited relationship is necessary before the concept of dif-
fusion becomes operable. Independent parallel development is, in a sense, an
independent category, as it requires nothing more than the observation that
two forms are typologically similar or comparable. In the following three exam-
ples the subject ‘I’ is expressed by an element n- prefixed to the verb:

(1) Harari: na-gdal ‘I kill’ (jussive)

North African Arabic: n-imši ‘I go’
Swahili: ni-li-kwenda ‘I went’

Minimally the three can be said to have the n- by virtue of independent devel-
opment. They can only be said to have n- by virtue of borrowing or cognation
if further conditions are fulfilled. Obviously, Swahili is not related to North
African Arabic or Harari by cognation, Swahili being a Bantu language by inde-
pendent establishment. So far as our historical understanding goes, it is not
related by diffusion either, as there is no evidence that the languages ever were
in contact.
Applying the same tests to Harari and North African Arabic, borrowing
can be ruled out. Cognation could in principle apply, though it is unlikely, as

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_006

78 owens

Harari is the only Ethiopic Semitic language with n- ‘I’, and n- in Arabic is also
restricted. This leaves us with the minimal observation of independent parallel
development (Goldenberg 1977: 483).
The point of this excursus is to indicate that inheritance and diffusion
generally demand higher conditions of proof than does independent parallel
development. However, by the same token, independent parallel development,
being a minimal typological statement that holds even if nothing else does,
can be invoked only when cognation and borrowing have been convincingly
ruled out. Of course, in the art of historical reconstruction, there are no fixed
standards of what ‘convincing’ is. However, as a rule of thumb (2) holds: given
a similar linguistic phenomenon, cognation and borrowing should be given
precedence over independent parallel development, given conditions which
support them.

(2) Cognation, borrowing > independent parallel development1

In this short article I would like to exemplify this principle with data from Ara-
maic and Arabic, two languages which have long been in contact. In particular,
I will argue that there are striking parallels between modern Arabic dialects
and Old and Middle Aramaic syllabic phonology which make a strong case for
borrowing from Aramaic into Arabic. I would note that the data set exempli-
fied here is one of a larger set of 23 features which I think make a strong case
for early, i.e. pre-Islamic and early Islamic borrowing from Aramaic into Ara-
bic.
In this paper I take a sample of two Aramaic varieties for comparison with
Arabic, Biblical Aramaic (Rosenthal 1961) and Syriac (Nöldeke 1898, Daniels
1997, Muraoka 2007). The choice of these varieties is motivated by two factors.
First, a reasonable number of very good, detailed descriptive studies allow for
broad-based comparisons with Arabic. Secondly, the varieties allow divergent
diachronic and geographical sampling. Biblical Aramaic is a chronologically
older variety, while Syriac represents the emerging West/East geographically-
based varieties. In addition I refer occasionally to other varieties, e.g. Samaritan

1 Independent parallel development does not necessarily lack systematicity. In this context it
might be relevant to distinguish between what can in Sapirian terms be termed ‘natural drift’
and ‘structural drift’. Natural drift represents a shift from marked to unmarked categories, a
change of θ to t for instance. Structural drift is the system-immanent drift of Sapir, dependent
on propeties of specific linguistic systems. In Harari the jussive 1sg has, apparently, taken
the same form as the jussive 1pl, perhaps with an added phonological motivation of creating
uniform cv-person prefixes. Each individual case requires separate attention.
dia-planar diffusion 79

(Macuch 1982) and Mandaic (Vogt 2007). Samaritan in particular appears to

be heavily influenced by Hebrew in regards to major points discussed in this
paper.
While the genetic classification of Arabic is still unresolved (Central vs.
southern Semitic), (e.g. Huenergaard 1995, Diem 1980, Ratcliffe 1998, Zaborski
1991), its precise affiliation is not crucial for this paper, and indeed, arguably
the entire question of its affiliation is related to questions of language contact,
such as discussed here.
In the mainstream Arabic tradition, the Arabic dialects are viewed as a later
historical stage of Classical Arabic (e.g. Blau 1981), and hence the idea of com-
paring contemporary Arabic with older Aramaic varieties will be met, to say the
least, with skepticism by Semiticists. I have challenged this position (Owens
2006/9, 2013a) on the basic grounds that there is no comparative linguistic
basis by which the modern dialects can be explained as deriving from Classi-
cal Arabic.2 In this paper I carry forward the methodology developed in Owens
2009, which takes account of two main sources to reconstruct pre-diasporic
Arabic. This is the era immediately preceding the great Arabic-Islamic expan-
sion that began in the early seventh century. The one source is what I term
Old Arabic. These are documents written down beginning in the eighth cen-
tury a.d., sources like the Arabic grammars and Qurʾanic commentaries. The
second is based on reconstructions from contemporary Arabic dialects. This
source is based on the standard application of the comparative method. One
factor which makes it particularly compelling for early reconstruction is the
very fact that the expansion went so far. Elements common to widely separated
contemporary varieties are a priori good candidates for an earlier, common ori-
gin. This ‘diaspora’ left a telltale trail of ‘relic’ forms which allow the language of
the seventh century to be reconstructed with a high degree of plausibility. On
this basis it will be argued that Biblical and Middle Aramaic exhibit a degree
of structural identity with many varieties of contemporary Arabic that is far
too detailed and exact to be explicable by parallel independent development.
Just as contemporary varieties allow reconstruction into pre-Islamic times, so
too do the detailed correspondences between contemporary varieties of Arabic

2 A popular way out of this problem among Arabicists is to say that the modern dialects derive
from old Arabic dialects, not from Classical Arabic (Owens 2009: 69), though this begs the
question, what the nature of the proto-source is from which the modern dialects descend.
This position leaves unanswered the question what the source of Classical Arabic and the old
Arabic dialects is, simply pushing the non-application of the comparative method back in
chronological time.
80 owens

and older varieties of Aramaic allow assumptions of affiliation which go back

at least to the third and fourth centuries bce.
While Aramaic contact with Akkadian has been treated in detail (Kaufman
1974), and contact with Hebrew has been intense at various points in Aramaic
history, Arabic-Aramaic contact is either not treated at all, as in Rosenthal 1961
(57–59), treated in the direction Aramaic to Arabic (Fraenkel 1886), treated only
cursorily (Blau 1985), considered but rejected (Macuch 1991: 969), or treated
only in an era where Aramaic was well on its way acceding to Arabic as the
lingua franca of the Middle East (Behnstedt and Arnold 1993). Diem (1979)
found evidence for Aramaic influence on Arabic (n. 3), though it falls short
of a systematic treatment of the subject. Still, the current presentation finds
agreement with a number of points in Diem’s article.
A significant exception is Retsö (2000, 2003), who takes a different tack,
positing the influence of contact in general on early varieties of Arabic (2000)
and specifically that of Aramaic on Arabic during the early Islamic era. The
current paper basically agrees with Retsö, only suggesting that he did not go
far enough in accounting for elements of contact.
In this paper I will discuss a set of related complex phonological phenomena.
I will introduce it (section 2.1) in the context of Aramaic (i.e. Biblical and
Middle Aramaic), and then suggest (section 2.2) that essentially the same
descriptive mechanism can be applied to Arabic. In section 3 I extend the
comparison to the status of epenthetic vowels, then in section 4 summarize the
syllable structure phenomena among Arabic varieties and Aramaic. Section 5
briefly outlines the historical-cultural basis of Aramaic-Arabic contact, section
6 introduces a model for understanding how contact-induced changes can be
found dispersed across broad geographical areas, while in section 7 I return to
the issue of parallel independent development.

2 Complex Syllabic Phenomena

Three interrelated syllabic phenomena are found in both Arabic and Aramaic
which have a basic effect on syllable structure: short vowels tend to be deleted
in open syllables; deletion may bring about unacceptable ccc sequences, and
such sequences may be broken up by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel.
For all intents and purposes, varieties of Aramaic and Arabic show identical
constraints in this regard.
dia-planar diffusion 81

2.1 Epenthesis and Open Syllables: The Constraint and Repair Schema,
Aramaic
The basic properties of Syriac and Biblical Aramaic (Rosenthal 1961: 17, 27, 28)
are the following. I term this the ‘constraint and repair schema’ (Paradis 1988),
as constraints defined in the first two factors may engender conditions whose
enforcement calls up the repair in the third step.

(3) Constraint and repair schema (‘c–r’)

a. Short vowels do not stand in open syllables3 (Nöldeke 1898: 29, Muraoka
1997: 10). A short vowel in an open syllable is deleted. In ba (= Biblical
Aramaic) a short schwa vowel may remain in place of the deleted vowel.
Rosenthal (1961: 17) terms the realization either ‘zero or murmered’. He
generally does not represent a vowel in open syllables, and I will follow this
representation. In Syriac the vowel is probably not present.4
b. Sequences of three consonants, or two consonants and final word boundary
are not allowed.
c. Inappropriate consonantal sequences (3b) which arise via (3a) are broken
up by insertion of an epenthetic vowel between c1 and c2.

In Aramaic this leads to alternations of the following sort (Rosenthal 1961: 27):

(4) meleḵ ‘a king’ vs. melk-aa ‘the king’, melk-ii ‘my king’
kṯaḇ ‘he wrote’ < kitab, vs. kiṯḇ-eṯ ‘I wrote’, kiṯḇ-aṯ ‘she wrote’

The alternations go beyond mere vowel deletion, to issues of syllable structure.

A full analysis involving theoretical issues beyond the scope of this comparison.
Two constraints are relevant. First, no cc# sequences are allowed word finally.
Instead, an epenthetic vowel is inserted between the final two consonants.

3 Diem (1979: 47) notes a convergence in North Lebanese Arabic and Aramaic in respect of short
vowel deletion, though restricts the observation to short /a/ and does not relate the issue to
further aspects of syllable structure.
4 As Daniels (1997: 135), writing on Syriac notes, the status of a short schwa vowel is an
interpretive issue. Some scholars (including Daniels 1997 and Muruoka 2007) postulate a
schwa vowel where a vowel is deleted in an open syllable. This accounts for the spirantization
of a stop consonant in, for instance, estḇar “it was thought” (< *estəḇar). However, as this is
an abstract phonological issue, there are other ways for accounting for the spirantization, e.g.
via an underlying, deleted vowel. Moreover, the textual material itself is variable, which could
indicate the existence of competing variants.
82 owens

(5) cc# → cəc#

The form meleḵ in (4) can thus be represented as melk-. If no vowel is added the
final cc# sequence is broken up by an epenthetic vowel:

(6) melk# > meleḵ (as in (4))

vs. melk-aa ‘the king’

Secondly, if via deletion of a short vowel in an open syllable a sequence of ccc

should arise, a vowel is added between the first two consonants. This constraint
explains the alternation (examples from Rosenthal 1961: 60 ff.):

(7a) kṯaḇ ‘he wrote’

(7b) ˜ kiṯḇ-eṯ, ‘I wrote’, kiṯḇ-aṯ ‘she wrote’

In (7a) no short vowel occurs in the initial syllable, *kitab, via the constraint
against short vowels. When a vowel-initial suffix is added, the stem vowel /a/
falls into an unacceptable open syllable,

(7c) *ktab-et, *ktab-aṯ, ‘I wrote, she wrote’

When it deletes:

(7d) *ktb-eṯ, *ktb-aṯ

this in turn engenders a three consonant sequence, ccc, which is not allowed.
Instead, an epenthetic vowel is placed between the first two consonants, giving
the actual forms:

(7e) kiṯḇ-eṯ, kiṯḇ-aṯ

A parallel epenthesis applies stem finally in Syriac (Muraoka 1997: 35).

(8) c1c2c3#/c4 > maškn-eeh ‘his tent’ vs. maškan-hon ‘their-m tent’, neṯkteḇ-
aan > neṯkaṯb-aan ‘they f.pl. were written’ (via deletion and repair)

Medial c1c2c3 sequences in Syriac show variants both with and without epen-
thetic vowel insertion. In the imperfect stem, ccc sequences arise via deletion
of a vowel in an open syllable (Muraoka 2007: 143 on Syriac).
dia-planar diffusion 83

(9a) yiḵtuḇ ‘he writes’

(9b) *yiḵtuḇ-uun ‘they-m write’

(9b) yields:
(9c) yiḵtḇ-uun

In Syriac, however, sequences of three consonants may induce repair in ccc

sequences. Here vowel insertion occurs between the first two consonants.
Nöldeke (1898: 37) reports that stem-internal ccc may be broken up by vocalic
insertion.5

(10) tešbq-uun → tešabquun ‘you.pl allow’

deħltaa → deħeltaa ‘fear’

Nöldeke (1898: 37) notes that this is restricted to instances where ‘… one of the
letters (Buchstaben) is a liquid or q, ħ, ʕ, h, y, or w or r [= γ6] j.o.’ Insertion
does not occur with ‘dentals’ and ‘fricatives’. Nöldeke is unfortunately imprecise
about where in the sequence ‘one of the letters’ is allowed to occur, whether
it makes a difference whether it is c1, c2 or c3.7 Similarly, Muraoka (1997: 10)
indicates stem-internal epenthesis between c1 and c2 in some forms:

(11) ħekmtaa > ħeḵemṯaa ‘wisdom’

5 Different sources have different interpretations of the presence/absence of epenthetic vow-

els. Muraoka (2007) does not represent them in stems in a ccc context. Segert (2007: 128),
however for Old Aramaic (including Biblical) has them in the context cc_c, tektǝb-iin ‘you.f
write’, and as noted below, Nöldeke represents them according to conditions of sonority. It
can be noted that Vogt (2007: 162) writing on Mandaic, an Aramaic variety attested ca. 100 ce
in southern Iraq and Iran, consistently indicates a Baghdadi-Arabic type epenthesis (c_cc-;
see Malone 1997: 154 for more details).
6 I would interpret Syriac ‘r’, ‫ר‬, as ɣ. Consistently Biblical and Middle Aramaic ‘r’ patterns with
gutturals in a number of phonological respects (Nöldeke 1898: 10, Muraoka 1997: 10, Rosenthal
1961: 16).
7 Leaving aside the lack of clarity, it is interesting that the list of consonants inducing insertions,
/q, ħ, ʕ, h, y, w, l, γ/ are, except for /q/, precisely those which in various Arabic dialects
also induce epenthesis in cc clusters, phenomena in Arabic described under the so-called
‘gahawa’ and ‘bukara’ complexes.
84 owens

2.2 Epenthesis and Open Syllables: The Constraint and Repair Schema,
Arabic
As noted, (3a–c) from what I term a ‘constraint and repair scheme’, the con-
straints do away with short vowels, which may lead to the need for repair via
epenthesis. Within a paradigm, this frequently leads to phonological variabil-
ity of a verb or noun stem, dependent on whether or not a suffix is added, and
whether or not a suffix begins with a vowel or consonant.
Strikingly, the three basic constraints described for Aramaic duplicate those
which obtain in many Arabic dialects. In fact, (3a–c) above can be repeated
here without amendment, though as rules for Arabic, rather than as rules for
Aramaic. Of course, dealing as we are in Arabic with contemporary spoken
varieties, rules can be defined more accurately than for varieties relying solely
on written texts, so precise formulations may differ.

(12a) Short vowels do not stand in open syllables. A short vowel in an open
syllable is deleted
(12b) Insertion occurs in the following contexts (counting from the word
end)

Sometimes in c3_c2c1
Always in c4c3_c2c1
Always in c3_c2#1

(12c) Inappropriate consonantal sequences (2) which arise via (1) are broken
up by insertion of an epenthetic vowel between c2 and c3

This constraint and repair scheme operates in Baghdadi Arabic, which I use as a
model here. I would note that nw Syrian Arabic appears to have a very similar
system (see for general overview, Behnstedt 1997: 142 ff.). In the following the
parts of the words underlined are due to constraint 1, while those in italics alone
are due to 2 and 3. In the following, the unacceptable open syllable that gets
reduced is indicated in boldface. The constraints that apply in each case are
listed on the right hand, referring to (12a–c).

(13) a. malk > malik ‘king’ vs. malk-a ‘his king’ 12b, c, no cc#, so cəc#
b. kítab-at ‘she wrote’ > kítb-at 12a, no v in cv-
c. kitáb-t ‘I wrote’ > ktáb-i̱t (or kitáb-i̱t, 12b, c, no cc#, so cəc#
Erwin 1963: 41)8

8 The retention or deletion of the initial vowel in the open syllable, when it becomes unstressed,
dia-planar diffusion 85

d. yiktub ‘he writes’ base form

e. yiktub-uun > yiktb-uun > yikitb-uun 12a, no v in cv and b, c, no
‘they.m write’ ccc, so cəcc
f. kítab ‘he wrote’ v in cv, but stressed

Walking through these forms, the final cc# (13a), as well as the final cc#, bt#
in (13c) and the ccc, ktb sequence in (13e) all display unacceptable ccc or
cc# sequences, which are repaired via epenthetic vowel insertion. In (13b)
ta falls into an unacceptable open cv syllable, and reduces to t. In (13e) tu
is an unacceptable cv. Reduction to t sets off a chain reaction: ktb has an
unacceptable ccc sequence which is repaired according to (12b) and (12c). The
exceptional (13f), where the first syllable kí does not reduce (also in (13b)), is
explained by the fact that a short vowel in an open syllable is protected by
stress.
The only way in which these rules differ from Aramaic is that in Bagh-
dadi Arabic a ccc sequence must be repaired via epenthetic vowel insertion,
whereas in Aramaic such a sequence may stand. As seen in (8–10) above, Ara-
maic does have a constraint on ccc sequences, but it is operable in absolute
terms only after a stem boundary, while within a stem it appears to be vari-
able.

I would briefly point out here that there are Arabic dialects which share with
Aramaic (12a) and (12b), but like some varieties of Aramaic (see (9c)), do not
require epenthesis in ccc sequences. Notable here are dialects of the southern
Hijaz:

(13g) yiktub-uun > yiktb-uun ‘they write’

The short high vowel is deleted in an open syllable, but the resulting ccc
sequence stands.

The choice of the verb ‘write’ to illustrate the Baghdadi examples was delib-
erate, though it does seem to be a favorite illustrative verb, being used in
Erwin (1963: 84), Malaika (1959: 41), as well as Rosenthal for Biblical Aramaic.
Putting the Aramaic and Baghdadi paradigms side by side, with the same verbs,

is a variable feature in Baghdadi Arabic. Malaika (1959) does not note a vowel in this position
at all. Erwin (1963: 88 n. 1) says both forms may occur. My own fieldwork suggests the vowelless
form is the more common, though greater study is needed.
86 owens

brings out the near identity of the forms which are produced via application
of the constraint and repair scheme. Only the perfect verb will be illustrated.
Epenthetic vowels are in bold.

(14) ‘write’, perfect verb

Baghdadi Biblical Aramaic
ktab-it ktab-na kiṯḇ-eṯ kṯaḇ-na
ktab-it ktab-tu kṯaḇ-t kṯaḇ-tu
ktab-ti kṯaḇti
ktab kitb-aw kṯaḇ kiṯḇ-u
kitb-at kiṯb-aṯ

3 Systematic Status of Epenthetic Vowel

An inherent part of the constraint and repair schema is the epenthetic vowel,
which effects the repair of an unacceptable sequence of consonants. In Arabic
the epenthetic vowels inserted in the contexts described in (13) above may be
said to have two statuses: either they have a systematic status, which means
they undergo all processes associated with lexically-given vowels, or they do
not have a systematic status, and they are invisible to these rules. The most
widespread indicator of their systematic status pertains to their behavior rela-
tive to stress. The epenthetic vowels are in boldface.

(15a) ktab-ít-ha, yišúrb-a ‘he drinks it’ Iraqi

(15b) kitáb-it-ha, yíkitba Eastern Libya

As the provenance of the examples indicates, in some dialects, as in Baghdadi,

epenthetic vowels are visible to stress while in others (Eastern Libya) they are
not.
In Aramaic epenthetic vowels have often assumed a systematic status,
though as with Arabic, on a mixed basis. This can be seen in (4) above. In (4)
above, méleḵ ‘a king’, the boldface epenthetic vowel induces spirantization of
the following consonant, like a systematic vowel. The stress assignment in these
forms is ambiguous. According to Rosenthal (1961: 27) traditions exist which
treat the epenthetic vowel like a full lexical vowel and stress it (meléḵ, Nöldeke
1898: 61, see also Malone 1971), and one in which it is not stressed (méleḵ).
A different instance of an historically epenthetic vowel in Aramaic is proba-
bly the first person singular perfect verb form, -et. This can be compared with
the Arabic first person suffix form -t.
dia-planar diffusion 87

(16) Aramaic Baghdadi

kiṯḇ-eṯ ktáb-it

Here, it may be assumed, what originally was an epenthetic vowel, analogous to

the inserted Baghdadi Arabic epenthetic vowel (in bold), assumed systematic
status, including incorporation in the constraint and repair scheme discussed
in the previous section. The -eṯ suffix is reinterpreted as fixed morphologi-
cal material, hence the suffixation of -eṯ places the preceding ta- in an open
syllable (*kitaḇ-eṯ). According to (3a), short vowels in open syllables are lost,
yielding kiṯḇeṯ, as in (14, 16). This development can be represented in the follow-
ing, where the middle stage is diachronically postulated. Note that the middle
stage is identical with contemporary Baghdadi Arabic (and many other vari-
eties).

(17) *ktab-t → *ktab-eṯ [e originally epenthetic] → kiṯḇ-eṯ [via constraint and

repair]

The epenthetic nature of the conditioning environment is apparent in Syriac

when a vowel-initial suffix is added, as in:

(18) ʿappeq-t-eeh
took out-I-him
‘I took him out’

The v-initial suffix of the object -eeh prohibits insertion of a vowel in the 1sg
suffix, and in this case when no vowel occurs before the -t, no spirantization
occurs either.

In Samaritan Aramaic (Macuch 1982: 112) it can be noted an epenthetic vowel

inserted in a cc# sequence, can induce lengthening of a preceding vowel.

(19) nap̱š > nap̱əš → naap̱əš ‘soul’

This compensatory lengthening otherwise occurs in open syllables before lex-

ically given (non-epenthetic) vowels.
What is noteworthy in the case both of Aramaic and of Arabic is that epen-
thetic vowels can assume systematic status. They do so in some cases in identi-
cal ways, and in others differently. It is appropriate to note that a case analogous
to the Aramaic (16) has been argued for in Owens (2009: 255) with regards to the
3msg object suffix -u that is found in many dialects, bint-u ‘his daughter’. This
88 owens

is argued to derive from *bint-hu > bint-u-hu via epenthesis > bint-u-h > bint-u.
In the final stage, the -u suffix derives ultimately from an epenthetic vowel.

4 Inner Arabic and Inner Aramaic

A second stage of the comparison is to outline the distribution of the test

features among varieties of Arabic. Here it will be useful to very perfunctorily
list the varieties of Arabic which will be referred to frequently in the following
list, stating the designation that will be used, the rough geographical extension
where this is not obvious from the name, and when the area was settled by
Arabic-speaking peoples. For older settlements I simply use the term ‘pre-
Islamic’ (pre seventh century), recognizing that detailed inquiry might give a
more precise chronological breakdown (see Owens 2009: appendix 1).

Mesopotamian Arabic: Anatolia, Cyprus, Iraq, northern Syria; southern

Iraq pre-Islamic, northern area settled by 1,000 ce.
Levantine Arabic: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, northern Jordan: pre-
Islamic
Najdi Arabic: central and northern Saudi Arabia, southern Iraq; pre-
Islamic
Hijazi Arabic: south western Saudi Arabia; pre-Islamic
Yemen: pre-Islamic
Egypt: 640
Eastern Libyan Arabic: 650
Shukriyya: eastern Sudan;?
Western Sudanic Arabic: Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, 1400
North African and Andalusian: Western Libya, Tunisia, Algeria,
Morocco, 650–1300

4.1 Constraint and Repair Schema

A fundamental rule of Aramaic, as seen above, was the prohibition of short
vowels in open syllables. In Arabic there exists a cline of constraints relating to
short vowels in open syllables, sensitive to occurrence in and relative to stressed
syllables, and to vowel quality, high or low. The following is a basic typological
summary.

1. No deletion in any context: Most of Yemen, outside of the Tihama (Behnstedt

1985: 53), the oases dialects in Egypt (Baħariyya, Faraafira, Daaxla, Behnstedt
and Woidich, 1985: 59), (for Classical Arabic see 4.5).
dia-planar diffusion 89

fíhimat ‘she understood’, yáakulu ‘they eat’

behnstedt 1985: 54

fahimat ‘she understood’

Classical Arabic

2. Deletion of high stem vowels only: southern Hijazi

yiktub-uun → yiktb-uun,
but yišrab-uun ‘they drink’

3. Deletion of high vowels in post stress position, raising of low vowel to high
in an open syllable: Najdi

fihim-at → fahm-at ‘she understood’

katab → kítab ‘he wrote’
rijáal ‘man’ (short high vowel maintained in pre-stress position)

4. Deletion of high vowels in all positions, raising of low to high in open syllable,
Eastern Libyan

katab → kitab
yiktib-u → yikitbu
yašrab-o → yašrub-o ‘they drink’

5. Deletion of high vowels in all positions, except when stressed: Baghdadi

Baghdadi, illustrated in section 3.2 above. Stressed short vowels are morpho-
phonemically determined, for instance object suffixes attracting stress to the
syllable proceeding them:

xaabar ‘he telephoned’

xaabár-a ‘he telephoned him’

6. Deletion in any context: North African

In most North African Arabic varieties a case could be made for postulating
no underlying short vowels and for determining their presence by syllable
structure constraint.

Tunisian
iktíb ‘he wrote’
kítb-at ‘she wrote’
90 owens

The majority of Arabic varieties have some constraints on the occurrence

of short vowels in open syllables. In Baghdadi and in North African varieties
the situation however approaches the categorical deletion found in Aramaic.
Eastern Libyan (and the Sinai littoral) is categorical with respect to high vowels,
but not to low, while the peninsular dialects outside of Yemen are like Eastern
Libyan in restricting only high vowels, while Najdi allows high vowels in open
syllables under certain conditions.

4.2 Epenthesis
Constraints on short vowels in open syllables lead to repair strategies in Arabic,
as sequences of three consonants are disallowed in all varieties under certain
conditions. Three relevant factors can be cited.

4.2.1 Stem Integrity

In some varieties epenthesis occurs only outside nominal and verbal stems.
Southern Hijazi represents this case, as illustrated in (13g) above. Sequences of
three consonants are allowed, so long as they are within stems. Across a stem
boundary, however, epenthesis is required. Hence in the form

(20) katab-t-ha ‘I wrote it’

the b-t-h sequence is illegal. An epenthetic vowel is inserted between the

second and third, katab-t-a̱ -ha.

Many Arabic dialects have insertion of this sort, including Western Sudanic,
Cairene and Najdi,

(21) Western Sudanic: katáb-t-a-ha

Cairene: katab-tá-ha
Najdi: kitáb-t-a-ha

4.2.2 Linear Epenthesis

In other dialects epenthesis is sensitive only to the phonology: sequences
of three consonants, ccc, are disallowed. To break these up, an epenthetic
vowel is placed between the first and second consonant. Eastern Libyan Ara-
bic (ela), Shukriyya, Baghdadi, Syrian, and broadly speaking North African
dialects exemplify this type.

In ela, for instance, one way of representing the derivation of (13) above is as
follows:
dia-planar diffusion 91

(22) yiktib-u → yiktb-u → yiki̱tbu ‘they write’

Note that the same rule applies in these dialects when a suffix is added. Thus,
in these dialects the equivalent of (20) is as follows, with epenthesis between
the first and second consonants, not the second and third.

(23) kitab-t-ha → kitáb-i̱t-ha

Baghdadi derives identically.

This rule extends to other sequences, namely cc# and sometimes #cc, i.e. pre-
and sometimes post pause. Thus in ela and in Baghdadi, ġarb ‘west’ breaks up
the rb#, cc# sequence with an epenthetic vowel:

(24) ġaru̱ b ‘west’

4.2.3 Sonority
To round off the factors affecting epenthesis, a third one, which will not figure in
the historical account here, should be mentioned. This is the factor of sonority.
Sequences of cc alone can trigger epenthesis, where cc are ordered on sonority
hierarchies. The gahawa complex, mentioned in n. 7, is one reflex of this:
cgutturalc calls up insertion of a low vowel between two adjacent cc.

4.3 Systematic Status of Epenthetic Vowels

The epenthetic vowels inserted to meet the constraints described in 4.1 and
4.2 may be opaque to all phonological processes. They are simply inserted and
are invisible to stress assignment. Or they are sensitive to stress assignment
rules. In at least one instance they are visible both to stress assignment and to
other phonological processes.

Opaque
In Eastern Libyan Arabic, some varieties of Palestinian Arabic and Damascene
Arabic they are invisible to phonological rules. In (13d) above

(25) yíki̱tbu

in ela, stress is assigned to the first syllable, as if the form were yíktbu. Normally
stress is assigned to the first vcc from the right edge of the word, but the /i/ in
i̱kt is inserted epenthetically and is invisible to stress.
92 owens

Visible
In Baghdadi, Shukriyya and Western Sudanic Arabic they are visible to stress.
In Baghdadi.

(26) yikíṯ b-a ‘he writes it’

the epenthetic vowel introduced by the same constraints as in ela is stressed.9

In eastern Chad (Abbeche, Atia, in Owens 1994: 133) there occurs the alterna-
tion:

(27) tásrig ‘you.m steal’

tisíṟ gi ‘you.f steal’

The feminine form displays two visibility attributes: the epenthetic vowel is
stressed and the low preformative vowel is raised to high before the syllable
(see 4.1.3 above), which contains an epenthetic vowel, i.e. the epenthetic vowel
‘triggers’ the vowel raising.

4.4 Aramaic
Aramaic has both the constraint and repair schema, and variable treatment
of an inserted epenthetic vowel, as described in section 2.1. It appears that,
allowing for perhaps specific conditioning factors, such as gutturality discussed
in (11) and in n. 7, these phenomena are found in both Old Aramaic (Biblical
Aramaic) and in Syriac.10

4.5 Classical Arabic

As stated in the introduction, a basic assumption of the current approach is
that comparisons can be made between Old and Middle Aramaic and contem-
porary varieties of spoken Arabic, under the assumption that correspondences
imply in Arabic a stage that is reconstructed to be contemporaneous with Mid-
dle Aramaic. This approach bypasses Classical Arabic as a direct source. How-
ever, even in Classical Arabic, as described by the early Arabic grammarians,

9 Baghdadi is variable in this respect; speakers also may treat an epenthetic vowel as
invisible, but more often it is visible.
10 Samaritan, on the other hand, takes a completely different tack on short vowels in open
syllables, itself probably in conjunction with similar phenemona in Hebrew, namely by
lengthening a vowel in this context.
dia-planar diffusion 93

can be found indications that a number of the implicit reconstructions pro-

posed here were observed around 800 as well, in particular those relating to
short vowels.
Short high vowels, constraints on open syllables: in general short high vowels
exhibit a tendency to deletion in open syllables. Sībawayh (ii, 399) for instance,
notes that the Tamīmī (eastern Arabic) regularly delete a short high vowel in a
open syllable, as in ʿalima > ʿalma ‘he knew’ and ʿuṣira > ʿuṣra ‘it was squeezed’.
Similarly Farrāʾ (ii, 12) notes that in the Quranic reading tradition deletion of
short vowels in open syllables is sanctioned. This occurs even with case and
mode vowels, as in nulzimu̱ -kumuw-haa > nulzim-kumuw-haa “Shall we compel
you to accept it” (q 11: 28). Sībawayh (ii, 455) further notes constraints on any
short vowels, when longer sequences of cv syllables are involved, which may
lead to deletion of any short vowel. ǧaʿala̱ la-ka ‘he makes for you.m’, for instance
reduces to ǧaʿal la-ka. Indeed, the so-called al-ʾidġām al-kabīr reading tradition
was predicated on the deletion of short vowels (Owens 2009: chapter 4).
ccc sequences. The contexts where ccc sequences arise in Classical Arabic
are few, though where they exist, the same constraint against ccc sequences
is operative as described in (12b, c), e.g. radd-tu → radad-tu “I returned”. Fur-
thermore, Classical reflexes of the ‘bukara’ epenthesis are discussed in Owens
(2009: 194–195).
Contrary to Retsö’s recent suggestion that Classical Arabic represents a dead
end of sorts in the development of Arabic varieties (2013: 444), I would rather
see Classical Arabic as falling among those varieties (i.e. in comparison to
contemporary varieties) which either do not sanction deletion, or sanction it
in fewer contexts than do many varieties (4.1.1 and 4.1.2).11

11 Of course, trivially, Classical Arabic did ‘die out’ as a spoken language, but in a sense, all
varieties of Arabic, including the varieties which I assume are ancestral to contemporary
varieties, ‘died out’ in that, if we could go back in time and observe the real-time coun-
terparts of my assumed reconstructions, we would doubtlessly find many features that we
might not have expected (as well as finding many correspondences). Classical Arabic, writ
large as the sum total of all old written sources (Old Arabic in the sense of Owens 2009) is
simply the Old variety which we know infinitely more about than any other and hence dis-
crepancies between Classical and contemporary will be readily recognizable. To say that it
died out is simply to say that in the 1200 intervening years, there is no speech community
which maintained that variety in its unchanged form. But even the extremely conserva-
tive Icelandic does not perfectly reproduce Icelandic of the 9th century. Moreover, since
the very process of recording Arabic produced a normatized variety (see al-Jassar 2014),
Classical Arabic itself needs to be seen as a composite of sorts, abstracted away from any
single lect.
94 owens

5 Aramaeans and Arabs: The Socio-Cultural Basis of Diffusion

Before moving to a linguistic generalization of the data, it is necessary to outline

the key socio-cultural elements which undergird the supposition that diffusion
plays an important role in explaining linguistic forms.
From the time of the earliest attestations of Aramaic in the 8th century bce,
Aramaeans and Arabs have been in close contact. Aramaeans themselves first
appear in history as nomads on the northern fringes of the Assyrian empire in
the Syrian desert and in Mesopotamia. Lipiński (2000: 38) infers their historical
attestation by 1800b.c. in the designation ‘Sutaeans’. These were a nomadic
group that frequented the Middle Euphrates and Syria, who by 11th century
b.c. had become synonymous with the Aramaeans. Beginning around 1300 b.c.
they become a significant threat to the Assyrian empire (Lipiński 2000: 38),
and by the 9th century b.c. some of them had taken up a sedentary life. A
number of Aramaean kingdoms dominated by different tribes developed along
the middle and upper Euphrates and into Anatolia, Syria and Lebanon, as well
as in southern Babylonia.
While no Aramaean kingdom ever achieved widespread political domi-
nance in the region, their language did become the major lingua franca of the
Middle East for over 1,000 years, between ca. 600 bce—700 ce. During Persian
Achaeminid rule a variety was used for official correspondence, hence its attes-
tation as far as Egypt.
In his summary, Lipiński (2000) puts considerable emphasis on the extent,
both geographical and chronological, to which Arabs and Aramaeans have
lived together in a close, and apparently, largely non-antagonistic relationship.
Summarizing the relation he states,

… the global history of these Aramaeans in the 8th–7th centuries bc can

hardly be separated from the history of the North-Arabian tribes living in
the same regions and called “Aramaeans” in Assyrian sources that barely
and only exceptionally distinguish the two groups.
2000: 485

The close relationship between the Aramaeans and Arabs continues to be

attested up to the Arab-Islamic expansion. Retsö in his compendious summary
of pre-Islamic Arabs documents this affinity in a number of places.

Writing about northern Syria and Mesopotamia, the Greek geographer

Strabo (early first century ce), quoting the geographer Posidonius who
wrote and described conditions in the first half of the first century bce
dia-planar diffusion 95

(c. 80 bce), notes that “… the Armenians, Syrians [= Aramaens, arimaioi]

and aráboii betray a close affinity, not only in their language, but in their
mode of life and bodily build, and particularly wherever they live as close
neighbors …”
retsö 2003: 352

Especially interesting is the report of large numbers of Arabs in the region

of Edessa in southern Turkey between 0–110ce (Retsö 2003: 412, 434). Edessa
emerged around this time as the center of Christian Syriac culture. While
Retsö does not consider the short-lived Palmyran kingdom around 270ce to
be Arab, he does note the presence of a large number of Arab names in the
Aramaic inscriptions, and Abbott (1941: 13) claims Palmyra’s queen Zenobia for
the Arabs.
The ‘problematic’ nature of the Nabataean culture (Arabic, Aramaic, Ara-
maic-Arab?) hardly requires mention in this context (Starcky 1955: 87, Can-
tineau 1930: 9, Retsö 2003: 381).
Throughout the attested history of Aramaean-Assyrian relations, therefore,
Arabs are consistently depicted as, or can be inferred to have been, allies
of Aramaeans, often living with them in the same tribal affiliation. That the
conditions for extensive context-induced change existed is indisputable.

6 Dia-Planar Diffusion: A Brief Introduction

A problem bedeviling the historical treatment of Arabic is an unstated assump-

tion that historical linguistics is about grammars. Of course, what one recon-
structs is a grammar. However, grammars do not exist without populations of
speakers who produce them. This fundamental point has been missing from
the last 150 years of Semiticist discussion about the place of Arabic.
Quite programmatically in this paper—constraints of length prohibit elab-
oration—I would suggest that understanding Arabic language history can be
helped by operationalizing the idea of dia-planar diffusion. Dia- incorporates
the diachronic aspect of historical linguistics, and planar refers to the geograph-
ical, whereby geography is represented by populations of speakers in individual
locations. ‘Dia-demo-planar diffusion’ would be a more accurate characteriza-
tion, but it is rather cumbersome. I will however, use the term on occasion.
A traditional account of Arabic looks at individual dialects (i.e. demo-planar
units), compares them to Classical Arabic, determines differences, and then
writes about the changes that have happened in dialect x, in Tunisian Arabic, in
Sudanese Arabic, and so on (Owens 2013a: 455 for criticisms of this approach).
96 owens

Note that this essentially leads to massive independent parallel development

among the dialects, a point I return to in section 7 below. Advocates of this
approach might look to confirmation in their methodology by citing the large
range of reflexes of syllable structure among Arabic dialects summarized in 4.1.
From this perspective, the different variants each reflect a different derivation
from Classical Arabic.
There is, however, another way to interpret how the situation summarized
in 4.1 arose. Arabic, from its very beginnings was in demo-planar terms diverse,
a point well-recognized among the Classical Arabic linguists themselves. This
diversity, like all linguistic diversity, is based on distinctive speech communi-
ties. Again disagreeing with Retsö (2013), I think there was a large set of such
distinctive speech communities which all still spoke what was in some sense a
variety of Arabic.12 Some of these could have come into intensive contact with
Aramaic speakers, some might have originally stemmed from Aramaic speak-
ing speech communities (contact and language shift), others were in less inten-
sive contact, others hardly at all, and so on. This contact would have occurred
in the Middle East, but also in the post-Islamic diaspora, as doubtlessly there
was an Aramaic-speaking segment among the early Islamic armies and popu-
lations. At each ‘dia’ stage there would have been interactions among the two
language communities, and of course post-contact secondary influence among
the Arabic-speaking communities themselves. Circular though the argument
is, the range of syllabic outcomes described for Arabic in 4.1 reflects these dif-
ferent dia-planar realities, and explains, for instance, how there can be a large
degree of agreement between North African Arabic and Baghdadi Arabic in
regards to the c–r schema.13 The phenomenon could have entered one Ara-
bic speech community which was in close contact with Aramaic in pre-Islamic
times, in the Syria-Iraq area, and these would have migrated with these forms
into North Africa with the Arabic-Islamic expansion.14

12 Retsö rather emphasizes the continuum nature of varieties across languages, not among
dialects.
13 Intriguingly, Watkins (2001: 56) writing on Indo-European languages of Anatolia writes,
that in the middle of the first millenium (bce) the languages of western Anatolia under-
went ‘… profound alterations due to wide-ranging and rather spectacular syncope of
unstressed vowels and aphaersis.’ The parallel to Arabic and Aramaic, both languages of
the same area, is striking.
14 See Owens (2013b) for a striking example of how linguistic features can move over very
long distances among closed populations of speakers, who maintain them over centuries.
dia-planar diffusion 97

7 Inheritance, Contact and Parallel Independent Development

This article will end as it started, considering in general terms the role of
inheritance, contact and parallel independent development in explaining the
changes observed.
First, thinking in terms of the idea of general drift, it can be observed that a
number of features are based on such a small inventory of basic components,
that in probablistic terms, parallel outcomes are likely. A classic instance of this
pertains to the constraint and repair schema (3, 12). This is based on three basic
elements:

(28) The constraint and repair system

a. No short vowels in unstressed open syllables
b. No sequences of 3 consonants
c. In case (b) arises, insert vowel between consonants

Once these conditions enter a system, it could be argued, then, that there is
a high probability that eventually identical paradigms will be reached along
independent paths of development. This is what lies behind the striking iden-
tity of the Baghdadi Arabic and Biblical Aramaic perfect verb paradigm illus-
trated in (14).
This explanation can be countered in four ways. First, dialects which have
(28a–c), Baghdadi Arabic and nw Syrian Arabic, for instance are also those
where historically intensive Aramaic-Arabic contact and bilingualism is
attested. Furthermore, the extension of (28a–c) outside of the original con-
tact area in the post-Islamic diasporic movements by speakers who already had
them is highly plausible.
Secondly, as Retsö (2000) shows, there are a number of significant features
beyond these which point in the same direction of change within Arabic via
contact with Aramaic. This evidence will hopefully be expanded upon in a later
publication.
Thirdly, looking at linguistic support, as noted, within Arabic itself there are
varieties which have (28) to only a limited degree, or where (28b–c) obtains
only under restricted conditions, for instance only across morpheme bound-
aries. One possible explanation for differences within Arabic is that some parts
of its population, its demo-plane, lived in conditions which were conducive to
heavy borrowing from Aramaic. Equally, Aramaic itself is not wholly uniform
in its realization of (28), and differences within Arabic could reflect differences
within Aramaic.
Furthermore, the assumption of a common c–r schema leads to obvious
parallels between Aramaic and Arabic forms. A case in point is illustrated in
98 owens

(16, 17) above. The interpretation of the Biblical Aramaic -et as containing an
epenthetic vowel (Segert 1997: 122) follows from its parallels with Baghdadi
Arabic, and fits in with the behavior of epenthetic vowels in Aramaic.
Fourthly, the complex of constraints and processes in (28) taken as a whole
is hardly found elsewhere among world languages, even if the general pat-
tern falls within what are termed ‘conspiracies’ in phonology. In a phonolog-
ical conspiracy, different rules or constraints work towards a common end, for
instance, towards preventing a final cc# cluster or medial ccc cluster. In cer-
tain respects, rules very similar to those in Aramaic/Arabic considered here
have been described elsewhere, for instance in the Californian Native Amer-
ican language Yokuts (Kisseberth 2011 for summary). Even within Afro-Asiatic
it is easy to find two of the three steps of (3/12). In Oromo, for instance, cc-
c requires repair to either CaCC or CCi-C, depending on the nature of the
consonants involves (e.g. kofl-te → kofal-te ‘I laughed’). Similarly, more com-
plicated three-step ‘bleeding and feeding’ routines reminiscent structurally of
Arabic/Aramaic can also be found. Paradis (1988: 77–79) for instance describes
a three-step process in Fula of the type cccontinuant > ccontinuant > ccstop (e.g. ss >
s > cc) where the intermediate step, comparable to the ccc sequences in (10,
13e), feeds into the final step.
What is unusual, however, is not the constraint and repair schema in the
abstract, but rather the syllabic domain it is applied to, its instantiation via
epenthetic vowel insertion its regularity, with step (3a/12a) feeding into (3b/
12b), as well as the behavior of the epenthetic vowels themselves. All of these
elements are shared between Arabic and Aramaic.
Those who would argue for parallel independent development would essen-
tially have to ignore the first of the four factors mentioned here, deal with a
good number more features than the c–r schema described here, explain why
these changes occurred only in some varieties of Arabic, find comparable c–r
schemas among languages of the world which apply to similar syllabic envi-
ronments, and finally, as an ultimate refutation explain the following. Even
if the correspondences between Aramaic and Arabic, of the type in (14), are
describable as the confluence of interrelated factors, which the independent
parallelist would argue are due to chance convergence, it needs to be answered
why such independent factors don’t produce such paradigms elsewhere among
the world’s languages. Until such issues are explained, one may discard the pos-
sibility of independent parallel development.
The data as discussed thus far, it has to be said, does not automatically
lead to the assumption of contact-induced change from Aramaic into Aramaic.
Strictly speaking, addressing this issue requires taking a broader look at both
languages within Semitic. It could be, for instance, that the c–r schema in fact
dia-planar diffusion 99

is a common feature inherited by both Aramaic and Arabic, or which itself was
borrowed into both varieties via a third source (or first into one, then from that
to the other, see n. 13). At this point I think this less likely an explanation than
that of borrowing, i.e. change via contact, from Aramaic into Arabic. However,
this is a matter which also requires dedicated consideration of the various
possibilities and factors involved. Whatever the best answer to this question,
the current article makes two points. First, when one looks at the vast expanse
of Semitic, even if there are no easy answers to traditional historical linguistic
questions, they are still best approached using the fundamental tools of the
linguistic trade. Secondly, the article compares what in Semitic studies are
Classical varieties, the Old and Middle Aramaic varieties, and contemporary
dialects. To the extent such a comparison produces valid comparative linguistic
results, it is hard to endorse the traditional Semiticist practice of restricting
‘Arabic’ to the classical variety.15

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 chapter 5

The masʾala zunbūriyya from a Semitic and

Afroasiatic Perspective

Lutz Edzard

fa-ʾin ʿayyana l-masʾalata ʿarrafta-hū l-ḥaqqa fī-hā

“et s’il pose un problème spécifique, tu lui feras connaître la vérité”*

∵
1 Introduction and Dedication

Pierre Larcher has always had a keen eye for the intricacies (masāʾil) of Arabic
grammar, e.g., the syntax and logical semantics of conditional clauses. This
contribution to his Festschrift takes up again the famous masʾala zunbūriyya,
as reported in Ibn al-ʾAnbārī’s (d. 577/1181) ʾInṣāf (Weil (ed.) 1913: 292–295,
masʾala 99) and, anecdotally, in Ibn Ḫallikān’s (d. 681/1282) Wafāyāt (entry on
Sībawayhi): iii, 463–465; see also Edzard and Bjørsnøs 2008 (eds.): Arabic, 98–
102. In the following, I will briefly mention the Arab grammarians’s approach
to the issue and then focus on it at hand from a comparative Semitic and
Afroasiatic perspective, as well as in a typological perspective. May the honoré
see this article as a token of gratitude for the wealth of scholarly inspiration the
author has always received from him.

2 The masʾala zunbūriyya in Traditional Accounts

The masʾala zunbūriyya (or masʾalat al-zunbūr) is attested in slightly different

versions; the grammatical point, however, always remains the same. Here is the
version of the masʾala as quoted in Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (ʾInṣāf : 292):1

* See Larcher 2008–2009: 220.

1 Because of the relevance of the issue for linguistics in general the key quotations are accompa-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_007

the masʾala zunbūriyya 103

(1) kuntu ʾaẓunnu ʾanna l-ʿaqrab-a

be.1sg.pf think.1sg.ipf comp def-scorpion-acc
ʾašadd-u lasʿat-an mina l-zunbūr-i
strong.elative-nom sting.maṣdar-acc from def-hornet-gen
fa-ʾiḏā huwa ʾiyyā-hā
and-interj he acc-her.dep
(al-Kisāʾī (d. 189/805) = position of the Kūfan grammarians)

vs.

kuntu ʾaẓunnu ʾanna l-ʿaqraba ʾašaddu lasʿatan mina l-zunbūri

fa-ʾiḏā huwa hiya
and-interj he she.indep
(Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?) = position of the Baṣran grammarians)
‘I always thought that the scorpion has a sharper sting than the hornet’
‘(however,) the former is (like) the latter’2

Before analyzing the issue at hand from a modern perspective, I shall briefly
summarize the historical discussion of the issue, focusing thereby on the Kūfan
position, which A. Fischer (1922: 153) normatively had labeled “öde Scholastik.”
While the Baṣran grammarians, who supported Sībawayhi as the doyen of Ara-
bic grammatical theory, essentially pointed out the status of fa-ʾiḏā huwa hiya
as a nominal sentence, where the predicate is supposed to stand in the indepen-
dent case (rafʿ), the Kūfan grammarians resorted to (at least) two explanatory
patterns or devices, (i) qiyās ‘analogy’ (a concept taken from legal reasoning)
and (ii) taqdīr ‘the presupposition of an underlying governing element.’ Regard-
ing the first strategy, Ibn al-ʾAnbārī (ʾInṣāf : 293) reports that al-Kisāʾī adduced
another masʾala as an analogous case:

nied by an interlinear transcription. Thereby, the abbreviation “acc” for ʾiyyā- is used without
prejudice to the grammatical function (deictic or object-marking) of this marker.
2 Ibn Ḫallikān Wafāyāt: iii, 463–465, in a popularized and anecdotal version of the surrounding
story, has the following version: kuntu ʾaẓunnu l-zunbūra ʾašadda lasʿan min al-naḥla … ‘I
always thought that the hornet has a sharper sting than the bee …’ For further textual
references see A. Fischer 1922. For a historical socio-linguistic framing of the issue, see Blau
1963. Slane (1842–1871: ii, 397) translates the passage in question “and behold! it was so.” Carter
(2004: 13) accordingly translates “and sure enough it is”, explicitly relating hiya/ʾiyyā-hā to
lasʿa(tan) ‘sting.’ Versteegh (2014: 72) translates “but it was the other way round.”
104 edzard

(2) ḫaraǧtu fa-ʾiḏā ʿabd-u llāh-i

go_out.1sg.pf and-interj servant.cs-nom God-gen
l-qāʾim-u wa-l-qāʾim-a
def-stand.ptc-nom and-def-stand.ptc-acc
‘I went out, and there stood ʿAbdallāh.’

The second alternative in this quotation ([a]l-qāʾima) serves as the base for
analogical reasoning here. In this case, al-Kisāʾī—according to Ibn al-ʾAnbārī
(ʾInṣāf : 293)—seems to have allowed for a differentiated view: al-ʿarabu tarfaʿu
ḏālika kulla-hū wa-tanṣubu-hū ‘The Arabs set all this in the independent case
(rafʿ “nominative”) and they [equally can] set it in the dependent case (naṣb
“accusative”).’
With respect to the second strategy, taqdīr, the presupposition of a verb
governing the dependent case, Ibn al-ʾAnbārī quotes the grammarian ʾAbū Zayd
al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 214/830) with the following statement:

(3) ʾiḏā kānat li-l-mufāǧaʾati kānat ẓarfa makānin wa-l-ẓarfu yarfaʿu mā baʿda-
hū wa-taʿmalu fī l-ḫabari ʿamala waǧadtu li-ʾanna-hā bi-maʿnā waǧadtu

‘ʾiḏā in the sense of a surprise functions like a local adverb (space quali-
fier), whereby the space qualifier sets what follows it in the independent
case (nominative), and it (ʾiḏā) governs [the object] just like waǧadtu
“I found” governs in the predicate [position] because it has the mean-
ing/function of waǧadtu “I found”’.
ʾInṣāf : 294

The basic idea of the argument here is that ʾiḏā functions in a way comparable
to waǧadtu ‘I found’ in ditransitive function, which governs two objects (‘I
found a:acc [to be] b:acc’), the second of which can be aligned with the
alleged object position of ʾiyyā-hā. Ibn al-ʾAnbārī also refers to ʿimād ‘[syntactic]
support/emphasis’ and in this context cites to the grammarian ʾAbū al-ʾAbbās
ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā Ṯaʿlab (d. 291/904):

(4) huwa fī qawli-him fa-ʾiḏā huwa ʾiyyā-hā ʿimādun wa-naṣabat ʾiḏā li-ʾanna-
hā bi-maʿnā waǧadtu

‘huwa functions in their expression fa-ʾiḏā huwa ʾiyyā-hā as an [emphatic]

supporting element and ʾiḏā sets [the following] in the dependent case
(“accusative”) as it has the meaning/function of waǧadtu “I found” ’.
ʾInṣāf : 294
the masʾala zunbūriyya 105

In this view, which also takes resort to the concept of taqdīr, ʿimād qualifies
the independent pronoun huwa. In other context, ʿimād can also denote the
“accusative marker” ʾiyyā- in the sense of a “prop element” (see Peled 2006: 557).

3 Morphological and Semantic Connection of Deictic Elements,

Personal Pronouns, and the Copula

Already A. Fischer (1922: 153ff.), following Fleischer (1885: 385), expressed the
view that the pronouns following ʾiyyā- do not necessarily have to be viewed
as standing in the dependent case (“accusative”) in a synchronic perspective.
Indeed, the phrase fa-ʾiḏā huwa ʾiyyā-hā is found in exactly this wording in the
35th Maqāma of al-Ḥarīrī (Maqāmāt: ii, 449). Of special interest in this context
is the following qirāʾa (Sūra 1): ʾiyyā-ka tuʿbadu ‘you will be venerated’ instead of
ʾiyyā-ka naʿbudu ‘we venerate you’, as quoted in A. Fischer (1922: 154). The latter
example clearly shows the possible deictic function of ʾiyyā-.
Retsö (1987), in studying ditransitive verbal phrases in Arabic dialects (cor-
responding to ʾaʿṭā-hu ʾiyyā-hā ‘he gave her/it to him’ in Classical Arabic) and
wider Semitic, has also pointed out that the subject (independent) and object
(dependent) forms of the pronoun appear in comparable distribution, both
in predicate and direct position. Retsö (1987: 224) established the following
morpho-syntactic typology in this context:3

(5) Typology of Semitic ditransitive verbal phrases

construction type a: Verb + o2 (io) + o1 (do)
a1: Verb + -ps + -ps
a2: Verb + -ps + ʾiyyā-ps
a3: Verb + -ps + ip
a4: Verb + l-ps + ʾiyyā-ps
a5: Verb + l-ps + ip

construction type b: Verb + o1 (do) + o2 (io)

b1: Verb + -ps + l-ps
b2: Verb + -ps + -ps
b3: Verb + -∅ + l-PS

3 The following abbreviations apply: o1 = do: direct object (“accusative”); o2 = io: indirect
object (“dative”); ps: pronominal suffix; ip: “independent” personal pronoun.
106 edzard

Retsö’s overview clearly shows that the direct object slot can be filled both
with clitic (bi-)forms of the independent pronoun and the object marker ʾiyyā-
followed by forms of the dependent noun (pronominal suffixes). Relevant
examples of the former type include the following; thereby, the (enclitic) inde-
pendent personal pronoun can also function as copula (see Retsö 1987: 221–
222):4

(6) Comparable distribution of direct object und subject pronoun / copula

ǧǟbū-l-o-hūwe ‘they brought it (m.) to him’ (Aleppo)
bring.3pl.pf-dat-him.dep-he.indep

bidd-i hūwe (< bi-wudd-ī huwa) ‘I want him/it’ (Syr./Pal.)

want-I.dep he.indep

ʿaṭaytu-hū-wē ‘I gave it (m.) to him’ (Mḥallamiye)

give.1sg.pf-he.dep-he.indep

fə-l-bayt-wē ‘he, he is in the house’ (Mḥallamiye)

in-def-house-he.indep

ʿaṭētū-k-iya ‘I gave her/it to you (m.sg.)’ (Mossul)

give.1sg.pf-you.m.sg.dep-acc.her.dep

hāyi hiya ‘that’s it’ (Mossul)

dem.f she.indep

The above-mentioned example ʾiyyā-ka tuʿbadu ‘you will be venerated’ sup-

ports the analysis of ʾiyyā- as a deictic element. Wilmsen (2011: 316 ff.; see also
Wilmsen 2013a/b) has argued accordingly with regard to the following modern
standard Arabic expressions in which ʾiyyā- marks a corroborative apposition
(tawkīd in the native Arabic terminology):

(7) Standard Arabic constructions (Wilmsen 2011)

ḏālika l-ṣawtu ʾiyyā-hu ‘this voice itself’
dem def-voice acc-he.dep
ʾahlu l-dunyā ʾiyyā-hum ‘the people themselves’
people def-world acc-them.dep

4 The actual examples are taken from Sabuni 1980: 118 (Aleppo), Sasse 1971: 119 (Mḥallamiye),
and Jastrow 1979: 15, 43 (Mossul).
the masʾala zunbūriyya 107

Another case in point in this connection are verboids or pseudo-verbs in

Arabic dialects and in Hebrew. These verboids are elements of nominal origin,
which—in a synchronic and comparative perspective—function like verbs.
Also in this case, one can observe an object marking of what diachronically
stands in subject position. The following two Palestinian Arabic verboids ʿand-
i … and bidd-i … going back to Classical Arabic ʿind-ī ‘with (“chez”) me [is] …’
and bi-wudd-ī … ‘in my wish [is] …’, respectively, may serve as an illustration
(see Shlonsky 1997: 208; Wilmsen 2013: 334):

(8) Verboids in Arabic dialects and in Hebrew

ʿind-ī ‘with (“chez”) me …’ → ʿand-i yyā-ha ‘I have it (fem.)’
bi-wudd-ī … ‘in my wish …’ → bidd-i yyā-ha ‘I want it (fem.)’

ʾabū-k bidd-o yyā-k

father.cs-you.m.sg.dep want-he.dep acc-you.m.sg.dep
‘your father wants you’ (see Elihay 2005: 87)

Colloquial registers of modern Hebrew feature the same phenomenon after

the existence marker yeš ‘there is (present),’ to which the object marker can
be attached.5

(9) Verboids in colloquial modern Hebrew

yeš … ‘there is …’ → yeš ʾet … ‘there is …’

gam kan yeš ʾet ha-beʿayot ha-ʾele

also here exist acc def-problems def-these
‘also here do these problems exist’ (see Glinert 1994: 149)

The phenomenon is already attested, at least in a preliminary fashion, in Bibli-

cal Hebrew (see Kuzar 2013: 934):

(10) Verboids in Biblical Hebrew

ʾεṯ-šənē hag-gōyīm wə-ʾεṯ-šətē hå ̄-ʾărå ̄ṣōṯ l-ī
acc-two.m.cs def-nations conj-acc-two.f.cs def-lands to-me
ṯihyεnå ̄ w-īrašnū-hå ̄
be.nonpast.3f.pl conj-inherit.nonpast_consec.3pl-her.dep
‘The two nations and the two lands shall be mine and we shall possess
them’ (Ezek. 35: 10)

5 For a thorough discussion of this point, see Glinert 1989: 148–149, 178–181, and 186–187.
108 edzard

Yet another case in point are constructions that feature so-called ʾafʿāl
taʿaǧǧub ‘verbs of wonder/surprise’ (position of the Baṣran grammarians),
which in reality constitute frozen elative constructions (position of the Kūfan
grammarians), in which the original subject was reanalyzed as an object due to
the misinterpretation of the elative form as a causative (form iv) (see Brockel-
mann 1913: 12–13):

(11) Frozen elatives in Classical Arabic

mā ʾakram-a zayd-an
what noble.elative-acc Zayd-acc
‘how noble is Zayd’

From an Arabist perspective, it is of course not surprising to find predicates or

focalized subjects in the dependent case, and this observation leads us to the
next section.

4 The Different Functions of the Dependent Case in Arabic and

Amharic

Next to the obvious function of marking the direct object (“accusative” proper),
the dependent case (naṣb) occurs in a variety of functions in classical Arabic.
We follow here the compilation in chapter 15 of Širbīnī’s Nūr al-saǧiyya fī ḥall
ʾalfāẓ al-ʾĀǧurrūmiyya, with a few modifications, as edited, commented, and
translated in Carter 1981: 324ff. The following list emerges from these sources
(see also Edzard 2012a/b and Hasselbach 2013: 275–283):

(12) Functions of the -a(n)-suffix in Arabic

i. direct object (mafʿūl bi-hī):
ḍarabtu zayd-an
strike.1sg.pf Zayd-acc
‘I struck Zayd’

ii. the verbal noun (maṣdar):6

ḍarabtu ḍarb-an
strike.1sg.pf strike.maṣdar-acc
‘I struck hard’

6 Here, the position within the mafʿūl muṭlaq is assumed to be the default role of the maṣdar.
the masʾala zunbūriyya 109

iii. the time-qualifier (ẓarf al-zamān):

ṣumtu l-yawm-a
fast.1sg.pf def-day-acc
‘I fasted today’

iv. the space-qualifier (ẓarf al-makān):

ǧalastu ʾamām-a-ka
sit.1sg.pf front-acc-you.dep
‘I sat in front of you’

v. the circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl):

ǧāʾa zayd-un rākib-an
come.3m.sg.pf Zayd-nom ride.ptc-acc
‘Zayd came riding’

vi. the specifying element (tamyīz):7

ṭāba muḥammad-un nafs-an
be_content.3m.sg.pf Muḥammad-nom soul-acc
‘Muḥammad was content of soul’

vii. the excepted element (mustaṯnā):

qāma l-qawm-u ʾillā zayd-an
get_up.3m.sg.pf def-people-nom except Zayd-acc
‘the people stood up except Zayd’

viii. the noun negated by lā (ism lā):8

lā ʾilāh-a ʾillā llāh-i
neg god-acc except God-gen
‘there is no god except Allah’

ix. the vocative (munādā):

yā ʿabd-a llāh-i
voc servant-acc.cs God-gen
‘o ʿAbdullāh’

7 The tamyīz also affects the morpho-syntax of numbers between 11 and 99, e.g., the example
chosen by Sībawayhi ʿišrūna dirham-an ‘twenty dirham-acc’ (see Carter 1972: 487).
8 ‘The “absolute” negation’ in Western terminology.
110 edzard

x. the object of reason (mafʿūl min ʾaǧli-hī):

qāma zayd-un ʾiǧlāl-an li-bakr-in
get_up.3m.sg.pf Zayd-nom honor.maṣdar-acc for-Bakr-gen
‘Zayd stood in honor of Bakr’

xi. the object of accompaniment (mafʿūl maʿa-hū):9

sirtu wa-l-nīl-a
travel.1sg.pf and-def-Nile-acc
‘I traveled with the Nile’

xii. the predicate of kāna and its related verbs (“sisters”) (ḫabar kāna
wa-ʾaḫawāti-hā):
kāna zayd-un qāʾim-an
be.3m.sg.pf Zayd-nom stand.ptc-acc
‘Zayd was standing’

xiii. the subject noun of ‘indeed/the fact is that’ and its related particles
(ism ʾinna wa-ʾaḫawāti-hā):
ʾinna zayd-an qāʾim-un
foc Zayd-acc stand.ptc-nom
‘(indeed/the fact is that,) Zayd is standing’

xiv. the two objects of ẓanantu ‘I thought’ and its related verbs (mafʿūlā
ẓanantu wa-ʾaḫawāti-hā):10
ẓanantu zayd-an qāʾim-an
think.1sg.pf Zayd-acc stand.ptc-acc
‘I thought Zayd was standing’

xv. the concordant of a dependent element, which comprises four

things: the adjective, the coordinated element, the corroborative,
and the substitute (at-tābiʿu li-l-manṣūbi wa-huwa ʾarbaʿatu ʾašyāʾa:
al-naʿtu wa-l-ʿaṭfu wa-l-tawkīdu wa-l-badalu):
raʾaytu zayd-an il-ʿāqila-a
see.1sg.pf Zayd-acc def-intelligent-acc
‘I saw Zayd the intelligent’

9 Other examples of the pattern involving the wāw al-māʿiyya include constructions such as
ʾana wa-ʾiyyā-ka ‘I and acc.you.dep’.
10 For ditransitive verbs in general, including the issue of double pronominal objects, see, in
addition to Retsö 1987, Gensler 1998 and Diem 2002.
the masʾala zunbūriyya 111

raʾaytu zayd-an wa-ʿamr-an

see.1sg.pf Zayd-acc and-ʿAmr-acc
‘I saw Zayd and ʿAmr’

raʾaytu l-qawm-a kull-a-hum

see.1sg.pf def-people-acc all-acc-them.dep
‘I saw the people, all of them’

raʾaytu zayd-an ʾaḫā-a-ka

see.1sg.pf Zayd-acc brother-acc-your.m.sg.dep
‘I saw Zayd your brother’

These examples illustrate the wide range of application of the dependent case
(naṣb) in Classical Arabic and (to a certain degree, at least) in modern Standard
Arabic.
Modern Amharic features a variety of functions of the (direct) object marker
-n suffix as well, functions that by far transcend the canonical function of
marking the direct object. The following list provides a short overview (see
Appleyard 2004 and Edzard 2012a/b):

(13) Functions of the -n suffix in Amharic

i. direct object (“accusative”):
mäskot-u-n zəga
window-def-acc close.m.sg.imp
‘close the window!’

ii. predicative:
əssu-n b-əhon al-adärg-äw näbbär
he-acc in-be.1sg.ipf neg-1sg.ipf-it.dep be.3m.sg.pf
‘if I were him, I wouldn’t have done it’

iii. adverbial use:

ləǧ-u əǧǧ-e-n yazä-ññ
child-def hand-my.dep-acc take.3m.sg.pf-me.dep
‘the child took me by the hand’

iv. focus:
awnät-wa-n näw
truth-her.dep-acc be.3m.sg.ipf (cop)
‘she is right’
112 edzard

5 Subject (“Agent”) and Predicative (“Non-Agent”) Case in Wider

Afroasiatic Perspective

In a wider Afroasiatic perspective, it is instructive to consider the marking of

case in relationship to the scenario in Arabic and Amharic. One has argued
that Afroasiatic had a subject (or “agent”) case associated with a u-ending and a
predicative/absolutive (“non-agent”) case, considered the citation form, which
also served for marking the object, associated with an a-ending.11 In the East-
Cushitic language Borana, for instance, one finds an opposition between a
subject case terminating in -í, vs. an absolute case terminating in -a (which
also functions as citation case),12 e.g., nam-í ‘a man’ (subject) vs. nam-a ‘a man’
(predicate), as in kunin nam-a ‘this is a man’ (see Sasse 1984: 112):

(14) Subject vs. predicate case in Cushitic Borana

nam-í ‘(a) man’ (subject)
vs.
nam-a ‘(a) man’ (predicate)

A comparable functional opposition can be detected in the Berber “state” (else-

where corresponding to case) system, where the “independent form” charac-
terized by an a-vowel designates the direct object, the nominal predicate, and
a number of adverbial cases, whereas the “dependent form” characterized by
an u-vowel designates the non-focalized subject, the adnominal genitive, and
the complement of prepositions (see Sasse 1984: 120–121). Here is an illustra-
tion:

(15) Dependent and independent “state” (case) in Berber (Sasse 1984)

aγiul iuγa-t urgaz
def.donkey.indep buy.3m.sg.pret-it def.man.dep
‘the man bought the donkey’

argaz iuγa aγiul

def.man.indep buy.3m.sg.pret def.donkey.indep
‘it was the man who bought the donkey’

11 For an in-depth description of the scenario in Cushitic, see Appleyard 2012: 205–206 as
well as Mous 2012: 369–373.
12 See what was said about the Arabic maṣdar above (item 12, ii).
the masʾala zunbūriyya 113

The comparative Afroasiatic perspective then gives additional weight to the

status of the Arabic dependent case (naṣb). Thereby, one has to be careful not
to mix up the concepts of “dependent” and “independent” in Berber with the
scenario in Arabic (grammatical theory). Indeed, many Afroasiatic languages
have to be considered marked nominative languages in a synchronic perspec-
tive.

6 Typological Parallels in European Languages

Already A. Fischer (1922: 145–146) had pointed out the conceptual closeness of
the issue at hand to oppositions pairs such as English it is I (normative/formal)
vs. it is me (colloquial/informal), or you and I (normative) vs. you and me
(colloquial/informal, see also Carter 2004: 13).
Similar phenomena in the history of the Romance pronominal system,
where the originally dependent forms in the pronominal system have replaced
the (stressed) independent (nominative) forms.13 Thus, the French indepen-
dent pronouns lui, eux, and the Italian independent pronouns lui, lei, loro repre-
sent original forms in object position that have diachronically shifted to subject
position. Consider the following Old French example (see Buridant 2000: 431):

(16) Example of an independent pronoun in Old French (QLReis: 48, 33–34)

plus es dreituriers que jo
more be.2sg.pres just.nom.sg than I.indep
‘you are more just than I (am)’

tu mʾ-as bien fait e jo

you-sg.indep me-have.2sg.pres well make.ppp and I.indep
tʾ-ai mal rendu
you-have.2sg.pres badly return.ppp
‘you have done me good, and I have treated you badly in return’

Today, the first sentence of (16) would have to be rendered tu es plus juste que
moi, as the Old French form jo, corresponding to modern je, can no longer be
used in the independent position, but only in combination with a finite verb.

13 A. Fischer (1922: 145–146) refers to Meyer-Lübke 1890–1902: ii, 93. For an overview of the
Old French independent forms, see, e.g., Buridant 2000: 408.
114 edzard

Conclusion

Regarding the initially mentioned masʾala al-zunbūriyya, the modern relevance

of the issue, i.e. whether the independent or dependent case is to be pre-
ferred in predicate position, appears to be evident. Both the wider Semitic
and Afroasiatic scenario and from a typological perspective, which includes
at least some branches of Indoeuropean, demonstrate that the variety of func-
tions associated with the dependent case (naṣb) in Arabic fits well in a broader
linguistic picture.

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 part 2
Arabic Grammatical Tradition

∵
 chapter 6

« Man Zaydan?» À propos de quelques cas curieux

de ḥikāya chez Sībawayhi

Jean-Patrick Guillaume

1 Préliminaires

Dans son article consacré à l’autonymie (Larcher 2005), P. Larcher évoque briè-
vement un cas particulier de ḥikāya («reprise littérale, citation ») mentionné
dans le Kitāb al-Ǧumal de Zaǧǧāǧī (m. 337/949) comme étant une particularité
de l’usage des gens du Ḥiǧāz: elle consiste, lorsque l’ on vous dit, par exemple
raʾaytu zaydan («J’ai vu Zayd-acc»), à demander man zaydan (« Qui, Zayd-
acc?»), en attribuant à zayd la marque casuelle qu’ il avait dans la réplique pré-
cédente, plutôt que la forme attendue man zaydun (« Qui [est] Zayd-nom ? »),
Zayd étant au nominatif en tant que thème (mubtadaʾ) de la phrase nominale.
Zaǧǧāǧī précise que cela n’est possible qu’avec les noms propres, et que cet
usage permet de signaler à l’interlocuteur «que c’ est sur ce personnage-là pré-
cisément que tu l’interroges» et non sur un autre qui s’ appellerait également
Zayd (Zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: 316–318).
Comme le fait fort justement observer P. Larcher, les faits ainsi présentés ne
laissent pas d’être déroutants, d’autant plus que Zaǧǧāǧī les rapproche d’ autres
particularités dans l’ emploi des interrogatifs man (« qui ? ») et ʾayy (« quel,
lequel?»), également censées être caractéristiques des parlers du Ḥiǧāz, qu’ il
classe également sous la notion de ḥikāya où elles n’ont manifestement que
faire1. Toutes ces constatations conduisent notre ami à manifester un certain
scepticisme quant à l’authenticité de ces faits, et à les considérer soit comme
de purs exemples de grammairiens, soit comme reflétant, chez les locuteurs
ḥiǧāziens, une mauvaise maîtrise de l’usage des marques casuelles.
À s’en tenir à la donnée du Ǧumal, ce jugement apparaît parfaitement
défendable. Toutefois, pour peu que l’on se réfère au Kitāb de Sībawayhi – dont
le Ǧumal ne fait ici, comme c’est souvent le cas, que reprendre l’ enseignement
sous une forme simplifiée et quelque peu banalisée – l’ image qui émerge
est toute différente; et, s’il n’est évidemment pas possible d’ évaluer le degré

1 Sur ce point, qui ne concerne pas mon propos, on pourra se référer à Larcher (2005: 101–102)
et à Zaǧǧāǧī (Ǧumal : 318–322).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_008

120 guillaume

de représentativité des faits en question, on peut au moins montrer que la

description et l’interprétation qu’en donne Sībawayhi sont tout à fait cohérents
et plausibles: du moins est-ce ce que je m’efforcerai de mettre en lumière dans
les pages qui suivent.

2 «Stratégie ḥiǧāzienne» vs. «stratégie tamīmite»

Les faits qui nous intéressent sont traités dans un chapitre intitulé « Chapitre
de la différence entre les Arabes à propos du nom propre usuel lorsque tu
en fais l’objet d’une question en man» (hāḏā bāb iḫtilāf al-ʿArab fī al-ism al-
maʿrūf al-ġālib ʾiḏā istafhamta ʿan-hu bi-man, Sībawayhi Kitāb: ii, 413–414).
Ce chapitre, il convient de le signaler, fait partie d’ un ensemble plus vaste,
consacré à la morphosyntaxe et à l’emploi des interrogatifs man et ʾayy, où sont
traités notamment les faits que Zaǧǧāǧī classe arbitrairement sous la notion
de ḥikāya ; Sībawayhi, quant à lui, ne fait usage de cette notion que dans le
cas qui nous occupe. Dans toute cette suite de chapitres, par ailleurs, il se
réfère abondamment à l’autorité de ses maîtres Ḫalīl b. ʾAḥmad (m. 176/792 ?)
et Yūnus b. Ḥabīb (m. 183/800), mais fait également état, nous le verrons, de
données recueillies par lui-même.
Dans la mesure où les faits en question, entièrement tombés de l’ usage, sont
peu connus, et où le propos de Sībawayhi est, comme c’ est fréquemment le
cas, passablement touffu et elliptique, j’ai préféré donner tout d’ abord une
traduction suivie du début du chapitre, quitte à revenir ensuite sur les points
qui me paraissent importants:

Sache que les gens du Ḥiǧāz, lorsqu’on leur dit raʾaytu zaydan (« J’ ai
vu Zayd-acc»), disent man zaydan? («Qui, Zayd-acc ? »). Et si on leur
dit marartu bi-zaydin («Je suis passé devant Zayd-gen »), ils disent man
zaydin? («Qui, Zayd-gen?»). Et si on leur dit haḏā ʿabdullāh (« Voici
ʿAbdallah-nom»), ils disent man ʿabdullāh (« Qui, Abdallah-nom ? »).
Quant aux Banū Tamīm, ils emploient toujours le nominatif [i.e. man zay-
dun], ce qui est plus régulier (ʾaqyas).
Les Ḥiǧāziens, en revanche, construisent leur propos comme s’ ils citai-
ent ce qu’a dit leur interlocuteur (ʾammā ʾahl al-Ḥiǧāz fa-ʾinna-hum
ḥamalū qawla-hum ʿalā ʾanna-hum ḥakaw mā takallama bi-hi al-masʾūl).
De la même façon, certains Arabes disent daʿ-nā min tamratāni (« laisse-
nous tranquilles avec deux dattes-nom»), en citant quelqu’ un qui avait
dit laysa ʿinda-hu tamratāni («il n’a pas deux dattes-nom »). Et j’ ai
[même] entendu une fois un Arabe répondre, à un homme qui lui deman-
à propos de quelques cas curieux de ḥikāya chez sībawayhi 121

dait ʾa-laysa qurašiyyan («n’est-il pas qurayšite-acc ? ») : laysa bi-qurašiy-

yan («il n’est pas du tout qurayšite-acc!»), en citant ce que [l’ autre] avait
dit.
On ne peut en user ainsi qu’avec le nom qui est un nom propre usuel
(al-ism al-laḏī yakūnu ʿalaman ġāliban), et ce n’est pas possible avec autre
chose […]; en effet, c’est lui [i.e. le nom propre usuel] qu’ ils [i.e. les
Arabes] utilisent le plus fréquemment, et c’est le nom premier par lequel
ils se reconnaissent.
Il n’a besoin d’être accompagné d’un qualificatif [ṣifa] que si l’ on
craint l’équivoque entre les noms propres. [De même], on n’a recours
à la citation [e g. dans man zaydan] que pour interpeller la personne
interrogée [ʾinna-mā yuḥkā mubādaratan li-l-masʾūl], ou bien pour lui
confirmer qu’on ne l’interroge pas sur un autre personnage [homonyme]
que celui dont il a parlé [ʾaw tawkīdan ʿalay-hi ʾanna-hu laysa yasʾalu-hu
ʿan ġayri hāḏā al-laḏī takallama bi-hi] […]
Et si l’on dit raʾaytu ʾaḫā ḫālidin [«j’ai vu le frère-acc de Ḫālid »], il
n’est pas possible de dire man ʾaḫā ḫālidin [« qui, le frère-acc de Ḫālid ? »],
sauf en suivant l’usage de ceux qui disent daʿ-nā ʿan tamratāni et laysa
bi-qurašiyyan : le bon usage [al-waǧh] est [d’ employer] le nominatif [i.e.
man ʾaḫū ḫālidin, «qui est le frère-nom de Ḫālid ? »], car ce n’est pas un
nom propre usuel.
sībawayhi Kitāb : ii, 413–414

Ainsi donc, trois éléments semblent se dégager de ce texte :

1. Les faits envisagés ne concerneraient pas tous les locuteurs, mais seulement
les «gens du Ḥiǧāz», dont l’usage est souvent – comme c’ est le cas ici –
considéré comme moins «régulier» que celui des Banū Tamīm. Toutefois,
il convient de se demander si le critère géographique est le seul pertinent : la
nature même des données, qui supposent un dysfonctionnement dans les
conditions normales de la communication (j’y reviendrai), indique claire-
ment qu’elles relèvent d’un registre oral spontané, pour ne pas dire familier,
nettement distinct de l’usage soutenu et contrôlé qui est normalement celui
des poètes et des orateurs. C’est là un point qu’ il faut souligner : la tradi-
tion grammaticale dans son ensemble tend systématiquement à penser la
variation linguistique exclusivement en termes de différence entre dialectes
tribaux, en occultant d’autres paramètres, comme l’ existence de registres
plus ou moins relâchés ou soutenus2.

2 Un exemple typique de cette tendance est fourni par la construction dite ʾakalū-nī l-barāġīṯ :
voir Guillaume 2011.
122 guillaume

2. Ces faits ne concernent – à deux cas près, dont le texte souligne le carac-
tère exceptionnel, voire déviant – que les noms propres, ou plus exactement
ce que Sībawayhi appelle le nom propre «usuel »3 (ġālib, litt. « dominant »),
c’est-à-dire celui qui désigne l’individu dans sa singularité, par opposition
aux autres éléments onomastiques, dont on connaît l’ abondance en arabe
classique et médiéval. C’est là aussi un élément important, dans la mesure
où les noms propres tendent, dans toutes les langues, à présenter des com-
portements spécifiques4.
3. Ils constituent une anomalie dans la distribution des marques casuelles
déterminée par les règles de la rection (ʿamal) : selon celles-ci, on devrait,
dans tous les cas de figure, avoir man zaydun, avec zayd au nominatif en tant
que «thème» (mubtadaʾ) de la phrase nominale. Cette anomalie tient, selon
Sībawayhi, à ce que, dans man zaydan ou man zaydin, zaydan et zaydin sont
des «citations» (ḥikāya, litt. «imitation»), reprenant littéralement le terme
en question tel qu’il apparaît dans l’énoncé précédent, marquage casuel
compris.

Telle est donc, à première vue, la donnée du texte. La question qui se pose
maintenant est de savoir s’il s’agit d’une simple explication ad hoc, ou si
elle recouvre une observation linguistiquement pertinente. Sur ce point, Sība-
wayhi apporte une ébauche de réponse: ce qui conduit les locuteurs à avoir
recours à la «citation» (ḥikāya) plutôt que d’ appliquer les règles normales
d’assignation des marques casuelles est soit l’intention d’ « interpeller» (mubā-
dara) l’interlocuteur, soit la volonté de lui faire comprendre clairement que le
Zayd sur lequel ils l’interrogent est bien celui dont il vient de parler, et non un
autre individu portant le même nom.
Cette seconde explication – la seule que retient Zaǧǧāǧī, on s’ en souvient –
apparaît peu convaincante, pour ne pas dire puérile. Si tant est que Sība-
wayhi en soit l’auteur (il n’est pas impossible qu’ il s’ agisse d’ une glose pos-
térieure qui se serait glissée dans le texte du Kitāb), elle lui est manifeste-
ment suggérée par le rapprochement qu’il opère entre la construction qui
nous concerne et une autre particularité des noms propres, à savoir qu’ ils ne
peuvent être employés avec une épithète (ṣifa) que si elle a pour fonction de
dissiper une ambiguïté entre des personnages homonymes: quand je dis zay-
dun al-ṭawīl («le grand Zayd»), c’est pour distinguer celui dont je veux parler
des autres Zayd, et non pour le décrire, ce qui est la fonction normale de la

3 J’ avoue que cette traduction ne me paraît pas bien fameuse, mais je n’en trouve pas d’autre.
4 Voir, pour le cas du français, l’ ouvrage bien connu de Marie-Noëlle Gary-Prieur (1994).
à propos de quelques cas curieux de ḥikāya chez sībawayhi 123

ṣifa, comme l’indique son nom. Il semble donc que Sībawayhi (ou son glossa-
teur) ait étendu, quelque peu abusivement, ce schème explicatif au cas de la
ḥikāya.
Reste la première ébauche d’explication: les locuteurs ont recours à la cita-
tion «pour interpeller celui à qui la question est adressée» (mubādaratan li-l-
masʾūl). Sībawayhi, comme cela lui arrive souvent, se montre ici passablement
sibyllin, mais cette notation pourrait bien contenir l’ amorce d’ une solution.
Reprenons en effet l’échange dans son ensemble: a dit à b raʾaytu zaydan (« J’ ai
vu Zayd-acc»), or b n’a pas la moindre idée du personnage en question. Dès
lors, b dispose de deux stratégies pour rétablir les conditions habituelles de la
communication: la stratégie «tamīmite», qui consiste simplement à solliciter
l’ information dont il a besoin pour interpréter l’ énoncé de a, et la stratégie
« ḥiǧāzienne», qui vise plutôt à «interpeller» a, en attirant son attention sur
le fait que son énoncé comporte un élément totalement opaque et ininter-
prétable, dont il ne peut rien faire hormis le renvoyer tel quel à l’ expéditeur.
Autrement dit, la «stratégie ḥiǧāzienne» ajoute à la simple interrogation une
nuance de réprobation (ʾinkār) à l’égard de la violation du principe de perti-
nence commise par a.

3 Ḥikāya et ʾinkār : une connexion significative

Cette interprétation me semble corroborée par un autre chapitre du Kitāb, qui

se situe quelques pages après celui-ci (Sībawayhi Kitāb: ii, 419–422), consacré,
à une tournure qui, elle aussi, relève du discours oral spontané et n’intervient
que dans une situation de dialogue. Sur le plan formel, elle consiste à reprendre
à l’ identique (marque casuelle comprise), un élément de l’ énoncé du co-énon-
ciateur, en allongeant la voyelle finale et en lui suffixant un -h (e.g. raʾaytu
ʿuṯmāna – ʾa-ʿuṯmān-ā-h «J’ai vu ʿUṯmān-acc – ʿUṯmān ? Tu parles ! »). En ce
qui concerne sa valeur sémantique, le plus simple est de reprendre l’ un des
exemples par lesquels Sībawayhi l’illustre:

On te dit qad qadima zaydun [«Zayd-nom est arrivé»] et tu répliques ʾa-

zaydun-ī-h5, non pour répondre [à une question, mais] pour marquer ton
étonnement, ou lui signaler ta réprobation devant le fait qu’ il ait pu pen-

5 Sībawayhi précise à ce propos que, lorsque le nom se termine par un tanwīn, un -i- épenthé-
tique est introduit pour le séparer du -h, selon la contrainte manʿ iltiqāʾ al-sākinayn. Ce -i- est
ensuite allongé, exactement comme le -a- dans ʾa-ʿuṯmānāh.
124 guillaume

ser que [Zayd] pourrait ne pas venir; ou bien encore tu veux récuser le fait
que [Zayd] soit venu, et tu dis [également] ʾa-zaydun-ī-h (wa-yaqūlu qad
qadima zaydun wa-taqūlu ʾa-zaydun-ī-h ġayra rāddin ʿalay-hi mutaʿaǧǧi-
ban ʾaw munkiran ʿalay-hi ʾan yakūna raʾyu-hu ʿalā ġayri ʾan yaqdama ʾaw
ʾankarta ʾan yakūna qadima fa-qulta ʾa-zaydun-ī-h, sībawayhi Kitāb: ii,
420).

Ces explications apparaissent à première vue un peu confuses, mais il faut

reconnaître à la décharge de l’auteur qu’il tente d’ exprimer une idée complexe
au moyen d’un métalangage encore très rudimentaire et peu outillé à cette
fin. Ce qui ressort de ce fragment, semble-t-il, c’ est que, dans ce contexte,
l’expression ʾa-zaydun-ī-h peut, selon les circonstances, exprimer :

– l’étonnement du locuteur devant une information à laquelle il ne s’ attendait

pas («Zayd? Pas possible!»);
– sa «réprobation» à l’égard du co-énonciateur, qui annonce comme une
grande nouvelle une chose dont tout le monde est au courant (« Zayd? Ben
voyons!»);
– sa «réprobation» à l’égard du même co-énonciateur, qui annonce une infor-
mation manifestement fausse et absurde (« Zayd ? Allons donc ! »).

Si cette énumération apparaît ici quelque peu confuse, c’ est que Sībawayhi ne
distingue pas clairement entre l’attitude du locuteur à l’ égard de l’ information
donnée (le fait qu’il la considère comme vraie, fausse ou inattendue) et son
attitude à l’égard de la pertinence de cette information. Or, c’ est bien de cela
qu’il est question ici, comme le montre, de manière beaucoup plus claire, un
autre exemple traité à quelques lignes de distance :

Il peut arriver qu’un homme te dise ʾa-taʿrifu zaydan [« Connais-tu Zayd-

acc?»] et que tu répliques ʾa-zaydan-ī-h [« Zayd ? Ben voyons! »], soit
pour réprouver son idée qu’il puisse en être ainsi [i.e. que tu le connaisse]
soit [au contraire son idée] que tu ne le connaisse pas (qad yaqūlu la-ka
al-raǧulu ʾa-taʿrifu zaydan fa-taqūlu ʾa-zaydan-ī-h ʾimmā munkiran li-raʾyi-
hi ʾan yakūna ʿalā ḏālika wa-ʾimmā ʿalā ḫilāfi al-maʿrifa, sībawayhi Kitāb:
ii, 420).

Autrement dit, ʾa-zaydan-ī-h en l’occurrence, peut signifier seulement deux

choses: ou bien (en paraphrasant lourdement) « Zayd? Mais je ne connais que
lui [et ta question est donc hors de propos]!»; ou bien « Zayd? Mais comment
veux-tu que je le connaisse [et ta question est donc hors de propos]? » Ces
à propos de quelques cas curieux de ḥikāya chez sībawayhi 125

deux interprétations, toutefois, sont purement contextuelles, et dépendent de

facteurs extralinguistiques: en fait, la construction ʾa-zaydan-ī-h sert, dans tous
les cas, à souligner la non-pertinence du propos de l’ interlocuteur, soit qu’ il
énonce une évidence telle qu’elle n’a pas à être dite, soit au contraire qu’ il
affirme une absurdité si manifeste qu’il ne vaut pas la peine de la réfuter. On
peut dès lors concevoir qu’elle puisse, dans un usage hyperbolique, marquer
simplement la surprise dans certaines situations.
De manière significative, Sībawayhi rapproche ce cas du précédent, celui de
l’ échange raʾaytu zaydan – man zaydan? que nous avons vu plus haut :

Il peut arriver qu’un homme te dise ʾinnī qad ḏahabtu [« Moi, je suis
parti»] et que tu répondes ʾa-ḏahabtū-h [«‘Je suis parti’ ? Allons donc ! »]
[…]: tu ajoutes le suffixe [-h] à ce qu’il a prononcé [tulḥiqu al-ziyādata
mā lafiẓa bi-hi] et tu reprends littéralement son propos pour l’ interpeller
et pour lui manifester de la réprobation à l’ égard de ce qu’ il a énoncé
[wa-taḥkī-hi mubādaratan la-hu wa-tabyīnan ʾanna-hu yunkaru ʿalay-hi
mā takallama bi-hi], tout comme on le fait dans man ʿabdallāh [« Qui,
ʿAbdallah-acc?»]. […] Et si [au contraire] tu cherches à t’ assurer et à
te faire confirmer [ce qu’a dit l’interlocuteur] [wa-in kunta mutaṯabbi-
tan mustaršidan], lorsqu’il a dit ḍarabtu zaydan (« J’ ai frappé Zayd»), tu
n’ajoutes pas le suffixe […] et tu dis: ʾa-qulta ḍarabtu-hu [« Tu as bien dit :
‘je l’ai frappé’?»], car tu fais porter l’interrogation sur qulta (« Tu as dit »),
qui ne fait pas partie de l’énoncé de ton interlocuteur; et [cette construc-
tion] vise seulement à obtenir une confirmation, et non à exprimer une
réprobation [wa-innamā ǧāʾa ʿalā l-istiršād lā ʿalā l-inkār] (sībawayhi
Kitāb: ii, 244).

Sībawayhi établit donc une claire distinction entre le cas où la reprise à l’ iden-
tique (ḥikāya) vise simplement à s’assurer que l’ on a bien compris le propos
du co-énonciateur (et donc à rétablir a minima les conditions normales de
la communication), et celle où elle marque la volonté de le disqualifier, d’ en
récuser la pertinence6. Cette différence sémantique (ou, plus exactement peut-
être, pragmatique) est corrélée à une différence au niveau de la forme : dans le
premier cas, on introduira le verbe déclaratif qāla, qui marque clairement que
ce qui suit est une citation; dans le second, on reprendra tel quel le propos du

6 C’ est bien ainsi, me semble-t-il, qu’ il faut comprendre l’ exemple donné par Sībawayhi: b ne
reproche pas à A d’ avoir frappé Zayd, mais bien de dire qu’il l’a frappé, parce que, d’une
manière ou d’ une autre, ce n’ est pas pertinent à la situation.
126 guillaume

co-énonciateur, en l’affectant du suffixe qui, pour Sībawayhi, est la « marque »

(ʿalam) spécifique qui sert à exprimer la «réprobation » du locuteur.
Nous retrouvons donc ici, dans une configuration différente, et exprimée de
manière plus explicite, la même opposition que nous subodorions dans le cas
précédent entre la «stratégie tamīmite» (raʾaytu zaydan – man zaydun?, « J’ ai
vu Zayd-acc – C’est qui, Zayd-nom?») et la «stratégie ḥiǧāzienne» (man zay-
dan, «Qui ça, Zayd-acc?»), la première consistant en une simple demande
d’information, exprimée selon une phrase interrogative « normale », la seconde
usant de la reprise littérale (ḥikāya) pour «interpeller» le co-énonciateur (li-
mubādarati al-masʾūl, l’expression se retrouve telle quelle dans les deux cha-
pitres).
Il y a cependant une différence non négligeable entre les deux : selon Sība-
wayhi, qui est sur ce point tout à fait explicite, celle que je viens d’ évoquer n’ est
possible qu’avec les noms propres à l’exclusion de tout autre élément de langue
(à quelques exceptions près, dont une prise sur le vif par l’ auteur du Kitāb,
qui en souligne par ailleurs le caractère aberrant), alors que la construction
de type a-zaydan-ī-h n’est, semble-t-il soumise à aucune restriction, puisqu’ on
la trouve également avec un verbe (ʾa-ḏahabtū-h dans le fragment ci-dessus)7.
Cette différence tient à ce que la rupture du principe de pertinence n’a pas la
même source dans un cas et dans l’autre: dans celui que nous venons de voir,
elle dépend de facteurs extralinguistiques, l’énoncé de a étant par ailleurs par-
faitement interprétable pour B. Dans le cas de la « stratégie ḥiǧāzienne», au
contraire, la non-pertinence de l’énoncé de a tient à ce qu’ il contient un élé-
ment totalement opaque et ininterprétable pour b, qui choisit donc de le traiter
comme un pur flatus vocis et de le renvoyer tel quel à l’ expéditeur. Or, cela
ne peut normalement se produire qu’avec les noms propres, dans la mesure
où ils sont dépourvus de contenu notionnel; à l’ inverse, toute autre expres-
sion, comme ʾaḫā ḫālidin dans raʾaytu ʾaḫā ḫālidin (« J’ ai vu le frère de Ḫālid »),
pour reprendre l’exemple de Sībawayhi, reste toujours interprétable pour b, au
moins notionnellement8, même s’il est incapable d’ identifier le personnage
concerné.

7 Sībawayhi mentionne d’ autres exemples (notamment avec un pronom), que j’omets pour ne
pas surcharger à l’ excès une matière déjà touffue.
8 À supposer évidemment qu’ il sache qui est Ḫālid, ce qui est manifestement donné par
hypothèse ; dans ce cas, au demeurant, la question «ḥiǧāzienne» serait man ḫālidin («Qui
ça, Ḫālid-gen ? »).
à propos de quelques cas curieux de ḥikāya chez sībawayhi 127

4 En guise de conclusion(s)

Quelles conclusions peut-on dégager au terme de cette brève incursion dans

quelques recoins obscurs du Kitāb? Tout d’abord, elle vient confirmer une par-
ticularité de la démarche de Sībawayhi qui avait déjà été relevée, notamment,
par Levin (1994) et par Carter (2004: 40–43): l’attention qu’ il prête au « langage
ordinaire», et notamment à l’usage oral spontané, mais aussi la sensibilité qu’ il
manifeste à l’égard de la dimension pragmatique et énonciative du langage
(Bohas et al. 1990: 32–48; Marogy 2010), sensibilité d’ autant plus remarquable
qu’ il dispose, comme nous l’avons vu, d’un outillage conceptuel très rudimen-
taire pour l’exprimer. À cet égard, la différence est frappante entre la finesse que
manifeste Sībawayhi dans l’analyse des données que nous venons d’ examiner,
et l’indigence du traitement de ces mêmes données par Zaǧǧāǧī. Cette diffé-
rence tient essentiellement à ce que l’auteur du Kitāb, à la différence de ses
continuateurs pour qui la ʿarabiyya est une langue savante, essentiellement
écrite et dont les rares usages oraux sont tout sauf spontanés, décrit une langue
vivante, dont il côtoie quotidiennement les locuteurs natifs, et dont il entend
enregistrer la variété des emplois et des registres. Cette question du rapport à
l’ objet décrit est, à mon sens, fondamentale pour comprendre à la fois ce qui
fait l’originalité du Kitāb, et sa longévité en tant que texte de référence.
En second lieu, les faits examinés et analysés par Sībawayhi ont une por-
tée non négligeable sur la question controversée du statut du marquage casuel
en vieil arabe: ils semblent indiquer clairement que certains locuteurs au
moins – y compris, semble-t-il, dans une région réputée « innovante» comme
le Ḥiǧāz – l’utilisaient couramment dans l’ usage oral spontané. Le cas le plus
probant est celui de la construction de type ʾa-ʿuṯmān-ā-h ? ou ʾa-zadun-ī-h ? où
l’ allongement de la voyelle et la suffixation d’un -h ont précisément pour but
de préserver la marque casuelle (et le tanwīn dans le cas da ʾa-zaydun-ī-h) en
empêchant son effacement à la pause. Sans doute est-il impossible de déter-
miner la représentativité des faits en question, mais il me paraît difficilement
concevable qu’ils aient été inventés de toutes pièces.

Bibliography

Primary Sources
Sībawayhi, Kitāb = ʾAbū Bišr ʿAmr b. ʿUṯmān Sībawayhi, al-Kitāb. Ed. ʿAbd al-Salām
Hārūn. 5 vol. Beirut: ʿĀlam al-kutub, n.d.
Zaǧǧāǧī, Ǧumal = ʾAbū al-Qāsim b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʾIsḥāq al-Zaǧǧāǧī, Kitāb al-Ǧumal.
Ed. Mohammed Ben Cheneb. Paris: Klincksieck, 1957.
128 guillaume

Secondary Sources
Bohas, Georges et al. 1990. The Arabic Grammatical Tradition. London: Routledge
[Réimpr. Washington dc: Georgetown University Press, 2006].
Carter, Michael G. 2004. Sibawayhi. London/New York: Tauris.
Gary-Prieur, Marie-Noëlle. 1994. Grammaire du nom propre. Paris: Presses Universi-
taires de France.
Guillaume, Jean-Patrick. 2011. ‘Le «syndrome akalū-nī l-barāġīṯ» et les ambiguïtés de la
tradition grammaticale arabe.’ A Festschrift for Nadia Anghelescu, A.A. Avram et al.
(eds.). Bucharest, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 278–296.
Larcher, Pierre. 2005. ‘L’autonymie dans la tradition linguistique arabe.’ Histoire Episté-
mologie Langage 27/1: 93–114.
Levin, Arieh. 1994. ‘Sībawayhi’s attitude to the spoken language.’ Jerusalem Studies in
Arabic and Islam 17: 204–243.
Marogy, Amal Elesha. 2010. Kitāb Sībawayhi: Syntax and Pragmatics. Leiden/Boston:
Brill.
 chapter 7

Inflectional Endings by Means of Short Vowels

among Arab Grammarians: Clues for the
Deconstruction of a Grammatical Ideology
Manuel Sartori

In the past others have already addressed the issue of the relevance of ʾiʿrāb
(commonly understood as (desinential) inflection or inflectional endings,
though that translation appears to be reductive, see. Fleisch 1986 and Peña
1997). I myself have discussed it elsewhere (Sartori 2013) and I will repeat here
some of the arguments that were developed there. The purpose of this article
is twofold.
First and on the surface, it is to evaluate the syntactic and semantic relevance
of the desinential inflection, that is to say a grammatical fact. To do so, I will
base my argument on medieval Arabic grammatical texts. This means that my
goal is not to write the grammar of this state of the language, which we should
do for the current state of what is known as Modern Standard Arabic. That is
also why I will not use literary texts of which it is always possible to infer a
Middle Arabic character (see Larcher 2001). In assessing the relevance of this
phenomenon, it will bring grist to the mill of ʾiʿrāb skeptics.
Further, the aim is then to describe the grammar of medieval Arabic. In
particular, this is to distinguish between verbal statements claimed by gram-
marians and their nonverbal attitudes (i.e. what they do not say and however
do), and then to show, by the existence at least of a hiatus—if not an internal
inconsistency—the ideological aspect of certain grammatical positions. Put
another way, by examining the Arab grammatical sources themselves, the idea
is to deconstruct the ideology of the Arabic linguistic tradition to reconstruct
the history of representations related to it. In that context, it is possible to see
ʾiʿrāb as a medieval contrivance or even invention.

1 ʾIʿrāb. Definition

The desinential inflection is a case ending on nouns and modal in the case of
imperfect verbs. I concentrate on the first from a new perspective, but I will
mention what I said of the second (Sartori 2013). In addition, and without going

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_009

130 sartori

into unnecessary details, the Arabic language has two forms of desinential
inflection: one using short vowels (-u, -a, -i, indefinite -un, -an, -in), the other
with long vowels (wāw, ʾalif and yāʾ). The first is related to singular, irregular
plural (also know as broken plural), and regular feminine plural (also known as
sound plural). The second is related, in addition to regular masculine plural,
to dual and to the “six nouns” (on this last point, see Sartori 2010). Unlike
the first, subject to a phenomenon of scriptio defectiva—short vowels and,
more generally, signs not included in the consonantal script are not necessarily
present in the script, the second inevitably leaves a trace in the written form,
the long vowel being part of the ductus or word’s skeleton.1 This long vowel,
for regular masculine plural and dual, is a wāw or an ʾalif in the nominative
case and a yāʾ in the objective case (accusative-genitive). It is the desinential
inflection by means of short vowels which particularly interests me here.2
It is commonly said that the desinential inflection has an intrinsic semantic
interest. According to ʿUkbarī (d. 616/1219),3 ʾiʿrāb is what differentiates the
syntactic functions of words.4 There is no lack of references, in fact, to support,
with a lot of which is very similar to grammarians’ examples, the thesis of a
semantically relevant ʾiʿrāb. This is what we find in Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?)
and which is then transmitted to the grammatical tradition of which he is
the basis. I will take two examples of this desinential inflection presented as
relevant, modal on one hand and case on the other. The author of the Kitāb

1 However one exception concerning the inflectional ending by means of short vowels, that
of the indefinite accusative. The latter is indeed marked, for nouns that do not end with a
tāʾ marbūṭa or an hamza or being diptotes, by an orthographical ʾalif which, itself, leaves a
graphic trace.
2 Thus, dealing with desinential inflection by short vowels, one must, by working on grammati-
cal texts, differentiate between the author’s text and the more or less suitable additions made
by the scientific editors and thus to be wary of vocalizations given in the editions. Those to
be taken into account are either explicitly given by the author himself (e.g. bi-rafʿ al-ṣifa, etc.)
or to be deducted by an analytical work in the absense of explicit indication of the author
himself.
3 I follow the Orientalist use giving for years as for centuries the Hijri dates then the Christian
ones.
4 See ʿUkbarī Masāʾil: 79–80. This is also what Mubarrad emphasizes (d. 285/898) in his Muq-
taḍab, as noted by Guillaume 1998: 44 whom we will consult about all grammarians’ discus-
sions around the value to be given to marks of ʾiʿrāb. On the identification of ʾiʿrāb as the final
inflected mark or rather as the inflectional commutativity of the final, i.e. on the fact of con-
ceiving ʾiʿrāb as lafẓī or maʿnawī, see Versteegh 1985: not. 153–156. As for the reasons given for
such a phonetic realization to be related to such case / mood, see among others Bohas 1981:
205 ff.
clues for the deconstruction of a grammatical ideology 131

proposes distinguishing, on the basis of the difference between the indicative

and the subjunctive, lā taʾtī-nī fa-tuḥaddiṯa-nī from lā taʾtī-nī fa-tuḥaddiṯu-
nī.5 The interpretation, which I borrow from Baalbaki, is as follows: ‘in the
subjunctive, the sentence means either “You do not visit me, so how can you
converse with me”? or “You visit me often, but you do not converse with me,”
whereas in the indicative it means either “You neither visit me nor converse
with me” or “You do not visit me, and you are conversing with me now” ’
(Baalbaki 2013: 99, see also Ayoub 1990: 7–8 and Baalbaki 2001). Similarly, at
the level of case this time, he distinguishes between marartu bi-him ḫamsata-
hum and ḫamsati-him (Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 442–443). Here is the explanation:
‘ḫamsata-hum is in the accusative if you mean you saw them separately (maʿnā
l-infirād), but if you mean you did not miss none of them, you put in the
genitive’ (Ayoub 1990: 10).
However, one may ask whether this is an observed reality6 or a grammatical
game. Better said, couldn’t it be in fact an exercise of Logic practiced by the
grammarian being careful to see in the inflection a means to semantic contrast
and who, therefore, is building not a theory of the practice (to cite Bourdieu)
but rather a theory of the theory? There are many examples to demonstrate
the relevance of ʾiʿrāb. But, if necessary, it is that it is suspect. Must we take
the oral statements of grammarians or be interested in what is left unsaid in
their writings, i.e. the infraverbal that runs through them? Shouldn’t we, on the
whole, take a look not so much at what is consciously displayed (albeit sincerely
by the grammarians), but at what is not and then untangle the grammatical
belief from reality of grammatical practices? This is what I propose to do.

2 Linguistic Bases for Calling into Question the Relevance of ʾiʿrāb

Although almost a creed in Arabic linguistic tradition, many Orientalist lin-

guists are not, themselves, convinced and thus call into question the relevance
of Arabic desinential inflection. Some of them show the irrelevance of the
inflectional phenomenon or a minima its redundant nature due to the posi-
tional aspect of Arabic. In Arabic indeed, the elements are not independent
of each other (unlike the case of truly inflected languages such as Latin and

5 In such utterances, the question is to know if the negation applies to the verb in the second
clause or not, and then to determine the value of the verbal mood and the value of fa-. See
Ayoub 1990: 8 and Levin 1997: 149.
6 As Guillaume believes in seeing the demonstration of it, not, it is true, without arguments.
See here, ‘ “Man Zaydan?” À propos de quelques cas curieux de ḥikāya chez Sībawayhi.’
132 sartori

ancient Greek), and it is the position of each of them related to the others that
allows us to assign to it its function and therefore its meaning. In this context
then, the desinential inflection does not add much linguistically. This criticism
has especially been developed by Larcher but also by Corriente, Owens, and
Retsö who, like him, refute the historicist vision making of ʾiʿrāb a prior and
first phenomenon and its abandonment a more recent phenomenon, an inno-
vation.7 Finally, in context, the diversity of semantic values realized by the three
Arabic case markers argue for the absence of systematic relations among these
markers and the semantic values assigned to them, as Guillaume (1998: 48)
indicates it.8
The criticism made by modern linguists to the relevance of ʾiʿrāb are there-
fore mainly of three types: syntactic (the order of the words in the sentence
is not free but obligatory, and that even in the extra-natural register of the lan-
guage for example in poetry), semantic (no necessary link between casual mark
and meaning), or historical (nothing for ensuring the primacy of the language
of the Qurʾān, presented as equivalent to the language of Qurayš (luġat Qurayš)
itself presented as equivalent to al-luġa al-fuṣḥā and thus the Classical Arabic.
See Owens 1998a and 1998b, and Larcher 2005b for the presentation of the the-
ological thesis of the Qurʾanic language).
A fourth kind of criticism should be mentioned, phonological this time.
It allows integration, into the concert of those who doubt the relevance of
ʾiʿrāb, the voice, dissonant and dissenting among Arab grammarians, of Quṭrub
(d. 206/821) for whom the phenomenon of vocalization of the word endings
would be essentially euphonious, i.e. that of liaison for pronunciation reasons.
That is what Versteegh (1981) outlines very well and what Molina Rueda (1987)
reiterates in supporting Quṭrub’s position.9
In ‘Ibn al-Ḥāǧib et la flexion désinentielle: croyant pas pratiquant,’ I show
that if ʾiʿrāb exists among Arab grammarians as part of their tradition, it does
not necessarily exist in their grammatical reasoning. Specifically, I show on

7 The first to have said so is Owens 1998a and 1998b. See also, on this issue and more broadly on
the questioning of the historicist vision applied to Arabic, Corriente 1971, 1973, Larcher 2001,
2005 and Retsö 2010, 2013. Here, and even if I will treat mainly of Classical Arabic, I have to
point to some evidence possibly attesting the presence of case inflection in Old Arabic in the
pre-Islamic period, so before the 8th century ad (see Al-Jallad and al-Manaser 2015: 52–53 and
57–58). But even there the fact remains that, as the authors write it (2015: 53), the declension
is partly that of the Ancient Greek …
8 See also, on this issue of the usefulness of cases and their significant capacity, Kouloughli 1998:
35–42.
9 See also, Larcher 2007: 127 repeated in Larcher 2014a: 63–64.
clues for the deconstruction of a grammatical ideology 133

the basis of Arabic grammatical texts that the actual regular and predominant
phenomenon in Arabic is precisely the counterpart of ʾiʿrāb (see Larcher 2003:
66, fn 9 and Larcher 2015: 93), namely the pause (waqf ) which requires the
non-pronunciation of the final vowel whenever the liaison is not required. Lia-
son is required in relatively few cases such as when a pronoun is suffixed to
a word (e.g. kitābu-hu, kitāba-hu, kitābi-hi). Apart from these cases, the pause
imposes itself, and a large part of the grammatical reasoning of Ibn al-Ḥāǧib
(d. 646/1249) is based on the pausal phenomenon. I will only take two exam-
ples, those of the imperative and passive constructions. In both cases, Ibn
al-Ḥāǧib opposes the real and existing form to a theoretical form of construc-
tion which, if it had existed, would have merged with another attested form
in the language. From that confusion, there would have resulted an ambigu-
ity, which therefore justifies the actual form at the expense of the theoreti-
cal one. Thus, the imperative uqtul (“kill!”) has been chosen instead of *aqtul
because the latter would be confused with the active imperfect10 of 1st pers.
sing. ʾaqtul- (“I kill”). The same is true of the imperative iḍrib (“strike!”) which
has been chosen instead of *uḍrib since it would have been confused with
the passive perfect of 3rd pers. masc. sing. of augmented form iv ʾuḍrib-.
Finally, as for the construction of passive forms v and vi, tuʿullima and tuǧūhila
were chosen by contrast with *tuʿallim(a) and *tuǧāhil(a) allegedly confused
respectively with tuʿallim(u) and tuǧāhil(u) (2nd pers. masc. sing. of active
and passive imperfect). But, in each case, the ambiguity is based only on the
systematic pausal pronunciation of the elements involved. This is indeed the
non-completion of the desinential inflection of the words considered that
makes *aqtul ambiguous with ʾaqtul(u), *uḍrib with ʾuḍrib(a), *tuʿallim(a) with
tuʿallim(u) and *tuǧāhil(a) with tuǧāhil(u) …11
By making the Arabic texts say not what they explicitly say,12 but the implicit
content that underlies them, I deduce that ʾiʿrāb, if not useful, is not used,
and if it is (apart from rare cases where it is necessary because of suffixa-
tion), it is actually in non-Arab practices of Arabic. It is thus quite symptomatic
that, by the foreigness effect, and therefore by a linguistic exaggeration, to be
connected to the desire to belong to a community and to be seen as legiti-
mate in it, African names of Arabic origin are declined (in the nominative),

10 Specifically indicative, because the latter and the imperative are free forms unlike the sub-
junctive or apocopated imperfects which, themselves, are constrained forms appearing
after particles that command their mood (ʾan, lan, lam, ʾin, etc.).
11 For the whole of this part and references to the text of Ibn al-Ḥāǧib, see Sartori 2013: 508–
511.
12 That is to say, neither more nor less than what they say, see Larcher 2014b: 143.
134 sartori

which is absolutely never the case in Arab countries. Compare Nafissatou to

Nafīsa and Amadou to ʾAḥmad …
I will now continue to assess the relevance of the inflectional phenomenon,
leaning especially on the case, relatively simple in appearance, of the epithet
adjective. Unlike Dror (2014) who deals with disruptions of agreement between
noun and adjective only from the perspective of gender and number, I will deal
with it only from the angle of declension.

3 Rules Governing the Agreement of the Declension of the

Attributive Qualifying Adjective

This is what I say repeatedly to students concerning the relationship between

the qualifying adjective and the noun it qualifies: the attributive adjective agrees
with its noun in gender, number, definition, and declension. This is what I learned,
and this is what I repeat tirelessly in turn. Thus, in the next sentence, here is
what we have:

(1) raʾā l-ṭālibu l-sūriyyu l-laṭīfu ṭālibatan firansiyyatan ǧamīlatan wa-ḏahabā

ʾilā l-ǧāmiʿati l-duwaliyyati l-ʿaẓīmati

Each of the chosen attributive adjectives agrees with its noun according to
these four criteria, in particular for what concerns us with respect to the
desinential inflection. Whether one believes or not in the relevance of the
phenomenon, it has at least the presumption, or so it seems, of being consistent
since a systematic agreement is found.13
If I repeat this, it is because I think I am authorized to do so: Ancients
and Moderns alike, Arabs and Arabists say so. For instance, Sībawayhi, in a
section entitled hāḏā bāb maǧrā al-naʿt ʿalā al-manʿūt says about the following
example: “marartu bi-raǧulin ẓarīfin qablu” fa-ṣār al-naʿt maǧrūran miṯl al-
manʿūt li-ʾanna-humā ka-l-ism al-wāḥid (‘[concerning] “I previously passed by a
kind man,” the adjective is in the genitive case as the qualified element because
both are as one noun,’14 Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 488). Similarly, he says below: fa-
ʾin ʾaṭalta al-naʿt fa-qulta “marartu bi-raǧul ʿāqil karīm muslim” fa-ʾaǧri-hi ʿalā

13 However, as I note that the pausal phenomenon is crucial and taking into account that
Arabic is mainly positional, a sentence such as (1) will very likely be pronounced as: raʾā
l-ṭālib al-sūrī l-laṭīf ṭāliba firansiyya ǧamīla wa-ḏahabā ʾilā l-ǧāmiʿa l-duwaliyya l-ʿaẓīma
without any risk to the meaning.
14 That is to say, as one part of speech.
clues for the deconstruction of a grammatical ideology 135

ʾawwali-hi (‘and if you extend the qualification[i.e. if you multiply the qualifiers]
and you say “marartu bi-raǧul ʿāqil karīm muslim” then make them follow
the form of the first of them’, Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 488). Then I incorporate
(not reinstate …) the inflectional vocalization, which gives: marartu bi-raǧulin
ʿāqilin karīmin muslimin.
Mubarrad (d. 285/898) says the same thing as Sībawayhi. He writes: “marartu
bi-raǧulin ẓarīfin” fa-waǧh hāḏā al-ḫafḍ li-ʾanna-ka ǧaʿalta-hu waṣfan li-mā
qabla-hu ka-mā ʾaǧrayta naʿt al-maʿrifa ʿalay-hā (‘the proper use of this is the
genitive since you made of it [the qualifier] the qualification of what pre-
cedes it, as you made the defined element’s adjective following the course
of it,’ Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: iv, 523), supported by wa-l-maʿrifa yaǧrī naʿtu-hā
ka-maǧrā naʿt al-nakira (Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: iv, 528). Further, he writes: wa-
taqūl “marartu bi-raǧulayni ṣāliḥayni” fa-tuǧrī al-naʿt ʿalā al-manʿūt (‘and you
say: “marartu bi-raǧulayni ṣāliḥayni” by making the adjective following the
course of the qualified element’, Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: iv, 525). As for Ibn al-
Sarrāǧ (d. 316/928), he brings nothing new.15 However, this is not the case with
other grammarians …

4 Attributive Qualifying Adjective, Desinential Inflection by Means

of Short Vowels and Grammatical Texts

This is indeed the whole point of looking at what Arabic texts say, and in my
case, grammatical texts: it seems that things are more complex than this simple
rule of agreement, in the scope of the casual declension, of the adjective with
its noun.

4.1 Ibn Ǧinnī (d. 392/1002)

I begin with Ibn Ǧinnī, with whom one could retort ʾiʿrab skeptics that the
desinential inflection, in the framework of the adjectives, is semantically rel-
evant. Thus, even if he says nothing about it when dealing with the agreement
of the adjective with its noun, the only agreement treated being that of gender
(see Ibn Ǧinnī Ḫaṣāʾiṣ: ii, 406), Ibn Ǧinnī advances arguments that amaze and
challenge the ʾiʿrāb skeptics’ position.

15 Like most other grammarians do indeed give the same rule of agreement in declension
between the noun and its adjective. See Ǧuzūlī Muqaddima: 56, Zamaḫšarī Mufaṣṣal: 150,
Ibn Yaʿīš šm: ii, 244–246, Ibn al-Ḥāǧib ʾĪḍāḥ: i, 421, Ibn al-Ḥāǧib Kāfiya: 130, Ibn al-Ḥāǧib
ʾImlāʾ: 48/b.
136 sartori

In a section entitled ‘about the prohibition made by the Arabs in the state-
ment of what is [theoretically] allowed in the analogy’ (bāb fī imtināʿ al-ʿarab
min al-kalām bi-mā yaǧūz fī al-qiyās), Ibn Ǧinnī says that what analogy tol-
erates, yet without appearing in the corpus, is frequent (wa-mā yaḥtamilu-hu
al-qiyās wa-lā yarid bi-hi al-samāʿ kaṯīr, Ibn Ǧinnī Ḫaṣāʾiṣ: i, 391). He takes the
example of the Qurʾanic readings (qirāʾāt) and among them the expression bi-
smi l-Llāhi l-raḥmāni l-raḥīmi.16 Here is what says Ibn Ǧinnī:

The tradition in force about this is to make the two adjectives follow the
inflection of ism Allāh […] while analogy authorizes several things even if
it is not possible to use any. Indeed, there is here a force, other than what
is read, and about whose quality none of the members of this [grammat-
ical] art doubts, as if we read bi-smi l-Llāhi l-raḥmānu l-raḥīmu putting in
the nominative the two adjectives together to signify praise. Is also pos-
sible al-raḥmāna l-raḥīma [it is to say] putting in the accusative the two
adjectives together for the same reason, as al-raḥmānu l-raḥīma putting in
the nominative the first and in the accusative the second and al-raḥmāna
l-raḥīmu putting in the accusative the first and in the nominative the sec-
ond. All this in a way [to express] praise […] So, when diverted from its
[expected] inflection it is known that it expresses praise or blame ( fa-l-
sunna al-maʾḫūḏ bi-hā fī ḏālika ʾitbāʿ al-ṣifatayn ʾiʿrāb ism allāh […] wa-l-
qiyās yubīḥ ʾašyāʾ fī-hā wa-ʾin lam yakun sabīl ʿilā istiʿmāl šayʾ min-hā naʿam
wa-hunāka min quwwat ġayr hāḏā al-maqrūʾ bi-hi mā lā yašukk ʾaḥad min
ʾahl hāḏihi al-ṣināʿa fī ḥusni-hi ka-ʾan yuqraʾ “bi-smi l-llāhi al-raḥmānu l-
raḥīmu” bi-rafʿ al-ṣifatayn ǧamīʿan ʿalā al-madḥ wa-yaǧūz “al-raḥmāna l-
raḥīma” bi-naṣbi-himā ǧamīʿan ʿalay-hi wa-yaǧūz “al-raḥmānu l-raḥīma”
bi-rafʿ al-ʾawwal wa-naṣb al-ṯānī wa-yaǧūz “al-raḥmāna l-raḥīmu” bi-naṣb
al-ʾawwal wa-rafʿ al-ṯānī kull ḏālika ʿalā waǧh al-madḥ […] wa-ʾiḏā huwa
ʿudila bi-hi ʿan ʾiʿrābi-hi ʿulima ʾanna-hu li-l-madḥ ʾaw al-ḏamm fī ġayr
hāḏā, ibn ǧinnī Ḫaṣāʾiṣ: i, 392).

Ibn Ǧinnī, indicating the various theoretical possibilities resulting from the
analogy, therefore shows more generally that the mismatch of the attributive
adjective with its noun (1) is possible and (2) that this explicitly expresses
praise or blame. In other words, creating a casual agreement break would
draw attention (of the interlocutor) to the fact that it is not just adjectives, but
that semantically something more would be added. With the example given

16 See Naḥḥāṣ Maʿānī al-Qurʾān: i, 50–56.

clues for the deconstruction of a grammatical ideology 137

by Ibn Ǧinnī, that is to say a noun (whatever its case is) and two attributive
qualifying adjectives, there are in the end 13 possibilities for the vocalization of
the final!17
Without going into the details of the analysis of Ibn Ǧinnī, he indicates that
in the case of Allāh, there can obviously be only praise18 and that it is therefore
not useful to inflect the adjectives otherwise than in the genitive in bi-smi l-
Llāhi l-raḥmāni l-raḥīmi. This thus explains that the corpus only has this form
whereas the others are theoretically possible.
However, this semantic possibility, apparently unknown among Orientalists
(Wright 1996, Blachère and Gaudefroy-Demombynes 1975: 295–297),19 is not
mentioned either in Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (d. 316/928) (see Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: i, 409–
411). When it comes to Ibn Ǧinnī, we shall go and see his master: the author of
the ʾĪḍāḥ …

4.2 ʾAbū ʿAlī al-Fārisī (d. 377/987) and ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī
(d. 471/1078)
Nothing is found related to our subject in Fārisī. The latter, in a section enti-
tled bāb al-ṣifa al-ǧāriya ʿalā al-mawṣūf, only says this: ‘[the element] in the
accusative and nominative are, concerning the fact to make the adjective follow
their course, identical to the element in the genitive’ (wa-l-manṣūb wa-l-marfūʿ
fī ʾiǧrāʾ al-ṣifa ʿalay-himā ka-l-maǧrūr, Fārisī ʾĪḍāḥ: 217). Put this way, we under-
stand that the element in the genitive is different from the other two in the
nominative and accusative and that the element in the genitive necessarily
makes its adjective follow its form, i.e. that there is necessarily a declension

17 1. u/u/u; 2. u/a/a; 3. u/u/a; 4. u/a/u; 5. a/a/a; 6. a/u/u; 7. a/a/u; 8. a/u/a; 9. i/i/i; 10. i/u/u; 11.
i/a/a; 12. i/u/a; 13. i/a/u).
18 Allāh is a noun both defined and determined. The saying bi-smi l-Llāhi l-raḥmāni l-raḥīmi
is then inherently a praise which does not require an agreement break between the noun
and the adjective, the latter serving here neither for the definition (taʿrīf ) of Allāh (since
it is defined by nature), nor for its clarification (taḫlīṣ) (since it is not polysemous), nor a
fortiori for its particularization (taḫṣīṣ) (since it is neither indefinite nor indeterminate).
On taḫṣīṣ et taḫlīṣ, see Sartori in print.
19 Which is not the case with Silvestre de Sacy who exposes both the rule (Silvestre de Sacy
1831: ii, 258 ff., particularly 262: ‘The concordance of the adjective with the noun, compared
to the case, does not suffer any exception’) and what he calls ‘general observation on some
uses of cases, uses where one moves away from common rules’ (Silvestre de Sacy 1831:
ii, 93–95) where in addtition to the praise mentioned by Ibn Ǧinnī he adds compassion
(taraḥḥum) (see §. 181). Nevertheless, the Baron specifies that this is mainly the case in
‘the Koran’, thus to be understood not in the common language, even “classical”.
138 sartori

agreement between the attributive adjective and the noun. Thus, this implies
that this is not necessarily the case for nouns in the nominative and accusative.
To check this and see more clearly, we must consult a commentator of Fārisī:
ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī, the author of Muqtaṣid fī šarḥ risālat al-ʾĪḍāḥ. In a
section also entitled bāb al-ṣifa al-ǧāriya ʿalā al-mawṣūf (Ǧurǧānī mšrī: ii, 201–
216) he provides some information. This is what he says:

When you say ǧāʾa-nī raǧulun ẓarīfun it is not impossible that ẓarīf is
cut [from its noun] and built on the [case of the] topic such as huwa
ẓarīfun (“he is kind”), and if you said raʾaytu raǧulan ẓarīfan it would be
allowed that its accusative case be the result of a tacit verb such as ʾaʿnī
ẓarīfan (“I mean nice”), and then the elements in the accusative and the
nominative are not immune from an infixation [of the inchoation or of
the verb ʾaʿnī] in all cases. It is not so with the element in the genitive
since when you say marartu bi-raǧulin ẓarīfin [this expression] does not
tolerate what the accusative and the nominative tolerate because it [the
adjective] is not able to be in the genitive due to the fact of a tacit
element (ʾiḏā qulta “ǧāʾa-nī raǧulun ẓarīfun” lam yastaḥil ʾan yakūn “ẓarīf”
maqṭūʿan mabniyyan ʿalā mubtadaʾ naḥwa “huwa ẓarīfun” wa-law qulta
“raʾaytu raǧulan ẓarīfan” ǧāza ʾan yakūn naṣbu-hu bi-fiʿl muḍmar naḥwa
“ʾaʿnī ẓarīfan” fa-lā yataḫallaṣ al-manṣūb wa-l-marfūʿ min mudāḫala ʿalā
kull ḥāl wa-laysa ka-ḏālika al-maǧrūr li-ʾanna-ka ʾiḏā qulta “marartu bi-
raǧulin ẓarīfin” lam yaḥtamil mā iḥtamala-hu al-naṣb wa-l-rafʿ li-ʾanna-hu
lā yaṣiḥḥ ʾan yakūn maǧrūran bi-šayʾ muḍmar, ǧurǧānī mšrī: ii, 210).

We then find the explanation of the various theoretical possibilities raised by

Ibn Ǧinnī about the case agreement between adjective and noun: it is possible
to put the attributive qualifying adjective either in the nominative due to a tacit
inchoation (sentence break) or in the accusative due to a tacit verb regardless
of the case of the noun in question. For a noun and one and only adjective it
gives no less than seven possibilities of desinential inflection!20
But again, nothing is said of the rule as I described it, as if it went without
saying. It seems indeed that Fārisī, Ibn Ǧinnī, or ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī only
deal here with the exceptional, thus leading us to see in the negative the rule
that we know of the desinential inflection agreement between the noun and
the attributive adjective.

20 u/u; u/a; u/i; a/a; a/u; a/i; i/i.

clues for the deconstruction of a grammatical ideology 139

4.3 Zaǧǧāǧī (d. 337/949)

I will now turn to the text of the Zaǧǧāǧī’s Ǧumal, a well known Arabic gram-
marian with a large posterity (see Binaghi 2015). In the section dedicated to
the adjective (naʿt), Zaǧǧāǧī presents the rule as I described it though without
addressing the issue of gender and number. He says:

As for the adjective, it follows the qualified element in the nominative,

accusative, genitive, definition or indefinition. If the noun is in the nom-
inative then the adjective is in the nominative, if the noun is in the
accusative then the adjective is in the accusative and if the noun is in
the genitive then the adjective is in the genitive (ʾamma al-naʿt fa-tābiʿ
li-l-manʿūt fī rafʿi-hi wa-naṣbi-hi wa-ḫafḍi-hi wa-taʿrīfi-hi wa-tankīri-hi. ʾin
kān al-ism marfūʿan fa-naʿtu-hu marfūʿ wa-ʾin kān manṣūban fa-naʿtu-hu
manṣūb wa-ʾin kān maḫfūḍan fa-naʿtu-hu maḫfūḍ, zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: ii, 13).

The lack of mention of the gender and number concerning the agreement
between the noun and the adjective therefore indicates once again in the
negative two things: 1) that the agreement in gender and number is trivial and
that it is unnecessary to mention and 2) that, conversely, the agreement in
declension and definition is what attention should be paid to.
And if we have to pay attention to it, it is because things are not as simple
as it seems. Zaǧǧāǧī thus presents the special case of mulplication of adjectives
related to a single noun:

When adjectives accumulate, then if you want you make them follow
the first, and if you want you cut them from it and you put them in the
accusative because of an implicit ʾaʿnī (“I mean”) or you put them in the
nominative because of an implicit topic in a nominal sentence. It is also
the case when you say marartu bi-ʾiḫwati-ka l-ẓurafāʾi l-kirāmi l-ʿuqalāʾi in
the genitive in agreement with the [first] adjective, and if you want you
put them in the accusative because of the implicit ʾaʿnī (“I mean”), and
if you want you put them in the nominative because of the implicit hum
(“they”) “They are the intelligent and the generous ones”, and if you want,
you make some follow [the form of the first] and you distinguish others
[from the form of the first] (wa-ʾiḏā takarrarat al-nuʿūt fa-ʾin šiʾta ʾatbaʿta-
hā al-ʾawwal wa-ʾin šiʾta qaṭaʿta-hā min-hu wa-naṣabta-hā bi-ʾiḍmār “ʾaʿnī”
ʾaw rafaʿta-hā bi-ʾiḍmār al-mubtadaʾ ka-qawli-ka “marartu bi-ʾiḫwati-ka l-
ẓurafāʾi l-kirāmi l-ʿuqalāʾi” bi-l-ḫafḍ ʿalā al-naʿt wa-ʾin šiʾta naṣabta-hā bi-
ʾiḍmār “ʾaʿnī” wa-ʾin šiʾta rafaʿta-hā bi-ʾiḍmār “hum” al-ʿuqalāʾu al-kirāmu
wa-ʾin šiʾta ʾatbaʿta baʿḍan wa-qaṭaʿta baʿḍan, zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: ii, 15).
140 sartori

In this case, attributive adjectives of the second rank (i.e. after the first)
either follow in declension the first which, itself, necessarily agrees in declen-
sion with the noun, or are separated from the first and then there are two
possibilities: whatever the first attributive adjective’s case is and whatever the
case of the noun with which it agrees is, the attributive adjectives of second
rank are either in the accusative due to the concealing (ʾiḍmār) of the verb ʾaʿnī
(“I mean”), or in the nominative due to an implicit nominal topic (mubtadaʾ) of
which they are then the expressed comments, that is to say the subject comple-
ments.21 Finally, these attributive adjectives of second rank may, each for itself,
either agree with the first adjective or are different from it from an inflectional
point of view.
The difference between Zaǧǧāǧī on the one hand and Ibn Ǧinnī and ʿAbd
al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī on the other is that he, unlike the others, limits this casual
diversity to attributive adjectives beyond the first one which in turn seems then
to have to follow the declension of its noun.
If I repeat the example given by ʾAbū al-Qāsim, in which the nouns as well
as the first attributive adjective are in the genitive, here is what we get:

(2) marartu bi-ʾiḫwati-ka al-ẓurafāʾi al-kirāmu/a/i al-ʿuqalāʾu/a/i

This gives, for a noun and three adjectives as in such sentences where the noun
is in the genitive case, no less than nine possibilities for the vocalization of the
final …22
A first conclusion seems to be obvious with regard to the three grammarians
above: this is not present in Sībawayhi, nor in Mubarrad, nor in Ibn al-Sarrāǧ.
This shows, first of all, that all is not in the Kitāb, but that the Arabic grammat-
ical tradition is therefore a long-term developing movement …

5 Lessons from the Non Inflectional Agreement between Noun and

Attributive Adjective

What are the lessons from this overview of a number of classical grammarians?
First, a remark that will apply to each of the three grammarians used here:
when it is possible to do everything in terms of inflection, as it is clearly the

21 This therefore pertains to the taqdīr theory for which I refer to Carter 1991, Versteegh 1994
(not. 280–290), Levin 1997 (not. 144–145), Kasher 2009 and Baalbaki 2007, the latter indi-
cating its extensive use for example in Yūnus b. Ḥabīb (d. 182/798) (see Baalbaki 2013: 95).
22 i/i/i; i/u/u; i/a/a; i/u/i; i/u/a; i/a/i; i/a/u; i/i/u; i/i/a.
clues for the deconstruction of a grammatical ideology 141

case on the agreement between the attributive adjective and the noun, then the
inflection has no contrastive meaning, and effectively, no purpose. And it has
even less given that, contrary to the examples of grammarians trying to prove
the relevance of ʾiʿrāb (see above 1), the various possibilities for the attributive
adjective do not add anything from a semantic point of view that could be
relevant at the level of the so called contrastive performance of the ʾiʿrāb in
that respect (cf. ‘I passed by a kind man,’ ‘I passed by a man, he is kind,’ or ‘I
passed by a man, I mean a kind one’).
Can we follow these grammarians in their reasoning? Ibn Ǧinnī and the
semantic argument of the conscious break to express praise or blame, ʿAbd
al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī and Zaǧǧāǧī and the semantic-syntactic argument of the
implicit element? Without returning to the historical criticism that makes ʾiʿrāb
an innovation rather than an old feature, it seems quite difficult to follow them.
Indeed the syntactic criticism shows that the Arabic language is positional
and not inflected: attributive adjectives, although there are many, are therefore
likely to be seen for what they are, that is to say precisely attributive adjectives,
not comments of a tacit topic nor the direct objects of the tacit verb ʾaʿnī.23
This criticism at the syntactic level is also linked to the graphical one: defective
language, Arabic does not mark the short vowels. There is then every chance
that a reader identifies only attributive adjectives. Both criticisms are in turn
joined by a third, phonological one: positional and defective language, Arabic,
according to the rule of orthoepy, uses pause wherever it is possible to have it,
which represents far more cases than the opposite.24
Finally, to return to Zaǧǧāǧī, Guillaume notes that ‘[Zaǧǧāǧī] n’établit pas
de relation systématique entre les marques casuelles et les différentes valeurs
sémantiques que peut assumer un nom: il y a d’un côté les trois marques, de
l’ autre une liste non limitative de valeurs sémantiques. […] Autrement dit,
le marquage casuel a une simple fonction distinctive en contexte, sans qu’ il
apparaisse pour autant nécessaire d’assigner une valeur spécifique en langue
à chaque marqueur’ (Guillaume 1998: 48). He goes further by writing: ‘Cepen-
dant, il faut bien comprendre la nature du problème que traite al-Zaǧǧāǧī: il ne
s’ agit pas pour lui de discuter de la valeur sémantique des marques d’ iʿrāb, ni
des règles qui gouvernent leur assignation dans la phrase, mais bien de justifier
l’ existence de l’iʿrāb, d’en énoncer la raison d’être’ (Guillaume 1998: 48).

23 It is the same reading ad sensum and not ad metrum which mostly brings to read bal
huwa qurʾānun maǧīdun / fī lawḥin maḥfūẓin (Cor. 85:21–22) instead of bal huwa qurʾānun
maǧīdun / fī lawḥin maḥfūẓun (see Larcher 2005a: 255).
24 Carter first noted ʾiʿrāb in the sense of ‘parsing’ writing that ‘the earliest occurrence of ʾiʿrāb
in this sense is not known, but it can hardly be before the 10th century’ (1981: 171).
142 sartori

So once again, when it is possible to do everything in terms of inflection, as

is clearly the case concerning the agreement between the attributive adjective
and the noun, it effectively means that case does nothing … This criticism, at
a semantic level, thus comes in addition to criticisms about the relevance of
ʾiʿrāb on syntactic, graphical, phonological or historical levels.

6 Conclusion

However, can we conclude the non-existence of ʾiʿrāb? It is not evident for

two main reasons. The first is simply due to the fact that ʾiʿrāb is at least a
grammatical artifact, it is to say a tool created by and for grammarians in order
to serve their metalinguistic needs (see Guillaume 1998: 48). In fact, it suffices
to open a modern edition of an ancient grammatical treatise to see that ʾiʿrāb
is not so much the final inflection of words as it is the grammatical analysis
(parsing), as Carter noted it,25 which pertaining to them, is determining the
syntactic function of each component of a sentence.26 That is also what Peña
clearly says, who recognizes in ʾiʿrāb a high level of polysemy27 and suggets that
it is ‘the morphosyntactic analysis of a particular text’ (Peña 1997: 101). Further,
Peña reminds us that few Orientalist scholars claim that ʾiʿrāb has also to be
understood as grammatical analysis.28 Among those Orientalists ‘Fleisch (1971)
observed that the translation of iʿrāb as flection was not completely satisfactory,
and remembered that already S. de Sacy […] tried to render it as “syntaxe des
désinences”’ (Peña 1997: 102). In that sense of grammatical analysis, ʾiʿrāb does
no doubt exist.
But, and this is the second reason, this scientific ʾiʿrāb ended up being linked
so strongly to the final vocalization of the words’ final that these two realities

25 See for more details Sartori 2013.

26 Thus, when an Arabic teacher of the Arab world tells a student: ʾaʿrib al-ǧumla al-tāliya
“kataba l-muʿallimu ǧumlatan ʿalā al-lawḥati” not only does he give by pronuncing them
the inflectional marks to the student, but especially then, he does not ask him to place
them nor to pronounce them himself. What he asks him is to analyse the sentence and to
say that the verb is an imperfect, frozen in a, that the agent is al-muʿallimu whose mark
is -u, etc. So ʾaʿrib does not mean ‘pronounce the inflectional ending!’ but simply, in the
framework of a school exercise which is also a class/ical exercise (within the meaning of
what is taught in classrooms, see Larcher 2005a: 259) ‘analyse!’
27 Guillaume (1988: 25) speaks about the poverty of Arab grammatical metalanguage which
has as its corollary a high level of abstraction.
28 Among them, in addition to Carter (1981: 171) see Owens (2015: 103).
clues for the deconstruction of a grammatical ideology 143

collapsed into one, in the mind of all, but particularly in the grammarians’.
Initially a human creation, the course of time undertook to obscure its origin.
The latter, in particular for theological and ideological reasons extraneous
of linguistics, came to no longer stand as an identifiable human origin, and
ʾiʿrāb then was seen as endowed with a pre-existence. Having become a creed,
a phenomenon of belief, and especially of grammatical nature, ʾiʿrāb is no
longer understood as artifact, grammatical tools or as grammatical analysis,
but as desinential inflection/inflectional endings and expression of the subtlety
of a divine language.29 In this sense then, ʾiʿrāb (pre-)exists. Grammarians are
convinced, especially since ʾiʿrāb is part of their tradition, of their mental space:
by repeating its existence, they end up believing it without questioning the
reality of that existence.30 Again, the premise of its existence stands in for its
reality. In this, deus ex machina, creed, or dogma, as Corriente says (1971: 21),
ʾiʿrāb is an idea, and an idea is indestructible.
Contrarily, if this is only understood as desinential inflection, it is again pos-
sible to conclude the irrelevant nature of ʾiʿrāb (without looking at when it
appeared nor at how it could have been implemented by Sībawayhi, see in par-
ticular Baalbaki 1990). Indeed, whether the attributive adjectives systematically
follow their nouns in declension, therefore rendering it unnecessary to hear
the final vowel, or they do not, as notably Zaǧǧāǧī, Ibn Ǧinnī, and ʿAbd al-Qāhir
al-Ǧurǧānī demonstrate everything being possible or nearly so, the inflection
completely loses its relevance.
The only cases where desinential inflection, in connection with the attribu-
tive adjective, appears to be useful would be examples of grammarians. Thus
bint l-mufattiša al-ẓarīfa al-ǧamīla is only understandable by any Arabic locu-
tor as ‘the daughter of the kind and beautiful female-inspector.’ Conversely
examples of type bintu l-mufattišati al-ẓarīfati al-ǧamīlatu are only games of
grammarians, because the analytical form would prevail to say the same thing:
al-bint al-ǧamīla li-l-mufattiša l-ẓarīfa (‘the daughter of the kind and beautiful
she-inspector’).
A last remark this time about long vowels: even they, while unlike short
vowels they should be set in stone, can appear as non regular with regard to
classical rules as shown by Larcher 2010 with Apa Kyros where, in a papyrus of
22/643, ibn ʾabū qīr appears instead of ibn ʾabī qīr. The same is to be seen later.
See for example Mohamed Mahmoud Younes (2013: 92) with ʾilā ʾabū al-ġarā

29 Also described as a ‘divine gift’ by Zubaydī (d. 379/989) Ṭabaqāt: 11 quoted by Peña who is
speaking about ‘mythology’ (1997: 100).
30 We find here what Passeron says about ideal types which, if not identical to reality, but
allow it to be apprehended, are ‘soon confused with “essence visions”’ (Passeron 1996: 32).
144 sartori

dated from 1st–2nd/7th–8th and in the same document taqūlu qawl instead of
qawlan, amongst many other examples. So all this leads to seriously question
first the relevance, but maybe also the historical reality of this grammatical
divinity …

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and addenda et corrigenda by Pierre Cachia. 2 vol. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press. Librairie du Liban reprint ed.
 chapter 8

One Word, Two Functions. The Concept of

Functional Replacement in Traditional Syntactic
Analysis
Ramzi Baalbaki

1 Functional Replacement and ʾiʿrāb

Parsing (ʾiʿrāb) constitutes a major part of the study of Arabic syntax in any
high school, or even college curriculum throughout the Arab world. According
to the rules of parsing, each noun is perceived as a single entity (mufrad) which
fulfills a specific grammatical function called maḥall (lit. position). Hence in a
sentence like ǧāʾa zaydun ʾilā l-madīnati musriʿan, zaydun fulfills the function
of the agent ( fāʿil), al-madīnati that of the genitive after a preposition (maǧrūr
bi-l-ḥarf ), and musriʿan that of the circumstantial accusative (ḥāl). Verbs, on
the other hand, are considered to be sentences since each verb is allocated an
overt or an elided agent ( fāʿil), with which it forms a full sentence, with the verb
as its musnad and the agent its musnad ʾilay-hi. In ǧāʾa zaydun ʾilā l-madīnati
yusriʿu, the sentence formed by the verb yusriʿu and its elided agent (huwa,
referring to zayd) is analyzed as having fulfilled the grammatical function of
ḥāl. Accordingly, it is interpreted as equivalent to a single noun, represented by
musriʿan, which it can replace in the earlier construction. Verbal or nominal
sentences which do not replace a mufrad (lam taḥill maḥall al-mufrad, Ibn
Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: ii, 382) are not assigned grammatical functions and
are known as al-ǧumal al-latī lā maḥall la-hā min al-ʾiʿrāb (such as sentences
which follow relative pronouns, e.g. ǧāʾa l-laḏī qāma ʾabū-hu or ǧāʾa l-laḏī ʾabū-
hu qāʾimun). Particles for their part are said to be dependent on (i.e. appended
to, mutaʿalliq bi-) verbs or verbal derivatives. Thus, in ǧāʾa zaydun ʾilā l-madīnati
musriʿan, the preposition ʾilā is not assigned an independent maḥall since it is
syntactically dependent on the preceding verb, ǧāʾa. Syntactic positions which
are apparently occupied by particles (and at times adverbs) are assigned to
elided nouns on which these particles are said to be dependent. Zaydun fī l-
dāri or zaydun ʿinda-ka, for example, are usually interpreted as zaydun kāʾinun
or mustaqirrun fī l-dāri/ʿinda-ka,1 although for the sake of simplification, the

1 Elided verbs, such as kāna and istaqarra, may be proposed instead of nouns, but grammarians

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_010

150 baalbaki

particle itself may be assigned the maḥall contrary to the rule that particles are
dependent elements which are governed by the verbs or nouns to which they
are appended.
It is implied in the rules of parsing that each noun, and by extension each
nominal or verbal sentence which fulfills a grammatical function that can
be expressed in the form of a noun (i.e. mufrad), is assigned one, and only
one, maḥall. In other words, maḥall represents a grammatical function that is
occupied by no more than one element of the construction. For example, no
noun can be both a predicate (ḫabar) and an adjective (naʿt) at the same time,
and no sentence which stands for a mufrad can fulfill the function of both a
circumstantial accusative (ḥāl) and a direct object (mafʿūl bi-hi). Yet, there are
constructions in which one noun apparently has two grammatical functions
and thus occupies two maḥall-s. Among the more well-known examples of such
constructions is ḍarbī l-ʿabda musīʾan (‘My beating the slave [takes place] in
case of offense’). The subject, ḍarbī, is expected to be followed by a predicate
in the nominative, but instead musīʾan—which obviously has the maḥall of a
ḥāl that refers to al-ʿabda—seems also to occupy the maḥall of the predicate.
The common definition of the predicate in the grammatical theory, particularly
as expressed by the later grammarians, is that part of the utterance which
renders the meaning complete (see Ibn Mālik’s [d. 672/1274] expression in his
ʾAlfiyya, wa-l-ḫabaru l-ǧuzʾu l-mutimmu l-fāʾida, Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 99). From this
perspective in which the predicate is defined on the basis of meaning and not
declension, musīʾan qualifies as a predicate since it completes the meaning
of the sentence whose subject is ḍarbī. This may be alternatively expressed
by saying that musīʾan occupies the position of the musnad, whereas ḍarbī is
musnad ʾilay-hi, hence the sentence is complete since it includes both parts of
ʾisnād.
Two problems remain, however. The first is that the occurrence of a pred-
icate in the accusative runs against the norms. A construction such as [ours]
ḍarbī l-ʿabda musīʾun ʾilā sumʿatī (‘My beating the slave is damaging to my repu-
tation’), where the predicate is in the nominative, poses no problem in the case-
ending of the predicate, unlike the construction quoted by the grammarians,
ḍarbī l-ʿabda musīʾan.2 Had this been the only issue that needs to be resolved

usually prefer the latter because an elided noun necessitates no further suppletion of suppos-
edly suppressed elements, whereas a verb does require the suppletion of a noun in order to
account for the sentence (i.e. musnad and musnad ʾilay-hi) to which the verb is equivalent.
See ʾUšmūnī Šarḥ: i, 94.
2 The difference between the accusative and the nominative in constructions that begin with
verbal nouns, according to Ibn al-Warrāq (d. 381/991), is a function of the semantic relation-
the concept of functional replacement 151

in this construction, one would have expected the grammarians to resort to

the common practice of claiming that one declension has replaced another.
This would be similar to the interpretation of law-lā-ka, which rarely occurs
instead of law-lā ʾanta. Since the noun (here, a pronoun) after law-lā is in the
nominative, some grammarians assert that the genitive pronoun has supplied
the place of the nominative pronoun (ʾanābū al-ḍamīr al-maḫfūḍ ʿan al-marfūʿ,
Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: i, 274).3 Such replacement is even attested in the
subject of a nominal sentence (mubtadaʾ) and the agent ( fāʿil). Due to the pres-
ence of what the grammarians call a redundant or otiose preposition (ḥarf ǧarr
zāʾid), the nominative in ḥasbu-ka—itself subject of a nominal sentence—is
replaced by the genitive in bi-ḥasbi-ka, and ḥasbi-ka is said to retain its status
as subject although its form does not reflect that status (Sībawayhi Kitāb: ii,
293 (see iii, 268); Ibn Yaʿīš Šarḥ: viii, 23). In a stereotypical expression used in
parsing, ḥasbi-ka is maǧrūr lafẓan marfūʿ maḥallan, that is genitive in form but
nominative as far as its grammatical function is concerned since the maḥall
of the subject is always nominative in essence, so to speak. Similarly, in the
construction kafā bi-l-Lāhi šahīdan (Ibn Yaʿīš Šarḥ: viii, 24; ʾAstarābāḏī Šarḥ:
ii, 328), the fact that Allāhi is in the genitive does not prevent it from being
the agent of kafā, given that the maḥall of the agent is nominative in reality
although its form does not have to reflect the nominative case-ending.
It is the second problem associated with ḍarbī l-ʿabda musīʾan that seems to
have dissuaded the grammarians from interpreting musīʾan in a manner similar
to their interpretation of law-lā-ka, bi-ḥasbi-ka, etc., that is by assuming that the
accusative in musīʾan has supplied the place of the nominative. To say so would
have meant that musīʾan is only accusative in form but nominative in maḥall,
just like ḥasbi-ka is genitive in form but nominative in maḥall. But unlike ḥasbi-
ka, which has only one grammatical function (that of the subject of a nominal
sentence), musīʾan has two. The grammarians were well aware of this fact, but
did not, or perhaps could not admit it in the form of a rule. Understandably,
such admission would shatter one of their most basic principles of grammatical

ship between the elements of the construction. Thus in ḍarbī zaydan qāʾiman, qāʾiman refers
either to zayd or the speaker, whereas šadīdun in ḍarbī zaydan šadīdun refers to the verbal
noun itself and not to its direct object (Ibn al-Warrāq ʿIlal: 513).
3 See Ibn al-ʾAnbārī Inṣāf : ii, 687. Note that other grammarians, including Sībawayhi (Kitāb: ii,
373–374; Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: i, 274; Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 302), resolve this issue by saying
that the pronoun in law-lā-ka is genitive because law-lā is a preposition. They thus ascribe to
law-lā the government of the genitive, in addition to governing the nominative as in law-lā
zaydun in order to avoid the possibility of having a genitive pronoun replace a nominative
one.
152 baalbaki

analysis, namely that each noun (or sentence which can replace a mufrad) can
only have one grammatical function, i.e. one maḥall. But by parsing musīʾan
as a ḥāl saddat massad al-ḫabar (a circumstantial accusative supplying the
place of the predicate), the grammarians indirectly admit that musīʾan has two
grammatical functions in the nominal sentence of which it is part. The first
of these, i.e. the predicate, is supported by the meaning of the construction,
whereas the second, i.e. the circumstantial accusative, is supported by both
meaning and form. We propose functional replacement as equivalent for the
concept which the grammarians express by the term sadda masadd (and other
similar terms to be mentioned below), that is, for cases in which they indirectly
ascribe two grammatical functions to one element of the construction but
in a manner which preserves the one-element-one-maḥall principle. The rest
of the paper historically traces the origins of functional replacement as an
analytical technique, examines certain aspects of those constructions that
are most representative of it, and highlights the role of later grammarians in
expanding its applicability.

2 The Historical Perspective

As with most analytical techniques in Arabic grammar, the notion of replace-

ment has its roots in Sībawayhi’s (d. 180/796) Kitāb. Although Sībawayhi does
not devote a particular chapter to discussing this notion, he demonstrates on
several occasions how one element can replace another in the utterance. Such
replacement can be either syntactical (2.1 and 2.2 below), morphological/mor-
phophonological (2.3 and 2.4), or semantic (2.5 and 2.6):

2.1. In a short chapter entitled hāḏā bāb mā yaqaʿ mawqiʿ al-ism al-mubtadaʾ
wa-yasudd masadda-hu, he cites several constructions—such as fī-hā
ʿabdu l-Lāhi and ʾayna zaydun—in which the predicate, rather than the
subject, occupies the initial position in the utterance (Sībawayhi Kitāb:
ii, 128; see Sīrāfī Šarḥ: vii, 70–71.). In the latter construction, for example,
ʾayna is an interrogative particle which syntactically takes precedence,
and thus replaces the subject in position, though not in function since
zaydun is still the subject, albeit a deferred one.
2.2. He argues that the two constructions niʿma raǧulan ʿabdu l-Lāhi and
rubba-hu raǧulan are equivalent except that the explicit noun (muẓhar)
in the former has replaced (sadda makān) the pronoun (muḍmar) in
the latter (Sībawayhi Kitāb: ii, 177; see Fārisī Taʿlīqa: i, 321; Hārūn Šarḥ:
152–156.). In other words, the syntactical position that follows niʿma is
the concept of functional replacement 153

occupied by an explicit noun, whereas the equivalent position which

follows rubba is occupied by a pronoun.
2.3. He reports Ḫalīl’s (d. 175/791) method of detaching one letter from a
word and then placing it in a context that reveals its morphological
characteristics. If, for example, the bāʾ in iḍrib is considered a proper
noun, then one would say haḏā ibun. Corresponding to the conjunc-
tive ʾalif (ʾalif al-waṣl) and the bāʾ in iḍrib are the conjunctive ʾalif and
the bāʾ in hāḏā (ʾ)bun (Sībawayhi Kitāb: iii, 320–324). Sībawayhi com-
ments that the elision of the hamza does not perturb the word (lam
yaḫtall) because the following letter (the bāʾ) morphologically replaces
it (wa-ḏālika ʾanna al-ḥarf al-laḏī yalī-hi yaqūm maqām al-ʾalif ), that is,
it becomes the first (and in this case the only) letter of this supposed
word.
2.4. In forms used to express lamentation (nudba), he notes that the final
hāʾ (known by later grammarians as hāʾ al-sakt, i.e. hāʾ of quiescence) is
retained in pause, as in wā-zaydāh. If such forms, however, are followed
by other parts of the utterance, the hāʾ is dropped because it is replaced
by something else (li-ʾanna-hu yaǧīʾ mā yaqūm maqāma-hā, Sībawayhi
Kitāb: iv, 165–166). Thus, in non-pausal forms, the hāʾ is dropped from
such lamentation patterns because the place it occupies in those patterns
is substituted for by the first letter of the word that follows. For example, in
(ours) wā-zaydā wa-wā-ʿamrāh, the wa- after zaydā, although it belongs to
another word, replaces the hāʾ of quiescence given that the construction
is uttered with no pause between its words.
2.5. As part of his discussion of constructions of the type la-hu ṣawtun ṣawta
ḥimārin, in which a verb such as yuṣawwitu, yubdī-hi, or yuḫriǧu-hu is
assumed, he introduces the expressions ʾinna-mā ʾanta šurba l-ʾibili and
ʾinna-mā ʾanta šurban, both of which imply a simile (tašbīh), as in the
afore-mentioned construction. Since the verbal noun šurb in these
expressions is said to have replaced (qāma maqām) the word miṯl—which
is normally used in similes—it is implied that the verbs yuṣawwitu etc. are
semantically replaced by ṣawta in the parallel construction la-hu ṣawtun
ṣawta ḥimārin (Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 355–360).
2.6. He compares between marartu bi-him ḫamsata-hum and marartu bi-
hi waḥda-hu and concludes that waḥda-hu has the status (manzila) of
ḫamsata-hum and that it replaces (qāma maqām; i.e. semantically) wāḥ-
ida-hu in marartu bi-hi wāḥida-hu (Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 378).

The above examples were chosen on terminological grounds since Sībawayhi

uses in them sadda masadd/makān or qāma maqām, all of which are techni-
154 baalbaki

cal terms that are normally used by the later grammarians to express functional
replacement when it specifically applies to one element that satisfies two func-
tions. Other synonymous terms that occasionally occur in later sources include
nāba manāb, wuḍiʿa mawḍiʿ, fī ḥukm, and ʾaġnā/istaġnā.4 Among these, only
ʾaġnā and its derivatives occur in the Kitāb and are only loosely connected
to the notion of functional replacement as defined above.5 More importantly,
however, the Kitāb includes some of the major types of replacement that are
not merely examples of linguistic elements which occur instead of other ele-
ments in the construction, but represent cases in which one element may be
interpreted as having two maḥall-s. Such cases represent functional replace-
ment par excellence, and the Kitāb notably includes three of the main types
in which the predicate shares its maḥall with another syntactical function and
two other types related to conditional sentences:
Type i: Predicate + circumstantial accusative, as in the constructions ʿahdī bi-
hi qāʾiman, ʿilmī bi-hi ḏā mālin, and ḍarbī ʿabda l-Lāhi qāʾiman (Sībawayhi Kitāb:
i, 419), the last of which recurs in the later sources, mostly in the construction
ḍarbī l-ʿabda musīʾan which appears in one of Ibn Mālik’s most well-known
ʾAlfiyya lines.6
Type ii: Predicate + adverb, as in huwa min-nī maʿqida l-ʾizāri and dārī
ḫalfa dāri-ka farsaḫan (Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 414, 417). In the second example,
Sībawayhi obviously considers predication to be satisfied since ḫalfa, in the
accusative, forms with the subject, dārī, a self-sufficient construction (istiġnāʾ).
In other words, the adverb itself fulfills the function of the predicate.
Type iii: Predicate + agent of a participle, as in ʾa-ḏāhibatun ǧāriyatā-ka
and ʾa-karīmatun nisāʾu-kum (Sībawayhi Kitāb: ii, 36). Although Sībawayhi does
not examine such constructions from the perspective of functional replace-
ment, it can be safely concluded that he views them as examples of this phe-
nomenon since among his most basic axioms are that the subject of a nom-
inal sentence (here, the active participle ḏāhibatun and the assimilate adjec-
tive karīmatun) needs a predicate and that active participles and assimilate
adjectives require an agent ( fāʿil) since they are verbal derivatives (Sībawayhi
Kitāb: i, 164; ii, 18–22). Later grammarians cite similar examples and refer to

4 e.g. yanūb manāb al-maṣdar ism al-ʾišāra (Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 246), wuḍiʿa ḍamīr al-ǧarr mawḍiʿ
ḍamīr al-rafʿ (ibid.: 302–303), fī ḥukm mafʿulay ẓanna (Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 158), and istaġnā bi-
marfūʿi-hi ʿan al-ḫabar (Ibn al-Nāẓim Šarḥ: 105).
5 See a detailed list of Sībawayhi’s use of istiġnāʾ in ʾUḍayma’s (1975: 71–80) indices of the Kitāb.
See also the root ġny in Troupeau (1976: 153–154).
6 e.g. Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 116; ʾUšmūnī Šarḥ: i, 104.
the concept of functional replacement 155

the phenomenon involved as fāʿil sadda masadd al-ḫabar (see type iii under
section iii below).
Type iv: Verbal or nominal sentence + conditional particle + protasis, as in
ʾātī-ka ʾin ʾatayta-nī. Given that ʾātī-ka occurs before in and is not in the jussive,
ʾin is said not to have an apodosis (wa-lam taǧʿal li-ʾin ǧawāban yanǧazim bi-
mā qabla-hu, Sībawayhi Kitāb: iii, 66; see iii, 70). The apodosis, of course,
has to be assumed, and then only by resorting to ʾātī-ka for semantic reasons.
Accordingly, it is implied that ʾātī-ka not only serves as an inceptive sentence
(in later terminology, ǧumla ibtidāʾiyya), but also a substitute for the suppressed
apodosis. The same applies when a nominal sentence precedes the particle, as
in ʾanta ẓālimun ʾin faʿalta (Sībawayhi Kitāb: iii, 79).
Type v: Oath + conditional particle as in la-ʾin ʾatayta-nī la-ʾukrimanna-ka,
where la- is a jurative particle. Sībawayhi considers la-ʾukrimanna-ka to be the
complement of the oath (ʿalā ʾawwal al-kalām) because it is not in the jussive
and thus cannot be the apodosis of the conditional particle ʾin (Sībawayhi
Kitāb: iii, 65–66). The apodosis, however, is essential for the correctness of
the analysis of any conditional sentence (particle + protasis+ apodosis), and
it is implied that la-ʾukrimanna-ka also fulfills the function of apodosis. This
interpretation is supported by Sīrāfī’s (d. 368/979) commentary on Sībawayhi’s
text since he asserts that in the above sentence, the complement of oath
functionally replaces the apodosis (ǧawāb al-yamīn yuġnī ʿan ǧawāb al-šarṭ,
Sīrāfī Šarḥ: x, 77).
The origins of functional replacement that are traceable to the Kitāb thus
lie both in Sībawayhi’s recognition of the syntactical, morphological/morpho-
phonological, and semantic replacement of one element by another and in the
five types of functional replacement specified above. To be sure, the notion
of replacement in its more general sense was familiar to Sībawayhi’s contem-
poraries, but it is not possible to ascertain to what extent and with which
degree of sophistication they used it in their grammatical analysis since the
texts we possess from that early period are either short manuals (and then of
dubious attribution) or linguistically-oriented Qurʾānic commentaries which
do not systematically analyze grammatical issues (Baalbaki 2008: 24–30). To
take Farrāʾ (d. 207/822) as an example, he uses in his Maʿānī al-Qurʾān the
term qāma maqām (but not sadda masadd) on three occasions (Kinberg 1996:
672) to express to the same notion of syntactical, morphological, and semantic
replacement as in Sībawayhi:

1. In the verse wa-lā takūnū ʾawwala kāfirin bi-hi (q 2: 41), kāfir is said to replace
man in the equivalent construction wa-lā takūnū ʾawwala man yakfuru bi-
hi. Not only does kāfir syntactically replace the relative pronoun man and
156 baalbaki

its verb ( yaqūm al-fiʿl maqāma-hā), but it is morphologically assimilated to

man since both are singular and masculine nouns that can be used for plural
and feminine as well (Farrāʾ Maʿānī: i, 32).
2. The noun maḥbis (FarrāʾMaʿānī: ii, 44)7 is likened to a verb, since every noun
of place (mawḍiʿ) that is derived from a verb can replace (i.e. morphologi-
cally) that verb ( yaqūm maqām al-fiʿl). Such morphological replacement is
further illustrated by the use of the two nouns (ismāni; here, nouns of place)
maṭliʿ and maġrib in lieu of the verbal nouns ṭulūʿ and ġurūb.
3. Farrāʾ argues that the pronoun huwa in wa-man huwa kāḏibun (q 11: 93) was
introduced to the construction because the Arabs do not say man qāʾimun
but do say man yaqūmu, man qāma and man al-qāʾimu. The introduction of
huwa thus makes huwa qāʾimun equivalent ( fī maqām) to faʿala and yafʿalu
since each of these two verbs replaces two elements ( yaqūm maqām iṯnayni,
Farrāʾ Maʿānī: ii, 26).8 Replacement here may be interpreted as syntactical
since both huwa qāʾimun and yaqūmu/qāma/al-qāʾimu occupy the same
maḥall (i.e. the relative clause), but also as semantic since the pronoun and
active participle in this case are semantically equivalent to the imperfect,
perfect, or definite noun which they replace.

Yet, if the more specialized notion of functional replacement (i.e. one element
which satisfies two syntactical functions) as we know it mostly from the later
sources goes back to Sībawayhi, and perhaps some of his contemporaries, two
questions need to be answered: (a) How was the link established between the
term sadda masadd (and other similar terms) and the five types of functional
replacement that appear in the Kitāb, and (b) when did this take place? To
start with the latter question momentarily, functional replacement explicitly
appears for the first time, as far as our sources permit us to conclude, in
Mubarrad’s (d. 285/898) Muqtaḍab. More specifically, the usage is connected
with Sībawayhi’s types i and iv for which Mubarrad in no unclear terms uses the
expressions al-ḥāl yasudd masadd al-ḫabar and ǧawābu-hu yasudd masadd al-
ǧazāʾ respectively (Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: iii, 252; ii, 68 respectively).9 However,
it is only with Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (d. 316/929) in his ʾUṣūl that this usage seems to have

7 Farrāʾ’s expression is: al-siǧn: al-maḥbis wa-huwa ka-l-fiʿl, and thus the pronoun huwa can refer
either to al-siǧn or al-maḥbis. However, Farrāʾ’s reference to maṭliʿ and maġrib in the rest of
the text obviously strengthens the second possibility.
8 Note that the two elements in question are the verb and its agent.
9 The term sadda masadd also occurs in Muqtaḍab: iii, 27, but in the sense of syntactical
replacement of one element by another, and not as an instance of an element that has two
maḥall-s.
the concept of functional replacement 157

been generalized to include all five types alluded to by Sībawayhi as well as two
other types not found in earlier sources. Before discussing these various types
in Muqtaḍab, ʾUṣūl, and later sources, let us turn to the first question posed
above.
It should be remembered that Sībawayhi acknowledges the possibility of
having one element replace another in the utterance. Numerous examples
were shown above in which reference to such replacement is made at the syn-
tactical, morphological, and semantic levels. It is in these examples that Sīb-
awayhi uses the terms sadda masadd and qāma maqām. On the other hand,
there are several passages in the Kitāb in which it is implied that one ele-
ment has two syntactical functions, that is, two maḥall-s. In these passages (i.e.
types i to v above), Sībawayhi does not use these two terms to express this spe-
cific notion of replacement, which we refer to as functional replacement. It is
hence remarkable that the issues raised in these very passages became among
the most common examples of functional replacement in later sources. What
grammarians after Sībawayhi, and in particular those closest to him in time
such as Mubarrad and Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, must have done is apply his terminology
for replacement in general to those passages in the Kitāb which imply that one
element has two syntactical functions. This, of course, entails an interpretation
of these passages, based on assumptions borrowed from Sībawayhi himself. As
we explained in type iii above, for example, it is not explicitly stated in the
Kitāb that constructions of the type ʾa-ḏāhibatun ǧariyatā-ka and ʾa-karīmatun
nisāʾu-kum involve functional replacement, but axioms inherent in Sībawayhi’s
system of syntactical analysis can easily give rise to an interpretation which
acknowledges that each of ǧāriyatā-ka and nisāʾu-kum fulfills the function of
both predicate and agent of the active participle or assimilate adjective. The
technical terms used by Sībawayhi to refer to the general sense of replacing
elements at the syntactical, morphological, and semantic levels were also bor-
rowed by later authors. The projection of Sībawayhi’s terms used in these exam-
ples to cases in which one element has two maḥall-s gave these terms a new
dimension and hence their use was no more restricted, as in the Kitāb, to exam-
ples that do not involve the fulfillment of two maḥall-s by one element. As
far as the influence of the Kitāb on subsequent grammarians throughout the
tradition is concerned, it is quite telling that they expanded the use of these
terms by resorting to criteria that already exist in the Kitāb. Not only were Sīb-
awayhi’s examples emulated or even borrowed verbatim, but the grammarians
were faithful to his method of not dealing with cases of functional replacement
under one heading, but in disparate chapters to which this notion is applicable.
158 baalbaki

3 Expansion of Applicability

After Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, whose ʾUṣūl is the first source which explicitly identifies
all five types of functional replacement implied in the Kitāb, this analyti-
cal tool was uniformly used by grammarians. To Sībawayhi’s five types were
added other constructions in which one element was interpreted as having two
maḥall-s. In this section, we shall discuss the various types of constructions
that were considered as examples of functional replacement, starting with Sīb-
awayhi’s five types. General observations will then be made on the approach of
the later grammarians and the extent to which they made use of the notion of
functional replacement itself.
Type i: Predicate + circumstantial accusative. This is one of two types in
which Mubarrad, based on his interpretation of Sībawayhi’s text, uses the
term sadda masadd to express functional replacement. One of several pos-
sible readings of a line by ʿAmr b. Maʿdīkarib is al-ḥarbu ʾawwalu mā takūnu
futayyatan/tasʿā bi-zīnati-hā li-kulli ǧahūli (‘Upon it first eruption, war is like a
nymphet * pursuing with its charms every hot-headed ignoramus’). The first
hemistich is, to use a term from later works, a ǧumla kubrā (larger sentence),
that is a sentence which starts with a subject whose predicate is itself a verbal
sentence (e.g. zaydun qāma ʾabū-hu) or a nominal sentence (e.g. zaydun ʾabū-hu
qāʾimun).10 Thus, ʾawwal is the second subject and the function of its predi-
cate is fulfilled by the circumstantial accusative futayyatan, hence Mubarrad’s
expression wa-yaǧʿal al-ḥāl yasudd masadd al-ḫabar (Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: iii,
252). Ibn al-Sarrāǧ throws further light on this type of functional replacement.
In commenting on the construction ḍarbī zaydan qāʾiman—which is obviously
derived from the Kitāb (Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 419)11—he says that the circumstan-
tial accusative qāʾiman has functionally replaced the predicate ( fa-qāʾiman ḥāl
li-zayd wa-qad saddat masadd al-ḫabar), and that it has the status of the pred-
icate (bi-manzilat al-ḫabar, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: ii, 237–238; see ii, 359–360).
The mere fact that the two elements have the same status, of course, sup-
ports his attempt to demonstrate that one of them can assume the syntactical
function of the other. As pointed out earlier, the grammarians stop short in dis-
cussing this type (and the other types) of functional replacement of ascribing
two maḥall-s to the same element of structure. In fact, at times they even argue
that one of the two maḥall-s is satisfied by an elided element (more on this to

10 Examples are taken from Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī’s chapter on the ǧumla ṣugrā and kubrā
(Muġnī: ii, 380). For sources of Maʿdīkarib’s line, see Hārūn 1972–1973: 321; Ḥaddād 1984:
566; Yaʿqūb 1996: vi, 574.
11 ḍarbī ʿabda l-Lāhi qāʾiman.
the concept of functional replacement 159

follow in section iv below). Yet, for all practical purposes, qāʾiman in the above
construction does represent for Ibn al-Sarrāǧ—as it does for later grammari-
ans12—a linguistic element which has two functions, as implied in his use of
both expressions saddat masadd al-ḫabar and bi-manzilat al-ḫabar.
Type ii: Predicate + adverb. This type of construction is related to type i,
and Sībawayhi mostly discusses them together (Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 414–419).
Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, however, goes one step further than Sībawayhi in interpreting
this type by means of functional replacement. Following his discussion of the
circumstantial accusative that replaces the predicate, he generalizes the inter-
pretation of constructions of that type to those in which the adverb occupies
the position of the circumstantial accusative (wa-ka-ḏālika ʾin kāna fī mawḍiʿ
al-ḥāl ẓarf, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: ii, 360). The term sadda masadd, which Ibn
al-Sarrāǧ uses in connection with the circumstantial accusative and the predi-
cate, thus becomes applicable to the adverb with regard to the predicate. In his
example ʾaḫṭabu mā yakūnu l-ʾamīru yawma l-ǧumuʿati (see Sībawayhi’s con-
struction ʿabdu l-Lāhi ʾaḫṭabu mā yakūnu yawma l-ǧumuʿati, Sībawayhi Kitāb: i,
402; see ʿUkbarī Lubāb: 146), yawma functions as an adverb, which functionally
replaces the predicate. In other words, both syntactical functions, according to
Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, are fulfilled by one linguistic element.
Type iii: Predicate + agent of a participle. Ibn al-Sarrāǧ discusses this type
on several occasions and uniformly uses the terms sadda masadd or istaġnā
to express the view that the agent of the participle functionally replaces the
predicate. On his first mention of the construction qāʾimun ʾabū-ka (Ibn al-
Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: i, 60),13 he comments that similar constructions will be cited in
other parts of his ʾUṣūl (wa-li-hāḏā naẓāʾir tuḏkar fī mawāḍiʿi-hā). Indeed, his
discussion of those constructions clearly demonstrates the development that
took place from Sībawayhi’s time, since the latter only cites relevant examples
without explicitly associating them with functional replacement, whereas Ibn
al-Sarrāǧ not only justifies those examples through functional replacement but
also expands the applicability of this analytical tool to other comparable, but

12 See, for example, poetry šawāhid explained as examples of ḥāl saddat masadd al-ḫabar in
Mazrūqī Šarḥ: iv, 1713 and Baġdādī Ḫizāna: iii, 199.
13 Note that Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s example is not begun with either interrogation or negation and
that both of its elements are singular. Although later grammarians do cite such construc-
tions as examples of fāʿil sadda masadd al-ḫabar, they consider them to be rare and
untypical of this type of functional replacement, and insist that the more representative
constructions normally begin with an interrogative or negative particle and lack concord
between their two poles. See, for example, Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 94–97; ʾUšmūnī Šarḥ: i, 89–
90.
160 baalbaki

structurally different constructions. One such construction is ġulāmu hindin

ḍāribatu-hu hiya, in which the pronoun, according to him, is the agent of
the active participle ḍāribatun and replaces its predicate at the same time
( fāʿil yasudd masadd al-ḫabar, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: ii, 242). The construction
as whole is a ǧumla kubrā (i.e. ġulāmu is the first subject whose predicate is
the nominal sentence ḍāribatu-hu hiya), and may well have been devised on
the analogy of attested constructions of type i, such as al-ḥarbu ʾawwalu mā
takūnu futayyatan/un, and syntactically analyzed based on this analogy, hence
the use of sadda masadd in both cases. Generalizing the use of the concept
of functional replacement of the predicate through such analogical extension
most probably owes its origin to a general principle according to which the
function of the predicate is assigned both on semantic and syntactical grounds.
In fact, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ points this out quite clearly when he quotes al-ʾAḫfaš’s
(d. 215/830) interpretation of ʾa-ḏāhibun ʾaḫawā-ka as an instance of functional
replacement of the predicate. This interpretation is based on the realization
that the primary function (note his use of assertive, or even restrictive ʾinna-
mā) of the predicate is to bring the kalām to completion (ḫabar al-ibtidāʾ ʾinna-
mā ǧīʾa bi-hi li-yatimm bi-hi l-kalām, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: i, 255).14 Completion
in this context is both semantic and syntactical since in the construction
ʾinna fī l-dāri ǧālisan ʾaḫawāka—itself analyzed on the analogy of ʾa-ḏāhibun
ʾaḫawā-ka,—the syntactical function of the predicate resides in ʾaḫawā-ka,
which itself successfully brings the meaning of the construction to completion.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the expansion which took place in the
applicability of the notion of fāʿil sadda masadd al-ḫabar is most likely the
reason why some later authors go as far as dividing the subject of a nominal
sentence into two types, one which has a predicate and another in which an
agent or its substitute functionally replaces the predicate (al-mubtadaʾ qismāni
qism la-hu ḫabar wa-qism la-hu fāʿil ʾaw nāʾib ʿan-hu yuġnī ʿan al-ḫabar, Suyūṭī
Hamʿ: i, 94).15 Also noteworthy is the fact that later grammarians apply the
same rules to the predicate of laysa, and thus use fāʿil sadda masadd ḫabar
laysa with constructions such as laysa qāʾimun al-zaydāni (Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 95;
ʾUšmūnī Šarḥ: i, 89).16

14 See also Ibn Yaʿīš Šarḥ: i, 96, where the expression al-kalām tamma bi-hi is explained on
both semantic and syntactical grounds.
15 See Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: ii, 676: al-mubtadaʾ ʾimmā ʾan yakūn ḏā ḫabar ʾaw marfūʿ
yuġnī ʿan al-ḫabar.
16 As for the expression sadda masadd al-mubtadaʾ with reference to the active participle in
bādin hawā-ka, (Maʿarrī Šarḥ: iv, 276), it is obviously an error in the original text which
went undetected by the editor.
the concept of functional replacement 161

Type iv: Verbal or nominal sentence + conditional particle + protasis. As in

type I above, Mubarrad is the first grammarian to employ the notion of func-
tional replacement in interpreting constructions such as ʾātī-ka ʾin ʾatayta-nī
and ʾanta ẓālimun ʾin faʿalta, which he reproduces verbatim from the Kitāb.
In a chapter which exclusively deals with prepositing the apodosis and with
conditional constructions that are tolerated only in poetic license, he uses the
term sadda masadd ǧawāb al-ǧazāʾ/in three times (Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: ii, 68
(ll. 10, 14), 70 (l. 8)) to demonstrate that although the sentence which precedes
the particle cannot technically be the apodosis since conditional particles do
not govern linguistic elements which precede them, it does fulfill the function
of the apodosis. Ibn al-Sarrāǧ follows in the steps of Mubarrad, but general-
izes, through qiyās, the interpretation of the examples cited by Sībawayhi and
Mubarrad to all constructions which resemble them syntactically.17 Later gram-
marians extensively discusses this type of construction with little to add to the
basic interpretation of the earlier authors.18
Type v: Oath + conditional particle. The occurrence of oath, whether it is
actually pronounced or suppressed (but normally indicated by assertive la- or
energetic nūn), with the conditional particle is problematic since the former
requires a complement and the latter an apodosis. As previously mentioned,
Sībawayhi considers la-ʾukrimanna-ka in the construction la-ʾin ʾatayta-nī la-
ʾukrimanna-ka to be the complement of the oath since the oath occurs at
the beginning (ʾawwal al-kalām; i.e. as the presence of assertive la- indicates).
Although Mubarrad cites similar constructions (e.g. ʾin ʾatayta-nī la-ʾaqūmanna
and ʾin lam taʾti-nī la-ʾaġḍabanna, Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: ii, 68), he does not refer
to functional replacement in commenting on them; rather, he expresses his
disagreement with Sībawayhi, who considers them to be the result of hysteron-
proteron (taqdīm wa-taʾḫīr). For his part, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ cites a different con-
struction which includes both a conditional particle and an oath—ʾin taqum
yaʿlamu l-Lāhu la-ʾazūranna-ka—and is clearly interested in the issue of the
relationship between its constituent parts (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ Uṣūl: ii, 198). That
the conditional particle and the oath compete for satisfying the apodosis and
complement respectively is as clear in his expression wa-ʾin ǧaʿalta al-ǧawāb
li-l-qasam as in the opposite example he cites, ʾin taqum yaʿlamu l-Lāhu ʾazur-
ka, where the conditional particle takes precedence and governs ʾazur-ka as its
apodosis. The role of functional replacement in resolving this issue is even more

17 Note the expression wa-l-bāb kullu-hu ʿalā hāḏā lā yaǧūz ġayru-hu and wa-kull mā kāna
miṯla-hu fa-hāḏā qiyāsu-hu (ʾUṣūl: ii, 194–195).
18 See, for example, Baṭalyawsī Ḥulal: 40; Ibn Yaʿīš Šarḥ: ix, 7; ʾAstarābāḏī Šarḥ: ii, 258; Suyūṭī
Hamʿ: ii, 62; Baġdādī Ḫizāna: ix, 71.
162 baalbaki

clearly articulated by later authors who use expressions such as ǧawāb al-yamīn
yuġnī ʿan ǧawāb al-šarṭ (Sīrāfī Šarḥ: x, 77–78) and ǧawāb al-qasam al-maḥḏūf
sadda masadd ǧawāb al-šarṭ (Zamaẖšarī Kaššāf : i, 320).
In addition to Sībawayhi’s five types, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ uses the notion of func-
tional replacement in two19 other contexts. These are types vi and vii below:
Type vi: Adverb + circumstantial accusative. This is exemplified by the
expression ǧaʿaltu matāʿa-ka baʿḍa-hu fawqa baʿḍin, where fawqa, according
to Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, is an adverb that functionally replaces the circumstantial
accusative (qāma maqām al-ḥāl) which he assumes to be mustaqirran/rāk-
iban/maṭrūḥan fawqa baʿḍin (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: ii, 51–52).
Type vii: Circumstantial accusative + second direct object. As part of his
discussion of type ii (predicate + adverb), Ibn al-Sarrāǧ cites the construction
ẓanantu ʾakṯara šurbī l-sawīqa maltūtan, in which maltūtan is said to be a
circumstantial accusative which functionally replaces the second direct object
of ẓanantu (ʿalā al-ḥāl al-latī tasudd masadd al-mafʿūl al-ṯānī, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ
ʾUṣūl: ii, 360).
The rest of this list contains other noteworthy types of functional replace-
ment used by the grammarians after Ibn al-Sarrāǧ. Included are only those
examples in which two syntactical functions (maḥall-s) seem to be satisfied
by one linguistic element.20
Type viii: ʾanna + direct objects of doubly transitive verbs. As a conjunctive
particle, ʾanna is considered to be maṣdariyya because, with its noun and
predicate, it replaces a verbal noun (maṣdar, Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 73–74; Suyūṭī Hamʿ:
i, 81–82). If ʾanna follows a doubly transitive verb, then the maṣdar it replaces is
interpreted as having functionally replaced two direct objects (sadda masadd
mafʿulayni). This very frequent expression is used, for example, by Ibn Hišām

19 Note also the expression sadda al-istifhām masadd al-ḫabar used by Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (Uṣūl: ii,
172) in connection with expressions of the type zaydun hal ḍarabta-hu. Functional replace-
ment in this context, however, does not refer to one element that has two syntactical
functions and hence substantially differs from the types listed above. What Ibn al-Sarrāǧ
means by sadda masadd here is that ʾinšāʾ (command, wish, interrogation, etc.) replaces
a ḫabar (statement). For more on such constructions in the grammatical tradition, and
techniques used by the grammarians in explaining them, see Baalbaki 2000–2001.
20 Accordingly, the list excludes those instances in which the terms sadda masadd, nāba
manāb, qāma maqām, etc. do not refer to two maḥall-s. To take nāba manāb as an example,
it is used in many contexts of this kind, such as nābat al-ḥāl al-mušāhada manāb al-fiʿl al-
nāṣib (Ibn Ǧinnī Ḫaṣāʾiṣ: i, 264), ism al-fāʿil yanūb manāb ḏī kaḏā (Marzūqī Šarḥ: ii, 848),
al-maṣdar nāba manāb al-ẓarf (Baṭalyawsī Ḥulal: 45), and ḥurūf al-ʿaṭf tanūb manāb al-
ʿāmil (Qurṭubī Ǧāmiʿ: xvi, 157).
the concept of functional replacement 163

al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 761/1360) in his analysis of the Qurʾanic verse ʾa-lam yaraw kam
ʾahlaknā qabla-hum min al-qurūn ʾanna-hum ʾilay-him lā yarǧiʿūna (‘Have they
not seen how many generations before them We destroyed? Never shall they
return to them’; q 36: 31) to indicate that the two direct objects of yaraw are
subsumed under the phrase with ʾanna (Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: i, 183–
184).21 Accordingly, the construction can be paraphrased as (ours) ʾa-lam yaraw
ʿadama ruǧūʿi l-qurūni, or—if one wants to illustrate the two direct objects—as
ʾa-lam yarawi l-qurūna ġayra rāǧiʿīna.
Type ix: Predicate + absolute object, as in zaydun sayran, where the absolute
object (mafʿūl muṭlaq) effectively assumes the function of predicate ( yuġnī ʿan
al-ḫabar) since the assumed original predicate, yasīru (i.e. in *zaydun yasīru
sayran) has been suppressed (Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 100).
Type x: Predicate + direct object, as in ʾinna-mā l-ʿāmiriyyu ʿimāmata-hu,
in which the original predicate—which is assumed to be the active participle
mutaʿahhidun—is elided and the direct object of the active participle assumes
its function as predicate (Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 100).
Type xi: Predicate + complement of an oath. In the construction la-ʿamru-ka
la-afʿalanna, the original predicate (mā ʾuqsimu bi-hi or qasamun) is said to be
elided and its function is fulfilled by the complement of the oath, la-ʾafʿalanna
(wa-ǧawāb al-qasam sādd masadd al-ḫabar al-maḥḏūf, ʾAstarābāḏī Šarḥ: i, 108).
Type xii: Predicate + adjective. Ṯaʿlab (d. 291/904) reports, on the author-
ity of Farrāʾ, that ġalīẓa l-mašāfiri in the hemistich wa-lākinna zanǧiyyan ġalīẓa
l-mašāfiri (‘but [you resemble] a Negro with thick camel-like lips’) is appos-
itive (here adjective of zanǧiyyan) and also the predicate of lākinna (ʾatbaʿa-
hu wa-huwa al-ḫabar, Ṯaʿlab Maǧālis: i, 105). Quoting Ṯaʿlab’s text, Baġdādī
(d. 1093/1682) captures the meaning of Farrāʾ’s words and paraphrases them
in the following manner: wa-qāla al-Farrāʾ ġalīẓa l-mašāfiri tābiʿ sadda masadd
al-ḫabar (Baġdādī Ḫizāna: x, 445).
Type xiii: Constructions with ʿasā. There are two possibilities here, both
of which were interpreted by some grammarians as instances of functional
replacement. The first possibility is that ʿasā is directly followed by ʾan, as in
ʿasā ʾan yaqūma zaydun, in which case most grammarians consider ʿasā to be a
complete verb (tāmma) which governs, instead of a subject and predicate, an
agent represented by an and what follows (i.e. ʿasā qiyāmu zaydin). Ibn Mālik,
however, argues that ʿasā in this case is still incomplete or defective (nāqiṣa),
and that ʾan and its complement comprise the subject and the predicate and
thus assume their function (saddat ʾan wa-l-fiʿl masadd al-ǧuzʾayni, Ibn Mālik

21 For examples with ẓanna ʾanna, see Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 151.

164 baalbaki

Šarḥ: i, 380).22 The other possibility is that ʿasā is not directly followed by ʾan,
as in ʿasā zaydun ʾan yaqūma. According to Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī, the Kufans
are in line with the consensus that ʿasā is nāqiṣa in such a construction, but
whereas the verbal noun for which ʾan and its complement stand is generally
considered to be the predicate of ʿasā, they propose that it has an appositive
relationship with zaydun, hence (our) ʿasā zaydun qiyāmu-hu. The Kufans are
reported to use the expression al-badal sadda masadd al-ǧuzʾayni (Ibn Hišām
al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: i, 28, 152), obviously to point out that ʾan yaqūma embraces
both the subject and predicate of ʿasā. This can only mean that ʾan yaqūma
itself is the predicate of ʿasā and at the same time it refers to its subject since
the agent of yaqūma is no other than zaydun, the subject of ʿasā.23
In line with their interest in standardization and rule formulation, later
authors in particular introduce complex rules pertaining to some cases of func-
tional replacement. Strict morphological and syntactical rules thus apply to
constructions of type iii (ʾa-ḏāhibatun ǧariyatā-ka), and these are not restricted
to active participles, but are analogically extended to other derivates, such as
passive participles, assimilate adjectives, and gentilic adjectives (Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i,
94). Constructions that are extremely unlikely to be used in actual speech were
also made up to examine the theoretical implications of functional replace-
ment. Thus, when two or more conditional sentences occur in succession (e.g.
in ǧāʾa zaydun ʾin ʾakala zaydun ʾin ḍaḥika fa-ʿabdī ḥurrun), the question arises
whether the first conditional sentence should have ʿabdī ḥurrun as its apodosis
(or a replacement of its apodosis since any real apodosis should be a verb),
in which case it would also serve, at least on semantic grounds (li-dalālat al-
ʾawwal), as apodosis for the second and third conditional sentences (Suyūṭī
Hamʿ: ii, 63). Furthermore, there are cases in which functional replacement
is used twice in the interpretation of a single construction. An example is wa-
ʿasʿasun niʿma l-fatā, where niʿma replaces the predicate (saddat masadd ḫabar

22 This text is also quoted in Murādī Ǧanā: 464 and Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: i, 152; see
Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 131.
23 The Kufan view that ʾan yaqūma in the construction ʿasā zaydun ʾan yaqūma is badal
fits better with the assumption that they consider ʿasā here to be tāmma, rather than
nāqiṣa, although this would negate the interpretation based on functional replacement.
In fact, Murādī (Ǧanā: 464) reports the view of al-Basīṭ’s author (i.e. a certain Ibn al-ʿIlǧ;
see Suyūṭī Buġya: ii, 370: wa-lam ʾaqif la-hu ʿalā tarǧama) that the Kufans treat ʿasā as
tāmma in such a construction and that its meaning is that of qaruba (to draw near or
be imminent). Accordingly, Ibn al-ʿIlǧ proposes the following steps: (1) qarbuba qiyāmu
zaydin; (2) *qaruba + zayd + qiyām (by taqdīm and taʾḫīr); (3) qaruba zaydun qiyāmu-hu;
and (4) qaruba/ʿasā zaydun an yaqūma.
the concept of functional replacement 165

al-mubtadaʾ), and according to one view ascribed by Baṭalyawsī (d. 521/1127)

to Zaǧǧāǧ (d. 311/923), al-fatā replaces the elided pronoun (i.e. huwa) expected
after the verb of praise, niʿma (Baṭalyawsī Iqtiḍāb: iii, 57–58).
In spite of the increasing use of functional replacement as a tool in the pars-
ing of various types of constructions, the later grammarians made no effort at
all to list these types or discuss issues that pertain to them as a group. This is in
contrast to another aspect of parsing, namely the classification of sentences
into those that are assigned a maḥall (and, if so, the exact syntactical func-
tion involved) and those that are not assigned one. Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī, for
example, discusses at great length the types of sentences that have or do not
have a maḥall (Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī Muġnī: ii, 382–428), but mentions func-
tional replacement only when his analysis of a certain construction dictates
so. This typical approach deprives us of gaining insight into any global views
the grammarians might have had on the very concept of functional replace-
ment, contrary to the case of sentences with or without a maḥall, operants,
elision, poetic license, and various other concepts and issues that some gram-
marians deal with under separate headings. This notwithstanding, the numer-
ous and scattered references to functional replacement in the tradition as a
whole obviously indicate a deep-rooted arbitrary application of this concept
since there are constructions in whose analysis functional replacement does
not feature in spite of the fact that they readily lend themselves to such analysis.
One might have expected, for example, in constructions in which the causative
object (mafʿūl la-hu/li-ʾaǧli-hi) is expressed by a prepositional phrase, such as
ḍarabtu-hu li-taʾdībin, that this phrase is to be considered to have functionally
replaced the more common form in the accusative, i.e. ḍarabtu-hu taʾdīban
(Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 252; Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 195). Similarly, functional replacement is
not used to describe the prepositional phrase with min in constructions such
as li-l-Lāhi darru-hu min fārisin (Ibn al-Nāẓim Šarḥ: 350; Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 251)
although min fārisin does replace the accusative form fārisan which is more fre-
quently used to express the function of specification (tamyīz). At a larger scale,
functional replacement does not feature in the grammarians’ study of the intri-
cate subject of conflict of government (tanāzuʿ) although the constructions
they cite in their study are perfectly suited for being analyzed with reference
to it. To take a most basic example on tanāzuʿ, such as qāma wa-qaʿada zay-
dun, the grammarians usually insist that only one of the two verbs governs
zaydun as its agent, whereas the other governs an elided agent (also zaydun),24

24 Suyūṭī (Hamʿ: ii, 109) cites avoidance of having two operants govern the same element in
a construction as the reason why most grammarians (ǧumhūr, Farrāʾ excepted) hold the
166 baalbaki

and do not suggest that zaydun is the agent of the first verb and functionally
replaces the second or vice versa.
Another discrepancy in the grammarians’ approach to functional replace-
ment is the continued use of sadda masadd and similar terms with regard to
linguistic elements that replace others in a construction but do not effectively
have two different syntactical functions. The persistence of this use,25 which is
reminiscent of Sībawayhi’s as detailed earlier, along with the subsequent and
more specialized use which represents functional replacement par excellence,
results in a two-tier application of the terms involved. Indeed, the term nāʾib is
introduced to a number of categories to convey the notion of replacement, but
not the sense that one element satisfies two functions (cf. nāʾib + fāʿil, nāʾib +
mafʿūl muṭlaq, and nāʾib + ẓarf ). That sawṭan in ḍarabtu-hu sawṭan, for exam-
ple, is a nāʾib mafʿūl muṭlaq—i.e. it replaces an absolute object, as any basic
grammar textbook would explain—in no way means that it itself has a distinct
grammatical function in addition to the function of the verbal noun ḍarban
which it replaces. Rather, it means that the one function that is related to the
verb ḍarabtu and is normally fulfilled by the verbal noun has now been ful-
filled by the instrumental noun. Accordingly, the term sadda masadd and its
equivalents should be added to the long list of grammatical terms that have
various levels of meaning depending on their context (cf. ibtidāʾ, ḫabar, ʾiḍāfa,
ʿaṭf, tawahhum, etc.).

4 Concluding Remarks

The historical development of the notion of functional replacement as dis-

cussed above reveals Sībawayhi’s great influence on the tradition as a whole,
but also shows how subsequent grammarians interpreted his text and applied
his terms to contexts in which he himself did not use these terms. Within the
wider framework of the grammatical tradition, it would be safe to conclude
that functional replacement, despite the gradual increase in its use by gram-
marians after Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, remained a marginal analytical tool which often
lacked uniform application. The most probable reason for this is that, wher-
ever two syntactical functions are involved, the use of functional replacement
manifestly breaches the one-element-one-maḥall principle referred to earlier.

view that an elided subject has to be supplied in order to act as another operant in the
above construction (i.e. *qāma zaydun wa-qaʿada zaydun).
25 See examples cited in note 20 above.
the concept of functional replacement 167

In line with the strong and firmly-rooted tendency in the tradition to interpret
data in a manner which strengthens the norm and minimizes anomaly,26 the
grammarians had to be cautious not to use functional replacement in a man-
ner that renders usage anomalous. It should be noted in this respect that in
eight of the thirteen types listed above (i–iii, ix–xiii), the supposedly replaced
element is the predicate, that is, an indispensable part of the construction, or
what the later grammarians and rhetoricians refer to as ʿumda without which
predication cannot take place. The grammarians surely had to account for
the predicate in constructions where its position is occupied by an element
that concludes the intended meaning although its form precludes that it be
referred to as predicate. But since they also had to preserve the principle of one-
element-one-maḥall, positing functional replacement was perhaps inevitable,
given the boundaries of syntactical analysis that they had to observe. Thus,
rather than saying that the predicate in ʾaḫṭabu mā yakūnu l-amīru yawma l-
ǧumuʿati is in the accusative, they propose that yawma is an adverb which has
fulfilled the function of the predicate. As such, the predication becomes com-
plete and yawma retains its original function (ʾaṣl) as an adverb. Effectively,
what the grammarians are telling us, but in their own way, is that yawma has
two maḥall-s.
Minimizing anomaly lies at the root of the strategies adopted by some gram-
marians in their attempt to deny that one element can have two syntactical
functions. Among the most frequently cited arguments within these strategies
are the following:

1. That the replaced element is elided. This argument is used, for instance,
in interpreting type I constructions such as ḍarbī l-ʿabda musīʾan. Suyūṭī
(d. 911/1505) reports that Kisāʾī (d. 189/805), Hišām (209/824), Farrāʾ, and
Ibn Kaysān (d. 320/932) consider the circumstantial accusative to be also
predicate (al-ḥāl nafsu-hā hiya al-ḫabar, Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 105). Other gram-
marians, however, insist that the predicate is necessarily elided (maḥḏūf
wuǧūban) since the circumstantial accusative is not fit to be predicated (lā
taṣluḥ ʾan takūn ḫabaran, see Ibn ʿAqīl Šarḥ: 118; ʾUšmūnī Šarḥ: i, 104). The
suggestion that the underlying structure is ḍarbī l-ʿabda ʾiḏā kāna musīʾan or
ḍarbī l-ʿabda istaqarra/mustaqirrun ʾiḏ kāna musīʾan is obviously intended
to demonstrate that musīʾan is part of a larger construction in which it
cannot serve both as circumstantial accusative and predicate.27 The link

26 For Sībawayhi’s role in establishing this approach, see Baalbaki 2008: 134–152.
27 Other than the predicate, elision is applied to the apodosis in type iv constructions. Ibn
168 baalbaki

between elision and cases of functional replacement is nowhere clearer than

in ʿUkbarī’s (d. 456/1064) list of what other authors refer to as ḥaḏf al-ḫabar
wuǧūban. By discussing these cases under the title fīmā yasudd masadd
al-ḫabar (ʿUkbarī Lubāb: 145–146), ʿUkbarī dismisses the possibility of hav-
ing one element fulfill two syntactical functions since the replaced func-
tion then resides, by definition, not in an uttered element but in an elided
one.
2. That there is no need for the assumption of a replaced element since the
meaning of the construction is complete without it (lā ḥāǧata ʾilayhi li-
tamām al-kalām bi-dūni-hi, Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 94). This radical position, which
in effect rejects the very concept of functional replacement, is applied with
regard to types i and iii. The subject in both types, i.e. ḍarbī and qāʾimun
in ḍarbī l-ʿabda musīʾan and ʾa-qāʾimun ʾaḫawā-ka, is thus assumed to have
neither an uttered nor an assumed predicate (Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 94, 105).
3. That the uttered element is merely a token (dalīl) of the elided one and
hence does not functionally replace it. This argument is specifically used
with type iv constructions, such as ʾaqūmu ʾin qumta, where ʾaqūmu is only
considered to be such a token, but not the real apodosis (Suyūṭī Hamʿ: ii,
62).28 Similarly, the reference to what precedes the conditional particle as
apodosis in meaning (ǧawāb fī l-maʿnā, ʾAstarābāḏī Šarḥ: ii, 258) suggests
that it is not the real apodosis.
4. That one can only metaphorically ascribe to the uttered element a function
other than its original one. Thus whereas Fārisī (d. 377/987) and Ibn Ǧinnī
(d. 392/1002) are reported by Suyūṭī to have considered the adverb in type
iii constructions to be actually the predicate (al-ẓarf huwa al-ḫabar fī al-
ḥaqīqa, Suyūṭī Hamʿ: i, 99),29 Ibn Kaysān and Ibn Mālik are said to have held
the view that calling the adverb a predicate involves a metaphor (tasmiyat
al-ẓarf ḫabaran maǧāz).

These arguments show to what length some grammarians went in order to

defend the norm and not ascribe two syntactical functions to one element
of the structure. Ingenious as such arguments may be, it remains that the

Yaʿīš (Šarḥ: ix, 7) explains that the apodosis in ʾanti ṭāliqun ʾin daḫalti l-dāra is elided
and that the nominal sentence which precedes the conditional particle cannot serve as
apodosis; see Baalbaki 2005: 53.
28 Ibid.: ii, 62; see Ibn al-ʾAnbārī ʾInṣāf : ii, 628. See also Baalbaki 2005: 52–53.
29 The words huwa al-ḫabar are missing from the Hamʿ edition used in this article and have
been restored from ʿAbd al-ʿĀl Sālim Makram’s edition of volume ii (p. 22) of the text (Dār
al-buḥūṯ al-ʿilmiyya, Kuwait 1975).
the concept of functional replacement 169

terms sadda masadd, nāba manāb, qāma maqām, ʾaġnā, etc. betray a broad
conviction among grammarians that in certain constructions two syntactical
functions are fulfilled—contrary to the norm—by the use of one element. This
notwithstanding, outright admission, say in the form of a general rule, that one
element can have two maḥall-s is nowhere to be found in the sources.

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 chapter 9

Ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: Really Two of a Kind? Some

Notes on Zaǧǧāǧī’s Treatment

Francesco Binaghi

Introduction

As a student at Université de Provence (nowadays Aix-Marseille University),

I attended Pierre Larcher’s classes on Arabic syntax. While dealing with the
expansions of the verb phrase (henceforth vp), he approached the question of
the circumstantial adjunct (‘complément circonstanciel’)1 and of the alleged
equivalence of the Arabic terms ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi. One of the main points
Larcher posited was that although every mafʿūl fī-hi is a ẓarf, not every ẓarf is
a mafʿūl fī-hi.
A few years later, reading Zaǧǧāǧī’s ʾĪḍāḥ (d. 337/949), I came across the
following statement: ‘the ẓurūf, all of them, are mafʿūl fī-hi’.2 This very short
but sharp definition—as short and as sharp as Larcher’s was—contradicts
the postulate of the equivalence of these two terms, but it seems to do that
in the exact opposite direction of Larcher’s. After a quick overview of the
development in the use of these two terms and of the evolution of the categories
they refer to (§1), with a closer look into Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s grammatical analysis
(§2), the present study will propose some notes on Zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment of ẓarf
and mafʿūl fī-hi (§3).

1 From ẓarf to mafʿūl fī-hi? A Historical Overview

The evolution and general standardization of the locative/temporal category3

has already been dealt with in a satisfactory way by Owens (1989: especially

1 See, for example, Larcher 1991: 141 [2014: ch. xv, 269].
2 al-ẓurūf kullu-hā mafʿūl fī-hā (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 50).
3 Different expressions are used to translate ẓarf : Owens speaks of ‘locative’; Versteegh of
‘adverbial’, ‘adjunct’ or ‘adverbial adjunct’ (of time and place); Kasher of (circumstantial,
space/time or locative/temporal) ‘qualifier’. None of these is, however, completely satisfac-
tory. The category of adverb is too heterogeneous and not always well-defined; moreover, even

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_011

ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 173

223–232; further developed in 1990: 141–151) and Versteegh (2008).4 That is why
here I will just point out some elements that are relevant for the development
of the following analysis.
The idea underlying these studies is that the original term, ẓarf, was quite
soon replaced by a new one, mafʿūl fī-hi, for taxonomic reasons. This termino-
logical switch took place in quite a short lapse of time between the end of the
2nd/8th and the beginning of the 4th/10th centuries.
Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?) employs ẓarf as a general term to refer to the loca-
tive/temporal category (Kitāb: i, ch. 98, 170–174). However, he differentiates
between place and time phrases functioning as object and those which are real
ẓarf,5 even though he draws a connection between the two with the notion of
ittisāʿ.6 With regard to the term mafʿūl fī-hi, it already occurs in his Kitāb, even
if just on a few occasions, but it never indicates the ẓarf : Versteegh (2008: 108)
emphasizes that it rather refers to ḥāl constructions of the type hāḏā ʿabdu llāhi
munṭaliqan ‘this is ʿAbd Allāh while he is leaving’.7

if some ẓarf-s have an adverbial function (see for example Larcher 1991: 155 [2014: ch. xv, 288]),
it is not certain that all of them do. The adjunct is an element of the sentence which specifies
another linguistic element and then indicates something optional; not all ẓarf-s, as we will
see, are optional. As to qualifier, it seems to correspond to modifier, which indicates a spec-
ifier within an endocentric construction; this excludes some of the occurrences of the ẓarf.
The term ‘locative’ has the advantage of indicating the semantic role of location, but it risks
concealing the temporal meaning a ẓarf can have. I will thus use the more general expres-
sion ‘locative/temporal’: according to the context, I shall accompany it with the suitable term
(category, adjunct, phrase, etc.).
4 Other studies approach different aspects of the category of ẓarf : ẓarf as a subcategory of ism
(Kasher 2009b: 469–472); ẓarf-constructions and the so-called tanwīn-naṣb principle (Carter
1972: especially 490–492; Owens 1990: 111–115; Kasher 2009a: especially 46–49); Sībawayhi’s
treatment of the ẓarf as an ʿāmil in some particular constructions (Levin 2007); ẓarf syntactic
analysis as direct object by means of ittisāʿ (Versteegh 1990; Kasher 2013). Kasher’s Ph.D.
dissertation was also dedicated to the category of ẓarf in Arabic grammatical theory (Kasher
2006, non vidi).
5 Owens argues that, in Sībawayhi’s view, the ẓarf is actually defined by the combination of
lexico-semantic, syntactic, and morphological attributes; see Owens 1989: 224–226 and 1990:
141–144. Concerning Sībawayhi’s distinction between locative/temporal and object functions,
see more specifically Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 177; Owens 1989: 225 and 1990: 111–115.
6 See Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 88–96 (ch. 42 and especially ch. 43); Versteegh 1990. For a general study
on Sībawayhi’s treatment of ẓarf, however, see Mosel 1975: 345–362.
7 Sībawayhi Kitāb: i, 221–222; on this example, see also Mosel 1975: 274. For another occurrence
of mafʿūl fī-hi, always in connection to the term ḥāl, see the title of ch. 92 in Sībawayhi Kitāb:
i, 165 (mentioned and translated by Versteegh 2008: 108).
174 binaghi

The first grammarian who begins to use the term mafʿūl fī-hi to indicate the
ẓarf is al-Mubarrad (d. 285/898), as he draws a parallel between the (syntactic)
behaviors of the ẓarf and of the mafʿūl (Muqtaḍab: iv, 328). Yet in Mubarrad
the use of mafʿūl fī-hi is not restricted to the ẓarf ; in the same way as Sībawayhi,
Mubarrad employs it to define the ḥal, as the title of a chapter clearly shows:
‘This is a chapter [among the chapters] on the mafʿūl, but we have separated
it from what precedes it because it is a mafʿūl fī-hi and it is what the gram-
marians call the ḥāl’.8 A semantic connection between ḥāl and ẓarf is then
made (Muqtaḍab: iv, 171) and is later strengthened under the term of mafʿūl
fī-hi when the accusative adjuncts of the verb—considered as mafʿūl or mušab-
bah bi-l-mafʿūl—are brought together (Muqtaḍab: iv, 299 ff.). The taxonomic
reorganization is taking place.
A final step in this process is Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (d. 316/928). In both his trea-
tises Mūǧaz (pp. 35–36) and ʾUṣūl (i, 190–206)—which actually have almost
the same internal organisation—the locative/temporal category occurs in the
section dedicated to the nouns which have an accusative ending. It is called
mafʿūl fī-hi,9 even if the term ẓarf is still predominant not only in this chapter,
but in the whole treatise. A major difference from his predecessors is that the
ḥāl is no longer included either in the category of mafʿūl fī-hi (which is now
exclusively dedicated to the adjunct of time and place) or in its more general
category of mafʿūl, but it is incorporated in the second group, that of the mušab-
bah bi-l-mafʿūl.
As far as later grammarians are concerned, I will mention that they mainly
organise and denominate the locative/temporal category in the same way
as Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, i.e. they call it mafʿūl fī-hi and organise it within the five
mafāʿīl or mafʿūlāt (e.g. Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/1144) Mufaṣṣal: 55–56; ʾAstarābāḏī
(d. 688/1289) Šarḥ al-Kāfiya: i, 183–190).10

8 Hāḏā bāb min al-mafʿūl wa-lākin-nā ʿazalnā-hu mimmā qabla-hu li-ʾanna-hu mafʿūl fī-hi
wa-huwa al-laḏī yusammī-hi al-naḥwiyyūn al-ḥāl (Mubarrad Muqtaḍab: iv, 166).
9 The chapter begins with the sentence ‘the mafʿūl fī-hi is divided into two groups, time
and place’ (al-mafʿūl fī-hi yanqasim ʿalā qismayn zamān wa-makān, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl:
i, 190), where ‘time’ and ‘place’ are associated directly to mafʿūl fī-hi. Earlier and later
grammarians, on the contrary, usually associate them only with ẓarf ; see, for example,
Zamaḫšarī Mufaṣṣal: 55 (al-mafʿūl fī-hi huwa ẓarfā al-zamān wa-l-makān).
10 The place and definition of the ḥāl could be, for some grammarians, subject to variation:
Zamaḫšarī, for example, defines it both as a mušabbah bi-l-mafʿūl, because he considers
it an expansion ( faḍla), and as a mušabbah bi-l-ẓarf, because the ḥāl shares with this
latter the semantic meaning of a mafʿūl fī-hi (šabh al-ḥāl bi-l-mafʿūl min ḥayṯ ʾanna-hā
faḍla miṯla-hu ǧāʾat baʿd maḍā al-ǧumla wa-la-hā bi-l-ẓarf šabh ḫāṣṣ min ḥayṯ ʾanna-hā
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 175

We tried to sketch some aspects of the theoretical readjustment that the

locative/temporal category underwent, which is the reason that brought about
the terminological shift. The coexistence, from Mubarrad’s time onwards, of
two terms, mafʿūl fī-hi and ẓarf, seems to be interpreted as a synonymy, as the
expression ‘alternative (terminology)’ used by Owens and Versteegh would let
us believe: ‘Ibn Ǧinnī, like Mubarrad, Sarrāǧ […] and Fārisī, uses the alternative
terminology mafʿūl fīhi for ẓarf ’ (Owens, 1989: 231); ‘[…] Sībawayhi’s Basran
successors replaced the term ẓarf with mafʿūl fīhi […]. Al-Mubarrad […], for
instance, uses mafʿūl fīhi as the normal term for adverbials of time and place.
The term ẓarf remained in use, however, as an alternative.’ (Versteegh 2008:
108).11 It is this alleged synonymy that we are now going to analyze.

2 What If ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi Were Not ‘Alternatives’ after All?

As we have seen above, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ uses the term mafʿūl fī-hi to define the
locative/temporal category. It is almost the only occasion where this term
occurs in this sense.12 On the contrary, the term ẓarf occurs more frequently
throughout the text of the ʾUṣūl. I will present three of these occurrences to try
to define the extension of this term.
In the chapter on the ḥāl, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (ʾUṣūl: i, 216) examines the difference
between the two sentences:

(1) zaydun fī l-dāri qāʾiman

Zayd-nom in det-house-gen standing-acc
‘Zayd is in the house standing’

mafʿūl fī-hā wa-maǧīʾu-hā li-bayān hayʾat al-fāʿil ʾaw al-mafʿūl, Zamaḫšarī Mufaṣṣal: 61).
Nevertheless, Zamaḫšarī decides not to include the ḥāl in the chapter on the mafʿūl fī-hi
(ibid: 55–56).
11 See also Owens 1988: 167, 321 (‘Circumstance (dharf or mafʿûl fîhi)’) and Taha 2008: 101
(‘Mafʿūl fīhi “locative object[…]”; the adverbials of time and place are locatives objects,
called in Arabic ẓarf […], which refers to either time or place’). Kasher makes little use of
the term mafʿūl fī-hi: he actually seems to use it only when it refers to ẓarf-s occurring as
verbal adjuncts, but even in these cases he prefers to use the term ẓarf (e.g. Kasher 2013:
138).
12 Only on another occasion this term is used in this sense: ‘because the maṣdar is a mafʿūl,
and the place is a mafʿūl fī-hi’ (li-ʾanna al-maṣdar mafʿūl wa-l-makān mafʿūl fī-hi, Ibn al-
Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: iii, 149). As the subject dealt with in this chapter is a morphological one, no
further analysis of mafʿūl fī-hi, either syntactic or semantic, is given.
176 binaghi

(2) zaydun fī l-dāri qāʾimun

Zayd-nom in det-house-gen standing-nom
‘Zayd is, in the house, standing’ (i.e. ‘Zayd is standing in the house’)

The comment (ḫabar) of these two nominal sentences is occupied in (1) by fī

l-dāri (qāʾiman), and in (2) by qāʾimun ( fī l-dāri); whereas in (1) qāʾim is parsed
as a ḥāl, in (2), Ibn al-Sarrāǧ says, it becomes the ḫabar and the prepositional
phrase (henceforth pp) fī l-dāri functions as ẓarf of qāʾim.13 In the latter case,
the pp is an expansion of the noun-participle qāʾim14 but, although conveying
a locative meaning, it cannot be defined as mafʿūl fī-hi because it lacks the
accusative ending.15 However, a pp functioning as an expansion of a noun
phrase (henceforth np) is called ẓarf here.16
Later, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ deals (ʾUṣūl: ii, 231) with the possibility of anteposition
(taqdīm) and postposition (taʾḫīr) of the elements of the nucleus of a nominal

13 fa-ǧaʿalta qāʾiman ḫabaran ʿan zayd wa-ǧaʿalta fī al-dār ẓarfan li-qāʾim (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl:
i, 216).
14 That the pp is an expansion of qāʾim, thus of a noun, can be easily proved through a
distributional analysis:

(a) zaydun qāma ʾamāma-ka

(b) zaydun qāma fī l-dāri
(c) zaydun qāʾimun fī l-dāri

In (a), the np ʾamāma-ka is an expansion of the verb. In (b), the espansion keeps a locative
meaning but takes the form of a pp. In (c)—which corresponds to the example (2)—the
verb is replaced by the participle qāʾim which keeps the verbal meaning but has a nominal
form; the pp remains distributionally an expansion of the participle qāʾim.
15 It should be noted as well that ẓarf-s of place are divided, in the standard Arabic gram-
matical theory, into mubham ‘vague’ (having no definite limits which circumscribe them,
like taḥt ‘below’) and muḫtaṣṣ ‘specific’ (referring to specific areas, like dār ‘house’). Only
the first class can occur as ẓarf in the form of a np, whereas the second always needs to
be introduced by the preposition fī (see Owens 1990: 149–151; Versteegh 2008: 109). In the
sentence mentioned by Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, then, we could not have had a ẓarf such as *zaydun
qāʾimun al-dāra.
16 On the question of pp being parsed as ẓarf, Kasher (2013: 137–138) has already remarked
that ‘grammarians generally classify as ẓarf s not only accusative nominals, but also prepo-
sitional phrases conveying locative/temporal meaning. […] Al-ʾAstarābāḏī (Šarḥ, i, 243 [i,
92 of my edition]) explicitly refers to the grammarians’ practice of labeling prepositional
phrases as ẓarf s’. Ibn al-Sarrāǧ himself (ʾUṣūl: i, 63) introduces the ẓarf makān with the
examples zaydun ḫalfa-ka ‘Zayd is behind you’ (np) and ʿamru fī l-dāri ‘ʿAmr is in the house’
(pp).
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 177

sentence transformed by ʾinna and its sisters. He states that ‘you cannot put its
ḫabar [i.e. of ʾinna and its sisters] before its ism, unless the ḫabar is a ẓarf ’17
and he then gives two examples:

(3) ʾinna fī l-dāri Zaydan

the fact is that in det-house-gen Zayd-acc
‘(the fact is that) in the house is Zayd’ (i.e. ‘there is Zayd in the house’)

(4) ʾinna ḫalfa-ka ʿamran

the fact is that behind-acc-you-m.sg ʿAmr-acc
‘(the fact is that) behind you is ʿAmr’ (i.e. ‘there is ʿAmr behind you’)18

Ibn al-Sarrāǧ posits elsewhere (e.g. ʾUṣūl: i, 63 and 216) an underlying verb
istaqarra for the syntactic government of a ẓarf occurring in nominal sen-
tences, but he never uses the term mafʿūl fī-hi in this context—nor does any
Arab grammarian, as far as I know. The only term which can be used for
locative/temporal phrases occurring as a major constituent of a nominal sen-
tence—they can actually only occur as comment (ḫabar)—is ẓarf.
Even more interesting is the third case. While dealing with the particle
lammā, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (ʾUṣūl: ii, 157) gives the example:

(5) lammā ǧiʾta ǧiʾtu

when came-2.m.sg came-1.sg
‘when you had come, I came’

and he adds that in this context lammā becomes a ẓarf. Even though Ibn al-
Sarrāǧ identifies only the particle lammā as ẓarf, it is clear that the whole
sentence (lammā ǧiʾta) should be taken into account. What is noticeable here,
then, is not only the fact that a whole sentence can be designated as ẓarf,
but especially that the example consists of a ‘compound of sentences’ in the
sense of Larcher: ‘un ensemble de deux phrases, dont l’ une sert de cadre à
l’ énonciation de l’autre. Ce sont ces ensembles de deux phrases dans la relation

17 wa-lā tuqaddim ʾaḫbāra-hunna ʿalā ʾasmāʾi-hinna ʾillā ʾan takūn al-ʾaḫbār ẓurūfan (Ibn al-
Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: ii, 231).
18 We have to notice that the kind of sentences in question here—without considering ʾinna,
which is just an operator of a nominal sentence—will be later known as ǧumla ẓarfiyya,
precisely because it begins with a ẓarf : it is clearly a (conditioned) variant of the nominal
sentence (the ḫabar preceding the mubtadaʾ) and it corresponds to the existential (or
locative) sentence. On this point, see also Peled 2007.
178 binaghi

sémantique de thème à propos que nous appellerons désormais complexes de

phrases’ (Larcher 2007: 30). The semantic interconnection of the two sentences
is also attested by the explanation Ibn al-Sarrāǧ gives: ‘it [i.e. lammā] is said also
for the fact that has happened when something else happens’.19 We clearly have
here a circumstantial sentence (lammā ǧiʾta) which functions as a framework
for the utterance production and understanding of the other sentence (ǧiʾtu).20
Therefore ẓarf indicates here the circumstantial sentence occurring as topic in
a compound of sentences.21
These three cases should make clear that the ẓarf seems to represent, in
Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s mind, a rather semantic concept:22 an element of speech indi-
cating either time or place in which the action takes place. This semantic
interpretation is supported by Ibn al-Sarrāǧ when he states that in sentences
like:

(6) Qumtu l-yawma

Stood-1.sg det-today-acc

(7) Qumtu fī l-yawmi

stood-1.sg in det-today-gen
both meaning: ‘I stood up today’

‘you intend the meaning “in” ( fī) even if you don’t mention it; therefore, they
[i.e. the names of time] are called, if they are in the accusative case, ẓarf,
because they stand for “in” ( fī)’.23 The real intension of ẓarf, hence, lies in
the preposition fī and in the meaning this latter conveys, that of locative or

19 wa-yaqūl ʾayḍan li-l-ʾamr al-laḏī qad waqaʿa li-wuqūʿ ġayri-hi (and he continues: wa-taqūl
lammā ǧiʾta ǧiʾtu fa-yaṣīr ẓarfan) (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, ʾUṣūl: ii, 157). Ibn al-Sarrāǧ actually ex-
presses this interconnection in aspectual terms: it is possible to posit the anteriority of an
event (qad waqaʿa) only if this event is (temporally) related to another one. The aspect of
the two events is thus defined by each other.
20 For some notes on the circumstancial compounds (‘complexes circonstanciels’), see Lar-
cher 2007: 41–42.
21 We can deduce from this that also circustantial sentences not occurring in compounds of
sentences could be parsed as ẓarf.
22 I oppose here Kasher’s view (2009b: 470–471, especially fn. 45) that ẓarf indicates a
syntactic function.
23 fa-taqūl qumtu l-yawma wa-qumtu fī l-yawmi fa-ʾanta turīd maʿnā fī wa-ʾin lam taḏkur-
hā wa-li-ḏālika summiyat ʾiḏā nuṣibat ẓurūfan li-ʾanna-hā qāmat maqām fī (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ
ʾUṣūl: i, 190).
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 179

temporal.24 The accusative case should not be interpreted as an exclusive, fun-

damental feature for the definition of ẓarf ; quite on the contrary, an accusative
element is defined ẓarf on the basis of both the locative/temporal meaning it
expresses and the preposition fī which underlies its structure. As a semantic
element, a ẓarf can then occur in different syntactic positions:

a) as an expansion of the np; the ẓarf can be both a pp or a np:

ex. (2a) zaydun qāʾimun fī l-dāri—zaydun mustaqirrun ḫalfa-ka25
b) as an expansion of the vp; the ẓarf can be both a pp or a np:
ex. (7) qumtu fī l-yawmi—(6) qumtu l-yawma
c) as the comment (ḫabar) in a nominal sentence; the ẓarf can be both a pp or
a np:
ex. (3) ʾinna fī l-dāri zaydan—(4) ʾinna ḫalfa-ka ʿamran26
d) as the (circumstantial) topic in a compound of sentences; the ẓarf is in this
case a sentence:
ex. (5) lammā ǧiʾta ǧiʾtu

Within the chapter on the mafʿūl fī-hi,27 the prototypical examples that are
given concern, as in (6), locative/temporal np functioning as expansion of
the verb, to which they are linked through taʿaddin (syntactical transitivity).
We can thus conclude that, for Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, the mafʿūl fī-hi is a syntactically
conditioned—it must be an expansion of the verb in the accusative case—
occurrence of a ẓarf.
What I have attempted to analyze is Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s treatment of ẓarf and
mafʿūl fī-hi. As he is more or less considered the standardizer of Arabic gram-
matical theory, we can consider that his treatment was to be adopted, in its
general principles, by all the grammarians to follow, without excluding imple-
mentations of different interpretations by different grammarians. Eventually,
these results match up to Larcher’s assertion that although every mafʿūl fī-hi is
a ẓarf, not every ẓarf is a mafʿūl fī-hi.

24 It is not a coincidence that Ibn al-Sarrāǧ defines the preposition fī as ‘the particle of ẓarf ’
(ḥarf al-ẓarf, ibid) See also Kasher 2013: 138.
25 This second example (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: i, 63) is actually the explanation Ibn al-Sarrāǧ
gives for the underlying structure of a ẓarf. For an analogous example from Zaǧǧāǧī, see
(12) below.
26 As I have already pointed out (see above, fn. 18), these sentences are actually locative
sentences. Zaǧǧāǧī (see below, § 3.1) gives some examples (8–10) where the ẓarf occurs
as the ḫabar of a basic nominal sentence.
27 Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: i, 190 ff. but also Mūǧaz: 35–36.
180 binaghi

3 Defining the mafʿūl fī-hi: Zaǧǧāǧī’s Approach

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned Zaǧǧāǧī’s statement that ‘the ẓurūf,
all of them, are mafʿūl fī-hi’,28 which actually seems to reverse completely the
interpretation drawn from Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s ʾUṣūl. However, before analyzing the
implications of this sentence, we first need to get an insight into Zaǧǧāǧī’s use
of ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi. In order to do this, I will focus on the occurrences of
these two terms in his Ǧumal, which will allow me to go back to the ʾĪḍāḥ and
analyze the context of the sentence in question.

3.1 The Syntactic Occurrences of the ẓarf

The ẓarf in Zaǧǧāǧī has almost the same extension as in Ibn al-Sarrāǧ. As far as
syntactic units are concerned, we see Zaǧǧāǧī call ẓarf both pp and np while
dealing with the different forms the ḫabar of a nominal sentence can take. He
states that ‘[the mubtadaʾ can be asserted] by a ẓarf as if you say’:

(8) muḥammadun fī l-dāri

Muḥammad-nom in det-house-gen
‘Muḥammad is in the house’

(9) zaydun ʿinda-ka

Zayd-nom near-acc-you-m.sg
‘Zayd is near you’

(10) ʿabdu llāhi ʾamāma-ka

ʿAbd-nom Allāh-gen in front of-acc-you-m.sg
‘ʿAbd Allāh is in front of you’

‘and what resembles that’,29 from which we clearly understand that for him
both fī l-dāri and ʿinda-ka are ẓarf-s. This passage lets us know as well that
the ẓarf can occur as a comment (ḫabar) in a nominal sentence (case c in
Ibn al-Sarrāǧ). This is also confirmed in the chapters and passages dedicated
to the transformation of this type of sentence either by ʾinna and its sisters

28 Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 50. On this passage, cf. also Versteegh 1995: 51.
29 [al-ism al-mubtadaʾ bi-hi yuḫbar ʿan-hu] bi-ẓarf ka-qawli-ka muḥammadun fī l-dāri wa-
zaydun ʿinda-ka wa-ʿabdu llāhi ʾamāma-ka wa-mā ʾašbaha ḏālika (Zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: 37).
Concerning the different meanings the couple ḫabar-ʾiḫbār can assume, see Larcher 1992
[2014a: ch. vii, 141–143].
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 181

(Zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: 52–53), or by kāna and its sisters (ibid: 42), or by ẓanna and its
sisters (ibid: 29–30).30
From the chapter on ʾinna and its sisters—actually called ‘the chapter of
the grammatical words that affect the ism with the accusative and the ḫabar
with the nominative’31—we can also infer that the ẓarf can occur as a nominal
expansion both in the form of a pp and of a np (case a in Ibn al-Sarrāǧ). Zaǧǧāǧī
(Ǧumal: 52–53) first analyzes sentences in which the ḫabar includes a ẓarf, as:

(11) ʾinna fī l-dāri bakran qāʾim-

where qāʾim- can be parsed either as ḥāl:

(11a) ʾinna fī l-dāri bakran qāʾiman

the fact is that in det-house-gen Bakr-acc standing-acc
‘(the fact is that) in the house is Bakr, standing’ (i.e. ‘there is Bakr in the
house, standing’)

or as ḫabar:

(11b) ʾinna fī l-dāri bakran qāʾimun

the fact is that in det-house-gen Bakr-acc standing-nom
‘(the fact is that), in the house, Bakr is standing’ (i.e. ‘Bakr is standing
in the house’)

If in (11a) the pp fī l-dār occupies the function of ḫabar, in (11b) it becomes,

syntactically, an expansion of qāʾim.32 This double parsing is only possible if the

30 Zaǧǧāǧī, however, does not define these latters as operators of a nominal sentence, nor
makes he any reference to the terms mubtadaʾ or ḫabar. On the contrary, he makes of
ẓanna and its sisters a particular category of verbs with respect to their taʿaddin1 or valency
transitivity (see below, fn. 36 and 45)—they are ditransitive verbs none of whose objects
can be omitted—and he calls the two objects mafʿūl (al-ʾawwal and al-ṯānī).
31 bāb al-ḥurūf al-latī tanṣib al-ism wa-tarfaʿ al-ḫabar (Zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: 51). With respect to the
translation, in this context, of ḥarf with ‘grammatical word’ rather than ‘particle,’ we have
to notice that Zaǧǧāǧī uses ḥarf also in the title of the chapter on kāna and its sisters, which
are verbs and could not be defined as particles (‘the chapter of the grammatical words that
affect the ism with the nominative and the ḫabar with the accusative’ bāb al-ḥurūf al-latī
tarfaʿ al-ʾasmāʾ wa-tanṣib al-ʾaḫbār, ibid: 41). On this point, see also Larcher 2014b: 623.
32 These examples are syntactically analogous to (1) and (2) mentioned above from Ibn al-
Sarrāǧ (zaydun fī l-dāri qāʾim-). However, they differ semantically from (1) and (2) because
182 binaghi

ẓarf is tāmm. Otherwise, if the ẓarf is ġayr tāmm, it cannot fulfil the function
of ḫabar and can then only be its expansion, as in the example:

(12) ʾinna ġadan ʾaḫā-ka rāḥilun

the fact is that tomorrow-acc brother-acc-you-m.sg leaving-nom
‘(the fact is that) tomorrow your brother is leaving’

where the np ġadan is to be parsed syntactically as an extension of rāḥil. The

adjectives tāmm and ġayr tāmm simply indicates if the ẓarf, in a given context,
can (or cannot) occupy the function of ḫabar, in order for the sentence to
convey a full meaning. The criteria for this are explained elsewhere by Zaǧǧāǧī:
in the chapter on ibtidāʾ, he states in fact that ‘the ẓarf of time cannot be ḫabar
of a body (ǧuṯṯa) but it can be ḫabar of a maṣdar’33 (Ǧumal: 38).
In Zaǧǧāǧī, we attest as well the ẓarf occurring as an expansion of the verb
(case b in Ibn al-Sarrāǧ), of which he gives some examples such as (Ǧumal: 33–
34):

(13) ḫaraǧtu yawma l-ǧumʿati

went out-1.sg day-acc det-Friday-gen
‘I went out on Friday’

(14) qaʿadtu ʾamāma zaydin

sat-1.sg in front of-acc Zayd-gen
‘I sat in front of Zayd’

the ẓarf precedes the mubtadaʾ in (11a) and both the mubtadaʾ and the ḫabar in (11b):
the ẓarf takes then what Riegel et al. have called a ‘scenic function’ (‘les circonstants à
fonction scénique qui participent à la mise en place préalable du cadre de circonstances
ou de connaissances thématisées où se situe le reste de la phrase’, Riegel et al. 20094
[1994]: 266). It is this scenic function that characterizes, when the ẓarf occurs as ḫabar
as in (11a), existential (or locative) sentences. On the contrary, (11b) cannot be analysed
as an existential sentence because of the casual declension of bakr: the accusative clearly
indicates that it functions as the ism (i.e. the mubtadaʾ) of ʾinna, whose ḫabar, Zaǧǧāǧī tells
us, is qāʾim; since the main functions are occupied, the ẓarf cannot in any way be parsed
as ḫabar. This would have been possible only if the funcion of ism ʾinna (i.e. mubtadaʾ) had
been occupied by an embedded nominal sentence, whose immediate constituents would
have then behaved normally, i.e. both taking a nominative ending (e.g. bakrun qāʾimun),
though the embedded sentence occupies itself an accusative case function. The same
analysis is also valid for the following example (12).
33 iʿlam ʾanna al-ẓurūf min al-zamān lā takūn ʾaḫbāran ʿan al-ǧuṯaṯ wa-lākin takūn ʾaḫbāran
ʿan al-maṣādir.
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 183

As a matter of fact, the extension of ẓarf in Zaǧǧāǧī’s grammatical writings

is analogous to what we found in Ibn al-Sarrāǧ; the only occurrence from the
latter, which is not attested for in the former, is that of the ẓarf occurring as
(circumstancial) topic in a compound of sentences (case d above). Zaǧǧāǧī
never mentions the term mafʿūl fī-hi in relation to the examples I have cited
(8–14).

3.2 The Accusative Complements and the Theory of taʿaddin

What actually differs from Ibn al-Sarrāǧ is the role Zaǧǧāǧī attributes to the
mafʿūl fī-hi within his general theory. Versteegh underlines that ‘[i]n later gram-
matical theory (e.g. Zamaxšarī […]), all mafʿūl-s are brought together in one
framework of transitivity (taʿaddin). A verb may have several objects […]’ and
he continues later ‘they [i.e. Basran grammarians] believe that each and every
accusative ending is the result of the governance (ʿamal) of a verb, which
implies that the adverbials of time and place have to be analyzed as objects’
(Versteegh 2008: 108). I have mentioned above the process of reorganization
of the accusative complements within the general theory, as far as this reorga-
nization involved the locative/temporal category and its denomination. I may
add now that Ibn al-Sarrāǧ links the mafʿūl fī-hi to the theory of taʿaddin as he
states ‘the mafʿūl fī-hi is subdivided in two classes: time and place. As to time,
all the verbs pass over (tataʿaddā ʾilā) to every one of its kind’34 (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ
ʾUṣūl: i, 190).
Indeed, Zaǧǧāǧī himself does not differ consistently from this general theory
of verbal complements: in his ʾĪḍāḥ, he asserts that a verb implies different
elements, such as the agent ( fāʿil), one or more objects (mafʿūl), the action
itself (maṣdar), the locative/temporal adjuncts (al-ẓarfayn min al-zamān wa-
l-makān), and the circumstance (ḥāl) (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 100–101; Versteegh 1995:
178). He deals with all these elements at the beginning of his Ǧumal: the fāʿil
and the mafʿūl are first discussed together (bāb al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl bi-hi, Zaǧǧāǧī
Ǧumal: 10–12); then, with reference to the mafʿūl, he divides the verbs into
seven classes according to their taʿaddin1 or valency (bāb ʾaqsām al-ʾafʿāl fī al-
taʿaddī [1], ibid: 27–31);35 finally, he deals with the three other elements that are
concerned with taʿaddin2 or syntactic transitivity (bāb mā tataʿaddā[2] ʾilay-hi
al-ʾafʿāl al-mutaʿaddiyya[1] wa-ġayr al-mutaʿaddiyya[1], ibid: 32–35).36

34 al-mafʿūl fī-hi yanqasim ʿalā qismayn zamān wa-makān ʾammā al-zamān fa-ʾinna ǧamīʿ al-
ʾafʿāl tataʿaddā ʾilā kull ḍarb min-hu. He later links the notion of taʿaddin also to the mafʿūl
fī-hi of place (Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: i, 197).
35 On the seven classes drawn by Zaǧǧāǧī, see also Kasher 2013: 119–120.
36 The very title of this chapter clearly shows that the word taʿaddin conceals two different
184 binaghi

While Ibn al-Sarrāǧ and later grammarians make of this taʿaddin2 the frame-
work where to bring together the five (or more)37 mafʿūl-s, Zaǧǧāǧī only lists
four elements: the maṣdar, the two ẓarf-s, and the ḥāl. No mention of the
term mafʿūl is made in this chapter, with the exception of a single compari-
son between the mafʿūl bi-hi and the maṣdar taking the final hāʾ (becoming
thus a ism al-waḥda).38 The two ẓarf-s—first the one of time and then the one
of place—are presented mainly by a list of words occurring as ẓarf (such as
al-yawma ‘today’ and ġudwata(n) ‘at early morning’ for time, and ʿinda-ka ‘near
you’ and mīl ‘mile’ for place) and by some illustrative sentences such as (13) and
(14).
In the section on the ẓarf of place we encounter two nominal sentences
where the ẓarf occurs as ḫabar (ibid: 34):

(15) ʿabdu llāhi ʿinda ʾaḫī-ka

ʿAbd-nom Allāh-gen near-acc brother-gen-you-m.sg
‘ʿAbd Allāh is near your brother’

(16) muḥammadun ʾamāma bakrin

Muḥammad-nom in front of-acc Bakr-gen
‘Muḥammad is in front of Bakr’

The inclusion of (15) and (16) within the chapter on the accusative expansions
of the verb enables us to infer that Zaǧǧāǧī, just as the other Arab grammarians,
posits an underlying verb (e.g. mustaqirr) in this kind of sentence. That’s how
he explains the accusative of the np ẓarf. This is further confirmed by the

connotations. Kasher has already noticed this double meaning: ‘whereas the term taʿaddin
applies in Sībawayhi’s al-Kitāb only to the relationship between a verb and a mafʿūl (bi-hi),
in later treatises it acquires a double meaning: in the more restricted meaning it applies
only to mafʿūl bi-hi, while in its more general meaning it applies also to constituents
implementing other functions, e.g. ẓarf ’ (Kasher 2013: 138). I would go further and say
that ‘in the more restricted meaning’ taʿaddin1 mainly refers to the semantic roles of
the verbal complements in a meaning very close to that of valency (it involves both
direct and indirect object, even though a difference between the syntactic construction
of these two objects is made), while ‘in its more general meaning’ taʿaddin2 refers to the
syntactic aspects of transitivity (including all the accusative expansions of the verb, be
they complements or adjuncts).
37 For a brief summary of all the types of mafʿūl-s and some references, see Taha 2008: 101.
38 The masḍar taking the final hāʾ becomes defined and in consequence can take the dual
and the plural form just as a mafʿūl bi-hi (ʾillā ʾan tadḫul ʿalay-hi al-hāʾ fa-yaṣīr maḥdūdan
fa-yuḍāriʿ al-mafʿūl bi-hi fa-yuṯannā wa-yuǧmaʿ, Zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: 32).
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 185

very short explanation he gives: ‘when you put it [i.e. the noun of place (or
time)] as a ẓarf in its spot [i.e. as an expansion of the verb], it takes the
accusative ending’,39 but ‘if you move it from this spot of its, it is [i.e. functions
syntactically] as the rest of the nouns.’40
In this chapter, then, Zaǧǧāǧī does not content himself only with listing the
accusative adjuncts of the verb, but also tries to account for the accusative end-
ing of the np ẓarf in other occurrences than that of (explicit) verbal expansion.

3.3 Where Do We Find Then the mafʿūl fī-hi?

Indeed, Zaǧǧāǧī makes use of the category of mafʿūl-s: he brings them together
in the ‘chapter on the kinds of mafʿūl’ (bāb ʾaqsām al-mafʿūlīn, ibid: 316–320).41
He even mentions the same kinds as his teacher Ibn al-Sarrāǧ: mafʿūl muṭlaq,
mafʿūl bi-hi, mafʿūl fī-hi, mafʿūl maʿa-hu and mafʿūl la-hu. As I have repeated
more than once, the general category of mafʿūl-s took place:

a) for taxonomic reasons: in order to bring together all the nouns having an
accusative ending, al-manṣūbāt (vs. nouns in the nominative, al-marfūʿāt,
and nouns in the genitive, al-maǧrūrāt);
b) to account especially for the expansions of the verb;
c) in a framework of taʿaddin2 or syntactic transitivity;
d) in an almost defined way by the time of Ibn al-Sarrāǧ.

With regard to these four elements, if we analyse Zaǧǧāǧī’s Ǧumal, we can easily
point out some discrepancies.

a) In the Ǧumal, the organisation and presentation of the grammatical ele-

ments do not provide a taxonomic division of the noun into nominative (al-
marfūʿāt), accusative (al-manṣūbāt), and genitive (al-maǧrūrāt). Moreover,

39 ʾiḏā ǧaʿalta-hu [i.e. ʾasmāʾ al-ʾamkina] ẓarfan fī mawḍiʿi-hi intaṣaba (ibid: 34): this sentence
is actually taken from the section on the ẓarf of place. In the section on the ẓarf of time, the
sentence is slightly different but conveys the same meaning: [wa-mā ʾašbaha ḏālika min
ʾasmāʾ al-ʾazmina] yakūn manṣūban ʾabadan ʾiḏā ǧiʾta bi-hi ẓarfan fī mawḍiʿi-hi (ibid: 33).
40 fa-ʾin naqalta-hu min mawḍiʿi-hi hāḏā kāna ka-sāʾir al-ʾasmāʾ (ibid: 34).
41 Attention has to be drawn on the term Zaǧǧāǧī uses to define the elements of this category,
al-mafʿūlīn, which seems to be unique in this context and contrasts with the two terms,
either al-mafāʿīl or al-mafʿūlāt, that have mainly been adopted within the grammatical
tradition. The masculine plural suffix (-īn) reveals that the term mafʿūl is used here by
Zaǧǧāǧī in its verbal acceptation, which indicates in turn that, in Zaǧǧāǧī’s view, the
elements of this category are full verbal complements.
186 binaghi

the chapter on the mafʿūl-s occurs towards the end of the Ǧumal, whereas
nouns would have usually been dealt with at the beginning, before verbs and
particles. Anyhow, that could have an internal logic in his treatise: in the pre-
ceding and following chapters, Zaǧǧāǧī presents “cross-category items,” that
is items that have been mentioned at different moments in the Ǧumal and
of which he tries to make coherent unities.42 The mafʿūl-s could then have,
in Zaǧǧāǧī’s view, a “cross-category” role.43
b) Undoubtedly, the intension of mafʿūl is linked to the action of the verb44
and the examples Zaǧǧāǧī gives are all of verbal sentences. Yet, Zaǧǧāǧī’s
focus seems more on the semantic meaning of the five mafʿūl-s than on their
syntactic relationship to the verb; this is made more explicit by the following
point.
c) The category of mafʿūl-s is not linked in any way to the concept of taʿaddin2.
This term never occurs in this chapter.
d) Zaǧǧāǧī himself tells us that he attended Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s classes (Zaǧǧāǧī
ʾĪḍāḥ: 79; Versteegh 1995: 122). Besides, Versteegh (1995: 3) suggests that the
model for Zaǧǧāǧī’s Ǧumal would have been Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s Mūǧaz. In spite of
all this, the previous analysis showed that Zaǧǧāǧī’s grammatical treatement
and presentation are different from those of his teacher.

In this unconventional framework, we encounter the category of mafʿūl fī-hi

which, contrary to Ibn al-Sarrāǧ but similarly to Mubarrad, consists of both ẓarf
and ḥāl.
As in the rest of the Ǧumal, Zaǧǧāǧī gives several examples and short defini-
tions for each grammatical topic. Even so, those are often sharp and let us get an
insight of Zaǧǧāǧī’s grammatical theories; this is the case for the mafʿūl fī-hi as
well. The text states that ‘they [i.e. the ẓarf and the ḥāl] are mafʿūl fī-hi because
the verb does not reach them ( yaṣil) nor affect them ( yaqaʿ)45 but rather they

42 I would mention, for example, the ‘chapter on the grammatical words that affect what fol-
lows with the nominative by means of ibtidāʾ and ḫabar and that are called “grammatical
words of the nominative” ’ (bāb al-ḥurūf al-latī yartafiʿ mā baʿda-hā bi-l-ibtidāʾ wa-l-ḫabar
wa-tusammā ḥurūf al-rafʿ, ibid: 302–304), where particles such as ʾinna-mā and ka-ʾanna-
mā and interrogative nouns such as ʾayna and kayfa are brought together. I could mention
as well the three chapters on the syntactic occurrences of mā, man and ʾayy (bāb mawāḍiʿ
mā/man/ʾayy, ibid: 321–324).
43 I will come back to this point at the end of the article.
44 On the meaning and translation of the five mafʿūl-s, see for example Larcher 1991: 140–141
[2014: ch. xv, 269–270].
45 With respect to the different kinds of relations a verb can maintain with other elements
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 187

contain the agent, the object and the verb together’ (Zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: 316).46
This definition underlines that, in his view, the mafʿūl fī-hi is not semantically a
modifier of the verb—not an ad-verb in its etymological meaning—but rather
a modifier of the sentence—that is to say, as Zaǧǧāǧī puts it, of its predicative
core.
We have to notice that all the examples mentioned here concern only verbal
sentences, but this could hardly be surprising. In a nominal sentence, a loca-
tive/temporal element can occur either as a nominal expansion:

(11b.1) bakrun qāʾimun fī l-dāri

or as a comment (ḫabar):

(8) muḥammadun fī l-dāri

(16) muḥammadun ʾamāma bakrin47

of the sentence, I have already tried to define the kinds of relations implied by the verb
yataʿaddā (see above fn. 36). In the present definition we encounter two other verbs: yaṣil
and yaqaʿ. The first one is defined by Taha as ‘a semantic process consisting in the verb’s
(or rather, the action denoted by the verb) “reaching” first the agent, and then the patient’
(Taha 2009: 414); the yaṣil-relation does exactly what it means: the verb ‘links’ the agent to
the patient. The second one, yaqaʿ, defines the patient of the action expressed by the verb
(lit. on what the action falls, what the action affects). Compared to these two, the taʿaddin-
relations do not concern the agent and seem more focused on the different expansions of
the verb (not only the patient): taʿaddin2 encompasses all the syntactic expansions of the
verb, whereas taʿaddin1 is circumscribed to its semantic complements in a meaning close
to that of valency.
46 wa-hiya [i.e. al-ẓurūf wa-l-ʾaḥwāl] mafʿūl fī-hā li-ʾanna al-fiʿl lā yaṣil ʾilay-hā wa-lā yaqaʿ bi-
hā wa-ʾinna-mā hiya muḥtawiya ʿalā al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl wa-l-fiʿl maʿan. The explanation
continues with a comparison between the mafʿūl fī-hi (which contains agent, object and
verb) and the vessels (ẓurūf ) which contain things ( fa-šubbihat bi-l-ẓurūf al-muḥtawiya
li-l-ʾašyāʾ al-muštamala ʿalay-hā). This not only helps to elucidate the intension of gram-
matical ẓarf, but it probably constitues a clue for its origin as well: this seems, in fact, to
support the thesis of Merx (1889: 145–146) and Talmon (2000: 248) that the Arabic category
of ẓarf comes from Greek logic and, more precisely, from the Aristotelian word anggeíon
‘vessel, receptacle’ used to define the temporal and the local circumstances (cf. also Ver-
steegh 2008: 106). This allusion does not sound unexpected in a grammarian deeply influ-
enced by Greek logic.
47 This is one of the two examples of nominal sentences that Zaǧǧāǧī mentions in the section
on the ẓarf (see above, § 3.2). These examples are not mentioned while dealing with the
mafʿūl fī-hi.
188 binaghi

In both cases, the ẓarf represents, or composes, the ḫabar, that is one of
the two main constituents of the nucleus of a nominal sentence. The analogy
of these two cases is incidentally supported by two considerations: from the
viewpoint of the Arabic grammatical theory, a ẓarf occurring as ḫabar supposes
an implicit verb or a nominal form of it, such as mustaqirr or qāʾim,48 a verb
which is explicit in the first case; from a semantic point of view, the ẓarf is
in both cases part of the assertion (ḫabar), that is of the new information
the sentence gives (the comment, as opposed to the topic (mubtadaʾ)),49 and
then makes a semantic unit with the verb (or its participle) if this latter is
mentioned. These two kinds of occurrences could well have been called mafʿūl
fī-hi, since either they posit an underlying verb or they are linked to a nominal
form having a verbal meaning. This is not the case for Zaǧǧāǧī—nor for the
other Arab grammarians. As shown above, Zaǧǧāǧī states that the mafʿūl fī-hi is
a circumstance (ẓarf or ḥāl) that modifies the predicative core of the sentence.
Considering that in a nominal sentence the ẓarf is part of the predicative core,
it cannot be labelled mafʿūl fī-hi.
From what we have seen so far, Zaǧǧāǧī considers mafʿūl fī-hi as a subset of
ẓarf, just as Ibn al-Sarrāǧ. What changes between the two grammarians is the
way they establish the extension of mafʿūl fī-hi: whereas Ibn al-Sarrāǧ defines
the mafʿūl fī-hi as a syntactically conditioned occurrence of the ẓarf, Zaǧǧāǧī
defines it logically.

3.4 Has Zaǧǧāǧī Just Not Said the Opposite?

I can now go back to the statement Zaǧǧāǧī makes in his ʾĪḍāḥ (‘the ẓurūf,
all of them, are mafʿūl fī-hi’),50 where the two categories are reversed and
the ẓarf seems to be identified as a subset of the mafʿūl fī-hi. The statement
occurs in the chapter on the definition of the three parts of speech (noun,
verb and particle)51 and it is within this framework that it should be inter-
preted.
Zaǧǧāǧī’s dialectical argumentation of the definition of the noun brings him
to analyse al-ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ’s (d. 215/830) statement that ‘the noun is that
about which it is permitted [to say] nafaʿa-nī “it helped me” or ḍarra-nī “it

48 See, for example, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ ʾUṣūl: i, 63.

49 For the equivalence of the Arabic nominal sentence with the topic/comment structure,
see Larcher 2010: passim.
50 al-ẓurūf kullu-hā mafʿūl fī-hā (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 50; see also Versteegh 1995: 51).
51 bāb maʿrifat ḥadd al-ism wa-l-fiʿl wa-l-ḥarf (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 48–55; see also Versteegh 1995:
49–71).
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 189

harmed me”’,52 which Zaǧǧāǧī paraphrases as the possibility for a noun to be

predicated.53 Zaǧǧāǧī refutes then this definition on the basis that some lexical
units cannot be predicated—as it is the case for interrogatives such as kayfa
‘how’, ʾayna ‘where’ and matā ‘when’54—, but nonetheless they are nouns. The
justification he adduces to prove this point consists in an analogical reasoning
according to which these interrogatives are nouns because their answers are
nouns.
In order to understand the scope of Zaǧǧāǧī’s reasoning, we had better take
a step backward and have a quick look at Zaǧǧāǧī’s definition of the noun: ‘the
noun in the language of the Arabs is what can be agent ( fāʿil) or patient (mafʿūl)
or occurs in the extent of the fāʿil and of the mafʿūl bi-hi’.55 It means that Zaǧǧāǧī
has to link the inerrogatives kayfa, ʾayna and matā to one of these three cases
( fāʿil, mafʿūl or their extent) if he wants to prove that they are nouns.
Zaǧǧāǧī does exactly that, as he states from the very beginning of his jus-
tification that these interrogatives are ‘in the extent’ of the mafʿūl bi-hi.56 He
subsequently goes into details and explains first that kayfa is a question for the
circumstance (ḥāl), which is considered analogous to a mafʿūl because for the
Basrans it is a mafʿūl bi-hi, while for al-Kisāʾī (d. 183/799) it resembles time, and
for Zaǧǧāǧī the time is mafʿūl fī-hi.57 Then, Zaǧǧāǧī states that ‘ʾayna and “its sis-

52 al-ism mā ǧāza fī-hi nafaʿa-nī wa-ḍarra-nī (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 49). I quote Versteegh’s transla-
tion (1995: 50) here.
53 yaʿnī mā ǧāza ʾan yuḫbar ʿan-hu (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 49; see also Versteegh 1995: 50).
54 min al-ʾasmāʾ mā lā yaǧūz al-ʾiḫbār ʿan-hu naḥw kayfa wa-ʾayna wa-matā wa-ʾannā wa-
ʾayyāna lā yaǧūz al-ʾiḫbār ʿan šayʾ min-hā (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 49; see also Versteegh 1995: 50).
55 al-ism fī kalām al-ʿarab mā kāna fāʿilan ʾaw mafʿūlan ʾaw wāqiʿan fī ḥayyiz al-fāʿil wa-l-mafʿūl
bi-hi (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 48; see also Versteegh 1995: 49).
56 li-ʾanna-hā fī ḥayyiz al-mafʿūl bi-hi (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 49; see also Versteegh 1995: 50). As far
as the meaning of ‘in the extent of the mafʿūl (bi-hi)’ is concerned, Zaǧǧāǧī states later
that ‘the only thing that can follow the verb after the agent ( fāʿil) is the patient (mafʿūl)
or something in its extent’ (lā yatbaʿ al-fiʿl baʿd al-fāʿil ʾillā mafʿūl ʾaw mā kāna fī ḥayyizi-hi,
Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 50; see also Versteegh 1995: 50–51). This recalls the list of elements that a
verb implies which Zaǧǧāǧī makes later in the book: the agent ( fāʿil), one or more objects
(mafʿūl), the action itself (maṣdar), the locative/temporal adjuncts (al-ẓarfayn) and the
circumstance (ḥāl) (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 100–101; Versteegh 1995: 178). We infer, thus, that the
‘extent of the mafʿūl’ indicates for Zaǧǧāǧī the maṣdar, the two ẓarf-s and the ḥāl.
57 kayfā suʾāl ʿan al-ḥāl wa-l-ḥāl mafʿūl bi-hā ʿinda al-baṣriyyīn wa-ʿinda al-kisāʾī hiya muḍāraʿa
li-l-waqt wa-l-waqt mafʿūl fī-hi (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 49–50; see also Versteegh 1995: 50). That—
i.e. considering the ḥāl as time—could be a clue for understanding why Zaǧǧāǧī in the
Ǧumal includes the ḥāl in the category of mafʿūl fī-hi (see above, §3.3).
190 binaghi

ters” are ẓurūf, and the ẓurūf, all of them, are mafʿūl fī-hi’.58 It is clear that this
was the conclusion Zaǧǧāǧī had to come to in order to support his reasoning
which aimed at the refutation of al-ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ’s definition of the noun.
It is evident that the use Zaǧǧāǧī makes of ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi in the Ǧumal
is different from its use in the ʾĪḍāḥ. Whereas in the former the analysis of
the two terms is in fact mainly grammatical, in the latter ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-
hi are used from a—I would dare to say—‘ontological’ perspective in order to
define the extension of ism (noun): all the ẓarf-s imply either time or place
and thus (can) indicate (along with the ḥāl) that in which the action takes
place, which is the literal translation of al-mafʿūl fī-hi; this latter is (as its name
explicitly attests) one of the ‘extent’ (or variant) of mafʿūl, which in turn is
one of the possible occurrences that define the noun. This proceeding in the
categorisation as nouns of interrogatives such as kayfa, ʾayna and matā can be
schematized as follows:

noun > mafʿūl > mafʿūl fī-hi > ẓarf

From this perspective, the ẓarf becomes a subset of mafʿūl fī-hi.

A link between these two levels of interpretation must not be excluded.
Quite on the contrary, I have proposed to interpret the chapter on the five
mafʿūl-s in the Ǧumal as a ‘cross-category’ chapter: this idea could be supported
if we analyse it from the perspective of the definition of the noun. The defini-
tion we have encountered in the ʾĪḍāḥ is in fact slightly different from the one
Zaǧǧāǧī gives in the Ǧumal, where he states that ‘the noun is what can be fāʿil or
mafʿūl or can be added to one of the particles of the genitive.’59 As he does not
give any more (explicit) explanation on the subject, the insertion of a chapter
on the five mafʿūl-s represents a kind of implicit explanation: a word that can
occur as one of the five mafʿūl-s should be considered a noun. If I take the exam-
ple of the interrogatives kayfa, ʾayna and matā and I follow the same reasoning
Zaǧǧāǧī helds in the ʾĪḍāḥ, in the chapter on the five mafʿūl-s it is possible to
find the answer to these questions: ǧāʾa zaydun musriʿan, qaʿadtu ʾamāma-ka
and ḫaraǧtu yawma l-ǧumʿati respectively.60

58 wa-ʾayna wa-ʾaḫawātu-hā ẓurūf wa-l-ẓurūf kullu-hā mafʿūl fī-hā (Zaǧǧāǧī ʾĪḍāḥ: 50; see also
Versteegh 1995: 51). I should also mention the fact that these two occurrences of mafʿūl
fī-hi are the only ones in the whole ʾĪḍāḥ.
59 fa-l-ism mā ǧāza ʾan yakūn fāʿilan ʾaw mafʿūlan ʾaw daḫala ʿalay-hi ḥarf min ḥurūf al-ḫafḍ
(Zaǧǧāǧī Ǧumal: 1).
60 Ibid: 316.
ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi: some notes on zaǧǧāǧī’s treatment 191

Conclusion

Throughout this article, I have analysed the categories of ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi as
they occur in Ibn al-Sarrāǧ’s ʾUṣūl and, in a more detailed manner, in Zaǧǧāǧī’s
Ǧumal and ʾĪḍāḥ. This allows me to draw some conclusions. I can highlight four
main points:

1. ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi—which have generally been considered as synonyms

or, at least, ‘alternative’ terms—are actually not synonyms;
2. The ẓarf is not only the original category, i.e. older than the mafʿūl fī-hi,
but also the basic linguistic element. The second part of this conclusion is
further clarified by the following point;
3. In the standard theory of the Arab grammarians, the ẓarf indicates the
semantic role of time and place. The mafʿūl fī-hi is a subset of all the pos-
sible occurrences of the ẓarf : Ibn al-Sarrāǧ defines it syntactically as the
ẓarf that occurs as an expansion of the verb in the accusative case; Zaǧǧāǧī,
on the contrary, defines it logically as the ẓarf whose scope is the predica-
tive core of the sentence—which can actually only occur in a verbal sen-
tence;
4. Zaǧǧāǧī makes use of the two categories of ẓarf and mafʿūl fī-hi not only for
his linguistic analysis, but also for the definition of the noun as a part of
speech. In this latter case, the ẓarf is functionally identified as a subset of
mafʿūl fī-hi for its possibility of occurring as a mafʿūl fī-hi, which resembles
the mafʿūl and therefore constitutes one of the possible occurrences of a
noun.

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 chapter 10

The Role of Metaphor in the Interpretation of

Prepositions: The Arabic min and the French de

Nadia Anghelescu

1 Introductory Remarks

This article comes on the heels of the author’s interest in the history of language
reflection in the Arab space of the ancient age (from the 8th through the 13th
century), and in the more recent European linguistic thinking, i.e. beginning
with the last century. Our attention is focused in particular upon certain par-
allelisms occurring in the way in which Arabic and French language research
mirrors an evolution towards the abstract, in different eras, of certain similar
meanings of prepositions like the Arabic min in relation to the French de. We
wish to underline from the beginning that this cannot be an instance of old Ara-
bic linguistics reflecting on tendencies in modern-age European linguistics, but
only an instance of parallel evolutions of certain explanations, the meanings of
which we propose to decipher (some observations regarding adjacent subjects
are to be found in Anghelescu 1999, 2000, and 2004).
Our perspective in what follows is the functional-typological one. We there-
fore pursue two aspects:

– on the one hand, the manner in which the meanings of some function-words
bearing similar functions in the French and Arabic languages evolve towards
the abstract (ḥurūf al-ǧarr ‘words that bind,’ in the terminology of Arab
grammarians, prepositions, in the older and newer European terminology);
– on the other hand, we examine the way in which the evolution of the
meanings of these function-words is reflected, in different periods, in the
European and Arabic linguistic research.

Our endeavour, by and large, falls within the framework of diachronic linguistic
typology, as conceived in the European space of the last centuries, but is
particularized by the attention it directs to the discourse on language in the
ancient Arabic linguistic space (centuries 8th through 13th). In this respect,
we aim to highlight the degree to which schools of language interpretation,
situated at great distances in time and space, are typologically alike and, in

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_012

196 anghelescu

the event of distinguishable compatibilities, what their source is and what

we are allowed to assume regarding the common directions in thinking about
language.

2 Starting from the Modern: How the Presence of the French

Preposition de is Explained

We have chosen to begin the exposition of the interpretations regarding the

meanings which certain prepositions similar in functions introduce starting
from the modern and moving back towards the ancient, since it would oth-
erwise be more difficult for the European reader to understand one type of
linguistic thinking, the Arabic one, whose object is a language pertaining to
another linguistic family and which was born in a different cultural context.
The end of the last century, and especially its last decade, was a period of
time during which a series of books and articles were published, regarding
French prepositions and the preposition de in particular, works whose almost
simultaneous publication we take not to be arbitrary: among the articles we
mention here, there are those authored by Cervoni (1991), Berthonneau and
Cadiot (1993), Vandeloise et al. (special issue of Langages entitled La couleur
des prépositions, 1993), Kupferman (1996), Cadiot (1997). Perhaps not coinci-
dentally, most of them have affinities with the points of view expressed by their
forerunner on prepositions, Gustave Guillaume (1964). The latter does not deal
with the French language alone in his works, but aims to build a theory of the
language which applies to linguistic constructions in general, thus to the lan-
guages of the world altogether.
Our attention was particularly drawn to a paper bearing a significant title, by
Lucien Kupferman, regarding the preposition we are hereby interested in: Un
bien grand mot: de. De la préposition au mode de quantification. The frequency
of de is surprising from the very beginning, greater than that of all other
prepositions:

de—50.7%; à—14,5%; en—6.7%; dans—3.7 %; par—3.6 %

Delimiting two types of functions of the French ‘preposition’ de is also suitable

for the equivalent Arabic preposition min:

Generally speaking, de bears a double function: one in which, as a ver-

itable preposition, it materializes the relationship already established
between two constituents, and one in which, as a veritable trans-prep-
the role of metaphor in the interpretation of prepositions 197

ositional particle, it only establishes a relationship with the following

constituent, as would an article.
kupferman 1996: 5

Alongside others, Kupferman wonders why the spatial or spatio-temporal use

of the preposition de should be necessarily considered as the source of others
(1996: 5). It is one of the questions which hereby concerns us, not only in
connection with de but also with the Arabic preposition min: the answer to this
question cannot be conclusive, but it can become clearer as we refer to other
linguistic spaces, as is the case with the Arabic linguistic space.
Space, it has long been claimed, does not present itself to our consciousness
as an immediate given, but rather as a result of a complex cognitive process;
when the meaning of some very abstract words about space, such as preposi-
tions, comes into play, the difficulties are inherent. In the collective volume to
which we refer (Vandeloise (ed.) 1993), Spang-Hanssen makes a remark with
which we concur, upon the relationship between ‘the space’ of the linguistic
discourse and the extra-linguistic one, both dependent on the functionalities:
‘Going from the structure of the phrase to that of space, modern linguistics
has explored the imaginary universe of discourse.’ (emphasis ours) (Spang-
Hanssen 1993: 23).
In what concerns the preposition de, Cervoni believes that it was not acci-
dentally chosen by Guillaume as a symbol for an entire category. It is part
(alongside à) of the ‘diastematic’ elements which have their incidence not in
a frame, but in an ‘interval’ developed by the mind between two frames: these
elements would be morphemes, in general, and the preposition is also a mor-
pheme in Guillaume’s conception (Cervoni 1991: 72).
Cervoni considers that it is the metaphor that comes into play here, man-
ifest in the evolution not only of the meaning of words endowed with a sig-
nificance of their own, but also of other words—including prepositions. In
order to explain what he understands by this statement, he refers, for exam-
ple, to the metaphoric equivalent of the French verb rassembler, which is se
rapprocher, thus a word alluding to space, to movement in space (Cervoni 1991:
83).
The interpretation itself of the ‘spatial’ prepositions has, for Pierre Cadiot
(1997: 10–12), a ‘horizontal’ and a ‘vertical’ aspect, when the author brings into
discussion the ‘monosemic’ (monosémique) hypothesis for the prepositions we
are hereby interested in (primarily de):

1. A vertical aspect (vertical polysemy), in which to every sentence an abstract,

generic base value is attributed (hyperonyms), which cannot be represented,
198 anghelescu

while the ‘usage’ meanings (hyponyms) are attributed through a context-

dependent specification;
2. A horizontal aspect (horizontal polysemy) which is comprised of valorising
one of the used implications, advancing it to the rank of prototype: the other
uses will then be derived according to mechanisms which are themselves
general (analogy, metaphor);

Discussing de, the author thinks that its ‘original’ meaning is felt as being the
‘departure point’, a point of view to which not everyone subscribes. Brøndal
is also brought into discussion in order to contradict the view that spatial
identification precedes the temporal one: space cannot be separated from time,
time is not secondary in relation to space, etc. Apparently unconnected to all
that comes the account of de as a marker of certain quantifier expressions:
either strictly quantifiers, such as degrees of weight, distance, etc., or words
which express material realities (assembly, group, volume, etc.).
We should keep in mind some of the observations of the aforementioned
French authors, insight which is useful for the typological comparison we will
propose:

1. De is not a preposition like any other: with some uses (when it does not
‘bind’, but only refers to one element of the discourse), it rather resembles
an article;
2. The ‘point of departure’ concept seems to stand at the origin of the other
values of de in the mind-set of most of the mentioned authors;
3. Related to this concept is the concept of Fr. ‘éloignement’ in the sense of
departure, dislodgement, moving away, considered by some authors as being
the primary one for de;
4. The ‘partitive’ meaning is explained by some authors as being a derivative,
yet highly important one;
5. The various meanings of the preposition de can be explained through met-
aphor, through the spatial metaphor: ‘point of departure,’ ‘continuous line,’
these are the terms through which space is brought into the discussion
regarding min.

This does not mean that all authors share this opinion regarding the spatial
metaphor that is supposed to underlie various ‘values’ of the French de, as well
as its equivalents in other languages (see above). However, there are quite a
few researchers who believe that the evolution of de was brought forth from
a spatial meaning of the preposition de to other meanings, more abstract,
but similar in varied languages: ‘Latin dē “down from” and Spanish de “of”
the role of metaphor in the interpretation of prepositions 199

exemplify the diachronic aspect of grammaticalization, since the concrete local

meaning of classical Latin dē is no longer present in Spanish de’ (Lehmann 1993:
315).
French de is thought to have modified the fate of the English of, as Seth
Lindstromberg shows:

The semantics of of are unusually complex. The roots of this lie in the
centuries just before and after the Norman-French conquest of England
in 1066. During this period, first written English and eventually spoken
English was altered by the use of of to translate into English certain
French constructions that hitherto had had no exact counterparts in
English. Because many of the written texts were religious or legal they
were particularly influential. For example, among the many uses of the
French preposition de there was (and is) that of indicating ‘partness’ e.g.
le centre de la ville = the centre of the town. Of had not been used this
way before and this change played a role in the eventual evolution of of
from a full blooded, depictable preposition meaning off ‘from’ to a non-
depictable grammatical preposition.
lindstromberg 1998: 195

As can be seen, the author speaks here of borrowing grammatical forms, i.e.
a potential copying into English of a meaning derived from the spatial one,
which is also the original meaning of the English of. He is not convinced
of the fact that the spatial meaning of a preposition can diachronically (or
conceptually!) precede other meanings of the preposition de and of its partial
equivalent, of. However, we are led to believe that, if the sense of a preposition
can be borrowed from one language into another, then deriving one sense from
another might be seen as pertaining to a logic that transcends one particular
language.
In what follows we will not be dealing with general considerations regarding
the pre-eminence of one concept or another from a philosophical or histori-
cal perspective, but rather with the manifestation on a linguistic level of the
relationships between concepts and, in this regard, the evidence that can be
brought forth through the analysis of some languages remote in time and space
can be useful.
200 anghelescu

3 Min with Arab Authors of the First Generations: A General Profile

The authors to whom we will refer next by using their shortened names, i.e.
Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?) and Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī (d. 761/1360), wrote in Arabic,
regardless of their place of origin; the former on this list also influenced the
entire linguistic tradition that came after him.
It has long been said that language research and concerns for language
purity are born in societies in which said language is threatened either by
another language or by a more recent, ‘faulty’ form of the same language.
As with other spaces, linguistic studies were born in the Arab space first of
all in order to preserve the unaltered character of a language respected to
the utmost degree: the language of the Qurʾan. This language had distanced
itself from the everyday language of the Arabs, whose evolution was marked
by its contact with other languages and civilizations. As with other grammat-
ical traditions, the normative concerns for keeping the language unaltered
are inflected, for the Arabic-writing grammarians, with explicative concerns
regarding the system of the language. In order to discuss the said system, these
grammarians, beginning with Sībawayhi, often fall back upon the anthropo-
morphic metaphor: for instance, elements pertaining to the same category
are ‘sisters,’ of which some manifest ‘sympathy’ or ‘antipathy’ towards others,
etc.
The concern for keeping the Arabic language intact in its classical form of
the Qurʾan (pré-classical, in Pierre Larcher’s view (2005)) is combined with
the concern about presenting the system of the language, about its ‘logical’
legitimation. The term ‘logical’ is not used here by accident, considering that
most works regarding the Arabic language with which we will deal next were
published when the Greek way of reasoning was gaining ground in Arab lin-
guistic thought. The concern for defining the notions with which the science
of language operates is also reflected in the way in which ‘function-words’ are
conceived.
With Sībawayhi, the most renowned and most often quoted of the old Arab
grammarians, we can find suggestions for interpreting the preposition min,
with an indefinite partitive value, in non-assertive sentences, in examples
which will often be reproduced by his followers, such as:

– in an interrogative sentence:
hal min ṭaʿām?
‘perhaps of food?’
‘is there, perhaps, food/something of food?’
the role of metaphor in the interpretation of prepositions 201

– in a sentence containing a negation:

mā min ṭaʿām
‘not of food’
‘there is no food (nothing of food)’

In order to explain some of the non-assertive sentences, such as the former one
above, in which min introduces an indefinite meaning, Sībawayhi falls back
upon adding some words which highlight the idea of indefinite situation: fī
zamān wa makān? ‘at some time, somewhere’:

hal min ṭaʿām fī zamān wa-makān?

‘is there some thing of food, some time, somewhere?’
(‘at some time in some place’)

As for the Arab authors coming after the first generation, it has been said that,
for the most part, they always follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. The
last century’s research in the history of Arabic linguistic studies showed that
there were quite a few authors who distanced themselves, to some extent, from
the perspective on language which Sībawayhi had heralded, among which is
Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī.
The author of the famous synthetic work Muġnī, Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī does
not generally stray away from the tradition of interpretation which his prede-
cessors had heralded, as far as the analysis of prepositions goes, as well as in
other regards. It is however worthy to note that the author assigns a particular
importance to the ‘grammatical words’ of the Arabic language, which means
to those without a meaning of their own: prepositions, for example, which
are ‘particles that bind’ hurūf al-waṣl, as it ensues from the terminology of the
ancient Arab authors. As other authors mentioned here, Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī
spends more time on the preposition min, with its multiple values (fifteen!), out
of which the most important, we are told, is that of ‘point of departure,’ ‘begin-
ning’: this value is deemed so important that, in Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī’s opinion,
all the other ones can be explained starting from it (see Anghelescu 2004: 358).
We do not intend to put together a list of all meanings that the preposition
min brings forth as indicated by Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī and by others following
him, since we are interested in the type of explanations, rather than in the
explanations themselves and the examples the author uses. We do highlight
however that the affinity of the preposition equivalent to de with structures
related to quantification results from the examples given by this author, as
it does in other works, in Arabic as well as in other languages that have a
preposition with equivalent functions.
202 anghelescu

Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī introduces the partitive meaning for min immediately
after that of ‘beginning in space and time’.

min-hum man kallama Allāha

‘[Some] of them spoke to God’ (the prophets, our note)

The old Arab grammarians interpreted some structures containing min as

referring not to the partitive, but to the species:

mā yaftaḥu Allāh li-l-nās min raḥma

‘Which God opens to people of mercy’
‘The mercy that God shows toward people’

Note: some examples including min as an indefinite quantifier can also be

found in Cantarino (1974: ii, 262–263):

daḫala ʾiḏ ḏāka ʿabd min ʿabīdi-hi

‘Came in this moment a servant of his servants’
‘At this moment one of his servants came in’

ʾaḥabba-hā kaṯīr min al-nubalāʾ wa-l-ʾašrāf

‘Loved her many of the nobleman and aristocrats’
‘Many noblemen and aristocrats loved her’

Like its equivalents from other languages, such as the French and Romanian
de, min plays an important role in expressing the idea of definite and indefinite
quantity, as it results from the examples below:

ṯalāṯa min al-riǧāl

‘Three (of the) men’

The affinity of the preposition min with quantitative structures was also re-
marked upon by the old authors, and it becomes all the more obvious, the closer
we get to the modern age:

ʾayy min al-riǧāl

‘Which of the men’
or: ‘Whichever of the men’, ‘whichever man’
the role of metaphor in the interpretation of prepositions 203

The presence of min is random alongside certain indefinite quantifiers:

kull min al-riǧāl kullu al-riǧāl

‘each of the men’, i.e. ‘each man’; ‘all men’

baʿḍ min al-riǧāl baʿḍ al-riǧāl

‘some (a part of) the men’ ‘some men’

We should note here the characterization that Cantarino provides for the
function fulfilled by min (as a quantifier, we might add): ‘Min designates its
governed noun as belonging to a certain group or species or kind, and also its
separation from them’ (Cantarino 1974: ii, 262–263). This definition allows us
to consider Cantarino as belonging to the group of researchers who insist on
the status of quantifiers of the Arab preposition min.
Note: Apparently absent from classical Arabic, judging by the means of
expressing position towards the following utterance, the ‘preposition’ min,
followed by a modalizer, makes its way into the domain of expressing modality;
it could even be considered that its participation is mandatory in the modal
constructions of modern literary Arabic. It involves a quantifier as well, since
the structures referred to can be paraphrased as ‘what is uttered belongs to the
category of what is possible, what is probable, what is desirable’, etc.
In these examples, min brings forth an existential partitive:

min al-marġūb fī-hi (…)

‘[it is] of desire / to be desired’

min al-mumkin (…)

‘[it is] possible’

min ḥusni al-ḥaẓẓ (…)

‘[of fortune …] / fortunately’

4 An Innovative Reading: Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī (d. 688/1289)

What interests us in particular is the interpretation, given by a remarkable

13th century author, of structures containing min followed by a singular noun
without article. Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī thus proposes a remarkable inter-
pretation of min as a quantifier, in one of the chapters of his book (ʾAstarābāḏī
Šarḥ: 279):
204 anghelescu

mā ǧāʾa-nī min raǧul

‘No of man came to me’
‘No man came to me’

The author begins his explanation by claiming that the indefinite form, when
in the context of a negation, of an interdiction or of an interrogation (thus in
non-assertive utterances) comprises the species in its entirety, and goes on with
the following passage:

When we insert the explicit min, as in mā ǧāʾa-nī min raǧul ‘there did
not come to me of man’, or the inferential one, analogous to lā raǧula,
therefore lā min raǧul, ‘not of man’, ‘no man’—the indefinite will denote a
global meaning. This min, even if it is expletive (zāʾid), as the grammarians
point out, serves the purpose of expressing the global meaning. This min
can be interpreted as stemming from the min which denotes the point
of departure, the concept of beginning (al-ibtidāʾiyya): when the species
was to be expressed in its entirety, first one expresses the finite, individual
element of the species, which is ‘one’ (al-ʾaḥad). The next part of the
line is left non-finite and open-ended, as if to count an open-ended line
from one to the infinite. It is just as if one were to say: ‘there did not
come to me, of this species, any from one to infinity.’ When globality
is thus to be rendered, one can say either mā ǧāʾa-nī ʾaḥad ‘there did
not come to me one’, or mā ǧāʾa-nī min ʾaḥad ‘there did not come to
me of (no) one’ (wa-ʾiḏā daḫala-hā “min” ẓāhiran naḥwa “mā ǧāʾa-nī min
raǧulin” ʾaw muqaddaran naḥwa “lā raǧula” ʾay “lā min raǧulin” fa-huwa
naṣṣ fī al-istiġrāq wa-min hāḏihi wa-ʾin kānat zāʾida ka-mā ḏakara al-nuḥāt
lākinna-hā mufīda li-naṣṣ al-istiġrāq ka-ʾanna ʾaṣla-hā “min al-ibtidāʾiyya”
lammā ʾurīda istiġrāq al-ǧins ubtudiʾa min-hu bi-l-ǧānib al-mutanāhī wa-
huwa al-ʾaḥad wa-turika al-ǧānib al-ʾaʿlā al-laḏī lā yatanāhā li-kawni-hi
ġayr maḥdūd ka-ʾanna-hu qīla “mā ǧāʾa-nī min hāḏā l-ǧinsi wāḥidun ʾilā
mā lā yatanāhā” fa-min ṯamma taqūl ʾiḏā qaṣadta “mā ǧāʾa-nī ʾaḥadun” wa-
“min ʾaḥadin”, ʾastarābāḏī Šarḥ: 279).

We have here one of the most ingenious localist explanations which we are
aware of, an explanation based on spatial metaphor: from the point of depar-
ture, also expressed in Arabic through a preposition similar to the French or
Romanian de, which is min, the path is opened, thus an open line which stands
for an infinite—and therefore, from a linguistic perspective, indefinite—
quantity. In this fragment the author also introduces the term istiġrāq, a verbal
name which originally meant ‘to assimilate entirely’. Earlier on we translated it
the role of metaphor in the interpretation of prepositions 205

as ‘global’, a term which concords with the reading that the author suggests for
the preposition embedding min.
This is also, as far as we are aware, the only attempt at explaining how min
can get to render the ‘species,’ meaning that it resolves the ambiguity in the
utterance mā ǧāʾa-nī raǧul ‘there did not come to me (one) man’ which could
have been interpreted either as ‘there did not come to me one man, but two’
or ‘there came to me no man.’ The wording mā ǧāʾa-nī min raǧul breaks up the
ambiguity because it brings forth the generic reference in the context referred
to: it is about the species in its entirety.
The concepts behind it are, in this case, related to point of departure (‘one’),
direction, line (which can go to infinity), distance, definite, or indefinite space,
i.e. either limited or unlimited, intervals etc. It is not the first localist expla-
nation we find by the old Arab authors, but it is one which reminds us of the
modern view, rather than of ʾAstarābāḏī’s forerunners, of Gustave Guillaume,
rather than of other authors who wrote about prepositions.

5 For or against the Localist Interpretations with Modern Authors

When we refer to ‘modern authors’ and to their attitude towards the localist
type of explanations regarding the evolution of the meanings of the preposition
de, we are in fact referring to the French authors who were mentioned in the
first part of this paper. As could be noticed, the vast majority of these authors
back up the idea of evolution of the meanings of this preposition, starting from
meanings related to ‘beginning in space,’ then to the expression of ‘beginning’
in time and then on to others, which appear as being derived from the former
ones.
A definition of the way in which some of the French authors conceive the
relationship of the preposition de with space can be found in the introduc-
tion to A.M. Berthonneau and P. Cadiot, entitled (in translation) Prepositions:
method of analysis (1993). The preface of the work mentions from the very
beginning that its point of departure lies in the age-old idea according to which
‘space, a domain of the practical, is an essential source for categorizing mean-
ing.’
The initial question which the articles in this volume attempt to answer is
enunciated as follows: ‘if the meanings of the prepositions are highlighted by
their spatial uses, considered as premises, as prototypical, how can other uses
be derived from them, while preserving the initial motivation’ (Berthonneau
and Cadiot 1993: 7). For prepositions such as à and de, there are ‘latent, semantic
or pragmatic, relationships between names, which prepositions of this type
206 anghelescu

bring up.’ ‘Localization’ is regarded by the authors as being ‘an act of relating
two objects of the world: space, for one, and a moment, for time’ (Berthonneau
and Cadiot 1993: 8).
When Pierre Cadiot talks about ‘abstract prepositions’ in French (this is the
title of a book published in 1997), he actually refers to possible options in inter-
pretation, as we have shown before. But even though he often refers to space in
his analyses of prepositions, he states that he does not believe the primordial
meaning of some preposition would be spatial: from his perspective, it would
only be a matter of ‘a stereotypical image regarding the origins of language,
along with the errancies, anachronisms and the simplifications which it pre-
supposes.’ (Cadiot 1997: 39).
Cadiot (1997) rejects the idea that space is some form of model for other
types of relationships that we conceive for prepositions. He refers to the system
and not to diachrony, and we are induced to resort to diachrony precisely
because, in the framework of a long standing tradition of interpreting languages
such Arabic, the reference to the spatial metaphor comes relatively late in time
as far as the interpretation of the preposition equivalent to de is concerned, a
preposition which ‘is unlike any other’ or is un bien grand mot, as one of the
authors quoted here reassures us (Kupferman 1996).
Some of the French authors mentioned in the first part of this paper also
have doubts as far as the spatial origin of a preposition similar to the French de
is concerned, as well as the predominance of the spatial and spatio-temporal
uses over other ones. Such doubt also seems to stem from the question that we
find with Kupferman: ‘Why should the spatial usage (or the spatio-temporal
one) be given the privilege of being the source of a semiological derivation?’
(Kupferman 1996: 6). Along with other possible answers to the question above,
the following one could be considered: because a preposition with a similar
meaning is the source in other languages as well, among which Arabic, and
this was taken for granted in the remarks of the old Arab grammarians, many
centuries ago.

6 A Preposition ‘Unlike Any Other’

It has been said about the Arabic preposition min, as well as about its partial
French equivalent de, that it is ‘a preposition unlike any other.’ Better said,
it became a preposition that is no longer like any other. The evolution of the
preposition min started from an acceptation bound to space, meaning from a
point, on to acceptations which are said to be derived: along a line similar in
Arabic, French, Romanian, and others.
the role of metaphor in the interpretation of prepositions 207

In order to better explain the system of Arab prepositions and the meaning
of the observations made by Arab authors on min, we are going to refer to a
brief excerpt concerning these prepositions, followed by observations on min
(Wright 1971: ii, 129–193): ‘The prepositions all originally designate relations of
place (local relations) but are transferred first, to relations of time (temporal
relations) and next to various sorts of ideal relations.’
As for min, the meanings are introduced in the following order:

The local point of departure → The temporal point of departure → The

causal point of departure;
The distance from a place, person or thing, particularly after words
which signify proximity;
The difference between two persons or things which are contrasted or
compared;
The relation between the part and the whole, between the species and
the genus (or the individual and the species).

Going back to the observations above, we also found noteworthy the chap-
ter dedicated to the preposition min from R. Blachère and M. Gaudefroy-
Demombynes’ Grammaire de arabe classique (1952): after brief, general remarks
regarding this (generally Semitic) preposition, the authors enumerate the
meanings this preposition introduces, as follows: point of departure in space
and then in time, origin, the notion of ‘going through,’ moving away, cause, rela-
tion (proximity or kinship), comparison between two terms, hence the usage
of the preposition for the elative comparison (of the type ʾakbar min ‘greater
than’), partitive or distributive (‘a value which seems to be attached to a mean-
ing indicating a “relation of dependence”’) and so forth. We also find observa-
tions regarding the relations between several notions expressed through the
same preposition min; to be more precise, regarding the manner in which the
notions expressed through de are said to derive one from another.
As for the parallel manner in which the meanings of min and de evolved,
we find it significant that min was translated through de in French in the vast
majority of the examples from Arabic mentioned in the chapter dedicated to
the preposition min in Grammaire de l’arabe classique (1952: 337–339). The
aforementioned authors enumerate the examples of the usage of the preposi-
tion min in the same manner in which the old Arab grammarians do, i.e. based
on the descending frequency of the meanings that this preposition expresses.
Thus, in the first examples, those where min is featured with the meaning of
point of departure in space and time, as well as with meanings closely related
to the former ones, min is equated with de in the vast majority of cases (almost
208 anghelescu

90% of them). As the meanings move further away from the primary ones, the
frequency of the equivalence with de drops on the segment referred to down
to zero (we must mention that, in the previously mentioned work, written in
French, there are 70 examples of structures containing min).
We might be tempted to affirm that these equivalences in translation are
always the result of an equivalence of the meanings which min and de intro-
duce, or that the derivation of some meanings from others, as it appears here,
is related to logic and is therefore somewhat obligatory in the two languages.
In fact, things are not that simple, because we can also suspect that the authors
of the book acted backwards: since we translate min through de, it could
also mean that the less obvious meanings derive from some evident, spatial
ones.

7 Conceptualizing Space, a Source of Metaphors in Language and in

Exegesis

The considerations above allow us to affirm that the explanations for the
derived meanings of min and de are metaphors for which space serves as a
basis. Not only ‘full words’ can give birth to metaphor, but also function-words
such as min in this case. This reflects a particular observation regarding the
‘imaginary universe of discourse’ made by Spang-Hanssen, quoted above. By
turning space into metaphor, one obtains not only new lexical meanings, but
also new grammatical meanings: there is, for example, in the case of min, a
category of elements of modalization, of the type of those to which we referred
above: min al-mafhūm‘it is a matter of understanding.’
When French authors (and others) try to group together the meanings that
the preposition de has in certain contexts, they attempt, just as their Arab pre-
decessors, to justify the grammatical metaphor that lies at the origin of certain
changes of meaning. As could be observed above, the Arab grammarians gave
an important role to metaphor, to the manner in which it is realized in par-
ticular cases (for example, the shifting of min to a metaphorical meaning) as
well as in exegesis. Explanations such as that given by Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī
regarding the role of min in non-assertive sentences, in utterances such as mā
ǧāʾa-nī min raǧul, are entirely based on a spatial metaphor originating in path:
a path which starts from min al-ibtidāʾiyya (‘beginning min’) and stays open,
continuing to infinity.
There are numerous contexts in which min behaves as a quantifier, as a
partitive article which resembles the one in French, also a relative to de, a
preposition with spatial origins. A note must be made here on the order of the
the role of metaphor in the interpretation of prepositions 209

meanings of the preposition min which the authors of Modern Written Arabic
(Badawi et al. 2004: 194–196) propose, which is as follows: Physical point of
departure, Partitive, Subset with partitive (where we can also find the example
lam ʾaǧid min ḥīla ‘I found no ruse’), Explanatory, Temporal point of departure,
Point of origin, and cause.
From space to time, to expressing species, partitive and other derived val-
ues, here is an evolution that linguists of different eras, of different cultures,
and who analyzed different languages, agree to admit for min and de. Thus they
remind us that languages can be typologically alike beyond the boundaries of
their ‘families’ and that the traditions of interpretation can be metaphorically
expressed because they themselves rely on metaphorical senses. The ancient
Arab authors, like others, Europeans of the modern age, are moved to sup-
port localist explanations because languages, in their evolution, suggest such
explanations. Between Sībawayhi (in the 8th century), a brilliant observer of
his adoptive language, and Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī (the 13th century) there
are centuries of evolution of the Arabic language, just as centuries have passed
from the first observations upon the languages spoken in Europe and the lin-
guistic theories which we call ‘localist.’ Some of the modern authors hereby
mentioned, French, but others as well, were also seduced by localist hypothe-
ses regarding the evolution of meanings of some prepositions which in certain
ways are not similar to others. The spatial metaphor appears to situate itself
at the origin of some transformations in languages such as French, Arabic and
others. The explanations of the linguists favouring a localist nuance do noth-
ing but record what happens in the language; in our case, the evolution of the
meanings of a preposition whose origins related to space we must acknowl-
edge: the preposition de.
We were particularly interested in the role of the metaphor in exegesis, as
it appears in the analysis Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī proposes of a common
sentence containing min: mā min raǧul (see above, § 4). Commenting upon this
construction, the author invites us to imagine it in space: an infinite, therefore
indefinite space. His observations can bring important justifications, related to
the diachronic typology, in relation to a preposition which is not treated ‘like
any other,’ in Arabic and, we can add now, in other languages, such as French.

8 A Few General Remarks

Starting from the situations mentioned above, and accepting that at the origin
of the functions of words that we call ‘prepositions’ there are space-related
senses, we can attempt to formulate several observations:
210 anghelescu

– as connected to the conceptualization of space, the prepositions will de-

velop common meanings, which we mention:

beginning in space → beginning in time → cause / origin → partitive

– when a language, such as Arabic or French, only possesses one preposition

bearing the primary function of expressing the ‘point of departure’ in space
and time, it will develop, starting from this point, abstract meanings similar
to those in other languages from the same category; when a language pos-
sesses several types of prepositions bearing a spatial origin, it will attribute
to each of them a specific function, either of the type mentioned above, or
following another path of development (English could be placed in this cat-
egory);
– an important meaning which develops in the languages which possess prep-
ositions of the type of those mentioned is that of “indefinite quantifica-
tion”: the prepositions de and min develop such meanings, and the Ara-
bic preposition min acts as an existential quantifier, similar to an article,
in constructions of the type min al mafḥūm ‘it is a matter of understand-
ing’;
– similar meanings of the mentioned prepositions are reflected in exegeses
which resort to wording with a spatial reference; for example, that of Raḍī
al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī in his explanations for an absolute negation formula in
Arabic: mā ǧāʾa-nī min raǧul ‘No man came to me.’

Bibliography

Primary Sources
ʾAstarābāḏī, Šarḥ = Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī, Šarḥ al-Raḍī ʿalā al-Kāfiyya. 2nd ed.,
commented and corrected by Yūsuf Ḥasan ʿUmar, vol. iii. Beirut: n.e., 1978.
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 chapter 11

Une corrélation retrouvée: nécessaire vs possible

Catherine Pinon

Dans son Système verbal de l’arabe classique, Pierre Larcher consacre un bref
chapitre à «une corrélation oubliée: nécessaire vs possible » (2012 [2003]: 142–
145). Quoique bref, il démontre dans ces quelques pages que l’ opposition
accompli / inaccompli se réalise en arabe au moins de trois manières, tempo-
relle, aspectuelle et modale, mais surtout qu’une forme verbale n’a de valeur
que relativement au contexte où elle est employée et relativement à l’ effet
que produirait, dans le même contexte, la substitution d’ une forme verbale à
l’ autre.
La question des modalités est difficilement appréhendable en arabe, du fait
justement de la pauvreté formelle du système verbal réduit à une opposition
minimale entre forme à préfixes (l’inaccompli) et forme à suffixes (l’ accompli).
Le recours au contexte est donc inévitable pour attribuer une valeur à un
verbe. Aussi, pour étudier cette question, le chercheur doit-il faire un choix
méthodologique: restreindre son étude à un petit corpus en y observant sys-
tématiquement chaque forme verbale dans son contexte (« peu, c’ est mieux »)
ou se laisser tenter par les sirènes du «gros, c’est beau » et plonger dans un
corpus dont la taille ne permet plus l’étude systématique des formes ver-
bales.
Pierre Larcher est de la première école, passé maître dans l’ art d’ exhumer un
passage plus ou moins bref d’une grammaire, un énoncé plus ou moins long
en langue, pour en tirer toute une argumentation aboutissant à des conclu-
sions fondamentales1. Mes propres recherches m’ont amenée à me confronter
à la seconde école. Toutefois, ces deux approches ne me semblent pas contra-

1 Le meilleur exemple, à mon sens, réside dans une démonstration qui part d’une simple
phrase d’ Ibn al-Naḥḥās, « wa-ʾin kānatā laysatā min al-qaṣāʾid al-sabʿ» («même s’ils ne font
pas partie des sept poèmes ») dont il démontre le bien-fondé de la structure qui pourrait à
première vue apparaître comme fautive ou redondante. « Pour le comprendre, il faut restituer
cet exemple dans son contexte, immédiat d’ une part, plus large d’autre part» (Larcher 2007:
85 ou 2012 [2003] : 150), ce qu’ il prend le temps de faire pour réellement expliquer la structure.
Révéler les rouages d’ une construction originale en élargissant le contexte et en faisant place
à l’ argumentation du locuteur, i.e. à la pragmatique, voilà pour moi un passionnant fragment
de grammaire telle que je la conçois.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_013

214 pinon

dictoires, mais bien plutôt complémentaires. L’approche quantitative permet

parfois de laisser voir des phénomènes intéressants qui ne sont repérables
qu’à partir de l’étude d’une grande quantité de matière textuelle, qu’ ils soient
rares ou épars. L’approche qualitative, ensuite, permet d’ affiner la description
desdits phénomènes. L’inverse est tout aussi vrai: une étude qualitative peut
déboucher sur une recherche quantitative.
Je souhaiterais interroger la présence des modalités2 en arabe contemporain
à partir d’un corpus relativement grand3, mais en focalisant sur le verbe kāna. Il
s’agira davantage pour moi de repérer des emplois du nécessaire et du possible
que d’en proposer un système cohérent et construit.

1 Le nécessaire

Classiquement, la valeur de nécessaire est liée au « kāna al-istimrāriyya (kāna

de permanence) des grammairiens arabes qui interprètent en termes d’ omni-
temporalité la modalité logique de nécessité» (Larcher 2012 [2003]: 142). Pour
Pierre Larcher, que kāna porte la valeur du nécessaire s’ explique logiquement,
quand on considère que yakūnu introduit la modalité du possible. Il illustre
cette modalité en s’appuyant sur de nombreux exemples coraniques où kāna
ne porte aucune valeur temporelle de passé, mais bien une valeur modale de
nécessité. Qu’en est-il de l’expression de cette modalité en arabe contempo-
rain?

1.1 Modalité du nécessaire chez les grammairiens

Le fait que kāna puisse avoir le sens de durée, de constance, de continuation
éternelle ou atemporelle, est parfois mentionné par les grammairiens, comme
Ibn Fāris (Ṣāḥibī : 246) qui exprime cette valeur par les termes suivants: « al-
ruhūn, ʾay al-ṯabāt wa-l-dawām». Ḥasan utilise justement le verbe istamarra
dans la paraphrase qu’il énonce pour expliquer ce sens particulier de kāna :

2 « Modalité » doit ici être compris au sens de la logique classique aristotélicienne. Parmi les
modalités aléthiques du nécessaire, du possible, de l’ impossible et du contingent, seules les
trois premières seront étudiées.
3 Corpus numérique d’1,5 million de mots, composé de textes écrits entre 2002 et 2011 ressor-
tissant à trois genres (les blogs, la littérature, la presse) et provenant de 7 pays du monde
arabe (Arabie Saoudite, Égypte, Liban, Maroc, Syrie, Tunisie, Yémen). Les textes proviennent
majoritairement d’ Internet et ont tous été collectés par mes soins au format numérique. J’ai
ensuite nettoyé et balisé le corpus pour qu’ il puisse être segmenté par le logiciel Lexico3 que
j’ utilise pour mes recherches.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 215

« au sens de rester dans le même état, d’être demeuré dans la même situation
et d’y demeurer sans interruption et sans lien avec un temps déterminé» (bi-
maʿnā baqiya fī ḥāli-hi wa-stamarra šaʾnu-hu wa-sa-yastamirru min ġayr inqiṭāʿ
wa-lā taqayyud bi-zaman muʿayyan, Ḥasan 1998: 549). Les exemples fournis
sont toujours coraniques, reflets de la multitude d’ emplois de ce type dans le
Coran4:

(1) kāna l-Lāhu ġafūran raḥīman : Allāh est absoluteur, miséricordieux

(2) wa-kāna l-Lāhu ʿalīman ḥakīman: Allāh est omniscient et sage

(1) est d’ailleurs le titre d’un article que W. Reuschel (1968) a consacré aux énon-
cés coraniques de ce type, où il a conclu que la différenciation avec la phrase
nominale correspondante « Allāhu ʿalīmun ḥakīmun» (« Dieu est omniscient
et sage») n’était pas temporelle mais stylistique, marquant une certaine cor-
roboration. De fait, dans les grammaires, la valeur omnitemporelle de kāna est
parfois qualifiée de présent énergique ou duratif pour ce qui est des emplois
coraniques5. Il s’agit là d’une réinterprétation temporelle de la modalité du
nécessaire. En effet, c’est la valeur d’omnitemporalité du verbe employé, sou-
vent appuyée par une structure grammaticale ou un syntagme lexical renfor-
çant cette idée, qui confère au verbe une certaine force. L’omnitemporel est
une manière «temporelle» d’exprimer la nécessité d’ un fait ou d’ un état : en
abolissant le temps, on rend l’événement certain, comme étant, nécessaire-
ment. La corrélation entre nécessité et durée fournit aussi une valeur résultative
à l’accompli en général, valeur souvent attribuée à kāna dans le cas de ces
énoncés où, par ailleurs, des particules de mise en exergue comme ʾinna sont
souvent employées. Plutôt que d’user du terme de présent énergique ou duratif,
il conviendrait d’insister sur la valeur modale du verbe kāna dans ces emplois.
Quoi qu’il en soit, on note qu’en arabe classique, c’ est l’ accompli qui porte
cette valeur modale de nécessaire.

1.2 Le nécessaire dans un corpus d’arabe contemporain

Dans le corpus figurent évidemment des citations coraniques où l’ on peut
attribuer à kāna une valeur modale de nécessité. Les nombreux emplois de

4 Les traductions coraniques sont empruntées à Régis Blachère 1999 [1949]. Pour l’exemple (1),
voir notamment Cor. 4 :96 ; pour l’ exemple (2), voir notamment Cor. 4:17.
5 Au sujet du kāna al-istimrāriyya, voir notamment Silvestre de Sacy (1810: 195), Caspari (Wright
1981 : 266 ; Urichoechea 1881 : 403–404), Fleisch (1979: ii, 196), Périer (1911: 208), Benhamouda
(1983 : 418–420), Blachère et Gaudefroy-Demombynes (1952 [1939]: 247).
216 pinon

l’accompli kāna ont majoritairement une valeur temporelle de passé ou aspec-

tuelle d’accompli, mais le nécessaire y subsiste dans certaines expressions. On
constate aussi que cette valeur est beaucoup plus présente dans les différentes
formes de l’inaccompli du verbe.

1.2.1 Les différentes expressions qui signifient qu’ un fait multiforme est,
nécessairement, quelle que soit sa forme
On peut retrouver la valeur modale de nécessité dans un certain nombre
d’expressions où l’emploi de l’accompli a bien une valeur modale (« quel qu’ il
soit», «qui que ce soit», «qu’il soit … ou …», «où qu’ il soit », etc.). Dans toutes
ces expressions, la nécessité est présente parce que l’ objet ou la personne dont
il est question est nécessairement là. Voici la liste de ces expressions qu’ il est
possible de fournir à partir de l’étude du corpus d’ arabe contemporain, assortie
d’exemples6 pour chacune d’elle:

1. mahmā kāna («quoi qu’il en soit») et ʾayy kāna / ʾayyan man kāna (« quel qu’ il
soit, qui que ce soit»). Ces expressions, qui ne sont mentionnées que dans des
grammaires récentes, font une large place à l’emploi de l’ accompli kāna après
mahmā et ʾayyan.

(3) Blog – Égypte – Window

ṣammama ʿalā muwāǧahat al-ḥaqīqa mahmā kānat
Il est déterminé à affronter la vérité, quelle qu’ elle soit

Quelle que soit cette vérité, elle est, nécessairement ; dans l’ exemple suivant peu
importe le nom en question, ce nom existe et fait l’ objet d’ une recherche :

(4) Littérature – Arabie Saoudite – Jubayralmlihan

al-baḥṯ istamarra ʿan hāḏā l-ism ʾayyan kāna
La recherche de ce nom se poursuit, quel qu’ il soit

2. sawāʾ (ʾa) kāna … ʾam / ʾaw …7 et … kāna ʾam / ʾaw …8

6 Les exemples tirés du corpus seront référencés comme suit: mention du genre, du pays, de la
source (nom de l’ auteur en littérature, du journal pour la presse et du blog pour les blogs).
7 En général, deux termes sont proposés, parfois plus. Sur 41 occurrences de cette expression
au total, seulement 5 occurrences introduisent un ʾa- entre sawāʾ et kāna; 30 occurrences
recourent à ʾaw pour exprimer le choix, 11 à ʾam (4 des 5 occurrences en sawāʾ ʾa kāna sont
employées avec ʾam).
8 C’ est la particule ʾaw qui est préférée à ʾam (respectivement 12 et 8 occurrences).
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 217

Dans cette tournure parfois abrégée qui permet d’ introduire une possibilité
à choix multiple, il s’agit du même principe: quelle que soit la qualité de l’ objet,
il est nécessairement.

(5) Littérature – Syrie – Wahibsarayeddin

al-muftaris huwa l-muftaris. huwa l-laḏī yaftaris maḫlūqan ʾāḫar, sawāʾ ʾa-
kāna ʾinsānan ʾam ḏiʾban ḍāriyan
Le prédateur est ce qu’il est. C’est celui qui fait d’ une autre créature sa
proie, que ce soit un homme ou un loup féroce

(6) Blog – Arabie Saoudite – Raeds

ʾinna-hu min al-nāḥiya l-māddiyya lā farqa bayna ʾinsān wa-ʾāḫar, raǧulan
kāna ʾaw imraʾa, fa-mā l-laḏī yaǧʿalu l-ʾinsān yuḥibbu maṯalan imraʾa bi-
ʿayni-hā dūna ʾuḫrā?
Du point de vue matériel, il n’y a pas de différence entre un être humain
et un autre, que ce soit un homme ou une femme ; qu’ est-ce qui fait
donc que l’on aime, par exemple, précisément cette femme-là et pas une
autre?

(7) Blog – Égypte – Shabayek

ʾaḏkuru fī l-māḍī intiqād al-baʿḍ lī bi-ʾannī munbahir bi-l-ġarb, lākinna-ka
ḥatman sa-tuwāfiqu-nī ʾanna-hu ḥīna-mā yuwaffir al-niẓām al-taʿlīmī al-
furṣa l-tāliya, fa-huwa niẓām yastahiqqu l-ʾišāda bi-hi, fī l-ġarb kāna ʾaw fī
l-šarq …
Je me souviens que dans le passé, certains me reprochaient d’ être ébloui
par l’Occident. Mais tu seras certainement d’ accord avec moi sur le fait
que lorsque le système éducatif offre une telle opportunité, c’ est un
régime qui mérite qu’on en fasse l’éloge, qu’ il soit en Occident ou en
Orient …

(8) Littérature – Égypte – Yasserchaaban

ʾammā l-iḥṣāʾiyyāt fa-naḥṣilu ʿalay-hā fī l-manšūrāt al-duwaliyya ʿāmma-
tan kānat ʾaw kānat mutaḫaṣṣiṣa …
Quant aux statistiques, nous les obtenons dans les publications interna-
tionales, qu’elles soient généralistes ou spécialisées …

À noter, dans ce dernier exemple, la répétition de kānat.

Voici quelques chiffres relatifs à l’emploi de ces expressions dans le corpus :
218 pinon

tableau 11.1 Répartition générique des expressions où kāna marque le nécessaire

Blogs Littérature Presse Total des occurrences

mahmā kāna 63 17 7 87
ʾayy(an man) kāna 43 12 17 72
sawāʾ(ʾa) kāna ʾam / ʾaw 14 8 19 41
… kāna ʾam / ʾaw 11 5 4 20
Total 131 42 47 220

tableau 11.2 Répartition diatopique des expressions où kāna marque le nécessaire

mahmā kāna ʾayy(an) kāna sawāʾ(ʾa) kāna … kāna ʾam / ʾaw

Arabie s. 5 5 2
Égypte 25 11 9 4
Liban 8 11 9 4
Maroc 10 5 1 0
Syrie 15 19 4 7
Tunisie 19 7 3 2
Yémen 5 14 8 1
Total 87 72 41 20

3. Après ḥayṯu-mā / kayfa-mā / ʾayna-mā

Dans le corpus, ḥayṯu-mā kāna figure 2 fois, ʾayna-mā kāna 4 fois et kayfa-mā
kāna 5 fois.

(9) Presse – Maroc – Alalam

wa-qad ʾalqā al-ʾaḫ Ǧ. ʿAbd Allāh al-Hūrī al-kātib al-ʾiqlīmī li-l-ittiḥād al-
ʿāmm li-l-šāġilīn ʿarḍan mushaban ḥallala fī-hi falsafat al-ittiḥād al-ʿāmm
li-l-šāġilīn al-hādifa ʾilā takwīn niqāba muwāṭina multazima bi-qaḍāyā
waṭani-hā l-kubrā, muʾmina bi-l-ḥiwār al-ǧādd wa-l-hādif maʿa kull al-
mustaṯmirīn fī waṭani-nā kayfa-mā kānat ǧinsiyyātu-hum
Le secrétaire régional de l’Union Générale des Travailleurs, notre cama-
rade Ǧ. ʿAbd Allāh al-Hūrī, a prononcé un discours détaillé dans lequel il a
exposé la philosophie de l’Union; une philosophie qui a pour objectif de
constituer un syndicat citoyen engagé dans les grandes causes nationales
et qui croit au dialogue sérieux et constructif avec tous les investisseurs
dans notre pays quelles que soient leurs nationalités
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 219

(10) Littérature – Égypte – Yasserchaaban

tataʿallamu ʾan tanẓura ʾilā l-bašāʿa ʾayna-mā kānat
Tu apprends à regarder la laideur où qu’elle se trouve

4. kāʾinan man kāna

Cette expression figure seulement 3 fois dans le corpus ; elle rentre très
probablement en concurrence avec la tournure « … ʾayyan kāna » dont j’ ai
relevé de nombreuses occurrences. L’expression kāʾinan man kāna s’ emploie
visiblement toujours en fin de propos. Elle signifie, pour l’ antécédent auquel
elle se rattache, l’infini éventail de possibilités de sa nature, l’ antécédent étant
nécessairement là.

(11) Blog – Syrie – Iconsman

ʾarfuḍu ʾan ʾakūna fī ṣaff ṭāġiya kāʾinan man kāna … ʾaw fī ṣaff al-muʿāraḍa
l-muġriḍa l-latī hiya ʾadhā wa-ʾamarr
Je refuse d’être dans les rangs d’un tyran, quel qu’ il soit … ou dans les
rangs de l’opposition tendancieuse davantage retors et plus amer encore
…

La forme accomplie de kāna est donc utilisée, en arabe contemporain, dans

bon nombre d’expressions qui marquent la nécessité d’ un objet en dépit des
formes multiples que cet objet peut revêtir.
Ce qu’il semble intéressant de mentionner, c’ est l’ emploi de l’ inaccompli
indicatif ou plus rarement de l’apocopé à valeur modale de nécessité dans
ces mêmes tournures. C’est le cas notamment après mahmā et ʾayyān. Les
nombreux exemples consignés par R. Buckley (2007 [2004]: 746) permettaient
justement de constater que mahmā était suivi tantôt de l’ accompli, tantôt
de l’apocopé. C’est aussi le cas dans mon corpus, bien que les occurrences
avec l’inaccompli soient assez peu nombreuses (3 ʾayyan yakun et 2 mahmā
yakun). Il s’agit alors d’un emploi que l’on pourrait nommer «yakun al-istim-
rāriyya», un emploi de l’apocopé marquant la nécessité, valeur classiquement
portée par l’accompli kāna, mais tendant à être prise en charge par l’ inaccom-
pli9:

9 Il est difficile de savoir si c’ est l’ omniprésence du verbe kāna à l’accompli dans le sens
d’ exposant temporel du passé qui a « attiré» l’ inaccompli, sémantiquement alors peut-être
moins gênant pour marquer un fait atemporel, dans ces emplois auparavant réservés à
l’ accompli.
220 pinon

(12) Blog – Yemen – Allielak

wa-ʾaġmiḍ ʿaynay -mraʾati-ka ʾayyan takun « ʾummu-ka, ʾuḫtu-ka, zawǧatu-
ka, ibnatu-ka » kay lā taqraʾ mā naktubu la-hā wa-ʿan-hā wa-ʿan-ka
Et ferme les yeux de ta femme, qui qu’ elle soit, ta mère, ta sœur, ton
épouse, ta fille afin qu’elle ne lise pas ce que nous écrivons pour elle, sur
elle et sur toi

(13) Presse – Tunisie – Assabah

mahmā yakun min ʾamr, fa-ʾinna l-mulāḥaẓ min ḫilāl al-ʾamṯila l-latī
suqnā-hā wa-l-muʿṭiyyāt wa-l-ʾarqām al-mutawaffira ʾanna l-šīkāt dūna
raṣīd la-hā inʿikās salbī ʿalā l-dawra l-iqtiṣādiyya
Quoi qu’il en soit, on peut remarquer, à travers les exemples que nous
avons pris et avec les données et les chiffres disponibles, que les chèques
sans provision ont un effet négatif sur le circuit économique …

À titre indicatif, j’ai effectué différentes recherches sur Google10 pour connaître
la répartition des emplois de l’apocopé et de l’ accompli après les deux parti-
cules ʾayyan et mahmā. Avec ʾayyan, 3,1% des occurrences sont à l’ apocopé et
avec mahmā, ce pourcentage atteint 5,5%. Le même ratio dans mon corpus
indique que l’apocopé est utilisé dans environ 3 % des cas, ʾayyan et mahmā
confondues. L’accompli est donc employé dans ces expressions de manière
écrasante par rapport à l’inaccompli.
Une recherche dans les sources classiques disponibles sur le site al-Warrāq
permet de constater que l’inaccompli apocopé n’y figure jamais après les par-
ticules ʾayyan et mahmā11. On retrouve l’accompli kāna 123 fois après mahmā
(dans 61 livres différents) et 29 fois après ʾayyan (dans 11 livres différents).
Il faut rattacher à cette catégorie l’emploi de yakūnu dans la phrase suivante,
où le verbe figure à l’inaccompli dans une tournure idiomatique répandue où
l’on emploie habituellement préférentiellement l’ accompli :

(14) Littérature – Arabie Saoudite – ʿAlī Maǧnūnī

kāna muṯīran ǧiddan bi-l-nisba li-kiltay-nā ʾan ʾaṭluba min-hā l-ḫurūǧ li-l-
marra l-ʾūlā ʾilā marqaṣ wa-ʾanā lā ʾafqahu fī l-raqṣ šayʾan. rubbamā kāna
ḏāk ʾillā li-ʾannī ʾaḥbabtu ʾan ʾatatalmaḏa ʿalā yaday-hā, ʾanā l-laḏī lam
ʾakun ʾatawaqqaʿu ʾan tarquṣa qadamāya li-ʾayy sabab yakūnu

10 Recherche effectuée sur Google le 27 juin 2012 à 12h50 pour mahmā et ʾayyan suivis de
yakun, takun, kāna et kānat.
11 Effectuée par Katia Zakharia, Professeur à l’ Université Lyon ii, que je remercie ici chaleu-
reusement.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 221

C’était très excitant pour tous les deux que je lui demande de sortir pour la
première fois en boîte de nuit, alors que je n’entends rien à la danse. Peut-
être que ceci n’était que parce j’avais voulu apprendre avec elle, moi qui
ne m’attendais pas à ce que mes pieds dansent pour quelque raison que
ce soit

L’ inaccompli renforce peut-être ici le fait que le narrateur considérait vrai-

ment comme improbable la réalisation d’un tel événement. Quoi qu’ il en soit,
l’ emploi de l’inaccompli yakūnu dans cette expression lui confère une valeur
de continuité, ce qui corrobore l’hypothèse d’évolution des emplois du verbe
où l’inaccompli prendrait aussi en charge la modalité du nécessaire auparavant
dévolue à l’accompli, qu’il s’agisse de l’indicatif yakūnu ou de l’ apocopé yakun.
La distribution actuelle des deux formes est tout de même loin d’ indiquer que
l’ accompli kāna aurait désormais une valeur purement aspectuo-temporelle
d’ accompli-passé. En arabe contemporain, l’accompli est toujours susceptible
de porter la valeur atemporelle de continuité, de vérité générale ou absolue (qui
subsiste principalement dans les citations coraniques ou les expressions autour
de mahmā et ʾayyan), mais l’inaccompli indicatif ou apocopé12 peut aussi ser-
vir à prendre en charge cette valeur, ce qui ne semblait pas être le cas en arabe
classique13.

1.2.2 Autres formes d’expression de la modalité du nécessaire: lois

naturelles et sapiences
À propos de l’expression d’une vérité générale ou d’ une loi physique, Bla-
chère et Gaudefroy-Demombynes (1952 [1939]: 247) rattachent cette valeur
du nécessaire à l’ aspect accompli du verbe, soulignant que « quand il s’ agit
de faits constatés, acquis définitivement, l’arabe emploie l’ accompli ; de là
l’ utilisation de cet aspect verbal dans les maximes, les sentences». Cependant,
je constate dans mon corpus qu’en arabe contemporain, c’ est l’ inaccompli qui
est employé pour exprimer la modalité aléthique absolue (le nécessaire). En
voici des exemples:

(15) Blog – Tunisie – Ahmed

wa-kamā qāla lī ʾaḥad al-mutaẓāhirīn fī maydān al-Taḥrīr fī l-yawm al-
tālī: «al-ṯaʿbān yamūtu ʾiḏā quṭiʿat raʾsu-hu». Qad yakūnu ʿalā ḥaqq, wa-

12 Voir Pinon 2013 : 266–267.

13 Si l’ on se base sur les grammaires de l’ arabe classique et sur la recherche faite sur le site al-
Warraq (voir ci-dessus). Cette hypothèse reste à corroborer à partir d’une étude de détail.
222 pinon

lākinna hāḏā sabab yadʿū l-miṣriyyīn ʾilā l-ḫawf min ǧihāz al-muḫābarāt
fī hāḏihi l-fatra fa-l-ḥayawān yakūnu ʾašadd ḫuṭūratan ʿindamā yaǧidu
nafsa-hu muḥāṣiran
Comme me l’a dit l’un des manifestants de la place Taḥrīr le lendemain :
«Le serpent meurt quand on lui coupe la tête». Il a peut-être raison, mais
c’est un autre motif qui amène les Égyptiens à avoir peur de l’ appareil des
renseignements [généraux] à l’heure actuelle – en effet, l’ animal est plus
dangereux lorsqu’il est acculé

(16) Blog – Maroc – Marrokia

taʿlamu ǧayyidan ʾanna-hu yakūnu mawǧūdan faqaṭ li-muddat sāʿa yaw-
miyya
Tu sais bien qu’il est toujours présent seulement une heure par jour

On serait peut-être tentés d’interpréter cet emploi comme un calque des lang-
ues européennes, un usage du verbe kāna comme simple copule. En effet,
fondamentalement, la même phrase sans yakūnu conserve son sens (reformu-
lation):

taʿlamu ǧayyidan ʾanna-hu mawǧūd faqaṭ li-muddat sāʿa yawmiyya

Tu sais bien qu’il est présent seulement une heure par jour

Pourtant, si les deux énoncés sont possibles, c’ est bien qu’ il existe une dif-
férence sémantique, aussi minime soit-elle, entre les deux. Cette phrase est
extraite d’un post consacré à la description ironique et cynique des nombreuses
étapes qu’un Marocain doit franchir pour obtenir une carte d’ identité biomé-
trique. Il s’agit là d’obtenir un justificatif de domicile auprès d’ un représentant
de quartier qui ne reçoit qu’une heure par jour. L’emploi de yakūnu dans la pre-
mière phrase, conjugué à la restriction faqaṭ, insiste sur le fait que, nécessaire-
ment, cet employé ne peut être là qu’une heure dans la journée, qu’ il est impos-
sible qu’il soit présent plus d’une heure, au préjudice de l’ usager. Le locuteur
emploie donc une forme bien arabe: l’inaccompli a valeur modale de nécessité,
qui s’opposerait à la phrase nominale simple (comme dans l’ exemple refor-
mulé) davantage neutre ou déclarative.
Cet emploi figure dans de nombreux autres énoncés, comme dans le sui-
vant où la modalité aléthique est renforcée par la locution « habituellement ».
L’ordre d’apparition des personnes est nécessairement celui qui est décrit,
entériné par l’habitude:
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 223

(17) Littérature – Arabie Saoudite – Hasancheikh

wa-fī l-ʿāda yakūnu al-šayḫ Bāqir, ǧāru-hu, ʾawwal al-ḥāḍirīn, wa-yatlū-hu
l-ḥāǧǧ Muḥammad al-Husayn, wa-min ṯumma l-ʿumda …
Habituellement, le Cheikh Bāqir, son voisin, est le premier présent, suivi
du ḥāǧǧ Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn, puis du maire …

Les énoncés les plus évidents de la modalité de nécessité sont ceux qui expri-
ment des lois physiques:

(18) Blog – Syrie – Mgbuq

wa-l-maʿlūm ʾanna l-hawāʾ l-bārid yakūnu ʾaṯqal wa-yahubbu ʾaqrab ʾilā l-
ʾarḍ mimmā yaǧʿalu-hu qādiran ʿalā ḥaml al-ġubār wa-l-turāb
Il est bien connu que l’air froid est toujours plus lourd et souffle plus
proche de la terre, ce qui le rend capable de transporter de la poussière et
de la terre

Dans le corpus, on remarque que yakūnu est souvent précédé de hākaḏā

(« ainsi, de cette manière-là») pour renforcer la valeur de vérité générale :

(19) Littérature – Maroc – Abdellatifalidrisi

hākaḏā yakūnu l-ʾatqiyāʾ yā -bnī
Ainsi sont immanquablement les hommes pieux, mon fils !

(20) Blog – Liban – Zilalwarefa

wa-ṭabʿan hākaḏā zawāǧ yakūnu ʿalā šafā ḥafra wa-huwa ʾāyil li-l-inhiyār
fī ʾayyat laḥẓa
Bien évidemment, un tel mariage est nécessairement au bord du gouffre
et menace de s’effondrer à chaque instant

Cet emploi modal de yakūnu ne manquera pas de rappeler au lecteur le « pré-

sent de vérité générale» du français, notion d’ailleurs mentionnée par quelques
rares auteurs. Nacereddine (1992: 75) note par exemple que « le verbe être
n’ est pas exprimé au présent immédiat. Mais il est exprimé quand il signifie
non pas le présent immédiat, mais le présent général». Il propose de compa-
rer14:

14 Le même type d’ exemple figure chez Benmamoun 2000: 47, cité par Chatar-Moumni 2011:
171.
224 pinon

(21) al-ṭaqs bārid

Il fait froid (signifiant: il fait froid maintenant, en ce moment)

et

(22) yakūnu l-ṭaqs bāridan fī l-šitāʾ fī hāḏā l-balad

Il fait froid en hiver, dans ce pays (signifiant : il fait froid dans ce pays, non
pas particulièrement à présent, mais en général)

On peut d’ailleurs rapprocher cette idée de «présent de vérité générale» de la

remarque de Buckley (2007 [2004]: 557) pour qui « l’ inaccompli de kāna n’ est
généralement pas utilisé en phrase nominale quand il s’ agit du présent. Il peut,
cependant, apparaître dans le but de mettre l’ accent sur l’ assertion » («The
imperfect of kāna is generally not used in nominal sentences when a present
tense significance is intended. It may, however, occur in order to emphasise the
statement »). Il cite de nombreux exemples, dont celui-ci tiré du roman ʾAsfār
al-ʾasfār de Ǧamāl al-Ġīṭānī:

(23) fī l-rīf takūnu l-misāḥat ʾafsaḥ wa-ʾarḥab

À la campagne, les surfaces sont plus étendues et plus larges (In the
contryside, the panorama is more extensive and wider)

Il ne semble pourtant pas adéquat de recourir à un qualificatif temporel

(«présent») pour décrire cet emploi modal, car il s’ agit avant tout de l’ ex-
pression d’un fait nécessaire, d’une vérité générale. Qu’ une langue utilise pour
cela une forme verbale ayant par ailleurs valeur de présent ou de passé ne doit
pas cacher la valeur modale de l’emploi.

Ces quelques exemples ont permis de voir que le nécessaire, sous la forme de
modalité aléthique absolue, est en arabe contemporain couramment attribué
au verbe yakūnu employé à l’inaccompli indicatif dans un contexte syntaxi-
quement libre15. Les grammairiens présentent pourtant rarement cette valeur
et quand ils le font, elle est toujours attribuée à l’ emploi de l’ accompli du
verbe kāna. Dans le corpus, les exemples de l’inaccompli yakūnu en contexte
syntaxique libre pour marquer la nécessité d’ un fait sont, à mon avis, assez
nombreux pour mériter d’être consignés dans les grammaires d’ arabe contem-
porain.

15 J’ entends par là que kāna / yakūnu n’ est commandé par aucune particule ou tournure
syntaxique.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 225

2 Le possible

Bien que yakūnu porte assez régulièrement la modalité du possible, ses valeurs
modales sont très peu décrites dans les grammaires. À cela il est possible de
deviner au moins deux causes: d’une part le fait que ce type d’ emplois est
présent dans les dialectes16, d’autre part le fait qu’ il prête souvent à confusion
avec la structure à copule des langues indo-européennes et qu’ une lecture
rapide qui passerait à côté de la valeur modale se tournerait alors vers une
question de calque17.

2.1 La modalité du possible évoquée dans les grammaires

Si la modalité du nécessaire n’est présente dans les grammaires qu’ à travers
les exemples coraniques, la modalité du possible est quant à elle plus facile-
ment envisagée. Pour Blachère et Gaudefroy-Demombynes (1952 [1939] : 251),
la «localisation de l’inaccompli indicatif dans le futur paraît parfois s’ accom-
pagner de nuances secondaires, d’ailleurs assez fuyantes, [notamment] une
certaine capacité à réaliser l’action»:

(24) kayfa taqūlu ḏālika

Comment dis-tu cela / peux-tu dire cela?

Fischer (2002 [1971]: 96) donne un exemple intéressant pour illustrer le fait
que« kāna est utilisé avec l’inaccompli pour exprimer une action qui aurait pu
ou aurait dû survenir dans le passé»:

(25) kāna yakūnu sūʾ ʾadab

Cela aurait été une impolitesse

Il semble dans cette phrase que kāna a en fait un emploi temporel de passé,
alors que yakūnu exprime la modalité du possible.
À la lecture de différentes grammaires, il semble que le cas des emplois
yakūnu non contraints par une quelconque particule ou structure syntaxique
gêne quelque peu les auteurs. Différentes propositions d’ interprétation sont
faites selon les exemples fournis, mais il n’est nulle part clairement dit que le

16 Le phénomène de rejet d’ une forme parce qu’ elle est aussi employée dans les dialectes
est bien connu.
17 Certains linguistes ou auteurs de grammaires attribuent régulièrement, de façon trop
rapide semble-t-il, des origines exogènes à un emploi qui n’a pourtant rien d’un emprunt
(Pinon, à paraître).
226 pinon

recours à yakūnu permet de modaliser la relation de prédication exprimée par

la phrase nominale en marquant franchement la possibilité18. Parfois même,
l’énoncé mis en exergue peut paraître inadéquat. C’ est ainsi que, souhaitant
illustrer la valeur modale de possibilité de yakūna, Beeston 2000 [1968]: 63
fournit l’exemple suivant:

(26) yaḥtamilu [sic] ʾan takūna siyāsatu-hu nāfiʿa

Il est probable que sa politique puisse être utile (It is probable that his
policy may be useful)

Or, il semble évident ici que la probabilité est portée par le sens du verbe de
la principale, non pas par l’emploi de yakūna qui, ici, ne semble être présent
que pour satisfaire à la règle syntaxique des complétives verbales. Le principe
est semblable avec Badawi, Carter et Gully (2004: 404), qui estiment que la
modalisation de la phrase nominale se fait habituellement avec qad, mais
occasionnellement aussi sans qad19:

(27) yakūnu ʿālaman ṣaġīran

C’est peut-être un petit monde (It may be a small world)

Ils ne semblent pas facilement accepter l’idée d’ un emploi syntaxiquement

libre de yakūnu, ni envisager l’expression du possible sans la particule qad,
alors que l’étude du corpus révèle que ce fait est loin d’ être occasionnel.
De fait, il s’agit là de la valeur modale de possibilité attachée à la forme de
l’inaccompli. La question qui mérite d’être posée est alors de savoir, dans le
cas d’énoncés ayant la forme qad yakūnu, quel élément porte en lui la valeur
modale de possibilité: si c’est yakūnu, il faudrait faire l’ hypothèse qu’ ici qad
ne sert qu’à corroborer la probabilité de l’action. Si l’ on estime que c’ est la
particule qad qui porte la valeur modale, alors il faut faire de yakūnu dans ce
type de phrases un élément vide permettant l’ enchâssement d’ une phrase à
la particule, pour éviter la redondance. Enfin, troisième hypothèse, on peut
estimer que c’est l’ensemble de la structure qad + inaccompli qui produit

18 Chez Tresso, on trouve une définition de kāna assez proche de ses emplois réels, mais
on regrette qu’ elle ne soit pas plus détaillée : kāna peut être employé «pour exprimer la
« modalité » d’ une phrase nominale, à savoir le fait que l’énonciation vise notamment le
possible, ou le nécessaire, etc.» (per esprimere la «modalità» di una frase nominale, cioè il
fatto che un determinato enunciato viene inteso come possibile, o necessario ecc., Tresso 2001
[1997] : 238).
19 On peut regretter que cet exemple ne soit pas fourni dans son contexte.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 227

la modalité: qad actualiserait avec certitude la valeur modale de possibilité

intrinsèque à l’inaccompli et virtualiserait ses autres valeurs (temporelles ou
aspectuelles notamment)20.
L’apparition sporadique des modalités dans les grammaires et la difficulté
qu’ ont les différents auteurs à les exprimer, en témoignent les exemples plus
ou moins adéquats et les explications plus ou moins convaincantes21, tendent
à montrer que les modalités restent délicates à percevoir et à présenter dans un
ouvrage de grammaire.

2.2 Le possible en arabe contemporain

Dans le corpus, les emplois du verbe yakūnu à valeur modale de possible sont
nombreux. Certains sont employés après qad ou rubbamā ou encore dans des
négations comme lā yakūnu ou lan yakūna, d’autres apparaissent dans un
contexte syntaxiquement libre. De ce fait, il est difficile d’ évaluer la part précise
des emplois modaux de yakūnu marquant la possibilité22.

2.2.1 Le possible en affirmation

Voici différents exemples tirés du corpus d’emploi de yakūnu exprimant le
possible:

(28) Littérature – Syrie – Wahibsarayeddin

«Nāhīka ʿan faḍīlat al-ṣabr ʿalā l-ǧūʿ … al-ǧūʿ ʿinda-hum miṣbāḥ al-qalb
wa-ṭaʿām al-zāhid …». Sakata. Ṭabʿan hiya -stawʿabat bi-dawri-hā hāḏihi l-
muʿādala l-ǧadaliyya «al-ǧūʿ yakūnu ṭaʿāman » … wa-qālat: « al-ḏikr ṭaʿām
al-ʿārif»
«Sans parler de la vertu de la patience sur la faim … Pour eux, la faim
est ce qui éclaire le cœur et la nourriture de l’ ascète … ». Il se tut. Bien
sûr, elle intégra à son tour cette équation dialectique : « la faim peut être
une nourriture» … et dit: « invoquer le nom de Dieu est la nourriture du
soufi»

20 Voir Pinon 2012 : 237 et suivantes.

21 Voir notamment Schulz, Krahl et Reuschel 2008 [1996]: 162 ou encore Paradela Alonso
2009 [1998]: 77 qui estiment que yakūnu peut être utilisé dans une phrase nominale
de manière facultative pour indiquer le présent ou de manière corroborative, mais qui
traduisent pourtant les énoncés qu’ ils proposent par de simples présents, sans exprimer
la moindre nuance.
22 Dans le corpus figurent 197 occurrences de qad yakūnu (pour une description complète,
Pinon 2012 : 338 et suivantes), 60 occurrences de yakūnu après rubbamā (Pinon 2012: 344
et suivantes), 56 occurrences de lā yakūnu (Pinon 2012: 349 et suivantes). Cette valeur est
présente en assez grand nombre pour mériter de figurer dans les grammaires.
228 pinon

Il est intéressant d’observer, dans ce passage, les deux propositions qui se

suivent: la première avec yakūnu marque la possibilité (pour certains, la faim
serait une nourriture), alors que la seconde, une phrase nominale, marque une
certitude pour le locuteur (Dieu est une nourriture pour le soufi).

(29) Littérature – Liban – Najitahir

ʾaǧmaʿū ʿalā ḍarūrat istibdāl hāḏā l-ṭabīb al-mutazammit wa-l-ʾalmānī ǧid-
dan, bi-ʾāḫar ʿarabī, yakūnu l-taʿāmul maʿa-hu murīḥan fī mawḍūʿ al-maw-
āʿīd
Ils sont tombés d’accord sur la nécessité de remplacer ce médecin puri-
tain et très allemand par un autre, arabe, avec lequel la collaboration
serait plus pratique au sujet des rendez-vous

(30) Presse – Maroc – Alalam

wa-qad šakkalat hāḏihi l-ziyāra, l-latī tandariǧ fī ʾiṭār ʿalāqāt al-ṣadāqa wa-
l-ʾuḫuwwa l-qāʾima bayna raʾīsay al-dawlatayn wa-l-šaʿbayn al-šaqīqayn
munāsaba mutamayyiza li-taʾkīd al-ʾidāra l-muštaraka li-bināʾ šarāka
miṯāliyya takūnu namūḏaǧan li-l-taʿāwun ǧanūb-ǧanūb
Cette visite, qui relève du cadre des relations d’ amitié et de fraternité
existantes entre les présidents des deux états et les deux peuples frères,
a constitué une excellente occasion pour confirmer la volonté commune
de fonder un partenariat bilatéral exemplaire qui serait un exemple de
coopération sud-sud

Le verbe yakūn est souvent précédé d’une locution du type « parfois, sou-
vent»23. Dans ce cas, même si en français on a tendance à recourir à l’ indicatif
pour la traduction, l’emploi de yakūnu marque bien la possibilité que l’ état
énoncé se réalise:

(31) Blog – Maroc – Ijork

ʾaḥyānan yakūnu l-ḥubb ḥamāqa, laysa ʾaḥyānan bal huwa dāʾiman ka-
ḏālik
Parfois, l’amour est une folie. En fait, ce n’ est pas parfois, mais plutôt tout
le temps comme cela

23 yakūnu survient dans le corpus : 15 fois après ʾaḥyānan, 3 fois après fī baʿḍ al-ʾaḥyān et une
fois après fī ʾaḥyān kaṯīra, fī l-ġālib, fī ʾaġlab al-ʾaḥyān.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 229

Dans cet exemple, on note d’ailleurs l’opposition entre les deux types de
phrases, la première avec yakūnu, précédé de ʾaḥyānan, « parfois », et la der-
nière, une phrase nominale: huwa dāʾiman ka-ḏālik, « il en est toujours ainsi ».
L’ opposition est renforcée par la particule d’autocorrection et de gradation bal.
Le cheminement de la pensée du locuteur apparaît très clairement au niveau
pragmatique: d’abord, il énonce que parfois, l’amour est une bêtise (le fait que
l’ amour soit une bêtise est un état possible, mais pas certain) ; puis il revient sur
ce qu’il a dit et décrète que l’amour est toujours une folie (état certain). Cette
autocorrection explique d’ailleurs l’emploi de la particule bal. L’exemple est
intéressant car, au final, on passe du possible au nécessaire.
Après rubbamā («peut-être»), la valeur modale de possible portée par l’ in-
accompli est évidemment actualisée:

(32) Blog – Syrie – Mgbuq

luġatu-nā l-ʿarabiyya kuntu ʾufakkiru l-yawm wa-ʾanā bi-ṭarīqī li-l-ʿamal
bi-mawḍūʿ al-luġa l-ʿarabiyya, wa-kayfa ʾaṣbaḥat min al-mansiyyāt ladā
l-šabāb al-laḏīna staġnaw ʿan-hā wa-stashalū l-kitāba bi-l-ʾaḥruf wa-l-ʾar-
qām al-lātīniyya li-l-taʿbīr ʿan al-luġa l-ʿarabiyya, fī-mā yuʿraf bi-kitābat
al-ʿarabīzī. rubbamā takūnu al-ʿarabīzī qad našaʾat natīǧatan li-ḥāǧa, wa-
hāḏihi l-ḥāǧa hiya l-tawāṣul bayna l-ʿarab fī l-mahǧar al-laḏīna lā yam-
likūn lawḥāt mafātīḥ taktubu bi-l-ʿarabiyya maʿa ʾahālī-him wa-ʾaqāribi-
him wa-rubbamā takūnu hāḏihi l-luġa nitāǧ al-ʿawlama wa-ʾuslūb ḥayya
ladā l-šabāb
Notre langue, c’est l’arabe, pensais-je aujourd’hui au sujet de la langue
arabe alors que je me rendais à mon travail, et à la manière dont elle
a été oubliée par les jeunes qui se passent d’ elle et cherchent la facilité
dans l’écriture en utilisant des lettres et des chiffres en caractères latins
pour exprimer la langue arabe, par ce que l’ on connait comme étant la
méthode d’écriture «arabeasy»24. L’arabeasy est / serait peut-être né
d’un besoin, et ce besoin est de communiquer entre les arabes émigrés
qui ne possèdent pas de claviers pour écrire en arabe à leurs proches, ou
peut-être que cette langue est / serait le produit de la mondialisation et
du style de vie des jeunes

Dans bien des cas, il est difficile de déterminer si yakūnu doit être interprété
comme un potentiel ou comme un futur, même en contexte :

24 Ce terme se transcrit habituellement par « arabîzî», mais j’ai opté pour une transcription
faisant apparaître le sens à l’ origine de la création de ce mot, à savoir un «arabe facile [à
écrire] ». Pour une analyse du phénomène, voir Gonzalez-Quijano 2009.
230 pinon

(33) Presse – Arabie Saoudite – Almadina

yaʿtaqidu ʾanna-hu ʾunṯā ḥubisat fī ǧasad ḏakar, wa-yuṭālibu bi-taḥwīli-
hi tabʿan li-ḏālik ʾilā ʾunṯā. wa-ka-ḏālik takūnu hunāka ʾunṯā kāmilat al-
ʾunūṯa
Il considère qu’il est une femme prisonnière dans un corps d’ homme et
revendique pour cette raison sa transformation en femme. On aurait /
aura ainsi une femme complètement femme

Dans cet article consacré aux opérations de changement de sexe, l’ homme

dont il est question considère qu’il est en fait une femme. Il demande à être
opéré pour devenir complètement une femme, c’ est-à-dire physiquement
aussi, car il se sent déjà être une femme. L’opération lui permettrait d’ être
une véritable femme, mais n’étant pas effectuée, on peut comprendre cette
affirmation au conditionnel (une fois l’opération effectuée, mais il n’est pas
certain qu’elle le soit, elle serait complètement une femme) ou estimer que le
locuteur envisage la situation du point de vue de la réalisation de l’ opération
(l’opération effectuée, ce qui n’est qu’une question de temps, elle sera complè-
tement une femme).
Quelle que soit l’interprétation choisie, cet exemple permet d’ illustrer le fait
que futur et possible sont liés: un événement futur, même envisagé comme
certain, reste dans le domaine du possible tant qu’ il n’a pas été réalisé. Un
événement possible, quant à lui, peut se révéler être une certitude dans le
futur, s’il se réalise. Sémantiquement, les deux interprétations, temporelle ou
modale, sont liées et c’est davantage le point de vue du locuteur qui permet
de déterminer l’interprétation modale ou temporelle à donner à l’ événement.
Pour reprendre ce même exemple, en fonction du contexte pragmatique, on
pourrait imaginer les deux interprétations possibles : une personne sceptique
sur la question des opérations de changement de sexe pourrait dire qu’ après
l’opération, «elle serait peut-être une véritable femme », mais sous-entendrait
par là que cela ne serait pas le cas, de son point de vue. À l’ inverse, la même
phrase prononcée par une personne favorable à l’ opération peut accepter
l’interprétation temporelle: «quand elle sera opérée, elle sera complètement
une femme».
yakūnu possède un spectre sémantique qui oscille entre la temporalité fu-
ture et la modalité du possible. Dans certains cas, le recours à cette forme laisse
(judicieusement) l’interprétation au lecteur25:

25 Il est aussi possible d’ y voir la marque d’ un médiatif, l’emploi de yakūnu visant alors à
exprimer la distance du locuteur vis-à-vis du contenu propositionnel qu’il exprime.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 231

(34) Presse – Tunisie – Essahafa

munḏu sanawāt tataraddad ʿalā masāmiʿi-nā ʾaḫbār wa-ʾaqāwīl bi-ʾanna
l-maḥaṭṭa sa-yuḫaṣṣaṣ la-hā makān ḫāṣṣ ʾāḫar yakūnu mulāʾiman li-ǧull
ẓurūf al-ʿamal wa-natawaffar bi-hi ǧull muqawwimāt al-rāḥa wa-l-rafāh
sawāʾ li-l-sāʾiq ʾaw li-l-muwāṭin (al-ḥarīf ) ʾaw li-l-zāʾir lākin ʾilā ḥadd al-ʾān
ẓalla l-ḥāl mā huwa ʿalay-hi lam yataġayyar šayʾ …
Depuis des années, des informations et des potins parviennent à nos
oreilles selon lesquels un autre lieu sera dévolu à la gare, qui serait / sera
approprié à la majeure partie des conditions de travail et à la plus grande
partie des éléments de confort et de bien-être à la fois pour le conduc-
teur et pour le citoyen ou pour le visiteur. Mais, jusqu’ à maintenant, la
situation est restée telle qu’elle est, rien n’a changé …

De la bouche d’une autorité locale, on pourrait comprendre que « le nouvel

emplacement choisi sera approprié», mais de celle d’ un usager sans illusions,
on opte plutôt pour un conditionnel qui sous-entend que si un autre endroit
serait effectivement plus approprié, en réalité aucun changement n’ est prévu
ou n’est effectué.

2.2.2 qad yakūnu / rubbamā yakūnu: emploi syntaxique ou sémantique

de yakūnu?
Dans des énoncés où yakūnu figure après rubbamā, on peut s’ interroger sur
la nature réelle de son emploi, sachant que celui-ci n’est pas systématique26.
S’ agit-il d’un emploi syntaxique permettant d’enchâsser une phrase nominale
ou de mettre en exergue un thème, ou yakūnu porte-t-il alors aussi la modalité
du possible? Si l’on opte pour l’absence de synonymie totale de deux énoncés
qui diffèrent par au moins un élément formel, on est amené à faire l’ hypothèse
que l’introduction de yakūnu apporte une valeur que son absence n’exprime
pas, même si cela revient à considérer que l’emploi de rubbamā est sémanti-
quement redondant.
On peut imaginer que l’emploi de yakūnu renforce la possibilité du fait, par
la présence de deux marqueurs de la modalité du possible dans la phrase (à
la fois rubbamā et l’emploi de l’inaccompli). Il semble que rubbamā, comme

26 La particule composée rubbamā peut être suivie d’ une phrase nominale et d’une phrase
verbale. En toute logique, yakūnu n’ est donc pas nécessaire pour produire une phrase
nominale à la suite de rubbamā. Cependant, la particule mā ayant tendance à être suivie
par un verbe, on peut imaginer que, par analogie, on fasse suivre rubbamā d’un verbe. Le
recours au verbe kāna pourrait se justifier ainsi.
232 pinon

qad, actualise la valeur modale de possible contenue dans l’ inaccompli27, tout

comme en français il est possible de dire « peut-être que ceci est … » et « peut-être
que ceci serait … ». En français, a priori, on utilise le conditionnel après « peut-
être» dans le cadre d’une proposition hypothétique, mais il semble parfois
apparaître en dehors. C’est du moins ce que suggère les nombreuses phrases
que l’on peut trouver sur Internet en recherchant « peut-être que ce serait »28 :

(35) Internet, forum

[question] J’ai un souci avec pc quand il imprime ou enregistre un docu-
ment, winword.exe monte à 96% de charge de processeurs et fait planter
mon pc
[réponse] Peut-être que ce serait un problème avec le fichier « modèle »,
ou un autre fichier complémentaire du fichier du document

Ici, on s’attendrait plutôt à trouver: «peut-être que c’ est un problème … ».

Quel que soit le niveau de langue des locuteurs qui formulent cette phrase,
ils sont nombreux et l’emploi du conditionnel après « peut-être» en dehors
d’une proposition conditionnelle est (serait?) peut-être comparable à l’ emploi
de yakūnu après rubbamā en arabe.
En comparant des énoncés authentiques du corpus, les uns avec qad yakūnu,
les autres avec yakūnu à valeur modale de possibilité, j’ ai l’ impression que, de
manière générale, qad yakūnu marque un fait possible mais sur lequel nous
n’avons pas d’indice de probabilité de réalisation, alors que yakūnu sans qad
marque un fait dont un élément du contexte indique que la réalisation est plus
ou moins probable.
Ainsi, dans l’exemple suivant, ce que dit le narrateur est peut-être un simple
rêve, peut-être le début d’un poème29:

(36) Blog – Yémen – Maskharah

lā naḥtāǧu ʾilā muʿǧiza … li-taḍmīd ǧarāḥ hāḏā l-waṭan […] qad yakūnu mā
ʾaqūlu-hu muǧarrad ḥulm rūmansī … kalām ʿāṭifī … muḥāwala bidāʾiyya li-
kitābat qaṣīdat ḥubb, li-yakun

27 Pinon 2012 : p. 337 et suivantes pour qad yakūnu et p. 343 et suivantes pour rubbamā
yakūnu. Voir aussi l’ exemple (32) : quelles nuances porteraient ces mêmes phrases sans
yakūnu ?
28 http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/WindowsSoftware/Windows-nt-2k-xp/module-bloque
-hungapp-sujet_309024_1.htm. Les nombreuses fautes de français contenues dans la ques-
tion ont été corrigées.
29 À noter dans cet exemple l’ emploi de l’ apocopé en fin de citation.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 233

Nous n’avons pas besoin d’un miracle … pour guérir les blessures de cette
nation […] Ce que je dis est peut-être un simple rêve romantique … une
parole émotionnelle … une tentative de débuter l’ écriture d’ un poème
d’amour, pour qu’il soit

Il est possible de faire la même analyse avec l’exemple n°37 : qu’ aujourd’hui
soit le moment d’appeler un vieil ami est possible, ça peut être le cas ou non
mais rien n’indique vers quelle solution pencher:

(37) Blog – Syrie – Marcellita

burǧ al-ʿaqrab: qad yakūnu l-yawm huwa l-waqt li-ʾiʿādat al-ittiṣāl bi-ṣadīq
qadīm
Scorpions: aujourd’hui, c’est peut-être le moment de recontacter un vieil
ami

En revanche, dans les énoncés où yakūnu figure seul, un élément du contexte

offre les conditions de réalisation: dans l’exemple n°28, la faim peut-être une
nourriture dans certains cas, c’est une nourriture pour « eux » (ʿinda-hum dans
la phrase précédente); dans le n°29, changer de médecin permettrait d’ obtenir
plus de souplesse avec les rendez-vous, ce qui sera le cas si un médecin arabe
remplace l’actuel médecin allemand, etc. En voici d’ autres exemples: dans le
premier cas, si le régime révolutionnaire était renversé, celui qui serait établi
serait pro-américain. Dans le second cas, si un jeune diplômé se marie, il
souhaite le faire avec une femme plus jeune que lui :

(38) Presse – Liban – Annahar

wa-qāla: «(…) ʾinna l-mawqif al-laḏī ʾaṭlaqa-hu raʾīs al-ḥukūma […] laysa
ʾillā mawqifan ʾamīrikiyyan ʾisrāʾīliyyan wa-mā zāla yasʿā munḏū intiṣār al-
ṯawra al-ʾislāmiyya fī Īrān ʾilā ʿazl Īrān min ʾaǧl ʾisqāṭ niẓāmi-hā al-ṯawrī
li-ʾiqāmat niẓām yakūnu ṭayyiʿan bi-yad al-ʾidāra al-ʾamīrikiyya »
Il a dit que «(…) la position que le chef du Gouvernement […] n’est
qu’une position israélo-américaine, qui ne cesse, depuis la victoire de la
Révolution islamique en Iran, de chercher à isoler l’ Iran pour renverser le
régime révolutionnaire dans le but d’établir un régime qui serait soumis
à l’administration américaine»

(39) Blog – Liban – Zilalwarefa

kaṯīran mā nasmaʿu ʾanna l-šābb al-laḏī taḫarraǧa min al-ǧāmiʿa ḥattā law
bi-daraǧat duktūrāh yufattišu ʿan zawǧa la-hu takūnu ḍimna muwāṣafāti-
hā ṣiġar al-sīn li-ʾanna-hu lā yurīdu man tunākifu-hu fī l-ḥayāt
234 pinon

Nous entendons souvent qu’un jeune qui sort diplômé de l’ Université,

même avec un doctorat, recherche une femme qui aurait pour carac-
téristique d’être peu âgée parce qu’il ne veut pas de quelqu’ un qui le
contrarierait dans la vie

Il faudrait comparer plus précisément les phrases où yakūnu seul marque la

modalité du possible avec celles recourant à qad et à rubbamā, pour détermi-
ner avec plus de précision les nuances sémantiques portées par chacun de ces
emplois. À la lumière des exemples étudiés, on peut faire l’ hypothèse que rub-
bamā / qad yakūnu marque une modalisation au niveau du modus (le locuteur
modalise l’entièreté de son énoncé et ne se prononce donc pas sur les capacités
de ce fait possible à se réaliser ou les conditions nécessaires à sa réalisation),
alors que dans les énoncés avec yakūnu seul, il s’ agit d’ une modalisation au
niveau du dictum (le locuteur affirme que tel fait est possible / impossible dans
un cas précis qu’il mentionne ou que l’on déduit du discours)30 :

tableau 11.3 Les types de modalisation (modale ou dictale)

Modalisation modale Modalisation dictale

rubbamā yakūnu / qad yakūnu yakūnu

«Peut-être que le fait va se réaliser.» «J’affirme que sous telles conditions le

Le fait est possible, dans l’absolu.
Le locuteur ne fournit pas de
conditions de réalisation de cette
possibilité.
fait se réalise. »
Le fait est possible car le locuteur ne
se prononce pas sur l’ effectivité des
conditions de réalisation (le fait
peut survenir si les conditions sont
réunies ou peut ne pas survenir si les
conditions ne sont pas réunies).

30 On pourrait parler de « modalisation modale » (l’ expression d’une possibilité sans évalua-
tion de la part du locuteur) et de « modalisation dictale» (le locuteur indique les condi-
tions nécessaires).
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 235

3 L’impossible ou la négation du possible

3.1 Lā yakūnu
Techniquement, il s’agit de la négation de yakūnu. Or, a priori, yakūnu ne
s’ emploie pas tel quel au présent. Si l’on admet qu’ une phrase employant
yakūnu a une valeur modale par rapport à une phrase nominale paratactique,
lā yakūnu s’opposerait à laysa comme étant la négation d’ une modalité ou
d’ un futur (selon le sens attribué à yakūnu dans la proposition affirmative
correspondante)31.
Dans certains contextes, lā yakūnu est très clairement modal32, par exemple
lorsqu’il entre dans le champ de particules du subjonctif (ʾan, li-, ḥattā, kay).
Dans le corpus, j’ai relevé 56 occurrences de la suite lā yakūnu n’ entrant dans
le champ d’aucune particule. On peut alors se demander pourquoi le locuteur
n’ a pas utilisé laysa. Il convient donc d’étudier ces occurrences en détail pour
déterminer s’il existe une différence entre laysa et lā yakūnu et de quel type
de différence il s’ agit. L’hypothèse est la suivante: laysa marquerait la néga-
tion d’un état présent, dans l’absolu, de manière factuelle, alors que lā yakūnu
serait la négation de valeurs modales ou temporelles que yakūnu prend par-
fois en charge. Au niveau syntaxique, il permet en plus d’ introduire une phrase
nominale dans le champ de la négation lā. Mais en même temps, faisant appa-
raître yakūnu dans la phrase, il permet d’attribuer la modalité du possible à
l’ énoncé, pour la nier. Les exemples suivants permettent d’ étoffer cette hypo-
thèse, somme toute logique, car si laysa est la négation d’ une phrase nominale,
lā yakūnu est formellement la négation d’une phrase nominale modifiée par
yakūnu.

31 C’ est notamment l’ avis de Schulz, Krahl et Reuschel [1996] (2008: 162), Nacereddine
(1992 : 76) ou encore Badawi, Carter et Gully (2004: 404) qui insistent sur le fait que
« lā yakūnu ne peut pas signifier « n’est pas », mais en tant que négation de yakūnu, il
signifie quelque chose comme « ne sera pas », « pourrait ne pas être», «ne serait pas»,
etc. » (Note especially that lā yakūnu cannot mean ‘is not’, but as the negation of yakūnu
it means something like ‘will not be’, ‘might not be’, ‘would not be’, etc.). Ils énumèrent
plus bas (2004: 481–482) tous les cas où kāna est nié «en tant qu’équivalent modal de
laysa, dans différentes fonctions » (as modalized equivalent of laysa, in various functions),
notamment lorsqu’ il s’ agit de lanégation d’ une proposition subordonnée avec lā, de la
négation d’ une phrase nominale modalisée avec qad + lā, et de la négation de l’inaccompli
avec lā. D’ autres auteurs mentionnent la négation sans proposer de différence entre
l’ emploi de laysa ou celui de lā yakūnu, à l’ instar de Buckley [2004] (2007: 556–557).
32 Modal au sens de négation d’ une modalité. Nous ne pouvons pas dire qu’il s’agit d’une
négation modale, ceci renvoyant traditionnellement à la négation du mode d’énoncia-
tion : nous préférerons la paraphrase « négation d’ une modalité».
236 pinon

(40) Blog – Liban – Saoudelmawla

naḥtāǧu ʾilā bināʾ dawla waṭaniyya dīmuqrāṭiyya ḥaqīqiyya: dawla lā tak-
ūnu ġāʾiba ʿan al-waʿī wa-lā muġayyaba ʿan al-ḥuḍūr, dawla lā takūnu
ḍāʾiʿa mā bayna tarka ṯaqīla wa-taṣfiyat ḥisābāt wa-mā bayna tasyīb33 wa-
taraddud wa-fasād kāriṯī
Nous avons besoin de construire un véritable état patriotique démocra-
tique: un état qui ne soit / serait pas privé de conscience ni ne ferait
défection, un état qui ne soit / serait pas perdu entre un héritage lourd
et des règlements de compte et entre négligence, hésitation et corruption
catastrophique

Il s’agit d’un article portant sur la commémoration de la date anniversaire

du début de la guerre civile au Liban (13 avril 1975), dans lequel le journaliste
procède à une longue énumération de ce dont a besoin le pays, par compa-
raison avec ce qu’il possède et ce qu’il est. Ici, il est clair qu’ il est impossible
de remplacer lā yakūnu par laysa, car on comprendrait alors qu’ il s’ agit d’ une
constatation. Or, si l’auteur constate bien un certain état de fait, en négatif, c’ est
au travers d’autres propositions de sa part: yakūnu revêt donc ici une valeur
modale marquant la possibilité d’un fait, valeur à laquelle on peut éventuelle-
ment rajouter une valeur temporelle de futur (lié à la possibilité de l’ état dans
le futur, puisque cet état de fait n’est pas réalisé dans le présent).
Voici un autre exemple de la valeur modale portée par lā yakūnu en parallèle
d’un inaccompli à valeur modale de possibilité :

(41) Blog – Arabie Saoudite – Green

kayfa lā yakūnu l-ḥubb muhimman? kayfa naḥyā bi-lā ḥubb ?
Comment l’amour ne serait-il pas important ? Comment peut-on / pour-
rait-on vivre sans amour?

On peut aussi envisager que le recours à la négation lā yakūnu se fasse parfois

pour des raisons stylistiques. La distinction modal / factuel opérée par les deux
types de négation n’est probablement pas absolue, mais elle fonctionne encore
dans l’exemple suivant34:

(42) Littérature – Egypte – Yasser Chaaban

wa-lā yumkinu an ṯakūna iḫtiyār al-muqawwamāt ʿafwiyyan yarǧiʿu ʾilā

33 Dans le texte arabe, ce mot est écrit avec un seul yāʾ.

34 Sur les emplois exceptifs lā yakūnu ʾillā, voir Pinon 2012: 351 et suivantes.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 237

maḥḍ al-ṣudfa bal yaǧibu ʿalā l-bāḥiṯ ʾan yataṣawwara al-ḫāriṭa qabla
rasmi-hā wa-yanṭaliqu min hāḏā l-taṣawwur. wa-laysat hunāka ṭarīqa ḫāṣ-
ṣa muʿayyana li-l-qiyām bi-ʿamaliyyat al-iḫtiyār li-ʾanna ḏālika lā yakūnu
ʾillā baʿd al-iṭṭilāʿ ʿalā māhiyyat al-ʾiqlīm li-yasmaḥa hāḏā l-iṭṭilāʿ bi-taḥdīd
al-ʿalāqāt allatī yaǧibu waqīʿu-hā ḥattā tubriza waḥdat al-ʾiqlīm wa-tabā-
yunu-hu ʿammā yuǧāwiru-hu. qad yakūnu al-iḫtiyār ǧabariyyan …
Le choix des critères ne peut pas être laissé au hasard, fruit d’ une pure
coïncidence. Au contraire, il faut que le chercheur conçoive la carte avant
de la dessiner et qu’elle découle de cette conception. Il n’ y a pas de
méthode particulière pour choisir, en pratique, parce que ceci ne peut se
faire qu’après avoir examiné la nature de la région pour que cet examen
permette de déterminer les relations qui doivent être établies pour faire
émerger l’unité de la région et le contraste avec ce qui l’ entoure. Le choix
peut être contraint …

Dans ce passage fortement modalisé, la première négation (lā yumkinu ʾan

takūna) est explicitement dans le domaine du possible nié, donc de l’ im-
possible. À sa suite, lā yakūnu ʾillā semble être la forme négative de qad yakūnu :
« cela peut être ou ne peut pas être». La négation laysat, par contraste, apparaît
comme factuelle, absolue, alors que les autres sont clairement la négation
d’ une modalité.

3.2 Lan yakūna

Sur la centaine d’occurrences que compte le corpus du verbe kāna entrant
dans le champ de la particule de négation lan, beaucoup apparaissent comme
étant la négation d’une possibilité dans le futur et ne peuvent supporter une
interprétation purement temporelle35:

(43) Blogs – Tunisie – Tarekaoui

wa-li-hāḏā min al-muhimm ʾallā yuḥāwila ʾaḥad ʾiḍāʿat al-ḥuqūq al-waṭa-
niyya l-ṯābita li-l-šaʿb al-filasṭīnī bi-barīq dawla lan takūna mustaqilla, wa-
lan takūna munfaṣila ʿan al-ʾamn al-ʾisrāʾīlī
C’est pourquoi il est important que personne ne tente de faire perdre les
droits nationaux inaléniables du peuple palestinien en faisant miroiter un
état qui ne serait pas indépendant et qui ne serait pas autonome vis-à-vis
de la Sûreté israélienne

35 Sur la structure lan yakūna yafʿalu, voir Pinon 2012 : pp. 385–386.
238 pinon

Il apparaît donc que la négation lan yakūna est polysémique, devant selon le
contexte tantôt être interprétée du point de vue uniquement temporel comme
négation du futur, et tantôt de façon modalo-temporelle comme négation du
possible dans le futur. En voici une schématisation :

tableau 11.4 Polysémie de la forme lan yakūna

Énoncé déclaratif Énoncé modalisé (possible)

Affirmation au présent Phrase nominale paratactique yakūnu + phrase nominale

⇣ ⇣
Négation au présent laysa lā yakūnu
↘ ↙
Négation au futur lan yakūna

Conclusion: De la polysémie des formes verbales et de

l’importance du contexte

Un linguiste arabisant ayant lu P. Larcher sait que les formes verbales sont
polysémiques, d’autant plus que le système est formellement réduit au mini-
mum, à savoir à l’opposition entre une forme à préfixes et une forme à suf-
fixes; de fait, il en déduit aisément qu’elles ne tirent leur(s) valeur(s) que du
contexte précis dans lequel elles apparaissent. Sur la question de l’ expression
des modalités en arabe contemporain, l’étude du corpus permet de mettre
en évidence le croisement de deux faits: d’une part, que le verbe kāna peut
marquer tantôt le nécessaire, tantôt le possible ; d’ autre part que l’ accompli
sert plutôt à marquer le nécessaire et l’inaccompli le possible. Cependant, les
exemples cités montrent qu’il sert aussi à marquer le nécessaire. On trouve
donc en arabe contemporain des kāna à valeur de nécessaire, des yakūnu /
yakūna à valeur de possible mais aussi des yakūnu / yakun à valeur de néces-
saire36.
Le nécessaire est marqué par kāna (principalement dans des expressions)
mais aussi par yakūnu (quand il s’agit de lois physiques, de sagesse populaire,

36 Dans cette recherche, je n’ai pas examiné le cas de la négation mā kāna, ni l’éventualité
d’ un kāna portant la valeur modale de nécessité en dehors des expressions mentionnées
ou des citations coraniques.
une corrélation retrouvée : nécessaire vs possible 239

etc.) et même par l’apocopé dans de très rares cas après mahmā et ʾayyan.
Le possible est marqué quant à lui par yakūnu (ou yakūna), modalité parfois
renforcée par qad, rubbamā ou d’autres mots du lexique de type adverbial. Il
existe des nuances dans l’expression de la modalité selon qu’ un fait est pos-
sible dans l’absolu ou possible sous certaines conditions, nuances directement
en lien avec le type de modalisation de l’énoncé (modalisation modale ou
dictale). Pour ce qui est des négations, lā yakūnu apparaît comme étant très
certainement la négation d’une modalité (que ce soit celle du nécessaire ou
du possible), par opposition à laysa employé pour nier un état contingent. Lan
yakūna est une forme polysémique, tantôt seulement négation temporelle du
futur, tantôt avec valeur modale de non-possibilité.
Une plongée dans les grammaires arabes, orientalistes et arabisantes a mon-
tré que cette question des modalités est rarement abordée et que lorsque c’ est
le cas, l’exposé manque souvent de clarté. Or, la question de la modalisation en
langue est tout autant passionnante qu’inévitable : il devient urgent de faire le
point sur ce sujet afin de proposer aux arabisants un modèle au plus proche de
la réalité des usages actuels.

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 chapter 12

The System of the Sciences of the Arabic Language

by Sakkākī: Logic as a Complement of Rhetoric*

Manuela E.B. Giolfo and Wilfrid Hodges

1 Introduction

One of us has found inspiration for the present paper in Pierre Larcher’s chapter
‘Arabic Linguistic Tradition ii: Pragmatics,’ included in Jonathan Owens (ed.)
The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics (Larcher 2013: 185–212). In Sakkākī’s
(d. 626/1229) Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm “The key to the sciences” (Sakkākī, Miftāḥ) the
sciences of language are presented as a complex system whose core includes
the two sciences of morphology (ṣarf ) and of syntax (naḥw), that is to say,
grammar; the two sciences of meanings (maʿānī) and of expression (bayān)—
that is to say, rhetoric—and the two sciences of definition (ḥadd) and of
argumentation (istidlāl)—that is to say, logic. The complexity of the system
lies in the fact that syntax (ʿilm al-naḥw) finds its complement (tamām) in
semantics (ʿilm al-maʿānī) which in turns finds its complement in logic (ʿilmā
al-ḥadd wa-l-istidlāl). An axis ‘syntax-semantics-logic’ is thus drawn which
brings logic within the field of linguistics. The ‘systemic’ intersection between
rhetoric and grammar, and the ‘meta-systemic’ intersections between rhetoric
and literature from one part and that between rhetoric and religious sciences
from another have been a subject of strong interest. However, the same cannot
be said for another intersection, ‘systemic’ for Sakkākī: that between rhetoric,
namely semantics (ʿilm al-maʿānī), and logic (ʿilmā al-ḥadd wa-l-istidlāl).
Al-Sakkākī’s Miftāḥ is widely recognized as having made a radical reorga-
nization of the Arabic science of rhetoric, which had been founded by ʿAbd
al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī (d. 471/1078) in Dalāʾil al-ʾiʿǧāz (Ǧurǧānī Dalāʾil) and ʾAsrār
al-ʿarabiyya (Ǧurǧānī ʾAsrār), bringing it to a form that generated textbooks and
commentaries right up to present times. Later writers, both Arab and West-
ern, have taken the heart of the book to be its ‘Science of meanings’ (ʿilm al-

* 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 5, 6, 7 and 8 and
Wilfrid Hodges for paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_014

the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 243

maʿānī). For example Qazwīnī (d. 739/1338) in his influential two commentaries
(Qazwīnī ʾĪḍāḥ; Qazwīnī Šarḥ) restricts himself to this section of the Miftāḥ.
Happily we have a German translation of the same section of the Miftāḥ by
Udo Gerald Simon (1993), taken from his doctoral dissertation.
It is interesting that Qazwīnī and Simon stop where they do. Al-Sakkākī him-
self had added to the section on ʿilm al-maʿānī two appendices on logic, one on
definition (al-ḥadd) and one on syllogism (al-istidlāl). Apparently he failed to
convince his readers that these appendices had a point. Kees Versteegh (1997:
115–126), treats the two sections on morphology and syntax—which consti-
tute the traditional domain of linguistics. However, he only mentions as an
innovation the third section—on meanings (ʿilm al-maʿānī)1 and clarity (ʿilm
al-bayān).2 Larcher (2013: 185–212), presents rhetoric (ʿilm al-maʿānī and ʿilm
al-bayān) as an expansion of syntax, and the section on logic as an expansion
of ʿilm al-maʿānī. However, he does not treat the section on logic. So it makes
sense to look back at the Miftāḥ and ask what al-Sakkākī thought he was doing
when he added these two appendices.
The two present authors are a linguist and a logician; we thought we should
look at the work together. What we have to report so far is only preliminary. In
broad terms our conclusion is that the commentators were right to separate off
the material on logic: Sakkākī seems to us to have failed to make any meaningful
connection between syllogistic logic and his main theme of ʿilm al-maʿānī.
However, his reactions to logic do raise some interesting points that he seems
to have been led to by his linguistic expertise.

2 The Section and Its Contents

ʾAbū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf b. ʾAbī Bakr b. Muḥammad al-Ḫawārazmī Sīrāǧ al-Dīn al-
Sakkākī, referred to henceforth as Sakkākī, is said to have been born in Ḫārazm

1 The ʿilm al-maʿānī is defined by Sakkākī (Miftāḥ: 161) as a science that ‘(…) follows the
properties of the constructions of the language in conveying information, and the connected
problem of approving and disapproving these, in order to avoid mistakes in the application of
speech to what the situation dictates by paying close attention to this.’ (Versteegh 1997: 124).
2 The ʿilm al-bayān is defined by Sakkākī (Miftāḥ: 162) as ‘(…) the knowledge of the expression
of one meaning in different ways, by referring to it more or less clearly, which serves to avoid
mistakes in the application of speech to the full expression of what one wishes to say. Our
remarks here indicate that whoever wishes to understand the full intention of the words
of God Almighty urgently needs these two sciences. Woe to those who dabble in exegesis
without proper attention to these two sciences!’ (Versteegh 1997: 124).
244 giolfo and hodges

in 55/1160 and to have died in 626/1229 in Farġāna. Both towns are within
present Uzbekistan, and so far as we know, Sakkākī spent his entire life within
this region. But we have very little authenticated information about him. The
historians tell us nothing about how he learned his logic. Nor do they tell us
when he wrote the Miftāḥ (Cf. Heinrichs 1995 for what is known about him).
Sakkākī introduces the logic material with some brief but florid remarks
about why it is included (Miftāḥ: 435). He says that this material is to ‘complete’
the science of meanings, and that it brings such a ‘great benefit’ that it justifies
him in ‘giving free rein to his pen’ in including it. He promises the diligent
reader that he will provide a ‘basis’ (ʾaṣl) for syllogistic reasoning, just as he has
already done for metaphors and similes. He will explain the disputes between
the ‘earlier’ (mutaqaddimūn) and the ‘later’ (mutaʾaḫḫirūn) logicians, and he
will ‘lift the veil’ that keeps us from certainty. The earlier and later logicians
we will come to in a moment. The final remark on certainty is a reference to
the claim made regularly by the Peripatetic logicians, that, as Rāzī (Mulaḫḫaṣ:
243) puts it, a correctly formed syllogism from premises that are known with
certainty brings us certainty (al-yaqīn) of the truth of the conclusion.
After this introduction, Sakkākī proceeds to give an account of the following
topics in logic. The page references are to (Sakkākī, Miftāḥ).

[436] Definition
[438] Syllogism (istidlāl)
[441] Syllogisms whose premises are topic-comment (i.e. assertoric)
[451] Contradictions and types of sentence
[456] Necessity, possibility, permanence, impermanence, the modal sen-
tence forms
[464] Conversion, both equivalent and contradictory
[480] Syllogisms, with linguistic examples
[490] Propositional logic, with some linguistic examples
[500] Various types and properties of syllogisms
[507] Linguistic exception (istiṯnāʾ)
[513] Conclusion

3 Logic at the Beginning of the 13th Century

Up until Ibn Sīnā in the eleventh century, Arabic logic was entirely based
on the Peripatetic logic of Aristotle and his classical successors. By the tenth
century, highly professional Arabic translations of Aristotle’s logical texts were
available. Also there seem to have been Arabic translations of a good deal more
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 245

of Roman Empire logic than has survived through Western sources. In the tenth
century Al-Fārābī (c. 873–950) produced a range of well-written textbooks at
various levels, introducing the reader to Aristotle’s logic and adding various
nuances of his own. Tradition said that Fārābī made an arrangement with the
linguist Ibn al-Sarrāǧ al-Baġdādī (c. 875–928), that Fārābī would teach Sarrāǧ
logic and Sarrāǧ would teach Fārābī linguistics. The tradition is unlikely to
be true: Fārābī’s interest in language was mainly lexicographic, though he did
have some highly original and interesting views about the relationship between
metaphysics and linguistic particles. His comments on syntax are much more
superficial than one would expect from a pupil of a grand master of Arabic
syntax. Nevertheless the tradition does reflect Fārābī’s friendly attitude towards
questions about language. (On a possible relationship between Fārābī and
Sarrāǧ see also Zimmermann 1981: cxviii–cxxii.)
Aristotelian logic in the Fārābī mode continued to be studied for many
decades, chiefly in Baghdad and in Spain. In the twelfth century Ibn Rušd wrote
logic in this mode.
But then comes Ibn Sīnā (c. 980–1037) in the early eleventh century. A rebel
within the Peripatetic camp, he developed a logic of his own, based on the
notion that scientific statements usually contain, either explicitly or implicitly,
some information about the times at which the stated facts are supposed to
hold. For example we say ‘Every human is an animal’; but dead humans are not
counted as animals, and so the implied statement is either

(1) Every human is an animal as long as he exists

or alternatively (as Sakkākī has it at Miftāḥ: 462.21)

(2) Every human is an animal as long as he is a human

Ibn Sīnā refers to these temporal restrictions as ‘modalities.’ He tries to use

them as a device for explaining Aristotle’s alethic modalities of ‘necessary’ and
‘possible,’ and conversely to use Aristotle’s framework as a suitable setting for
the logic of temporal modalities. He also develops a propositional logic, one
of whose features is the free use of negation, both of sentences and of their
subclauses (Hasnawi and Hodges 2016).
Ibn Sīnā’s logic opened up many new possibilities, but it was unfinished and
at some points very rough-hewn. A few logicians, such as Ibn Sīnā’s student
Bahmanyār in the later eleventh century and al-Sāwī in the twelfth century,
wrote textbooks which have survived. They report what they see as the main
outlines of Ibn Sīnā’s logical system without adding much; below we will keep
246 giolfo and hodges

an eye on Sāwī (Baṣāʾir) as part of the logical background at the time when
Sakkākī wrote. A fuller account would compare with the logical writings of al-
Ġazālī and Ibn Malkā ʾAbū al-Barakāt al-Baġdādī, both of whom show some
influence of Ibn Sīnā, though we are not aware that either of these had any
direct influence on Sakkākī.
Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1209) is a different matter altogether. He made a
wholesale reorganisation of Ibn Sīnā’s logic. Whereas Ibn Sīnā had used tem-
poral and alethic modalities to illuminate each other, Rāzī proposed a logic in
which both kinds of modality would play a role side by side. He developed a
system of sentence forms, some with just alethic modalities (following Aristo-
tle), some with just temporal modalities (following Ibn Sīnā) and some with
both kinds. This system is reported in his works Manṭiq al-mulaḫḫaṣ and Kitāb
al-manṭiq al-kabīr. Kabīr is available only in manuscript form. It is later than
Mulaḫḫaṣ, since in Mulaḫḫaṣ (Mulaḫḫaṣ: 318.5 f.) Rāzī refers to Kabīr as a work
not yet finished.
Rāzī’s radical reorganisation of Ibn Sīnā’s logic evolved into the standard
logic of the Eastern Islamic empire, from Persia eastwards. A version of it
is still taught in the madrasas in Iran. It has had an unhappy effect on the
scholarly study of Ibn Sīnā’s own logic, since later logicians—both medieval
and modern—formed a habit of interpreting Ibn Sīnā in the light of later
developments. Our main concern with it here is that what Sakkākī reports as
logic is very clearly Rāzī’s logic.
Which of Razi’s texts does Sakkaki use? We know of no discussion of the
differences between Mulaḫḫaṣ and Kabīr. But for example in both Sakkākī’s
Miftāḥ and Rāzī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ we find similar divisions of logicians into ‘earlier’
and ‘later,’ whereas Rāzī (Kabīr) makes fairly frequent references to another
classification of logicians as the ǧumhūr (the ‘broad mass’) and the others, a
classification we have not found in either Sakkākī’s Miftāḥ or Rāzī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ.
Also the treatment of propositional logic in Sakkākī’s Miftāḥ strikes us as
closer to Rāzī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ than to the more detailed treatment in Rāzī’s Kabīr.
However, Sakkākī has a brief mention (Miftāḥ: 499) of syllogisms with one
premise predicative and one propositional, which is a topic discussed in Kabīr,
but not in Mulaḫḫaṣ. On the basis of present evidence we will assume that
Sakkākī’s main source is Rāzī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ.
Sakkākī does not stick rigidly to the order of Mulaḫḫaṣ. One deviation is
that he introduces assertoric syllogisms earlier than Mulaḫḫaṣ. He presumably
reckons that his reader will want to see some formal proofs early on, which
is reasonable. Another is that he tacks onto the end a section on ‘exception’
(istiṯnāʾ); the section is purely about linguistic exception, with no evidence of
any connection with the style of proof that the logicians call istiṯnāʾ.
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 247

Knowing that Rāzī is Sakkākī’s source helps to illuminate some of Sakkākī’s

vocabulary. For example, Sakkākī (Miftāḥ: 440.4) refers to ‘the two sentences of
the istidlāl’ (ǧumlatay al-istidlāl). This is odd if we know Ibn Sīnā’s use of the
word istidlāl; for him (Ibn Sīnā Qiyās: 6.4) it is an ‘art’ (ṣināʿa). But arts don’t have
two sentences; pretty clearly Sakkākī is using the word to mean syllogism, i.e.
smallest unit of deductive reasoning. This usage is found in Rāzī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ;
for Rāzī an istidlāl is a specific piece of reasoning, and he (Mulaḫḫaṣ: 241.6)
mentions ‘syllogism’ (qiyās) as an example. Sakkākī’s departure from Ibn Sīnā’s
vocabulary here is unsurprising. Actually, Sakkākī shows no evidence that he
has ever heard of Ibn Sīnā, still less read him.
The fact that Sakkākī relies so heavily on Rāzī for his logic is interesting,
because Rāzī was one of Sakkākī’s main predecessors in the business of trans-
forming Ǧurǧānī’s thoughts on rhetoric into a tidy theory. Rāzī does this work
in his Nihāyat al-ʾīǧāz fī dirāyat al-ʾiʿǧāz. The order of publication of Rāzī’s
works is not well established, but Sakkākī may have had the Nihāya avail-
able to him. Aḥmad Maṭlūb (1964) has a chapter on the influence of Rāzī on
Sakkākī’s science of rhetoric, but this influence doesn’t seem to involve any
application of logic. Simon (1993: 23) reports that he sees the influence of logic
in the Nihāya, but we know of no investigation of the role of logic in this
book.
The history of Arabic logic is set out in The Development of Arabic Logic
(Rescher 1964), a pioneering book that now shows its age. Tony Street’s ‘Arabic
logic’ (Street 2004) is a briefer but more up-to-date treatment of the same topic.
Neither Street nor Rescher mentions Sakkākī as a logician. However, Rescher
(1964: 78) uses the fact that Qazwīnī comments on the Miftāḥ as evidence of a
rapprochement between logic (Qazwīnī) and ‘grammatical-rhetorical studies’
(Sakkākī). It seems that Rescher may have confused Al-Ḫaṭīb al-Qazwīnī, the
author of ʾĪḍāḥ and Šarḥ, with the later logician and astronomer al-Qazwīnī
al-Kātibī, author of the very influential logic text al-Šamsiyya.

4 The Earlier and the Later

All three of Sakkākī, Sāwī, and Rāzī refer to differences of opinion between ‘the
earlier ones’ (al-mutaqaddimūn) and ‘the later ones’ (al-mutaʾaḫḫirūn) about
some logical entailments. Before we study what they say, we should note that
there is something odd about having differences of opinion of this kind.
One of the most influential experiments in cognitive science was reported
in 1966 by Peter Wason. He believed that with his experimental design he could
induce intelligent people to make gross errors of logic. The experiment is very
248 giolfo and hodges

simple and one can easily replicate his results: they can certainly be presented
as errors of truth-table logic. But almost at once philosophers objected: the
basic truths of logic are by definition the constitutive truths of thinking, so
nothing could count as getting them wrong. Less a priori, other cognitive
scientists came to suspect that most of Wason’s subjects were not answering
the logical questions that he thought he was asking them. Carefully designed
experiments confirmed this (see Stanovich 1999 for a discussion). Today most
cognitive scientists, faced with the reports of logical disagreements in Sāwī,
Rāzī and Sakkākī, would say that of course there must have been cross-purposes
either about which propositions were being discussed by the different groups
of logicians, or about which logical properties were being ascribed to these
propositions. Many philosophers would agree. But this view has not yet made
its way into the history of logic, and scholars in that field still tend to take the
reports of Sāwī etc. at face value.
We should examine one of the points of disagreement, because it is an issue
on which Sakkākī gives his own views at some length. According to all three
authors, there was a disagreement between the earlier and later logicians about
whether the proposition

(3) No human laughs

entails

(4) No laugher is human

We are told that the earlier logicians said that it does, and the later logicians
denied this. In fact the case against (3) entailing (4) was made by Ibn Sīnā. Sāwī
and Rāzī knew this. Ibn Sīnā’s position was that (3) is ‘general absolute’, i.e. that
it means

(5) Everything that is ever a human is sometimes not laughing

which is true; by the same token (4) means

(6) Everything that ever laughs is sometimes not human

which is surely false.

Why did Ibn Sīnā claim that (4) means (6)? One view, put forward for example
by Street (2004: 548), is that Ibn Sīnā’s reading of these sentences was some-
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 249

thing that he ‘stipulated (…) for logical purposes.’ The truth seems to be more
subtle than this. Ibn Sīnā himself (Muḫtaṣar: 43b11) describes his choice of this
reading of (4) and similar sentences as an ‘editorial’ decision (taḥriran), mak-
ing sense of claims that he found in earlier Peripatetic logicians. But it was not
an arbitrary stipulation; it rests on Ibn Sīnā’s more general views of seman-
tics.
Ibn Sīnā noted that the meaning of a sentence has to depend on the context
in which it is used. In particular, a context can add to a sentence an explicit or
implied ‘addition’ (ziyāda). Two examples (they are not his but they are similar
to ones that he uses):

No human laughs while eating.

No human laughs all the time.

Ibn Sīnā’s view was that ‘No human laughs’ has a meaning when it is taken
‘without any condition attached’ (ʾiḏā lam yušṭarat fī-hā šarṭ) (Ibn Sīnā Naǧāt:
36.12), and the other meanings that it takes in various contexts are obtained
by applying suitable restrictions to this minimal meaning. He took the earlier
Peripatetic logicians to be referring to this minimal meaning when they spoke
of the sentence as ‘absolute’ (muṭlaq in the Arabic versions that he had in front
of him), and accordingly he named this meaning the ‘general absolute.’ He took
this minimal meaning to be that the human at least once (during his lifetime)
does not laugh. This is not necessarily the meaning of the sentence (4) used in
typical contexts, because in typical contexts the rules of language may require
us to assume the restriction ‘ever.’
In short, Ibn Sīnā’s ‘general absolute’ reading of sentences like (3) and (4)
is not so much a stipulation as a part of a more general theory about how
sentences get their meanings. The notion that the meanings of complex sen-
tences are built up by adding ‘restrictions’ (sing. taqyīd) (e.g. Ibn Sīnā ʿIbāra:
22.6) is something that Djamel-Eddine Kouloughli has remarked is a feature of
Ǧurǧānī’s semantics too (see for example Kouloughli, 2000: 102). Here we have
to be a little speculative, since there is much work to be done. But our impres-
sion is that Kouloughli is right in thinking that this kind of semantics by added
‘restrictions’ is not typical of the Arabic linguistic tradition before Ǧurǧānī. It
seems to us to belong rather to the kind of syntactic analysis that modern lin-
guists sometimes put into the form of x-bar theory: a phrase consists of a head
word and various adjoined words or phrases that qualify the meaning of the
head word. This kind of analysis is found already in Apollonius Dyscolus. But
the work of Dyscolus is not known to have reached the Arabic literature (we
thank Kees Versteegh for confirming this in conversation), and both Ibn Sīnā
250 giolfo and hodges

and Ǧurǧānī could very well have come to their versions of this semantics sim-
ply by reflection on the facts of syntax.
Both Sāwī and Rāzī report Ibn Sīnā’s disagreement with his predecessors
over the ‘general absolute universal negative’ propositions discussed above.
They indicate Ibn Sīnā’s own arguments in similar terms, and both are rea-
sonably faithful to Ibn Sīnā. Sakkākī treats the question in his Miftāḥ (Miftāḥ:
465.8–469.20), and what he says is quite different from the logicians. For him
there is no doubt at all that the earlier logicians were right and the later were
wrong. He argues that the meanings of (3) and (4)—or strictly their Arabic
equivalents lā ʾinsāna bi-ḍāḥikin and lā ḍāḥika bi-ʾinsānin (Miftāḥ: 467.10f.)—
are completely obvious, and so nobody could miss the entailment from (3) to
(4):

(7) It is inescapable that it will be clearer than the sun to you that (…) if
laughing is denied of humans then it follows that human is denied of
laughers; there is no problem about this.
Miftāḥ: 467.4–7

We note that for this question, Sakkākī places the issue between the earlier
and the later logicians as a question about the proper interpretation of certain
sentences. In this he seems to be closer to the modern cognitive scientists than
either Sāwī or Rāzī were.
Ibn Sīnā would almost certainly have sympathized with Sakkākī’s appeal
to the natural way sentences are understood, the mafhūm as Ibn Sīnā calls it.
But it is a disappointment that Sakkākī seems to be completely unaware of
the theoretical issues behind Ibn Sīnā’s readings—particularly when Sakkākī
might have related them to things in Ǧurǧānī. This does tend to confirm that
Sakkākī had no independent knowledge of Ibn Sīnā’s work, beyond what he
read in Rāzī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ.
There are other places where Sakkākī refers to disagreements between the
earlier and the later logicians. In Miftāḥ (Miftāḥ: 486) he explains at length
what seems to be intended as the plain man’s all-purpose tool for handling
disputes between these two groups. We wish we could report the contents of
this passage, but so far we have not been able to give it any kind of logical
cogency. In any case it is not clear that the people Sakkākī describes as ‘later’
are always the same people, though Sakkākī may not be aware of this.
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 251

5 The Modalized Sentence Types

The standard Arabic text of Aristotle’s Organon classifies subject-predicate

propositions into three types: muṭlaq ‘absolute’, ḍarūrī—propositions express-
ing ‘It is necessary that …’—and mumkin—propositions expressing ‘it is possi-
ble (or contingent) that …’. Ibn Sīnā attacked this classification. In his view, each
of the three categories contained propositions with widely different logical
properties. This was particularly so for the class of muṭlaq ‘absolute’ propo-
sitions. He embarked on a project to classify subject-predicate propositions
by what they express about time. For example he distinguished between the
propositions

(8) Everything that is sometimes a c is sometimes a b

(which we have already met above as the ‘general absolute’) and

(9) Everything that is sometimes a c is a b at least when it is a c

which he described as ‘another absolute’ (see also Hasnawi and Hodges 2016).

As we remarked earlier, Rāzī undertook a wholesale reorganisation of Ibn Sīnā’s

classification of sentences. Rāzī (Mulaḫḫaṣ: 67–170 and 180–184) presents a list
of thirteen forms of subject-predicate sentences, with proposed names and
truth-conditions. The truth-conditions are partly temporal and partly alethic.
Sakkākī reports almost all of Rāzī’s classification of sentences, though with-
out saying where it came from. He slightly varies some of the names. Thus
for example Rāzī (Mulaḫḫaṣ: 180f.) describes, in this precise order, the ‘general
absolute,’ the ‘absolute conventional’ (al-muṭlaq al-ʿurfī), the ‘temporary non-
necessary’ (al-wuǧūdiyya al-lā-ḍarūriyya), and the ‘temporary non-permanent’
(al-wuǧūdiyya al-lā dāʾima). Sakkākī describes in turn the ‘general absolute’
(Miftāḥ: 469.21), the ‘temporary permanent’ (Miftāḥ: 472.13), the ‘temporary
non-permanent’ (Miftāḥ: 473.7), and the ‘absolute conventional’ (Miftāḥ:
473.8). Some parts of these names come from Ibn Sīnā, but in most cases the
names as a whole seem to be Rāzī’s invention. For example Sāwī had spoken of
the ‘usual sense’ (al-mafhūm al-ʿurfī) of the sentences that Rāzī called ‘absolute
conventional’ (e.g. Sāwī, Baṣāʾir: 73.10), picking up a remark in Ibn Sīnā’s ʾIšārāt,
but the name ‘absolute conventional’ is Rāzī’s. Ibn Sīnā’s (9) is an instance of
Rāzī’s ‘absolute conventional.’
What does Sakkākī do with the sentence forms that he takes from Rāzī? A
lot of what he says is paraphrased from Rāzī, including several of his exam-
252 giolfo and hodges

ple sentences. He does throw in some linguistics. For example he consistently

uses mubtadaʾ for the logicians’ mawḍūʿ (‘subject’) and ḫabar for their maḥmūl
(‘predicate’).3 So, for example, when Sakkākī refers to ‘the necessary condi-
tioned by the description of the mubtadaʾ’ (Sakkākī Miftāḥ: 463.8f.), we can see
that this is Rāzī’s ‘necessary conditioned,’ whose definition refers to the ‘subject
description.’
Sakkākī also adds some linguistic examples. For instance he illustrates ‘gen-
eral absolute’ with the following sentence (Sakkākī Miftāḥ: 469.22):

(10) Every noun is a word (kullu ismin kalima)

We spell out the ‘general absolute’ in (8) above; its distinctive feature is the two
temporal quantifiers ‘sometimes.’ But a noun cannot be sometimes a word and
sometimes not a word. Sakkākī has taken a class of sentences that Ibn Sīnā had
picked out for their temporal features, and applied it to a subject matter with
no temporal properties at all. A little later in the same discussion, Sakkākī offers
the sentence

(11) No word, so long as it stays a word, is a noun

(lā šayʾa min al-kalami mā dāma kalimatan bi-ismin)

What can he take this to mean? To be fair to Sakkākī, logicians through the ages
have had a notorious habit of illustrating points with sentences that no sane
person would use. For example Sakkākī will have read in Rāzī examples like

(12) Whenever this is a human it is an animal

rāzī, Mulaḫḫaṣ: 221.5

In Kabīr (Rāzī Kabīr: 135b9), if we read the manuscript correctly, Rāzī gives the
example

(13) Some animals are not human, not permanently but so long as they are
animals

This is every bit as bad as (11), given that ‘not permanently’ for Rāzī normally
means ‘not throughout the existence of the subject individual.’

3 Larcher (2013: 190) notes that ‘(…) these two elements are called in Arabic musnad and
musnad ʾilayhi and should logically be called predicate and subject’.
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 253

We call attention to a puzzling but potentially deep remark that Sakkākī

makes at the beginning of his discussion of modal sentence types. The pas-
sage interrupts Sakkākī’s progression from the general study of necessity and
possibility (up to Miftāḥ: 458) to the listing of modal sentence forms (from
Miftāḥ: 460). The interrupting passage is not about modalities at all. It reports
the logical notion of metathesis (ʿudūl), namely where a negation applies to a
constituent of a sentence rather than to the whole sentence. The notion was
introduced by Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus, but Ibn Sīnā developed
it in several directions. One of us has argued that Ibn Sīnā was responding to
the same linguistic intuitions that gave rise to the distinction between sen-
tence negation and constituent negation in twentieth-century generative syn-
tax (Hodges 2012). At the very least the notion of metathesis has some close
connection with the notion of the semantic scope of a negation.
One of us has also argued that although phenomena that today we would
explain in terms of the semantic scope of an expression (say, a negation or a
quantifier or a modality) have been recognized for over two thousand years, it
was only in modern times that these were brought together, by both linguists
and logicians, under the general notion of scope (Hodges 2015). So it is rather
startling to see Sakkākī’s explanation for introducing a discussion of metathesis
in the middle of a treatment of modalities. He says:

(14) Now, in the same way in which you conceived what I mentioned regarding
‘negation’, you can conceive, regarding ‘possibility’ and ‘necessity’, ‘per-
petuity’ and ‘non-perpetuity’, whether it is referred to components of
the proposition or to the proposition as a whole, within affirmation or
negation, taking into account all the combinations. So, after our warning
[about the fact that something can be referred to a part or to the whole],
we say (…)
sakkākī, Miftāḥ: 459.13–17

(and here he begins his list of modal sentence types).

The reader will be puzzled to find that Sakkākī says no more about the matter.
He never gives examples to illustrate possibility or perpetuity being applied to a
particular component as opposed to the whole sentence. But Rāzī throws some
light on this. Just before one of his listings of modal sentence types, Rāzī has a
short section explaining how a modality in a sentence can modify either the
predication or the quantifier in the sentence (Mulaḫḫaṣ: 171). His example is

(15) It is possible for every human to be literate

254 giolfo and hodges

The distinction that he makes is exactly that between wide scope of the
modality (‘Possibly: every human is literate,’ this is possibility on the quanti-
fier) and narrow scope (‘For every human, it is possible for that human to be
literate,’ which is possibility on the predication). This distinction was due to
Ibn Sīnā.
It does appear that Sakkākī has reacted to this passage of Rāzī’s Mulaḫḫaṣ by
framing something close to the notion of scope. Perhaps it was only a flash in
the pan.

6 The Propositional Logic

Ibn Sīnā’s formal logic falls into two main parts, predicative logic (which stud-
ies sentences like those discussed in the previous section) and a part that
today we call propositional logic—though it is not much like the propositional
logic that you might learn from a modern logic textbook. At a first approx-
imation, in propositional logic sentences are taken as unanalyzed wholes.
So an example of a propositional rule that Ibn Sīnā would have recognized
is

(16) Whenever p then q. Whenever q then r. So whenever p then r

where p, q, r stand for whole sentences. (We leave aside the technicality that Ibn
Sīnā himself did not use single letters for sentences.) In all of his treatments
of logic, Ibn Sīnā discusses propositional logic only after he has discussed
predicative logic. Sāwī, Rāzī and Sakkākī all follow this same order. Soon after
Sakkākī the order was overturned by Ḫūnaǧī, who put the propositional logic
first.
Ibn Sīnā’s propositional logic has several layers, which seem to bear a com-
plicated relationship to the development of his research (the strands of Ibn
Sīnā’s formal propositional logic are analyzed in Hodges 201–). The bottom
level, where he must have started, is very much the same as the propositional
logic of his predecessor Fārābī, which brings together the main achievements
of the propositional logic of the Roman Empire. The main constructions stud-
ied are ‘If p then q’ and ‘Either p or q’; we do sometimes meet ‘Whenever,’ but it
is taken as a variant of ‘If’ with no special rules of its own. Ibn Sīnā’s predeces-
sors sometimes blurred the line between propositional and predicative logic,
by considering sentences like

(17) If this is a number then this is either odd or even

the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 255

which in turn they regarded as a variant of the predicative sentence

(18) Every number is either odd or even

Ibn Sīnā himself argued against this blurring. Let us call this bottom level of
propositional logic pl1.
The next level (pl2) develops a system of sentences where besides ‘When-
ever’ we have ‘Sometimes,’ so that we can say for example ‘Sometimes p and
q,’ which contradicts ‘Whenever p then not q.’ The most advanced level (pl3)
studies arguments involving a variety of forms such as ‘Always either not p or
not q.’ For some of these forms Ibn Sīnā offers verbalizations such as

(19) laysa al-batta ʾiḏā kāna kaḏā kāna kaḏā

Sāwī quotes this (Sāwī Baṣāʾir: 66.29). Even with the kaḏā filled in appropri-
ately, this is not a form of sentence that anybody actually uses in scholarly
Arabic. (We would be grateful to hear of any counterexamples!) This example
comes from the middle level pl2; the top level pl3 contains even more striking
barbarisms. We know what Ibn Sīnā meant by these expressions, because in
Qiyās he gives dozens of example arguments using these sentence forms, often
with full explanations. Nevertheless both the text of Ibn Sīnā and the mod-
ern discussions contain evidence that people can interpret these sentences
in quite incompatible ways. So they have no mafhūm, i.e. no ‘generally rec-
ognized sense’, and Ibn Sīnā is free to use them as technical terms, which he
does.
Both Sāwī and Rāzī (Mulaḫḫaṣ) base their treatment of propositional logic
closely on Ibn Sīnā’s relatively early work Naǧāt; parts of their expositions are
almost verbatim from this source. The account in Naǧāt is largely confined to
the bottom level pl1. It seems that Rāzī (Kabīr) goes deeper into pl3, though
we have not had a chance to investigate this. Naǧāt does refer to some of the
concepts of the higher levels, but there is no explanation of meanings, and
the few example arguments given are not nearly enough to determine these
meanings. Likewise Rāzī (Mulaḫḫaṣ) is less than explicit about the meanings
of Ibn Sīnā’s expressions. For example he gives no interpretation for (19), though
he does interpret a similar sentence with an extra piece added in the middle,
which is a misleading guide to Ibn Sīnā’s intentions (Mulaḫḫaṣ: 227.2).
Sakkākī’s response is interesting. He thinks that examples are needed, so he
supplies many. We can see that they are his, because the contents are all taken
from grammar or rhetoric. For instance, one example that he gives for (19), in
an argument, is
256 giolfo and hodges

(20) There is nothing at all that when it is a particle is perfect or imperfect or

imperative
(laysa al-batta šayʾun ʾiḏā kāna ḥarfan ʾan yakūna māḍiyyan ʾaw muḍāriʿan
ʾaw ʾamran)

We can see more or less what he is doing here. He adds šayʾ after al-batta (and
he makes similar additions whenever he uses this form), because he feels that
the sentence needs it. The effect is to convert Ibn Sīnā’s temporal quantifier ‘It
is never the case that …’ into a simple negative quantifier ‘There is no …’. So the
sentence comes out meaning ‘No particle is perfect or imperfect or imperative.’
This is a sentence of good old-fashioned Aristotelian predicative logic; it does
not belong in propositional logic at all. But Sakkākī is blind to this point; for him
the aim is to make an intelligible example out of the material in his sourcebook.
The strategy makes better sense for reading poetry than it does for reading logic;
but given Sakkākī’s expertise this is no surprise.
There is another issue in the background here. Some Peripatetic logicians
had claimed that ‘conditional’ sentences have paraphrases that ‘reduced’ them
to predicative sentences, making propositional logic redundant. The para-
phrases worked only in very special cases, and then only if one was careless
about quantifiers. Sāwī (Baṣāʾir: 100.21–30) discusses these proposed reductions
and declares that there is no need for them. Rāzī slips in at least one example
when he declares (Mulaḫḫaṣ: 221.1) that the ‘conditional’ (šarṭī) sentence

(21) Whenever (kulla-mā) the body is moving voluntarily it is perceptive

is ‘tantamount to’ ( fī quwwati) the predicative Aristotelian sentence

(22) Every body moving voluntarily is perceptive

Ibn Sīnā, at least in his mature writings, would have rejected this paraphrase.
But Sakkākī seems to accept it. He describes (Sakkākī Miftāḥ: 441.4) proposi-
tional logic sentences as a ‘special case’ (maḫṣūṣ) of predicative ones. Strangely
he says he takes this fact not from logic but from the ʿilm al-maʿānī. We do not
know what he has in mind by this remark.
Rāzī’s example above treats the particle kulla-mā as tantamount to a quan-
tifier over individuals, just as we saw Sakkākī treating laysa al-batta as a simple
quantifier. This particle kulla-mā appears very often in the logic of Ibn Sīnā and
his successors as a way of forming ‘conditionals.’ Earlier Peripatetic logicians
tended to regard it, and its synonyms in Greek or Latin, as variants of ‘if,’ and this
is more or less how it is treated in the bottom level of Ibn Sīnā’s propositional
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 257

logic. But it is interesting to find that both Ibn Sīnā and Sakkākī express misgiv-
ings that cast doubt on the status of kulla-mā as a conditional particle. There is
not a straightforward agreement between the two writers, because their doubts
come from very different directions, and we have not yet found any discussion
of the issue in Rāzī.
Sakkākī (Miftāḥ: 490.8ff.) expresses his doubt as a criticism of syntacticians.
They should not have taken kulla-mā as a conditional particle, because it does
not operate the apocope of the verbs;4 presumably he believes that a genuine
conditional contains a withdrawal from reality, as expressed by an apocopated
verb (see Giolfo 2014).

As for the conditional structure, I focused on the [introductory] parti-

cles in the section dedicated to syntax (ʿilm al-naḥw) and on its analysis
[of the conditional structure] in the section dedicated to semantics (ʿilm
al-maʿānī), so there is no need to repeat that. However, some grammar-
ians added to the particles kulla-mā, although the principles of syntax
would exclude that, inasmuch as it was established that, rightly, condi-
tional particles operate the apocope of the verb, whilst kulla-mā does not
have anything to do with the apocope of the verb. Rather, kulla-mā rep-
resents the generalization of kull in construction with mā al-maṣdariyya
[representing an absolute or internal object] which indicates adverbaliza-
tion, e.g. ʾataytu-ka ‘I came to you’ before its occurring, which is realized
in the expression kulla-mā ‘whenever’ ʾakramta-nī ‘you honoured me’
ʾakramtu-ka ‘I honoured you,’ which, in virtue of the adverbalization, ren-
ders the meaning ‘Every time your honour turns to me, I shall honour you’
(kulla waqtin ʾikrāmu-ka ʾiyyā-ya ʾukrimu-ka).
sakkākī Miftāḥ, 490.8–14

It is interesting to note here that Sakkākī, in his criticism about kulla-mā, seems
to refer to the first of the six propositions which justify the eight sections5

4 ‘Hypothetical particles operate the apocope of the verbs, being the apodosis apocopated by
what precedes [i.e. protasis]’ (Sībawayhi Kitāb, Hārūn 3, 62).
5 ‘(I) states of the assertive predication; (ii) states of the “support”; (iii) statesd of the “sup-
ported” (…); (iv) states of the complements of the verb; (v) restriction; (vi) performative; (vii)
conjunction and disjunction; and (viii) concision, prolixity, and equilibrium.’ (Larcher 2013:
189). According to Larcher (2013), each of the eight sections is justified by one of a set of six
propositions (Qazwīnī, Šarḥ): (i) ‘The utterance, in fact, is either statement or performative,
because if its relationship has a referent, to which it is appropriate or not, it is a statement
and, if not, a performative’ justifies sections i and vi (Larcher 2013: 189); (ii) ‘The statement
258 giolfo and hodges

(Qazwīnī Šarḥ) in which the ʿilm al-maʿānī is divided, namely to the propo-
sition ‘The utterance, in fact, is either statement or performative, because if its
relationship has a referent, to which it is appropriate or not, it is a statement
and, if not, a performative’6 (Larcher 2013: 189), that is to say the classification
of utterances into ḫabar and ʾinšāʾ’ (Larcher 1980; Larcher 1991) or Sībawayhi’s
distinction between wāǧib ‘assertive’ and ġayr wāǧib ‘non-assertive’ utterances
(see Giolfo 2012).
Ibn Sīnā (Easterners: 61.7–17) makes the different point that not all so-called
‘conditional’ sentences contain a posited assumption (šarṭ mawḍūʿ) and a con-
sequence (ǧazāʾ), though he points to disjunctions rather than to sentences
with kulla-mā. In Ibn Sīnā’s view, the common feature of propositional com-
pounds is rather that they contain sentential clauses which are not asserted
when the sentence as a whole is asserted; particles like kulla-mā mark this fea-
ture of the clauses that they are attached to.

7 On Syntactic Complexity

According to Larcher, the proposition (Qazwīnī Šarḥ) ‘Each of the two rela-
tionships, predicative and verbal complements, can be made with or without
restriction’ (Larcher 2013: 190) justifies the section of ʿilm al-maʿānī dedicated
to restriction. ‘Even though the restriction is presented as bearing on the con-
stituents, whether major or minor, one finds here no less the utterance and even
the semantically complex utterance’ (Larcher 2013: 191). Moreover, the proposi-
tion (Qazwīnī Šarḥ) ‘Every clause is connected to another, whether coordinated
with it or not’ (Larcher 2013: 191) justifies the section of ʿilm al-maʿānī which
deals with conjunction and disjunction, and shows that such a semantics ‘also
goes beyond the utterance, concerning the way one clause links with another,
in other words, the formally complex utterance or discourse.’ (Larcher 2013: 191).

requires a support, a supported, and a predication’ justifies sections ii and iii (Larcher 2013:
190); (iii) ‘The supported can have complements, if it is a verb or an element having the
meaning of one’ justifies section iv (Larcher 2013: 190); (iv) ‘Each of the two relationships,
predicative and verbal complements, can be with or without restriction’ justifies section v
(Larcher 2013: 190–191); (v) ‘Every clause is connected to another, whether coordinated with it
or not.’ justifies section vii (Larcher 2013: 191); (vi) ‘The efficient utterance either considerably
exceeds what is fundamentally intended, otherwise not’ justifies section viii (Larcher 2013:
191).
6 This proposition ‘(…) justifies sections i and vi and suggests that this semantics is primarily
a semantics of the utterance.’ (Larcher 2013: 189).
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 259

At (Miftāḥ: 493.15–18) Sakkākī presents us with an example designed to

show that logic can handle very complex sentences. The point here is that in
propositional logic we have operators like ‘If … then …’ that take sentences (or
at least clauses) both as arguments and as values. So given sentences φ and ψ
we can say ‘If φ then ψ’, ‘If, if φ then ψ, then ψ’, and so on to arbitrary complexity.
Here is Sakkākī’s example, laid out to show the operators. (The numbering of
the verbs will be explained in a moment. At (Miftāḥ: 493.17) we read lam yakun
ʾan yakūna, rather than Zarzūr’s lam yakun ʾin yakūnu which is at odds with his
readings in line 18.)

(23) ʾin
kāna(1) al-nāṭiqu lāziman musāwiyyan li-l-ʾinsāni
ṣaḥḥa(2)
ʾin
kāna(3)
matā
kāna(4)
kulla-mā
kāna(5) hāḏā
ʾinsānan
fa-huwa(6)
nāṭiqun
kāna(7)
kulla-mā
kāna(8)
nāṭiqan
fa-huwa(9)
ʾinsanun
fa-yakūnu(10)
matā
kāna(11)
kulla-mā
lam yakun(12)
ʾan
yakūna(13)
ʾinsānan
lam yakun(14)
ʾan
yakūna(15)
nāṭiqan
260 giolfo and hodges

kāna(16)
kulla-mā
lam yakun(17)
ʾan
yakūna(18)
nāṭiqan
lam yakun(19)
ʾan
yakūna(20)
ʾinsānan

The example rests on a propositional tautology, which today we would write as

(24) ((p ↔ q) → (((p → q) → (q → p)) → ((¬ p → ¬ q) → (¬q → ¬p))))

As far as we know, no logician had produced a propositional tautology of

anything like this complexity at the time when Sakkākī wrote. Without reading
all of the medieval Arabic logical texts (and in particular Rāzī’s Kabīr which
Sakkākī may have seen), we cannot swear that there is no such example in
them. But there are some indications that the example is more likely to come
from Sakkākī himself than from a logician.
The first indication is the operators used. Sakkākī uses ʾin (‘if’), matā (‘when’)
and kulla-mā (‘whenever’) as binary sentential operators.7 This is standard in
the Avicennan logical texts. He also uses lam yakun as a unary operator; Ibn
Sīnā regularly used laysa in the same way. But Sakkākī also uses ṣaḥḥa ‘it is true
that’ and kāna ‘it is the case that’ as unary operators to increase the complexity.
In Peripatetic logic up to and including Ibn Sīnā, it was always understood that
φ and ‘It is true that φ’ express the same proposition, so that for logical purposes
there is nothing to be gained by distinguishing them. Possibly some later Arabic
logicians challenged this view, but we do not know this. It seems more likely
that Sakkākī was relying on the linguist’s knowledge that these two verbs can
be used as sentential operators.8

7 Conditional particles operate—indirectly for Sībawayhi, directly for Zamaḫšarī (d. 538/
1144)—on both the verbs of the sentence. Cf. Zamaḫšarī Mufaṣṣal, 150.
8 After all, Sībawayhi draws a distinction between sentences of the language and sentences of
the metalanguage. These latter are sentences of the language to which a truth operator is
applied. Accordingly, Sībawayhi describes the proposition of the metalanguage as sentences
of the type wa-allahi la-qad faʿala ‘it is true that he did’ on one hand, and sentences such as
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 261

This view is supported by Sakkākī’s comment immediately after the example

(Sakkākī, Miftāḥ: 493.19), that the example contains ‘twenty sentences.’ The
reader may have some better insight than we do, but it looks as if Sakkākī
has reached the number twenty by counting the number of occurrences of
verbs (including huwa used as a copular verb). It seems unlikely that a logician
would have counted this way. The number of logically distinct clauses in the
example is the same as the number of subformulas of (24), which is twenty-
three. The number of syntactic subclauses of the example is rather higher,
thanks to Sakkākī’s use of ṣaḥḥa and kāna as sentential operators.
The second indication is that the degree of nesting of sentential operators
in Sakkākī’s example (five levels even ignoring the ṣaḥḥa and kāna) is much
higher than anything we have seen in the logicians before modern times. The
logicians of antiquity certainly knew about sentential operators, and occasion-
ally we meet nesting to two levels (though normally with the operator varied).
For example in the late Roman empire Boethius offers

(25) si cum homo est, animal est, cum sit corpus erit substantia
boethius Hypotheticis: 1.5.1

and similarly in Ibn Sīnā we find

(26) ʾin kāna kullamā kānat al-šamsu ṭāliʿatan fa-l-nahāru mawǧūdun, fa-
ʾimmā ʾan takūna al-šamsu ṭāliʿatan wa-ʾimmā ʾan lā yakūna al-nahāru
mawǧūdan
ibn sīnā, ʾIšārāt: 80.8–10, i.3.8

There is a reason why the logicians did not nest any further. Their interest was
in formal inferences, and the Peripatetic logicians had no techniques of formal
inference that reached down more than two or three levels into the syntactic
structure of the sentences. In fact, although Sakkākī’s example is a very straight-
forward tautology, we know of no formal rules generally recognized before the
nineteenth century that would have been capable of verifying it. Before that
date, logicians would have had to handle it by informed intuition rather than
by formal reasoning.
The statements in the previous paragraph need some nuancing. Ibn Sīnā
described a method for taking an inference and moving it one step deeper in
the syntactic structure (cf. Hodges 2016). This was something he took seriously

huwa yafʿalu ʾay huwa fī ḥāli fiʿlin ‘it is true that he does’ on the other (Sībawayhi Kitāb, Hārūn,
3, 117. Cf. also 4, 221).
262 giolfo and hodges

and discussed in some detail, but as far as we know, neither he nor any of
his successors considered iterating the method. In early 14th century Paris,
Walter Burley (Burley Puritate: 68 2nd paragraph) gave some examples that
tend in the same direction as Ibn Sīnā’s, but again without working out the
implications. (For general remarks on ‘top-level processing’ in medieval logic,
see Hodges 2009). As far as we know, the first logicians who explicitly identified
the problem and proposed methods for dealing with it were Boole and Frege in
the nineteenth century.

8 Concluding Remarks

With Maṭlūb (1964: 159), we note that Sakkākī regularly repeats the expression
wa-sa-taqif ʿalā hāḏā fī nawʿ al-istidlāl ʾiḏā intahaynā ʾilay-hi bi-ʾiḏn Allāh ‘You
shall see that at the level of istidlāl when we reach it with God’s permission’
and that, after concluding the analysis at the level of the maʿānī, the bayān and
the muḥassināt ‘stylistic ornaments’, he refers to the connection between logic
(istidlāl) and rhetoric by saying:

Once you realized that the science of meanings (ʿilm al-maʿānī) is the
knowledge of the properties of the structures of the discourse or the
knowledge of the formulations of meanings—and that you reach by
means of it the entirety of the dimensions of the discourse up to the lim-
its of your intellect—, and realized that the dimension of ‘logic’ (istidlāl),
with respect to the other dimensions of the discourse, is one part of an
entirety, one branch of a tree that has many branches—you know how to
perform ‘logical utterance’ (al-kalām al-istidlālī).

Sakkākī presents his appendices as ‘a complement’ to the science of meanings

in that they pursue the properties of the structures of the discourse within logic,
‘knowing that he who mastered even only one principle of ʿilm al-bayān—
as the principle of analogy or metonymy or metaphor—and devoted to the
modality of its behaviour in order to gather that which is wanted through it,
would look at logic as a guiding principle.’ (Sakkākī Miftāḥ: 205). A complement
which Sakkākī did not after all deem so necessary, as he himself describes it as
a ‘guiding principle’ that he likens to ‘a closed door which comes to your mind
only as the idea of penetrating it for wariness when you perceive a feeble noise
from behind the barrier.’ (Sakkākī Miftāḥ: 205).
If Sakkākī concludes with an image of reconciliation between the work of
the rhetorician and that of the logician, he nevertheless highlights that between
the system of the sciences of the arabic language by sakkākī 263

them there is a wide gap and a huge distance. So, we feel we are not at all afraid
that, as Maṭlūb puts it, ‘the implementation of logic as suggested by Sakkākī
has made of rhetoric something frozen and deteriorated its character.’ (Maṭlūb
1964: 162). He observes that ‘the ordinary native speaker of Arabic was able to
reach the meaning without any prior knowledge of logical syllogisms. He was
able to do poetry and literary prose without knowing that language is subject to
be built along formal rules.’ (Maṭlūb 1964: 162). In our opinion, Maṭlūb is even
more unfair to Sakkākī than we are, at least in that Sakkākī in his appendices is
not analysing any processes involved in the production of meaning, or of poetry,
or of literary prose.
Maṭlūb (1964: 163) emphasizes that literature is based on taste, therefore it
cannot be forced into logical structures and syllogisms. In his opinion, within
literary art, there is no place for philosophy or logic. He advises critics and
scholars to ‘follow literary and rhetorical norms of men of letters such as ʾAbū
Hilāl al-ʿAskarī, al-ʾĀmidī, ʿAlī Ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Ǧurǧānī, ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-
Ǧurǧānī and Ibn al-ʾAṯīr, among others. These people are known for their good
literary taste as opposed to Sakkākī’s logical approach.’ (Maṭlūb 1964: 163).
Now, if Sakkākī’s rhetoric can be considered ‘a norm’ for poetic and literary
production, we are convinced that there is no danger that Sakkākī’s appendices
can ever be elevated to a norm for poetry and literary prose. They rather remain,
in our opinion and, all in all, in the opinion of their author, a rustle in the wind
beyond a closed door.

Acknowledgments

We thank Afzal Hasan (of Exeter University Library), Alexander Kalbarczyk and
Reza Pourjavady for valuable help in getting access to texts.

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 chapter 13

Teaching Arabic to the Angels: A Scherzo by

al-Maʿarrī on Heavenly Morphology

Martino Diez

It is no secret that the first generations of Arab grammarians devoted significant

attention to morphological issues—even a quick glance at the Kitāb Sībawayh
proves this point. Over the following centuries, research continued to flourish
both in the rich lexicographical tradition initiated by al-Ḫalīl (d. 175/791) and in
the works of scholars such as al-Māzinī (d. 249/863), al-Mubarrad (d. 286/900),
Ṯaʿlab (d. 291/904), ʾAbū ʿAlī al-Fārisī (d. 377/987), Ibn Ǧinnī (d. 392/1002) and
Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004), just to mention some giants. In later epochs, however,
this domain of scholarship came to be neglected in favor of a more abstract and
formalistic approach. Speaking in an age when the textual corpus relevant to
linguistic studies had already been closed, al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), as Ghersetti
(2013: 148–149) has recently stressed, made a revealing comparison between
the lexicographer and the grammarian, on the one hand, and the “traditionist”
(muḥaddiṯ) and the jurist, on the other. In both cases, the first figure was only
supposed to collect raw materials, while the latter elaborated them on a sci-
entific basis. The difference of rank between the two kinds of disciplines that
was implicit in al-Suyūṭī’s comparison (and the degree of prestige attached to
them) probably explains why morphological studies were progressively con-
fined to dictionaries, which, indeed, continued to be produced throughout the
pre-modern period.
In contemporary studies on Arabic, as well, morphology and lexicography
remain rather marginal disciplines. To give just one example, scholars still do
not possess a historical dictionary of Classical Arabic. There are exceptions
to the general trend,1 and Pierre Larcher is certainly one of them. During his
career he has paid constant attention to the treasury of the Arabic vocabulary,
starting from his 1972 thesis on proper nouns in the Muʿallaqa of ʿAntara. He
has contested the holistic view that claims to explain the whole of the Arabic
lexicon through the root-pattern pair (Larcher 1995) and has repeatedly focused
on word formation (Larcher 2007 and 2012), urging a move from a static to

1 One thinks for instance of Fleisch 1978 and of the many contributions by Manfred Ullmann.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_015

268 diez

a dynamic comprehension ‘of the morphological and semantic movement in

the vocabulary, both synchronically and diachronically’ (Larcher 2008: 94). At
the same time, this concern for lexical and morphological issues goes hand in
hand in Larcher with a deep interest in Arabic poetry as the second focus of his
personal quest. Merging the disciplines of linguistics and poetry as he has done
is, indeed, a well-established practice in Arabic culture.
This article too falls within this dual approach. However, rather than exam-
ining the grammarians’ attitude towards poetry, it sets out to sketch an opposite
case: the use of grammar, or more precisely morphology, in a treatise by a great
poet and prose writer, the blind maverick ʾAbū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī (d. 449/1058).

1 A Didactic Epistle

In the great authors of Arabic literature, total command of the linguistic sci-
ences was an imperative. But even by the Arabic standards, al-Maʿarrī stands
out for his keen interest in vocabulary, prosody, and word formation. When
reading the first part of his Epistle of Forgiveness, one is impressed by the num-
ber of morphological questions that are discussed in the text.2 They are almost
the same in length as the digressions on syntax and they are often expressed in
a highly specialised jargon that requires considerable efforts of interpretation.
To better understand the question, I decided to explore al-Maʿarrī’s mor-
phological sources. It soon appeared that another work could offer significant
clues: the Risālat al-Malāʾika (‘Epistle of the Angels’), a treatise that, according
to its Arabic editor Muḥammad Salīm al-Ǧundī, ‘offers us a full image of the
achievements of this science [= morphology] in al-Maʿarrī’s epoch and before
it.’3
Although mentioned in the medieval list of works attributed to al-Maʿarrī,
the Risālat al-Malāʾika had a troubled transmission. While its introduction
continued to circulate as a part of al-Suyūṭī’s al-ʾAšbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir fī al-naḥw
(iv: 381–438), the bulk of the work steadily fell into oblivion. Consequently, the
first 1910 Egyptian print edition only reproduced the introduction. The same
was done by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Maymanī al-Rāǧkūtī at the end of his ʾAbū al-
ʿAlāʾ wa-mā ʾilay-hi (1344/1925) and by Kāmil al-Kaylānī in an appendix to his
defective edition of the Risālat al-Ġufrān (1923 c.), while the Russian Orientalist
Kračkovskij offered a critical edition of the same text in 1932. ‘All what they

2 On this it is still worth consulting Trabulsi 1951.

3 Al-Maʿarrī Risālat al-Malāʾika: xii.
teaching arabic to the angels 269

consulted and printed was the introduction, but they thought, as the others
did, that this was the Epistle in full.’4
In 1944, Muḥammad al-Munīr, a Damascene notable, was killed and his per-
sonal library was donated to the Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyya, which since 1985
has become a part of the Syrian National Library. From the manuscripts there
emerged a complete copy of the Risālat al-Malāʾika which was immediately
edited by Muḥammad Salīm al-Ǧundī, with an excellent introduction, notes,
and indexes,5 on the occasion of the millenary of al-Maʿarrī. After this millenary,
the interest in the Epistle rapidly decreased. With the notable exception of a
brilliant article by Versteegh (1990), the subject seems to have been abandoned
in Western research and although the difficulties of monitoring scholarly pro-
duction in Arabic are well known, nothing comparable to al-Ǧundī’s contribu-
tion seems to have been produced on the Southern side of the Mediterranean
too.6
As the Arabic editor makes clear, the Risālat al-Malāʾika is addressed to a
certain ʾAbū al-Qāsim ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Humām. His name is only men-
tioned in the manuscript that was rediscovered by al-Ǧundī, while the other
copies called him just ʾAbū Fulān (‘The Father of so and so’). Al-Ǧundī suggests
that the Humām mentioned in the nisba of the addressed may be Humām b.
al-Mufaḍḍal, a contemporary of al-Maʿarrī who is credited with a history which
was a source to Ibn al-ʿAdīm (d. 660/1262) and whose son ʿAlī was a disciple of
al-Maʿarrī. The addressee could thus be either ʿAlī son of Humām (admitting a
corruption in the onomastic chain) or another member of his family.7
The Risālat al-Malāʾika in its present state contains thirteen morphologi-
cal questions, but the manuscript ends abruptly, shortly after the beginning
of the thirteenth. Since the ancients estimated the Epistle to amount to twenty
kurrāsa (blocks), the editor calculated the missing part to be about six folios.8
Despite a repeated protest of ignorance by al-Maʿarrī, the questions are
answered in the thorough didactic way characteristic of masāʾil literature. For
instance, the first question, which is about the nature of ʾiyyā-ka, occupies forty-
five pages in the printed edition.

4 Al-Maʿarrī Risālat al-Malāʾika: iii.

5 I have relied heavily on al-Ǧundī’s notes to find my way through the labyrinth of al-Maʿarrī’s
prose.
6 Al-Sāmarrāʾī 1984, though promising in its title, does not yield any new data. On the philolog-
ical level, Weipert 2002: 66 only signals the new indexes to the Risāla by ʿAbd al-ʾIlāh ʾAḥmad
Nabhān (in Maǧallat maʿhad al-maḫṭūṭāt al-ʿarabiyya 35/1991, 9–59).
7 Al-Maʿarrī Risālat al-Malāʾika: vi–vii.
8 Al-Maʿarrī Risālat al-Malāʾika: 286, note 1.
270 diez

This highly specialised Epistle is opened by a fictional introduction in which

the author, feigning humility, states that ‘someone like me is not worthy of
being asked; if he is asked, he should not answer; if he answers, the listener
ought not to listen to him; if he disagrees with what he hears, he must not write
what he says; if he writes it, he must not look at it. And if he looks at it, he will
stumble upon much nonsense, because I have reached old age.’9
This last remark probably created a mental association in al-Maʿarrī as he
suddenly sees himself meeting the Angel of Souls and asking him about the
derivation of the word malak (‘angel’) in Arabic. Al-Maʿarrī (the character)
provokes moderate interest in the angel and asks him for an extra hour of life to
instruct him about other angelic nouns such as ʿIzrāʾīl. However, this attempt
is without success.
Al-Maʿarrī (the author) does not abandon his fancy. He imagines questioning
the Grave Angels Munkar and Nakīr about their names and the pattern of Mūsā
(‘Moises’). To his surprise, Munkar and Nakīr prove to be perfectly competent
in morphology and the poor, terror-struck, grammarian faints. Other incidents
follow,10 according to a loose chronological order, again with Munkar and Nakīr
(in the Grave), with Mālik the Guardian of Fire, and with the two Angels
who are charged with bringing souls to the Gathering of the Resurrection
(Maḥšar) and witnessing their deeds. The latter are addressed by al-Maʿarrī in
the singular instead of the dual.
At this point (when the reason of the title given to the Epistle has become
evident), the author knots again the thread of his story and imagines finding
himself in the company of a group of literati at the Gate of Paradise. It is this last
part of the introduction that I offer here in translation: it covers approximately
the last third of the whole introduction and it is its last fictional part. The
pages that follow our passage (46–57), before the first morphological question
is introduced, are in fact a second profession of humility and ignorance, with al-
Maʿarrī swearing that he has repudiated irrevocably the frivolities of grammar.
Not exactly the kind of conclusion one would expect before embarking on a
morphological tour de force of more than 200 pages in the printed edition. But
these are the contradictions of al-Maʿarrī, both as a character and as a real
person.

9 Al-Maʿarrī Risālat al-Malāʾika: 5.

10 The plot is detailed in Versteegh 1990: 150, to which I refer the reader.
teaching arabic to the angels 271

2 Translation (Risālat al-Malāʾika: 25–43)11

And perhaps I will join a group of skilful12 men of letters, whose deeds were
too few to grant them access to the Garden but who were pursued by Divine
Pardon so that they were pushed away from Fire.

[1. Riḍwān]
We stop at the gate of the Garden saying: ‘O Riḍwa, we have a favour to ask you.’
And one of us says ‘O Riḍwu’ with a ḍamma on the wāw. Riḍwān13 replies—may
God’s blessings and peace be upon him: ‘What kind of address is this? Nobody
has ever employed it before you.’ ‘In the Fleeting Abode we used to speak the
speech of the Arabs and they sweeten names ending with ʾalif and nūn, eliding
both of them precisely for the sake of “sweetening” (tarḫīm).14 The Arabs have
two variants (luġa) on this, which are treated differently, depending on what
they are measured upon.15 ʾAbū Zubayd16 said:

O ʿUṯma,17 come to my rescue, because my well / has dried up and it hardly

gives a drop of water anymore’.18

11 Parallel text in Suyūṭī’s al-ʾAšbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir: iv, 411–428.

12 Unlike al-Ǧundī, I prefer ǧahābiḏa (‘skilful’) to the alternative reading ḫammān (‘belong-
ing to the lowest rank’). The same hesitation between the two terms can be found in the
manuscript tradition of al-ʾAšbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir.
13 In Islamic eschatology Riḍwān is the Guardian of the Gate of Paradise. His name probably
derives from the personification of the Divine Favour mentioned in Quran 3:15. See ei2:
viii, 519 (‘Riḍwān’).
14 This term can also be rendered technically as ‘apocope’. It is usually allowed only in poetry
and in vocative phrases. Sībawayh deals with it at length in his Kitāb: ii, 239–274 (bāb al-
tarḫīm). The specific case of nouns ending in -ān is described in ii: 256–259 (bāb mā yuḥḏaf
min ʾāḫiri-hi ḥarfan li-ʾanna-humā ziyāda wāḥida bi-manzilat ḥarf wāhid zāʾid).
15 These variants, as the literari make clear, are either Riḍwa with fatḥa, if the noun is left
unchanged after the apocope, or Riḍwu with ḍamma if the word is given new declensional
endings. The first option is considered to be more common.
16 Ḥarmala b. al-Munḏir b. Maʿdīkārib al-Ṭāʾī (d. 61/680 c.). A Christian from the tribe of
Taġlib, he used to frequent the Ghassanid and Lakhmid courts. After the rise of Islam,
he attached himself to al-Walīd b. ʿUqba, the wine-loving governor of Kūfa and followed
him until his death. See gas: ii, 161–162.
17 ʿUṯma here stands for ʿUṯmān, probably the third rightly-guided caliph, who is said to have
particularly appreciated ʾAbū Zubayd’s poems (gas: ii, 162).
18 ʾAbū Zubayd Šiʿr: 33, n. 3.
272 diez

Riḍwān then asks: ‘What do you need?’ and one of us answers: ‘We have
not managed to enter the Garden because our good deeds were too few, but
Divine Pardon has come to our rescue—may His Majesty be exalted—and we
have escaped from Fire. As a result, we have remained between the two Abodes
and we ask you to plead our case before the dwellers of the Garden, since they
cannot dispense with people like us. It is indeed inappropriate for the faithful
servant to make errors, while praising God for the graces he has obtained.

[2. Kummaṯrā]
Nor is it appropriate for the dwellers of the Gardens to eternally pick their
fruits while they do not know the exact realities of their names. Perhaps in
Paradise there is a group of people who do not know whether the letters in
kummaṯrā (‘pear’) are all radicals or whether any of them is additional. And
were one to ask them what the pattern (wazn) of kummaṯrā is according to the
experts of morphology, they would have no idea of the answer. The pattern is
fuʿʿallā, which, however, is strongly disapproved of: Sībawayh does not mention
any other word that exhibits this pattern. And if it is correct to say kummaṯrāt,
meaning ‘one pear,’ then the ʾalif in kummaṯrā is not the feminine marker. One
lexicographer19 has maintained that kamṯara means ‘interpenetration.’ If this
is true, it is from this word that kummaṯrā is derived.

[3. Safarǧal]
Nor is it fine for a pious man in his continuous bliss to pick a quince (safarǧal)
in the Garden without knowing how to make its diminutive or its plural, and
without being certain if it is licit to derive a verb from it or not. In fact verbs
are not derived from pentaliterals, because [the Arabs] believe pentaliterals
fall short of the plenitude of names. Therefore they do not extend the power
to form verbs to the ‘daughters of five.’20 And in their speech there is nothing
like isfarǧala-yasfarǧilu-isfirǧālan.21

19 The lexicographer referred to is Ibn Durayd. See Ǧamharat al-luġa: iii, 318a.
20 This phrase is used by Sībawayh Kitāb: iv, 301–302 (bāb tamṯīl mā banat al-ʿarab min
al-ʾasmāʾ wa-l-ṣifāt min banāt al-ḫamsa) to designate pentaliteral words with no added
letters. In his treatment of the subject, Sībawayh explains why verbs cannot be formed
from these words. A lengthy discussion about zabarǧad can be found in the Risālat al-
Ġufrān 245–246 (Diez 2011, 52–54; Van Gelder and Scholer 2013, 177–179).
21 There exists a very close pattern, the third derivate form of the quadriliteral verb (for
instance, iḥranǧama-yaḥranǧimu- iḥrinǧāman), upon which I have moulded the vocali-
sation of this hypothetical form.
teaching arabic to the angels 273

[4. Sundus]
And this fine silk brocade (sundus)22 that the Believers tread on and roll out
as a carpet, how many men among them do not know whether it is fuʿlul or
funʿul in its pattern! I personally believe that the nūn here is additional and
that the word comes from sudūs, which is the green turban.23 Al-ʿAbdī24 said
[describing his mare]:

I tamed her until she passed the winter, like an Abyssinian / wearing silk
brocade and a green turban (sundusan wa-sudūsan).

I do not rule out that sundus may be of the pattern fuʿlul, but the derivation is
necessarily the one I have mentioned.

[5. Ṭūbā]
(a. Etymology)
And the Ṭūbā tree!25 How can the God-fearing seek shelter in its shade and pick
its fruits for ever and ever if many of them do not know if it is a word in wāw or
yāʾ? Our opinion, if we bring the term back to its base, is that it belongs to the
words in yāʾ and that it derives from ṭāba-yaṭību (‘to be good’).26
[For sure], the existence of ṭīb (‘goodness, perfume’) is not proof that ṭūbā
belongs to the words in yāʾ, because if we build fiʿl and similar paradigms from

22 This word occurs in Quran 18:31, 44:53 and 76:21, always in association with ʾistabraq
(‘brocade’), which al-Maʿarrī discusses later. Most lexicographers and commentators see
this as an ‘arabicised’ term (muʿarrab). See also Rustomji 2009: 84–85.
23 Actually the ṭaylasān is, according to Lane, ‘an oblong shawl, worn in such a matter that
one end hangs down upon the side of the bosom, the middle part being turned over the
head and under the chin, and the other end being thrown over the shoulder, and hanging
down upon the back’. It was specifically Persian and usually black.
24 This is Yazīd b. Ḫaḏḏāq, a pre-Islamic poet originating from the Persian Gulf. See gas: ii,
188.
25 See Ṣaleḥ 1986: 37, summarising the ḥadīṯ literature: ‘L’arbre de Ṭūbā qui ressemble au
noyer de Damas, a un tronc si gros qu’un jeune chameau aurait les clavicules brisées de
vieillesse avant d’en avoir fait le tour; cet arbre mirifique, au centre du Paradis s’étend sur
toutes les demeures des Élus. Chacune de ses branches porte le nom du bienheureux qui la
possède. Toutes les variétés de fruits en sortent, mais aussi des coursiers avec selle et bride,
des chameaux avec bât et licou’. In fact the name of this tree derives clearly from Syriac,
where ṭūb (ṭūbā in emphatic state) means ‘goodness’, ‘beatitude’ (See J. Payne Smith 1903,
168). The original meaning has been preserved in the Arabic translations of the Gospels
where each Beatitude is introduced by ṭūbā li-, ‘blessed are’ (See Matt. 5:3–12).
26 This is also Sībawayh’s view in the Kitāb (iv, 364, bāb mā tuqlab fī-hi al-yāʾ wāwan).
274 diez

the words in wāw, we change the latter into yāʾ. For instance, we say ʿīd (‘feast’),
although it comes from ʿāda-yaʿūdu (‘to return’) and qīla (‘it was said’), although
it comes from qāla–yaqūlu (‘to say’).
And if someone objects27 that ṭāba-yaṭību may be a verb in wāw similar [in
his conjugation] to ḥasiba-yaḥsibu28 (‘to reckon’)—and this is indeed the view
of some people regarding tāha–yatīhu (‘to get lost’), which they connect with
tawwaha (‘to mislead’)—he should be answered that this hypothesis is ruled
out by the fact that they say ṭayyabtu al-raǧula bi-l-ṭībi (‘I have anointed the
man with perfume’), whereas nobody has ever said *ṭawwabtu-hu. [Moreover
one should also consider the noun] al-muṭayyabūn, i.e. certain clans of the
Quraysh29 which swore a covenant by plunging their hands into perfume (ṭīb).
All this shows you that ṭīb belongs to the words in yāʾ and so does the expression
‘this is better (ʾaṭyab) than that.’
As for the fact that Arabs say ʾawba wa-ṭawba, as the lexicographers have it,
this form was only born out of assonance.30 This is the same case, according

27 Arabic: fa-in qāla qāʾil. This kind of dialectic reasoning is the ancestor of the fanqala
mocked by Taha Hussein in his Days.
28 Ḥasiba admits two imperfects: yaḥsabu and yaḥsibu, the latter being aberrant. If this
second paradigm (ḥasiba-yaḥsibu) is applied to the hypothetical hollow verb*ṭawaba, one
would have—so the reasoning goes—ṭāba (*ṭawiba)—yaṭību (*yaṭwibu). This is exactly
the case with tāha–yatīhu (‘to get lost’), if one classes it as a hollow verb in wāw, as its
second form seems indeed to suggest. This is at any rate al-Ḫalīl’s view, although Sībawayh
objects to it: see Kitāb: iv, 344–345, bāb mā al-yāʾ wa-l-wāw fī-hi ṯānya wa-humā fi mawḍiʿ
al-ʿayn min-hu.
29 They were the Banū ʿAbd Manāf, Banū ʾAsad b. ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, Banū Zuhra, Banū Tamīm b.
Murra b. Kaʿb and Banū l-Ḥāriṯ b. Fihr. They made a covenant to support each other against
the Banū ʿAbd al-Dār and their allies in order to strip them of the profitable services offered
to the pilgrims visiting the Kaʿba. Muḥammad himself was among the descendants of the
muṭayyabūn through Hišām b. ʿAbd al-Manāf: see Ibn Hišām Sīra: i, 100–101.
30 In Arabic ʾitbāʿ, which literally means ‘to make follow.’ Under this heading there fall
symmetrical expressions where the second term is moulded upon the pattern of the first.
This is the reason why no morphological conclusion can be drawn from them. More
specifically, ʾawba wa-ṭawba means ‘return and goodness’, i.e. ‘May you have a happy
return and a fortunate journey.’ Another such expression is ḥayyā-ka l-lāhu wa-bayyā-ka,
‘May God make you live and give you a position’ (if lexicographers are right about the
meaning of the second member of the phrase). This last phrase is quoted by al-Maʿarrī
as an argument against the thesis he sets out to refute. In fact, bayyāka seems to be with
yāʾ, but this is only due to symmetry, its original being with wāw. Conversely, ṭawba is at
first sight with wāw, but only because of its proximity to ʾawba. On ʾitbāʿ in general see
the excellent article by Pellat (1957), who tries to list, classify and translate all instances of
‘pure’ ʾitbāʿ.
teaching arabic to the angels 275

to some scholars, as ḥayyā-ka l-lāhu wa-bayyā-ka: here the basis of bayyā-ka is

bawwā-ka, that is bawwaʾa-ka with the lightening of the hamza, meaning ‘May
God give you’ a position which satisfies you.
It is true that they say ṭūb for ‘bricks’; but, if this is correct Arabic at all, it
could derive from a different word than ṭīb, except for the view of ʾAbū al-Ḥasan
Saʿīd b. Masʿada:31 when he constructs the pattern fuʿl from words containing
a yāʾ, such as ʿāša–yaʿīšu or ṭāba–yaṭību, he changes it into wāw and says al-ṭūb
and al-ʿūš. If then al-ṭūb in the sense of ‘bricks’ derives from al-ṭīb, it was only
meant by it32—and God knows better—that it is good (ṭāba) to dwell in a place
once it has been built.33

(b. Its Use without the Article)

And perhaps if we asked those who consider ṭūbā to be invariable in any
situation why the article has been elided from it, they would not be able to give
us an answer. In fact, Sībawayh maintained that the form fuʿlā in the elative can
only be used with the article or in the construct state. For instance you say ‘this
is younger than you,’ but if you put it into the feminine you say the younger
one (al-ṣuġrā). In his view it is poor Arabic to say ṣuġrā if the word is not in
the construct state or without an article preceding it. On the contrary, you can
say ‘this is the younger of yours’ and ‘this is the younger of your daughters.’34
Suḥaym said:

They went off with my toothpick and they left me / a golden ring in my
smallest (ṣuġrā) left finger.35

31 Known as al-ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ (d. 215/830), he studied under al-Ḫalīl and Sībawayh in Baṣra.
Later he moved to Baghdad where he got in touch with al-Kisāʾī. He had among his
students ʾAbū ʿUṯmān al-Māzinī and played a major role in the preservation and diffusion
of Sībawayh’s Kitāb. See gas: ix, 68–69.
32 I read fa-ʾinna-mā ʾurīda bi-hi. The same reading in Suyūṭī’s al-ʾAšbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir: iv, 417.
33 The text is unclear. If I am not mistaken, three hypotheses are put forth: (a) ṭūb is not
an Arabic word—this being by the way the opinion of the most ancient lexicographers
who trace it back to Egyptian, Greek or Syriac antecedents. (Indeed, Badawi and Hinds
1986 declare it to be a Coptic term); (b) ṭūb, unlike ṭubā, is not derived from ṭīb; (c) ṭūb
and ṭūbā derive both from ṭīb, through some morphological adaptations theorised by al-
ʾAḫfaš.
34 I read banāt instead of banān, which is likely to be a hypercorrection induced in the Arabic
editor by the poetic quotation coming immediately after.
35 Suḥaym Dīwān: 26, v. 60.
276 diez

Some quranic readers read ‘and speak good (ḥusnā) to men’ (2:83), that is as
fuʿlā without tanwīn.36 And similarly they read in the Surah of the Cave ‘either
thou shalt chastise them, or thou shalt take towards them a way of kindness
(ḥusnā)’ (18:86) without tanwīn. Yet Saʿīd b. Masʿada37 considers this to be an
error and condemns it as illicit; this is also the view of ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq al-Zaǧǧāǧ38
because according to them and other Baṣrian scholars, ḥusnā must be preceded
by the article, as it is in another passage: ‘and cries lies to the reward most
fair (al-ḥusnā)’ (92:9). And the same applies [in their view] to al-yusrā and al-
ʿusrā (‘easing’ and ‘hardship’, See 92:7–10), because they are the feminine of the
elative.
Sībawayh [however] believed39 that ʾuḫrā can do without an article and
there is nothing to forbid that the same may apply to ḥusnā. In the Noble Book
you do find: ‘and Manat the third, the other (al-ʾuḫrā)?’ (53:20), but also: ‘That is
a second sign (ʾāyatan ʾuḫrā). So We would show thee from Our greatest signs’
(20:22–23). And Ibn ʾAbī Rabīʿa said:

And another (ʾuḫrā) came instead of Nuʿm warning, / like her, the judi-
cious: ‘If only you feared God and had sense!’40

And so there is nothing to prevent ḥusnā from dispensing with the article as
ʾuḫrā does. [To sum up], the elative ʾafʿal, when the second term of comparison
is elided, remains, according to its will, indefinite, or it can be defined by the
article, while it is not allowed to join together the presence of min [introducing
the second term of comparison] and the article.

36 Other readings are ḥasanan and ḥusunan.

37 It is again al-ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ.
38 ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq b. ʾIbrāhīm al-Sārī, 230–311/844–923. Known as al-Zaǧǧāǧ (‘the glassworker’)
because of the trade by which he made his living, was introduced to grammar by the Kūfan
master Ṯaʿlab, but he soon left him for the Baṣran scholar al-Mubarrad. He was among
the best grammarians of his generation and is considered the founder of the grammatical
school of Baghdad, where he spent his whole life. See gas: ix, 81–82.
39 See Kitāb: iii, 224–225 (bāb fuʿal), in the form of a question Sībawayh asked to al-Ḫalīl.
40 ʿUmar b. ʾAbī Rabīʿa Dīwān: p. 89, v. 5 (first of the page). I follow the reading of the Risāla.
The Dīwān has yarʿawī and yufakkiru instead of tarʿawī and tufakkiru.
teaching arabic to the angels 277

[6. Māʾ al-ḥayawān]

And those who drink the Water of Life41 (Māʾ al-ḥayawān) in their perpetual
bliss, do they know what this wāw after the yāʾ is and whether it is the result of
a metathesis, as al-Ḫalīl said, or radical, as another savant thinks?42

[7. Al-Ḥūr]
And those who are in company of the houris (al-ḥūr al-ʿīn), immortal, do
they know what houri means and from what term it has been derived?43
People, indeed, have different opinions on this. Some said that ḥawar means
‘whiteness’ and that it is from this meaning that the ḥuwwārā bread has been
derived, as well as al-ḥawāriyyūn in the sense of ‘bleachers’ and al-ḥawariyyāt
meaning town women.44 Another group said that al-ḥawar said of the eye
means that it is wholly black, but this is a feature of beasts, not of humans.45
Other people said that al-ḥawar is when the black of the eye is very black and
its white very white. And some said that al-ḥawar is the fact of having a wide
eye and a big iris.
O you who take pleasure with the houris, is it licit to say al-ḥīr instead of
al-ḥūr? Because they recite this verse with yāʾ:

41 In Islamic eschatology, much as in other religious traditions, the ‘Water of Life’ is under-
stood as a fountain or a river at the entrance of Paradise. The blessed, after crossing safely
the Bridge of al-Ṣirāt, bathe in its water, thereby acquiring their heavenly shapes. See Ibn
Manẓūr Lisān: iv, 294 (entry ‘ḥ .y.ā.’). For the original view of the mystic al-Ḥakīm al-
Tirmīḏī (d. 255/869 c.), who extended the beneficial effects of this water to the Hell, see
Gobillot 2002: 113. Note that al-ḥayawān is used in Quran 29:64 with the meaning of ‘[Real]
Life.’
42 See Kitāb: iv, 409. The scholar opposing al-Ḫalīl’s view is ʾAbū ʿUṯmān al-Māzinī. See Raḍī
al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī, Šarḥ al-Šāfiya: iii, 73.
43 See the discussion of this term in Toelle 2007 and Rustomji 2009: 111–115. It should be borne
in mind that in Islamic folklore, including the Risālat al-Ġufrān, houris are often conceived
as originating from a marvellous tree. Conceptually speaking, we are thus still in the realm
of the “fruits of the Garden.”
44 The three words are all related to the concept of ‘whiteness’: the ḥuwwārā bread is so
called because it is made of white fine floor; the bleachers whiten the clothes they
wash; and the town women are white because, unlike country women, they remain
home. The ḥuwwārā bread is quoted in the couplet by al-Namir b. Tawlab which intro-
duces a long digression in rhyme in the Risālat al-Ġufrān: 154–164. See Diez 2013: 284–
291.
45 Therefore this attribute could suit women only metaphorically, in an implicit comparison
with gazelles or other animals.
278 diez

[…] To the past company, while another halts / near a herd of black-eyed
(ḥīr) [wild cow] with beautiful calves.

If the reading in yāʾ is correct, this verse demolishes the supposition of those
who think that [the Arabs] said al-ḥīr just for the sake of assonance with al-ʿīn,
as in the words of the raǧaz poet:

Do you know the abode in the top of Ḏū l-Qūr? / It has been worn out
except for some sand-covered ashes,
Dark in colour, tormented by winds and rains. / [This is all what is left]
of the times when ʿAynāʾ was its joy,
Wide black-eyed among the wide black-eyed women (ḥawrāʾa ʿaynāʾa
mina l-ʿīni l-ḥīri).46

[8. Al-ʾIstabraq]
And how can the blessed accept spending eternity reclining on their couches
of brocade (ʾistabraq) without knowing how to build the broken plural of this
word and its diminutive? Grammarians say, indeed, that the plural of brocade
is ʾabāriqin and that its diminutive is ʾubayriq.47 ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq al-Zaǧǧāǧ believed
that originally ʾistabraq was a noun assimilated to the perfect in the measure
istafʿala, from barq (‘lightning’) or baraq (‘lamb’). But this is a claim bereft of
any foundation because this is just a Persian noun that has been arabicised.48

[9. ʿAbqarī]
And this marvellous carpet (ʿabqarī) upon which the faithful recline,49 where
does its name come from? In the First Abode we used to say that the Arabs

46 In these verses the form ḥīr can be explained as a kind of assonance to ʿīn. But this
explanation does not work for the previous verse, whose author is again uncertain. Al-
Tibrīzī (who was a disciple of al-Maʿarrī) discusses the matter along the same lines in his
Tahḏīb ʾIṣlāḥ al-manṭiq: 104–105. He first quotes these five raǧaz verses attributing them to
Manẓūr b. Marṯad—or b. Ḥabba, from his mother’s name—al-ʾAsadī (on this raǧaz poet
see Marzūbānī Muʿǧam al-šuʿarāʾ: 281–282). Immediately after al-Tibrīzī also transmits the
single verse exhibiting the form ḥīr, on the authority of al-Farrāʾ, but without mentioning
its author.
47 A typo has slid into the text of the Epistle, but the right form is restored in the notes.
48 In fact it derives from Middle Persian stabrag. See Tafaẓẓolī 1986. Silk production was
particularly developed in the Sassanid Empire and this accounts for the relatively high
number of Persian loanwords employed in the Quran in this semantic sphere.
49 The term occurs with this meaning in Quran 55:76: ‘reclining upon green cushions (rafraf )
and lovely druggets (ʿabqarī)’. See Rustomji 2009: 85.
teaching arabic to the angels 279

called ʿAbqar a certain land inhabited by the jinn: when they saw something
excellent, they used to call it ʿabqarī, as though it were the work of the jinn—
humans being unable to produce anything similar. Then this phrase spread
to the point that they said ‘a strong (ʿabqarī) lord’ and ‘an excessive (ʿabqarī)
wrongdoing’.
Ḏū al-Rumma said:

As if the rugged high grounds had been clothed / with commodities and
carpets from the embroidered fabrics of ʿAbqar.50

And Zuhayr said:

With horses, upon which jinn from ʿAbqar ride, / worth of winning the
victory one day and surpassing [their enemies].51

[Conclusion]
Let us suppose that the People of the Garden already know these things because
God has inspired them with the notions they need; yet, the immortal youths52
cannot dispense with them, too. And since they do not know them, we would
be content with a small reward, from what the Blessed possess, for teaching the
youths.’
Riḍwān smiles at them: ‘“See, the inhabitants of Paradise today are busy in
their rejoicing, they and their spouses, reclining upon couches in the shade”
(36:55–56). Go away—may God have mercy on you—because you have already
talked for too long about things of no avail. These are vanities that were embel-
lished in the Perishable Abode but they have disappeared together with every-
thing else which is vain.’ Seeing that he really means it, they say: ‘May God have
mercy on you, we ask you to inform someone among our masters who have

50 Ḏū al-Rumma Dīwān: 68, v. 23.

51 The previous verse reads: ‘If they give assistance, they fly to their protected, with long
spears, not weak nor unarmed’: Zuhayr Dīwān: 31, v. 13.
52 Arabic al-wildān al-muḫalladūn. ‘It is not far-fetched to assume that the wildan and ġilman
were understood as kinds of otherworldly slaves. […] Their function in the Garden is to
provide beauty and ease, and they do so with purity, the highest state of spiritual and
aesthetic existence. For this reason, they are akin to rivers fountains, jewels and textiles’
(Rustomji 2009: 92–93). Al-Maʿarrī makes fun of these immortal youths in his Epistle
of Forgiveness, where the Devil asks Ibn al-Qāriḥ treacherously whether ‘the people of
Paradise do with the immortal youths what the people of Sodom and Gomorra did’: (Van
Gelder and Schoeler 2013: 249; See Risālat al-Ġufrān: 309 and Diez 2011: 93).
280 diez

managed to enter the Garden that we are staying at its gate and we would like
to discuss a matter with him.’ ‘Whom do you want me to inform of your position
among the learned men who have been pardoned by God?’ They take counsel
together for a long while, then they reply: ‘Inform of our situation al-Ḫalīl b.
ʾAḥmad al-Furhūdī.’53 Riḍwān sends to him one of his fellows and he says to al-
Ḫalīl: ‘At the gate of the Garden there is a group of people who have had much
talk and they would like to speak to you.’ Al-Ḫalīl looks down on them and says:
‘Here is the one you have asked for. What do you want?’ They make him the
same proposal as they did to Riḍwān and al-Ḫalīl replies: ‘Verily God—may
His power be exalted—has made the Arabic-speaking dwellers of the Garden
express themselves in the most eloquent of the parlances (ʾafṣaḥ al-luġāt), the
one that was used by Yaʿrub b. Qaḥṭān or Maʿadd b. ʿAdnān54 and his sons. It
is a sound language, exempt from flaws and deviances. People in the deceitful
Abode became in need of lexicography and grammar because the first Arabic
(al-ʿarabiyya al-ʾūlā) was hit by alteration. But now every error and doubt has
been removed from the People of the Garden. Go your way, if God wills.’
And they go away failing to obtain what they were looking for.

3 Between Irony and Self-Criticism

Once this text is replaced in its cultural world, as the notes attempt to do, it
speaks for itself. Thus, I will confine myself here to some fleeting remarks.
At a morphological level, al-Maʿarrī treats his subject with great subtlety
(a trait that becomes even clearer if one looks at the Epistle proper). This
refinement actually originates from the crossing of a wealth of lexical data with
a rather limited set of concepts; in fact, the method adopted by al-Maʿarrī, in
full accordance with his predecessors, consists first and foremost in identifying
morphological patterns by distinguishing between basic and non-basic sounds.
This operation, which may at times be difficult, as in safarǧal (‘quince’) or
sundus (‘silk brocade’), is the core of taṣrīf, the discipline that studies the
behaviour (taṣarruf ) of words and the changes they undergo in special forms,
such as the diminutive or the plural.55 Yet exceptions to the general rules are

53 Needless to say, the grammarians choose here to employ the rarer nisba al-Furhūdī instead
of al-Farāhīdī. See ei2: iv, 962 (‘al-Khalīl Ibn ʾAḥmad’).
54 They are the ancestors of, respectively, Southern and Northern Arabs. See ei2: iv, 447–449
(‘Qaḥṭān’) and v, 894–895 (‘Maʿadd’).
55 On this subject see Owens 1988 (especially chapter 3 ‘morphology’, 89–124). See also Bohas
et al. 2006 (first edition 1990).
teaching arabic to the angels 281

admitted, above all qalb (‘metathesis’) between weak “letters.” In addition to

this, two rarer phenomena are mentioned in our text: tarḫīm (‘apocope’), which
can produce, in its turn, two different outcomes, depending on what parlance
(luġa) is chosen; and ʾitbāʿ, i.e. assonance in symmetrical expressions.
But the great task of morphologists is to trace derivate terms to their own
bases (ʾuṣūl) through ištiqāq, a process that is sometimes translated as ‘etymol-
ogy’ but which is better rendered as ‘derivation.’ In fact, ištiqāq56 can be seen as
a specific instance of taṣrīf, which aims at linking words, and especially words
exhibiting anomalous patterns, to other known terms, not least to deduce their
meaning. Never in our text does al-Maʿarrī attempt to extrapolate abstract roots
that function as semantic units: his method only goes from one concrete word
to another concrete word, for instance from the Ṭūbā tree to the verb ṭāba-
yaṭību, ‘to be good’ (and not to the root ṭ.y.b., with the purported meaning of
‘goodness’). This comes as no surprise since for Arab grammarians ‘deriving is
not extracting a word from a root, but a word from another one.’57
Incidentally, in the case of ʾistabraq al-Maʿarrī pronounces himself in favour
of a Persian derivation in spite of the fact that the word occurs in the Quran.
Generally speaking, later linguists and commentators instead ruled out any
foreign influence on the vocabulary of the Holy Book, even against all linguistic
evidence.58 Nonetheless, al-Maʿarrī does not show any particular interest in
foreign languages, in consonance with his cultural world, and he does not
notice the Syriac etymology of ṭūbā.
A few other phenomena, not present in our text, could be mentioned, such
as ḥaḏf (‘elision’) and badal (‘permutation’). All in all, however, the discipline
of morphology appears to be rather limited in its conceptual tools. This narrow-
ness is, nonetheless, balanced by the vastness of the lexical patrimony and the
varieties of examples, which at times disorientate the non-specialised reader
(and often the specialised one as well …) and make it difficult to follow the line
of reasoning.
All this notwithstanding, one cannot help but feel that for al-Maʿarrī Clas-
sical Arabic—that elusive entity—is just “around the corner.” In vain, subse-
quent authors would try to imitate the seeming naturalness of the final dialogue
between the literati, Riḍwān and al-Ḫalīl. To draw a hazardous parallel with

56 I mean here the so-called ‘lesser derivation’ (al-ištiqāq al-ʾaṣġar) which is by far the most
studied by Arab grammarians.
57 Larcher 2008: par. 4.
58 In his introduction to quranic sciences al-Suyūṭī, after summing up the question, declares
himself in favour of the presence of non-Arabic terms in the Book and proceeds to versify
them in a bizarre poem (See Suyūṭī ʾItqān: 205–214).
282 diez

Western culture, there is no doubt that Classical Latin was a language of cul-
ture. Nonetheless, Cicero in his epistles displays a kind of liveliness that, for
example, Descartes in his Meditationes metaphysicae does not possess, though
he is formally impeccable in his scholastic Latin. Briefly, in the prologue of this
Epistle, and even more in the Risālat al-Ġufrān, al-Maʿarrī proves himself to be
one of the last great masters of Arabic before the 19th century Renaissance.
What are his sources in morphology? Just for once he is not original, since
he draws by preference on Sībawayh and the “Baṣran school.” Not by chance,
in the final scene the perplexed grammarians call al-Ḫalīl for help; similarly
in the Risālat al-Ġufrān the houris dance, a little irreverently, to some verses
attributed to the father of Arabic linguistic sciences.59 In this the ‘inmate of
two prisons’ (as the self-styled nickname of al-Maʿarrī sounds), is perfectly
orthodox.
And yet, no one will miss the deep irony of this text. Irony, in the first place, in
relation to popular Islamic eschatology, which is taken at face value, much as in
the Risālat al-Ġufrān. The apparent seriousness with which al-Maʿarrī discusses
the morphological pattern of the heavenly pears, and—more dangerously—
the actual meaning of the houris casts doubts on his personal creed, which,
as I have tried to show elsewhere, was not anti-theistic, but certainly beware
of the popular folklore of his contemporaries, somehow in the line of Ismaili
esotericism.
The same irony, together with a pleasant theatrical touch, is applied to
grammar and grammarians, whose art is finally declared to be of no use to
the Blessed, since the heavenly inhabitants have been instructed in the pristine
language of Yaʿrub and Maʿadd. Incidentally, from this remark one could also
infer, perhaps against al-Maʿarrī’s intention, that pure Arabic is by now only to
be found in Heaven.
Whatever the answer to this intriguing question, the poor men of letters fail
to obtain the grace they were looking for precisely because they rely too much
on their own art. More radically, as Versteegh rightly points out:

While other people are in paradise enjoying the fruits of their reward, all
the grammarians can do is talk about the morphological structure of the
names of these fruits. In other words, language and the study of language
are just an escape from real life.
versteegh 1990: 152

59 Al-Maʿarrī Risālat al-Ġufrān 279–280 (See Diez 2011, 72–73; Van Gelder and Scholer 2013,
213–215).
teaching arabic to the angels 283

But al-Maʿarrī is fair enough to include himself in the group of the wretched
men of letters whose last resort will certainly be to appeal to God’s Pardon
(which has already rescued them from Fire). Irony becomes thus self-criticism.
In this choice and in many other respects, the similarities with the Risālat al-
Ġufrān are too numerous to be a matter of chance. Nevertheless it is arduous to
say which text comes first. While the Risālat al-Ġufrān can be dated to 424/1033,
when the poet was sixty years old, this Epistle does not provide any precise
temporal information. Al-Maʿarrī only declares that he is old (wa-qad balaġtu
sinn al-ašyāḫ, Risālat al-Malāʾika: 5). Personally I cannot make up my mind,
since at times I incline to seeing in the Risālat al-Malāʾika a preparation for the
Risālat al-Ġufrān, but immediately afterwards it looks to me to be a remake of
a previous text.
At any rate, it is the quality of not taking oneself too seriously that gives
this text, whether it precedes or follows the Risālat al-Ġufrān, its peculiarity
in the often pompous Classical Arabic literature. At the same time, its fictional
character makes of it a sort of meta-reflection on linguistic sciences after their
great flourishing, providing a singular insight into the Arabic grammatical
tradition by someone who, though highly esteemed in this field, was not a
professional. Working at the crossing of different disciplines, as al-Maʿarrī does,
may be cumbersome, but it opens up unusual panoramas.

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 part 3
Arabic and Semitic Lexicology

∵
 chapter 14

L’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers

siècles*

Georgine Ayoub

Deux questions ont semblé difficiles à penser dans la tradition arabe de l’ étude
de la langue, tradition si prestigieuse et puissante par ailleurs. L’une est le
rapport de la langue au Temps, l’autre le contact de l’ arabe avec les langues
étrangères, contact pourtant constant qui remonte à la nuit des temps. Ces
deux questions sont liées et corollaires d’une épistémè dont nous avons tenté
ailleurs (voir Ayoub 2001, 2007a et 2007b) de cerner les contours: celle de
l’ amour de la langue, voire de la sacralité de la langue et du purisme. C’ est la
seconde question, celle du contact de l’arabe avec les langues étrangères, avec
ce qu’elle implique d’altérité au sein de la langue, dont nous débattrons dans
cette étude. L’archéologie du terme faṣīḥ dans la poésie pré-islamique nous
avait semblé suggérer que l’ Autre, non-Arabe, était perçu dans cette poésie par
son énonciation (voir Ayoub 2006 et 2007a). C’est un énonciateur inintelligible
à l’énonciation obscure (ʾaʿǧam), par opposition à l’ énonciation claire, intel-
ligible ( faṣīḥ). La dénomination de l’étranger comme ʿaǧamī, ʾaʿǧam, ʾaʿǧamī
se réfère au demeurant à son énonciation. L’avènement de l’ Islam bouleverse
la donne. Le contact avec les langues étrangères est ressenti comme cause de
l’ irrémédiable «corruption des langues»1 après les conquêtes. Une approche
puriste de la langue se met progressivement en place, où le faṣīḥ, tout en
demeurant le clair et l’ intelligible, devient aussi le correct et le pur, le sans
mélange. La collecte des données linguistiques, affirme le philosophe ʾAbū Naṣr
al-Farābī (m. 339/950) dans un texte bien connu2, s’ est constituée en évitant

* Cette étude reprend en partie un cours sur le dictionnaire médiéval assuré à l’agrégation
en 2012 et 2013 ainsi qu’ une communication présentée à Berlin dans le cadre de l’atelier
‘Glossarium linguae Coranica’ le 7 et 8 mars 2012.
1 Sur la corruption du langage, voir Versteegh 1983 ; voir aussi sur la notion de laḥn, Fück 1955:
195 sq., Ayoub 2001, Ayoub 2006.
2 Voir Ḥurūf: 147 alinéa 135. La version de ce texte la plus connue et la plus commentée est
celle présentée par Suyūṭī Iqtirāḥ : 20, également présente dans Muzhir : i, 211–212. Elle diffère
sensiblement du texte de Ḥurūf. Il serait trop long de citer tous les travaux qui, depuis Edward

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_016

290 ayoub

les tribus limitrophes du domaine, dont le parler était entré en contact avec
des langues étrangères. Elle s’est donc constituée contre tout métissage. Dans
ce qui suit, nous tenterons d’explorer, à partir de la question de l’ emprunt, des
aspects de cette question de la relation aux langues étrangères. Nous n’ avons
pas d’accès direct aux pratiques langagières orales des premiers siècles qui
ont vu un brassage immense de populations et de langues. Mais nous avons
accès à des pratiques savantes, des dictionnaires, des traités grammaticaux, qui
permettent d’analyser des aspects de cette relation.

1 L’intérêt pour le mot d’origine étrangère

C’est d’emblée, dès le viiie siècle et dès le premier dictionnaire connu, Kitāb al-
ʿAyn (= ʿAyn), que le dictionnaire arabe s’intéresse au mot d’ origine étrangère.
Au vrai, de manière négative. En effet, cet ouvrage attribué à Ḫalīl (m. 175/791)
dans sa conception, est mu par une ambition très remarquable, celle de ne
rien laisser échapper de son objet, kalām al-ʿArab. Aussi annonce-t-il dès les
premières lignes de son introduction: «Il [al-Ḫalīl] a voulu par cet ouvrage
que tu appréhendes les Arabes à travers leurs poèmes, leurs proverbes, leurs
échanges oraux, sans que rien ne lui en échappe » (ʿAyn: i, 47). Cet objectif
est réaffirmé dans les dernières lignes de l’introduction. Il s’ agit d’ « inclure
[la totalité de] kalām al-ʿArab, les mots [couramment] intelligibles et les mots
rares» (ʿAyn: i, 60).
Pour ce faire, ʿAyn s’appuie, certes, sur une collecte qui remonte au moins à
la génération précédente, mais il ne s’en contente pas. Il présente un modèle
lexicographique puissant qui se fonde sur 4 principes théoriques, longuement
expliqués dans l’introduction: un principe phonétique qui balaie l’ ordre alpha-
bétique courant et ordonne les consonnes de la langue selon leurs lieux d’ arti-
culation, un principe morphologique, à savoir la notion de racine et le type de
racines possibles dans la langue, un principe phonologique délimitant les com-
binaisons de consonnes possibles en arabe, et enfin le principe de permutation
ou l’anagramme des consonnes de la racine3.
Hypothèses grammaticales et anagramme servent le même but. Par leur
croisement, le dictionnaire veut explicitement épuiser tous les possibles de

Pococke au xviie siècle et Renan au xixe, ont analysé ce texte, qui pose, en outre, une question
cruciale sur le parler de la tribu du prophète, Qurayš (voir Larcher 2006).
3 On se reportera pour une présentation détaillée du modèle à Nassār 1968, Solomon 2013,
Baalbaki 2014.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 291

kalām al-ʿArab. Toute virtualité de racine est cernée d’ avance. Il s’ agit donc
d’ un souci d’exhaustivité en intension, non en extension.
Cette force théorique qui emporte l’admiration et qui se soutient sur des
milliers d’entrées lexicales, a fait de ʿAyn la pierre de fondation de la science
lexicographique arabe. Tout lexicographe ultérieur y reviendra, tant au niveau
des principes théoriques que du matériau lexicographique. Mais cette force
théorique est aussi mue par une peur: celle qu’ on puisse faire passer pour
du kalām al-ʿArab ce qui n’en est pas. Peur très vite posée dès l’ introduction
comme un levier de la démarche théorique: «Car il se peut que des personnes
ingénieuses parmi eux (al-naḥārīr min-hum) veuillent introduire [dans l’ usage]
des gens ce qui ne relève pas de kalām al-ʿArab, aux [seules] fins de brouiller et
de mettre à l’épreuve (ʾirādat al-labs wa-l-taʿnīt) » (ʿAyn: i, 53).
Affirmation étonnante: Qui sont ces personnes ingénieuses? Parmi quels
groupes [de locuteurs] se trouvent-elles? Pourquoi et qui veulent-elles « brouil-
ler et mettre à l’épreuve»?
Questions auxquelles on ne trouve pas de réponse directe dans ʿAyn. Tou-
tefois, cette peur de ʿAyn est fondatrice dans la culture, voire fondatrice de la
culture. On la retrouve dès les premiers documents écrits qui nous sont parve-
nus. Elle traverse toutes les sciences du langage et est à l’ origine de l’ institution
de la grammaire. Peur que des données falsifiées ou erronées se glissent dans
le corpus de référence, au titre d’usage attesté. Cette peur trahit la situation
linguistique, à savoir la perte du sentiment de la langue lequel manque cruelle-
ment au locuteur, et cela dès l’entrée de la langue dans l’ histoire, perte et peur
qui détermineront l’histoire de la langue arabe et son statut dans la culture. À
l’ aube de l’Islam, la capacité de distinguer «ce qui se dit » de « ce qui ne se dit
pas», n’est pas donnée au locuteur de la langue arabe (Ayoub 2001 : 73–74). Ḫalīl
le dit lui-même: on peut «brouiller» les données aux yeux du lexicographe, a
fortiori du locuteur ordinaire, sans qu’il n’y prenne garde. C’ est, dès lors, à la
théorie qu’est dévolu le soin d’identifier ce qui se dit et ce qui ne se dit pas.
Nous le savions pour la théorie grammaticale (Ayoub 2001 : 94–98), moins pour
la théorie dictionnairique.
Baalbaki qui relève également, dans sa belle étude sur la lexicographie
arabe, que l’identification de kalām al-ʿArab est fondateur du projet même
de Kitāb al-ʿAyn, souligne, à juste titre, qu’il existe une réelle proximité entre
lexicographie et grammaire quant aux bases méthodologiques qui permettent
de sélectionner le corpus «qui mérite d’être examiné comme kalām al-ʿArab»
(Baalbaki 2014: 29) et qui doit se limiter à l’attesté. Néanmoins, remarquons
le paradoxe qu’illustre ce texte et qu’on retrouve, mutatis mutandis, pour
la grammaire: l’absence du sentiment linguistique fait que kalām al-ʿArab,
autrement dit l’usage attesté [de quelques tribus bédouines], ne peut être
292 ayoub

identifié simplement par une collecte, aussi rigoureuse fût-elle. Pour identifier
l’usage, et ne rien laisser échapper d’un objet que les locuteurs désormais ne
possèdent plus par intuition, pour déjouer «les personnes ingénieuses» qui
«s’amuseraient» à «brouiller» les données, la loi qui gouverne les données est
privilégiée. Cette loi permet à la fois l’exhaustivité en intension et agit comme
filtre pour exclure des formes et des termes recueillis dans la collecte. Ceux-
ci, s’ils contreviennent à la loi déduite par le lexicographe, doivent être rejetés
«fussent-ils transmis par des locuteurs dignes de foi » (ʿAyn: i, 54). Ce paradoxe
est constitutif de la science lexicographique qui ne peut se fonder uniquement
sur la transmission. La forme même du savoir lexicographique naissant, et sa
grande puissance théorique sont déterminées par l’ absence du sentiment de la
langue.
L’intérêt porté au mot d’origine étrangère s’ inscrit dans cette vue. C’ est
un intérêt négatif. Il s’agit de débusquer le néologisme (al-kalima al-muḥdaṯa
al-mubtadaʿa, ʿAyn: i, 52; al-kalima al-mubtadaʿa al-muwallada, ʿAyn: i, 52),
qui n’appartient pas à kalām al-ʿArab. Néologisme qui semble non distingué,
dans l’introduction, du mot d’origine étrangère appelé daḫīl (ʾallafnā-hu li-
yuʿraf ṣaḥīḥ bināʾ al-ʿarab min al-daḫīl, ʿAyn : i, 54), ni même du terme forgé
(muʾallaf ) par quelque savant ou quelque locuteur et qui ne correspond à
aucun usage, muḥdaṯ, mubtadaʿ, muwallad, ou daḫīl que d’ aucuns tenteraient
subrepticement de faire passer pour du kalām al-ʿArab. Un principe général est
posé:
Al-Ḫalīl dit: «Si tu trouves un mot quadrilitère ou quintilitère dépourvu de
liquides (ḥurūf al-ḏalaq) ou labiales (al-šafawiyya)4, [plus précisément], s’ il n’y
a pas dans ce mot une ou deux consonnes de cette nature, voire plus, sache que
ce mot est récent et créé de toutes pièces (kalima muḥdaṯa mubtadaʿa) et qu’ il
ne fait pas partie de kalām al-ʿArab » (ʿAyn: i, 52).
Et à la question de Layṯ, disciple de Ḫalīl à qui on attribue les entrées lexi-
cales dans la forme qui nous est parvenue de ʿAyn, Ḫalīl donne, pour exemples,
des mots qu’il aurait lui-même forgés «… tels al-kašaʿṯaǧ, al-ḫaḍaʿṯaǧ, al-
kašaʿṭaǧ et des mots similaires. Ce sont des mots muwallad qui ne sont pas pos-
sibles dans kalām al-ʿArab, car il n’y a dans ces mots ni liquides ni labiales. Aussi
rejette tout terme similaire, même s’il ressemble dans sa forme sonore (lafẓ) et
la combinaison [de ses sons] (taʾlīf ) à kalām al-ʿArab» (ʿAyn: i, 52–53).

4 Al-ḏalaq signifie ‘l’ extrémité de la pointe de la langue’ (ṭaraf ʾasalat al-lisān, ʿAyn : i 51).
Embarki 2008 traduit par « consonne pointée », Solomon 2013 traduit ḏalaq par lame (de la
langue). ʿAyn les énumère: les ḏalaqiyya sont, exclusivement, les liquides /r/ /l/ /n, d’où notre
traduction. Les šafawiyya correspondent bien aux labiales /f/ /b/ /m/.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 293

En vue d’identifier les naḥārīr tentés de proposer au lexicographe des don-

nées falsifiées, Baalbaki 2014 met en parallèle naḥārīr et naḥwiyyūn, dont Sība-
wayhi fait la critique dans son Kitāb. Il s’agirait d’ un ‘groupe anonyme de
savants’ (anonymus group of scholars, Baalbaki 2014 : 28) qui utilisent l’ analogie
pour forger des termes qui ne sont pas en usage dans kalām al-ʿArab5. Il nous
semble toutefois, que, sans exclure cette lecture, le terme naḥārīr étant assez
général pour s’y prêter, une autre lecture semble dans ce contexte plus pro-
bable: celle où le hum de min-hum (al-naḥārīr min-hum) désignerait les ‘Ara-
bes’, qui sont usuellement désignés par ce pronom de 3e personne, chez Sība-
wayhi par exemple, ainsi dans kalāmu-hum. Les naḥārīr min-hum seraient des
informateurs particulièrement malins ou ingénieux parmi eux. Le contexte
favorise cette hypothèse: le contexte grammatical, les hum qui précèdent réfé-
rant à ʿArab dans kalām al-ʿArab; le contexte sémantique aussi : ils sont évo-
qués lorsque Ḫalīl parle de la collecte de données : « S’ il te parvient des [don-
nées] similaires …» ( fa-ʾiḏā warada ʿalay-ka šayʾ min hāḏā …, ʿAyn: i, 54). Autre
indice: naḥārīr alterne avec le terme ṯiqa, qui, chez Sībawayhi, désigne les infor-
mateurs dignes de foi :«Ceux-ci ne peuvent être dits appartenir à la ʿarabiyya,
fussent-il transmis par des locuteurs dignes de foi » (wa-law ǧāʾa min ṯiqa, ʿAyn :
i, 54). Certes, les savants peuvent être aussi des informateurs dignes de foi, mais
il ne semble pas qu’il y ait quelque allusion à des savants lexicographes dans
le corps du dictionnaire. Au contraire, nous savons que ʿAyn a souffert du fait
qu’ il est apparu dans le champ des savoirs au début du 9e s. comme une perle
solitaire, rejetée par les savants du champ qui en contestaient la paternité6.
Le témoignage d’Ibn Durayd (m. 321/933) qui lui rend hommage comme un
ouvrage dominant le champ du savoir où il apparaît, évoque ce ṭaʿn (Ǧam: i, 40).
Enfin, on ne peut s’empêcher de rapprocher ce texte des premières pages de
Ṭabaqāt al-Šuʿarāʾ, qui lui est contemporain, où Ǧumaḥī (m. 231/845), lequel vit

5 Voir aussi Talmon 1997: 122 qui analyse le terme naḥarīr comme renvoyant à ‘some knowled-
geable [philologists] among them’.
6 On connaît les circonstances de parution de ʿAyn : lorsque le manuscrit parut à Bagdad,
il venait de Ḫurasān, bien après la mort de Ḫalīl, transmis par al-Layṯ b. al-Muẓaffar (m.
190/805 ?). L’authenticité de son attribution à Ḫalīl fut contestée immédiatement par les
élèves de Ḫalīl encore vivants qui en pointèrent les défauts. Voir Muz: i, 84 qui consacre un
chapitre entier à la question de la paternité de l’ ouvrage. L’opinion de Ṯaʿlab (m. 291/904)
selon laquelle Ḫalīl a conçu le plan de l’ ouvrage et al-Layṯ a rédigé les entrées lexicales (Muz:
i, 78), l’ ouvrage étant apparu chez les warrāqūn sans bénéficier d’une transmission savante,
est l’ opinion prévalente dans la tradition, confirmée, du moins dans sa première partie, par
les recherches lexicographiques actuelles. (Voir entre autres Sellheim 1997; Nassār: i, 282;
Baalbaki 2014 : 282 sq. qui fait le point sur la question.)
294 ayoub

à Baṣra comme Ḫalīl, relate la mésaventure arrivée à ʾAbū ʿUbayda (m. 209/825)
et qu’il tient de lui (Ǧum : 23). ʾAbū ʿUbayda, autre philologue de Baṣra, réa-
lise, lors d’une collecte de données, que son informateur bédouin lui récite
des vers qu’il a forgés, les faisant passer pour les vers de son père. De telles
forgeries sont difficilement décelables quand elles sont d’ un bédouin, précise
Ǧumaḥī (ibid.). Or Ḫalīl se propose également dans son dictionnaire de faire
connaître «les Arabes à travers leurs poèmes … » et la collecte du lexique n’ est
pas séparable dans les deux premiers siècles de la collecte de la poésie. En
somme, l’informateur bédouin forgeant des vers, met le savant et son savoir
à l’épreuve. Beaucoup d’informateurs des savants ( fuṣaḥāʾ al-ʿArab) sont, au
demeurant, installés en ville comme instituteurs, d’ autres sont poètes et sont
même auteurs … de lexiques, précisément! (Voir Fihrist: 66–72, Blachère 1950).
Ce sont des informateurs particulièrement savants ! ʿAyn cite un informateur de
cette catégorie: ʾAbū Ḫayra al-ʾAʿrābī7. En somme, les naḥārīr pourraient bien
être des informateurs bédouins très forts qui «brouillent» les données au lexi-
cographe lequel veut littéralement, leur «prendre» leur langue (ʾaḫḏ al-luġa)8.
Étrange sort, toutefois, de cette chasse puriste sans merci au muwallad. Elle
semble condamnée d’avance. On sait que ʿAyn contient nombre de termes
muwallad que les lexicographes ultérieurs ont exclu de kalām al-ʿArab. Ces
«erreurs» ont été imputées aux vicissitudes de la transmission de l’ ouvrage.
Et, ultime pied de nez au purisme, le terme niḥrīr est lui-même muwallad selon
Ibn Durayd (Ǧam: 301; Muz : i 304) rapportant les paroles d’ Aṣmaʿī !

2 muʿrab, muʿarrab, daḫīl, muwallad

C’est donc à l’analyse théorique qu’est dévolu le soin de débusquer le daḫīl et

le muwallad – dans l’effort même de la collecte. Et c’ est ce chemin que suivra le
dictionnaire arabe à la suite de ʿAyn, pour identifier le mot d’ origine étrangère.

7 Voir Baalbaki 2014 : 49 et les références qui y sont citées.

8 On notera enfin l’ interprétation que fait de ce passage Ṣāḥ : 62–63 qui le cite en traitant de
la question : comment « ap-prendre» la langue (ʾaḫḏ al-luġa)? On peut l’apprendre enfant,
dit-il, et on peut l’ apprendre auprès d’ un maître (mulaqqin ou rāwiya). On veillera alors à
choisir les transmetteurs dignes de foi connus pour leur intégrité (al-ruwāt al-ṯiqāt ḏawī al-
ṣidq wa-l-ʾamāna), car les naḥārīr peuvent brouiller les données, et Ibn Fāris de vilipender
ainsi certain(s) professeur(s) de Bagdad ( fa-qad balaġanā min ʾamr mašyaḫat Baġdād mā
balaġanā, Ṣāḥ : 63). Certes, les naḥārīr sont ici des savants, plus précisément des professeurs,
mais à l’ époque d’ Ibn Fāris, il n’y a plus d’ informateur bédouin natif. La mise en garde est
encore une fois significative de la perte irrémédiable du sentiment de la langue.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 295

Toutefois, une démarche théorique légèrement antérieure à ʿAyn, se distingue.

C’ est celle d’un grammairien contemporain et disciple de Ḫalīl, Sībawayhi (m.
177/793), dans son Kitāb. Sans s’interroger sur l’existence ou la non existence de
mots étrangers dans kalām al-ʿArab, le Kitāb en reconnaît d’ emblée l’ existence
et fait la théorie de leur intégration en langue arabe, processus qu’ il appelle
ʾiʿrāb, le terme étranger intégré en arabe appelé muʿrab. En deux très brefs
chapitres, hāḏā bāb mā ʾuʿriba min al-ʾaʿǧamiyya et hāḏā bāb iṭṭirād al-ʾibdāl
min al-fārisiyya (Kitāb: iv, 303–307), il répertorie les transformations que peut
subir un mot étranger, en particulier persan, lorsqu’ il s’ « arabise ».
Remarquons d’emblée que le lexique employé par l’ un et l’ autre savants
marque, par ses implications, la différence de leur posture. Les termes muḥdaṯ,
muʿrab, daḫīl et muwallad, utilisés par nos sources en cette fin du viiie siècle9,
sont distincts quant à leur contenu notionnel. Muwallad et muḥdaṯ, mots
synonymes10 signifiant «récent», «moderne», et désignant tout mot, arabe ou
étranger, apparu dans l’usage après les époques dites de référence, donc moins
d’ un siècle après l’Islam, relèvent d’un critère temporel. Muʿrab/muʿarrab et
daḫīl relèvent, quant à eux, d’un autre critère: celui, sociolinguistique, du
contact des langues, et sont tous trois utilisés comme synonymes dans les
dictionnaires. Suyūṭī (m. 911/1505) le dit explicitement, citant Ǧawālīqī (m.
540/1145) (wa-yuṭlaq ʿalā al-muʿarrab daḫīl, Muz : i, 269) et remarque, citant ʿAyn
et Ǧamhara (ibid.), que les deux termes alternent dans les dictionnaires. Ils sont
même utilisés tous deux dans une seule entrée lexicale. Ainsi, par exemple,
dans la Ǧamhara d’Ibn Durayd (Ǧam : i, 304) ou dans le Tahḏīb d’ ʾAzharī (m.
370/980) qui désigne la noix de coco par les deux termes (al-nārǧīl: … wa-
huwa muʿarrab daḫīl, Tahḏīb: xi, 257), firind dans Lisān est daḫīl muʿarrab,
etc.
Toutefois, même si daḫīl et muʿarrab ont même référence, ils relèvent de
deux champs sémantiques différents: daḫīl, du fait du sens lexical du verbe
daḫala, met l’accent sur l’intrusion du mot étranger dans la langue, intrusion
qu’ il faut identifier afin de la combattre. Le sens que lui donnent les lexico-
graphes souligne son rapport à l’altérité: quelqu’ un est considéré daḫīl si son
appartenance est ailleurs ( fulān daḫīl fī banī fulān ʾiḏā kāna min ġayri-him,
Lisān). Le daḫīl est en somme un terme intrus qui n’ a pas rompu les amarres
avec son appartenance ancienne. Son altérité est toujours perçue alors que les

9 Le terme muʿarrab, qu’ on serait tenté de considérer comme légèrement postérieur à

muʿrab, au vu de l’ usage de Sībawayhi, ne l’ est pas. On le trouve dans ʿAyn, ainsi sous
l’ entrée banǧ (min al-ʾadwiya, muʿarrab, vii, 153), ou bāsūr avec pour seul commentaire
muʿarraba, vii, 250, etc.
10 al-muwallad : al-muḥdaṯ min kull šayʾ … lam yakun min kalāmi-him fī-mā maḍā (Lisān).
296 ayoub

termes muʿrab et muʿarrab soulignent, au contraire, l’ intégration de l’ emprunt

lexical dans la langue et permettent de constituer en objet d’ étude, les pro-
cédés grammaticaux de cette intégration. C’est cette intégration que souligne
la définition du Ṣihāḥ de Ǧawharī (m. 400/1010) des termes ʿarraba et ʾaʿraba :
«On dit qu’un nom non-arabe est arabisé lorsque les Arabes le prononcent à
leur manière. Tu dis: ʿarrabat-hu al-ʿArab et tu dis aussi : ʾaʿrabat-hu » (Ṣiḥ : i,
179). Définition reprise mot à mot par Ibn Manẓūr (m. 711/1312) dans le Lisān.
En somme, l’imaginaire auquel renvoient les deux termes n’est pas équivalent.
Est-ce un hasard si le savant persan qui «s’arabise» désigne l’ emprunt par le
seul muʿrab, et le savant azdite d’un pur lignage arabe le désigne, du moins dans
cette introduction, par daḫīl ?

2.1 ʿAyn et le daḫīl

La différence entre l’introduction de ʿAyn et le Kitāb se résume en cette dif-
férence entre muʿrab, d’un côté, daḫīl de l’autre, différence sémantique qui
se projette en deux programmes de recherche opposés et complémentaires
esquissés par les deux textes et développés par les lexicographes ultérieurs :
le premier identifiant le daḫīl à partir de combinaisons de sons qui ne se
trouvent pas en arabe (Voir Muz : i, 270–275), le second étudiant les proces-
sus phonologiques et morphologiques à l’œuvre quand le daḫīl « s’ arabise »,
devient muʿarrab et se fond dans la langue. Toutefois, dans l’ introduction de
ʿAyn, le daḫīl semble n’être constitué en objet d’ étude que pour être rejeté, dans
une posture mêlant rigueur scientifique et purisme. En outre, la manière dont
l’introduction semble rendre synonymes daḫīl, muḥdaṯ et muwallad, ne dis-
tingue pas entre un daḫīl ancien qui correspond à un usage ancien et un daḫīl
récent (muḥdaṯ, muwallad). La notion d’usage semble au demeurant absente
pour ce qui est des emprunts puisque le terme forgé par le lexicographe relève
de la même catégorie daḫīl qu’un emprunt «arabisé» (ʾallafnā-hu li-yuʿraf …
al-daḫīl, ʿAyn: i, 54). On comparera avec Ǧamhara, repris par Ǧawālīqī, qui
fait systématiquement référence à l’usage des bédouins (wa-qad takallamat
bi-hi al-ʿarab, Ǧam : 1323, Muʿ: 171). Toutefois, au vu des entrées lexicales (cf.
infra), il se peut bien que le seul passage où il est fait mention de daḫīl dans
cette introduction, passage qui existe dans un seul manuscrit, le texte des deux
autres s’arrêtant après yuʿraf (ʾallafnā-hu li-yuʿraf/ṣaḥīḥ bināʾ al-ʿarab min al-
daḫīl, ʿAyn: i, 54, n. 2), doive être négligé, et que la lecture des deux autres
manuscrits doive être retenue. Le propos deviendrait plus cohérent avec ce qui
précède: le seul souci de Ḫalīl est de combattre le muḥdaṯ et le muwallad, qu’ il
soit daḫīl ou forgé. Il a donc forgé (ʾallaf ) ces termes (kašaʿṭaǧ …) afin qu’ on
puisse l’identifier (li-yuʿraf ). De fait, le daḫīl, s’ il est récent, semble bien être
rangé dans le muwallad en cette fin du viiie siècle. Ainsi Kisāʾī selon Lisān,
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 297

considère que daywān est une luġa muwallada de dīwān (sous dwn)11. Cette
inclusion est significative d’ une situation linguistique où l’ élément allophone
a fait massivement irruption de manière récente – muḥdaṯ justement – et influe
fortement l’usage. On sait le rôle imputé aux étrangers nouvellement convertis
dans ce qui fut perçu comme une «corruption des langues ». À lui seul, le terme
muwallad, avec les sens connexes de «métis» et d’ « apocryphe » qu’ il a, décrit
la situation linguistique. En somme, de quelque côté qu’ il se tourne, le lexico-
graphe de cette fin du viiie siècle doit savoir exercer son sens critique, pris en
tenailles qu’il est entre le bédouin qui tente de falsifier les mots et l’ étranger
qui tente d’imposer ses mots.
L’examen, même préliminaire, des entrées lexicales de ʿAyn permet de nuan-
cer l’introduction et semble conforter l’absence probable de daḫīl en i, 54,
si, bien sûr, on admet qu’il existe une cohérence entre le dictionnaire et son
introduction malgré sa paternité discutée. En effet, ʿAyn, dans sa pratique effec-
tive12, n’exclut pas les termes étrangers déjà arabisés. Ces derniers, marqués
comme n’étant pas de pur arabe (daḫīl, muʿarrab, laysa min maḥḍ al-ʿarabiyya),
y figurent, même si beaucoup d’emprunts ne sont pas identifiés. Ainsi, ǧaw-
saq (palais, ʿAyn: v, 243), ǧulāhiq (balle d’une arbalète, v, 243), baraq (agneau,
v, 155), band (personne rusée), bandar (commerçant de métaux) (v, 243) sont
daḫīl ( fī al-ʿarabiyya). manǧanīq (machine de guerre) « n’est pas du pur arabe»
(laysa min maḥḍ al-ʿarabiyya, ʿAyn: v, 243), duʿšūqa (scarabée, ii, 286) aussi,
du fait de l’absence de liquides et de labiales dans ce nom quintilitère. šašqal
est un «mot ḥimyarite ʿibadite très utilisé par les agents de change de Bagdad
lorsqu’ils fixent la valeur du dīnar. Ils disent : qad šašqalnā-hā; c’ est-à-dire ‘nous
en avons fixé la valeur’, une fois qu’ils les ont pesés, dīnar par dīnar. Ce mot n’est
pas du pur arabe» (v, 245). Son explication fait donc référence à une pratique
sociale. Si nārgīl (iv, 210) et baḫt ne sont pas dits d’ origine étrangère, buḫt et
buḫtiyy sont ʾaʿǧamiyyān daḫīlān (iv, 241), narǧis est muʿarrab (iv, 210). Plus
rarement, l’ouvrage indique l’origine de l’emprunt ou même le nom étran-
ger: al-buhār (nom de mesure) est qibtiyya (iv, 48), le crabe (saraṭān) se dit
ḫarḫabaq en persan (vii, 211). barahmane (brahmane) est « chez les samana :
leur savant et leur prêtre», (iv, 130). L’auteur des entrées lexicales est un esprit
curieux qui s’intéresse aux autres langues et remarque, comme le souligne
Baalbaki 2014, que «les Cananéens, dont l’ancêtre est Canaan fils de Sem fils de
Noé, parlaient une langue qui ressemblait à l’arabe» (i, 205). Sa mention des

11 Ḫafāǧī considère explicitement que ‘mā ʿarraba-hu al-mutaʾaḫḫirūn yuʿaddu muwalladan’

(cité dans Muʿ : 14).
12 Une étude approfondie serait à mener sur les termes, ici non inclus, qualifiés de muḥdaṯ,
muwallad dans ʿAyn.
298 ayoub

samana, mouvement religieux de l’Inde du temps de Boudha (vii, 274), prouve

des connaissances évoquant l’hypothèse de Law 1990, à savoir la connaissance,
par Ḫalīl, du classement indien des consonnes.
Bref, le dictionnaire de Ḫalīl, contrairement à ce qu’ aurait pu suggérer son
introduction, ne nie pas le daḫīl, du moins pas tout daḫīl (voir plus bas).

2.2 Sībawayhi et le muʿrab min al-ʾaʿǧamiyya

Sībawayhi, qui utilise le terme muʿrab, est, lui, dans la théorisation linguis-
tique d’un usage, qu’il spécifie bien comme celui des bédouins (-hum). Il
adresse deux questions aux données: Quelles sont les modifications que subit
un emprunt quand il est intégré dans le système de la langue ? Y a-t-il des lois
générales de substitution à partir du persan? On peut dire qu’ il est déjà dans
la grammaire comparée.
Deux cas de figure se présentent dans l’emprunt muʿrab : 1 – Le mot reste tel
quel, même si son schème n’existe pas en arabe, à condition que les consonnes
qui le forment existent en arabe. Ainsi ḫurasān, ḫurram, kurkum. 2 – Les locu-
teurs, procédant par analogie, transforment le mot étranger afin de l’ intégrer
dans un paradigme arabe connu, morphologique et/ou phonologique, opéra-
tion que le Kitāb appelle «rattachement» (ʾilḥāq)13 (Kitāb: iv, 304). L’« ara-
bisation» d’un terme induit deux types d’ʾilḥāq : le premier est celui de la
structure syllabique du mot. Le locuteur la modifie en vue de la fondre dans
un schème (bināʾ) arabe14. Un exemple est présenté pour chaque schème :
dirham rattaché à hiǧraʿ, bahraǧ à salhab; dīnar et dībāǧ à dīmās ; ʾIsḥāq à
ʾIʿṣār; yaʿqūb à yarbūʿ; ǧawrab à fawʿal ; šubāriq à ʿuḏāfir ; rustāq à qurṭās (Kitāb:
iv, 303). Ces transformations morphologiques peuvent introduire un augment
consonantique (ziyāda) ou, au contraire, effacer une consonne (ḥaḏf ). Mais
un second ʾilḥāq, phonologique, est parfois nécessaire si le mot étranger com-
prend des consonnes qui n’existent pas en arabe ( yulḥiqūn al-ḥurūf bi-l-ḥurūf
al-ʿarabiyya, Kitāb: iv, 304). Un principe simple va gouverner ce second ʾilḥāq:
à la consonne étrangère qui n’existe pas en arabe va se substituer une autre
dont le lieu d’articulation est proche. C’est là une loi générale. Cette substitu-
tion d’une consonne à une autre (ʾibdāl al-ḥarf ) s’ accompagne souvent d’ un
changement du timbre vocalique (taġyīr al-ḥaraka). Dans certains mots, les
locuteurs changent uniquement la consonne qui n’ existe pas en arabe sans
changer le schème ainsi dans firind, baqqam, ʾāǧurr, ǧurbuz (Kitāb: iv, 304).

13 Le terme « rattachement» est aussi proposé pour ʾilḥāq par Bohas 1982: 57. qui étudie
l’ ʾilḥāq morphologique par ajout d’ un augment (ziyāda) chez les grammairiens tardifs.
14 lammā ʾarādū ʾan yuʿribū-hu ʾalḥaqū-hu bi-bināʾ kalāmi-him, Kitāb : iv, 304.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 299

Le second chapitre est consacré au persan et à la régularité de la substitution

de consonnes appartenant au système de l’arabe à certaines consonnes du per-
san qui n’existent pas en arabe, notamment la labiale /p/ et la palatale /g/. La
consonne qui est entre /q/ et /ǧ/ devient régulièrement /ǧ/ en arabe, ainsi ǧur-
buz (hypocrite, tricheur)15, ʾāǧurr (brique cuite), ǧawrab (bas, chausson). Elle
devient parfois /k/ ou /q/: qurbuz ; kurbak ou qurbaq (échoppe). Le chapitre
suggère fortement que Sībawayhi parle persan puisqu’ il décrit les changements
qui affectent, en moyen perse, la syllabe finale -ah du mot. Celle-ci, se réali-
sant en pehlevi tantôt hamza, tantôt yāʾ, est traitée par les locuteurs arabes
comme une consonne étrangère. Ils la remplacent par un /ǧ/ : kūsah > kūsaǧ16
(imberbe), parfois par un /q/: kawsaq. Quant à la consonne entre /b/ et /f/
(le /p/), elle se réalise [f] et parfois [b]: firind17 ou birind, funduq18. Mais si
la consonne existe en arabe, la substitution n’est pas régulière, et reste idiosyn-
cratique: le [ʿ] de ʾIsmāʿīl remplace une hamza, le [s] de sarāwīl remplace un
[š].
Enfin, un changement peut affecter les voyelles sans qu’ on ne puisse dégager
de régularité. Précisément appelé taḫlīṭ (embrouillaminis), il est dû au fait
que le locuteur ne saisit pas bien le mot étranger. Ainsi zawr devient zūr
(intelligence)19.

Plusieurs observations se dégagent:

1. L’approche de Sībawayhi est théoriquement fondée au regard de la lin-

guistique contemporaine: intégrer un mot dans une langue, c’ est l’ homo-
généiser au système de la langue. Le concept d’ʾilḥāq est difficilement con-
tournable. Ce concept et les transformations en quatre volets qu’ il implique
(ziyāda, ḥaḏf, ʾibdāl, taġyīr) seront repris par les générations ultérieures,
ainsi Fārābī (m. 350/961) dans Dīwān l-adab, Ǧawālīqī, ʾAbū Ḥayyān al-Ġar-
nāṭī (m. 745/1344) tel que le cite Suyūṭī, etc. sans que de nouvelles approches
se fassent jour, à l’exception peut-être de l’approche de Ṯaʿālibī (m. 429/1039)
fondée sur un classement thématique et sociolinguistique. Or l’ approche
de Sībawayhi s’inscrit en totale cohérence avec le projet du Kitāb: elle est

15 Siḥāḥ et Lisān le signalent muʿarrab ou daḫīl. Siḥāḥ signale aussi qurbuz.

16 La forme attestée dans les dictionnaires est kawsaǧ. Qāmūs al-Muḥīṭ indique aussi kūsaǧ.
17 pèrènd en persan moderne. firind est daḫīl dans Lisān avec les mêmes sens du mot en
persan : éclat d’ une lame/sabre d’ un excellent acier/étoffe de soie.
18 Dans Desmaisons, foundouq (aveline/balle de fusil), est dit venir de l’arabe bunduq. Il doit
plutôt s’ agir du caravansérail. La forme pehlevi doit être en [p] issue du mot grec.
19 Lisān atteste les deux formes.
300 ayoub

purement grammaticale et formelle. Sa puissance est dans son formalisme

même. Elle ne considère point la dimension sémantique de l’ emprunt ni sa
dimension sociolinguistique. Mais ce faisant, elle se dégage de contraintes
qui vont lier la recherche dictionnairique, comme on le verra plus bas.
2. On observera que le concept d’ʾilḥāq suppose une bonne connaissance de
la forme du mot dans la langue étrangère, forme à partir de laquelle se fera
l’ʾilḥāq. Autrement dit, il indique une situation de bilinguisme prévalent.
3. À considérer les mots qui, en cette fin du viiie siècle, sont répertoriés comme
emprunts à d’autres langues, on peut déjà percevoir plusieurs couches his-
toriques différentes de termes arabisés, certains plus anciens que d’ autres.
Ainsi qurtās (feuillet) n’est pas perçu comme un emprunt mais il sert de
paradigme sur lequel s’alignent d’autres mots non-arabes (Kitāb: iv, 304).
4. Il y a différentes réalisations de la consonne étrangère et du mot étran-
ger ce qui donne lieu à plusieurs variantes: ǧurbuz/qurbuz, kurbak/qurbaq,
firind/birind, kawsaǧ/kawsaq/kūsaǧ, etc. Cette observation a été notée très
tôt par les lexicographes. Un exemple est souvent cité, celui de baġdād/
baġdāḏ/baġdān. La présence de variantes est considérée par Ibn Durayd
comme critère de l’origine étrangère du mot (Ǧam : 786–787). On comprend
dès lors la collusion entre daḫīl et luġa. On y reviendra plus bas. Ǧawharī
reprend la notion de taḫlīṭ pour expliquer la multiplicité des variantes (al-
ʿarab tuḫalliṭ fī-mā laysa min kalāmi-hā, Ṣiḥ: v, 1871).
5. Plus tard, seront systématisées les consonnes de substitution. Muz : i, 274 en
donne cinq: /q/ /k/ /j/ /b/ /f/. De manière prévisible, ces consonnes sont
des palatales ou des labiales. En effet, les langues sémitiques, très riches en
consonnes postérieures et antérieures, sont pauvres en palatales. Il est dès
lors prédictible que des langues plus riches en palatales, ainsi les langues
indo-européennes dont le persan, auront leurs consonnes réanalysées en
fonction des palatales existantes. De même, le sémitique méridional, dont
l’arabe, n’a pas de /p/, contrairement au persan et au sémitique septentrio-
nal; le /p/ va donc être réanalysé en /f/ ou /b/, i.e. les deux autres consonnes
labiales.
6. Il est étonnant qu’ʾIsmāʿīl soit mentionné dans le Kitāb sous le chapitre des
emprunts au persan. Parlant d’ʾIsmāʿīl, Ibn Saʿd (m. 230/845), au début du
ixe siècle, évoque une origine hébraïque dans ses Ṭabaqāt : kāna ismu-hu
ʾašmūwīl fa-ʾuʿriba, (ṭ: i, 49). Jeffery: 64, faisant le point sur les travaux de
Margoliouth et Mingana, parle d’ une origine chrétienne du mot (emprunt
indirect à l’hébreu via le syriaque)20. Faut-il penser que le mot était connu

20 Sībawayhi ne parle pas d’ un /š/ qui se transforme en /s/ dans ʾIsmāʿīl, comme le croit
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 301

en Perse du fait de la présence de communautés araméennes et qu’ il a été

perçu par Sībawayhi comme un emprunt au persan ? ou bien est-ce une
coquille qui s’est glissée dans le manuscrit lors de la transmission? difficile
à trancher.

Quoiqu’il en soit, Sībawayhi peut invoquer, en faveur de ses analyses, un témoi-

gnage imparable, celui de l’usage, qui distingue certains noms propres comme
diptotes. Sībawayhi souligne d’abord que l’emprunt, s’ il s’ arabise, fonctionne
rigoureusement comme un nom arabe:

Sache que tout nom non-arabe (ʾaʿǧamī) qu’ on a arabisé et bien établi
dans la langue, auquel on a ajouté l’article al- et, [partant], dont [la
référence] est devenue indéfinie, reçoit les trois déclinaisons si tu en
fais un nom propre, à moins qu’il ne soit rendu diptote pour les mêmes
raisons qui rendent le nom arabe diptote.
Kitāb : iii, 234

Ainsi en est-il de liǧām, dībāǧ, yarandaǧ, nayrūz, firind, zanǧabīl, ʾarandaǧ,

yāsmīn, sihrīz, ʾāǧurr.
Quant aux noms exclusivement propres dans les langues étrangères, et qui
ne sont point des noms propres arabes (lam takun min ʾasmāʾi-him al-ʿarabiyya,
Kitāb: iii 235), ceux-là sont diptotes, ainsi ʾIbrāhīm, ʾIsmāʿīl, ʾIsḥāq, Yaʿqūb,
fayrūz, qārūn, firʿawn21.
On voit donc que Sībawayhi dans ce passage, s’ appuyant sur l’ irréfutabilité
de l’usage diptotique, n’éprouve nul embarras à considérer des noms propres
mentionnés dans le Coran comme des noms propres d’ origine étrangère
(kalām al-ʿaǧam). On sait que c’est la dénomination qui a prévalu pour cette
classe de noms dans la tradition grammaticale: ism ʿalam ʾaʿǧamī. Il n’éprouve
non plus nul embarras à considérer dirham, dīnār qui font partie du lexique
coranique comme d’origine étrangère.
Or il n’en a pas toujours été ainsi avant Sībawayhi et il ne le sera pas tou-
jours après lui. On notera que Sībawayhi n’invoque pas Ḫalīl dans ce chapitre
des noms propres étrangers, alors que l’étude de la diptose dans le Kitāb est
fondée, de part en part, sur les opinions de Ḫalīl dans les autres sections (voir

Jeffery : 64 interprétant incorrectement un passage de Muz: i, 272–273. En revanche,

Ǧawālīqī est cité pour l’ avoir dit (ibid. : 273).
21 Ibn al-Sikkīt reprend quasi littéralement ce passage de Sībawayhi sur la différence entre
les noms communs étrangers et les noms propres (cité par Ǧawharī sous l’entrée lexicale
de ʾIbrīsam).
302 ayoub

Ayoub 2014). Et il n’y a pas d’entrée lexicale pour yāsmīn, yarandaj, ʾarandaj,
nayrūz, ʾāǧurr dans ʿAyn. Pourtant, leur «arabisation» est ancienne, puisqu’ ils
se déclinent22. Liǧām, dībaǧ sont expliqués sans aucune référence à une langue
étrangère. Comment interpréter ces données? Bien que la prudence s’ impose,
ʿAyn ne répertoriant pas tous les termes de la langue, et qu’ il atteste, en outre,
des noms «arabisés», il semble bien que sa position est plus puriste que celle
de Sībawayhi et qu’il y a débat. Nous en verrons une confirmation plus bas.

3 Les emprunts dans le Coran

Au vrai, le débat autour de l’emprunt est déjà vieux en cette fin du viiie siècle.
Il remonte, semble-t-il, à la fin du viie siècle, est lié à l’ exégèse du Coran et a
pour enjeu l’emprunt dans le texte sacré. Des titres nous sont parvenus, traitant
des Luġāt dans le Coran. On attribue abusivement à Ibn ʿAbbās, un ouvrage
intitulé: Kitāb al-luġāt fī al-Qurʿān23. Nous y reviendrons plus bas. Des grands
noms de la fin du viiie et du ixe composent des lexiques établissant les luġāt
dans le Coran. Ce sont des exégètes ainsi Muqātil b. Sulaymān (150/767), des
polygraphes, ainsi Hišām b. Muḥammad al-Kalbī (m. 204/819), mais surtout
des philologues, grammairiens ou lexicographes ainsi al-Farrāʾ (m. 207/822), al-
ʾAṣmaʿī (m. 213/828), Ibn Qutayba (m. 276/889) et Ibn Durayd (m. 321/933). Ces
ouvrages ne nous sont pas parvenus (Voir Nassār 1968 : i, 73–77).
Nous connaissons, en revanche, les termes d’ un débat rapporté par Ibn Fāris
(m. 395/1004), éminent lexicographe du xe, que reprend Suyūṭī, le premier
dans son Ṣāḥibī (Ṣāḥ: 59sq.), le second dans Muzhir (Muz : i, 266 sq.). Ce débat
permet un éclairage sur la sacralité de la langue en Islam et ses incidences sur
la culture et les sciences du langage. Il a fait l’ objet de nombreuses études24.
Nous l’avons nous-même quelque peu abordé ailleurs. Nous en rappelons ici
les termes afin de le confronter avec les pratiques dictionnairiques.

3.1 Une polémique entre juristes et lexicographes

Selon ʾAbū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām (m. 224/838), lexicographe, exégète et
juriste du viiie siècle, grandi à Hérat dans le Ḫurasān, et fils d’ un esclave grec

22 Avec variantes pour yāsmīn : certains arabes ne le déclinant pas.

23 Édité par Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munaǧǧid. Voir le débat autour de son auteur et sa description
dans Nassār 1956 : i, 73–74, Rippin 1981 et Baalbaki 2014: 163.
24 Voir en particulier Kopf 1956, Versteegh 1993 : 88 sq., Gilliot 1990b: 95–110, Rippin 2002,
Ayoub 2006 : 48–62, Baalbaki 2014. Pour l’ excellence de la luġa de Qurayš, voir Larcher
2005 et 2006.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 303

qui, d’après Baġdādī, parlait mal l’arabe25, particulièrement sensible donc, du

fait de son milieu familial, à la question du contact des langues, et dont les
propos sont rapportés par Ṣāḥibī, puis Muzhir, des divergences opposent des
exégètes et juristes (ʾahl al-ʿilm min al-fuqahāʾ) et les savants qui s’ occupent de
langue, philologues, grammairiens ou lexicographes (ʾahl al-ʿarabiyya).
1. selon les juristes et les exégètes du viie et début viiie siècle, beaucoup de
mots du Coran sont des mots étrangers, pris aux langues des non-Arabes (qālū
fī ʾaḥruf kaṯīra ʾanna-hā bi-luġāt al-ʿaǧam, Ṣāḥ: 60 ; Muz : i 268).
Parmi ceux-ci, ʾAbū ʿUbayd cite Ibn ʿAbbās (m. 67/686), Muǧāhid (m. 104/
722), Ibn Ǧubayr (m. 94/711), ʿIkrima (m. 105/723–724), et ʿAṭāʾ (m. 114/732). Tous
comptent dans ce premier siècle. Ibn ʿAbbās, on le sait, est le père de l’ exégèse
coranique; ʿIkrima, qui fut son esclave, est l’un des principaux transmetteurs
de l’interprétation du Coran qui lui est attribuée; la plupart des traditions juri-
diques remontent à Muǧāhid; ʿAṭāʾ est un éminent représentant de l’ ancienne
école mecquoise de droit religieux; Ibn Ǧubayr est un exégète et juriste de Kūfa
qui semble avoir «amené» le savoir de Médine et de la Mecque à Kūfa (voir
Motzki ei2). Tous sont ‘mecquois ou morts à la Mecque’ (Gilliot 1990a: 86). Du
moins la tradition insiste sur leur lien avec les deux villes saintes (ibid.). On
peut dire qu’ils représentent, pour reprendre les termes de Schaht, l’ ancienne
école juridique mecquoise.
Ces exégètes juristes qui précèdent la formation des écoles juridiques clas-
siques ont identifié, dit ʾAbū ʿUbayd, al-yamm26, Ṭaha27, Ṭūr28, al-rabbāniy-
yūn29 comme des mots syriaques, al-ṣirāṭ30, al-qisṭāṣ31, al-firdaws32 comme

25 Les propos de son père, confondant masculin et féminin quand il parle de son fils pour
le recommander à l’ instituteur du Kuttāb: ʿallimī al-Qāsim fa-ʾinna-hā kayyisa, (cité dans
Ġarīb: 13 d’ après Baġdādī) disent de manière touchante l’effort des étrangers pour
s’ intégrer dans le nouvel empire, la langue constituant un enjeu de promotion sociale.
26 Mer, rivière (Cor. 7 :136, etc.). Le mot existe aussi dans le chamito-sémitique, notamment
en égyptien et en copte.
27 Mot de sens incertain. Cf. infra.
28 Montagne (Cor. 2 :63, 93, etc.). Très tôt reconnu comme un emprunt au syriaque (voir aussi
Muʿ : 435 citant Ibn Qutayba).
29 Savants en matière religieuse (Cor. 3 : 79, etc.). Les traditions hésitent entre une origine
syriaque ou hébraïque (voir Muʿ : 330 qui cite ʾAbū ʿUbayd).
30 Voie (Cor. 1 :6, 7, etc.). Jeffery: 95 trace l’ histoire de l’ emprunt, forme hellénisée du latin
‘strata’ introduit par l’ administration romaine dans la province de Syrie, qui est passé en
araméen et, par là, en arabe.
31 Cor. 17:35 et 26 :182. Balance. Origine grecque (Muh : 144, référant à Muǧāhid et Ibn Ǧub-
ayr), ou syriaque (Jeffery : 238).
32 Paradis (Cor. 18 :107, etc.). Jeffery, qui confirme l’ emprunt au grec et fait l’histoire du mot,
fait remarquer qu’ il s’ agit d’ un emprunt pré-islamique.
304 ayoub

des mots grecs, miškāt33 et kiflayn34 comme des mots éthiopiens, hayta la-ka
comme une locution ḥawrānī35.
2. D’autre part, les savants qui s’occupent de langue, beaucoup plus puristes,
qui, eux, nient qu’il puisse y avoir quelque mot non-arabe dans le Coran :
«Il n’y a rien dans le Coran qui soit dans une langue étrangère» (laysa fī-hi
min kalām al-ʿaǧam šayʾ, Ṣāḥ: 61), affirment-ils. Ils se fondent en cela sur une
interprétation littéraliste des deux versets 16:103 et 43 :3 dans lesquels le Coran
dit s’énoncer ‘en langue arabe claire’ (lisān ʿarabī mubīn) et se dit ‘Prédication
en langue arabe’ (qurʾān ʿarabiī).
Qui sont ces «parents de la ʿarabiyya»36, plus puristes que les exégètes ?
ʾAbū ʿUbayd ne cite pas de nom, son propos étant une défense de la position
des exégètes juristes du ie siècle: «J’ai expliqué cela afin que nul ne pense que
les juristes sont ignorants ( fa-yansiba-hum ʾilā al-ǧahl) et qu’ ils ont entrepris
[d’interpréter] le Coran autrement que ce que Dieu entendait …37 alors qu’ ils
sont plus savants [que quiconque] en exégèse» (Ṣāḥ : 61). S’ ajoute, sans doute,
à ce propos explicite, un désir plus souterrain, celui de redonner leur noblesse
à des langues qui sont celles de la sphère culturelle de ses ancêtres: on remar-
quera qu’il cite des emprunts au syriaque, au grec, à l’ éthiopien et au ḥawrānī,
donc tous rattachés à cette sphère de l’ancien empire byzantin chrétien, mais
point par exemple au persan.
Or ces philologues puristes ne peuvent être contemporains des exégètes
cités. À la mort de ces derniers, ʿilm al-ʿarabiyya en était aux balbutiements38.
Il s’est donc peu à peu formé, dans le demi-siècle qui va suivre, une réaction
à l’enseignement des premiers exégètes transmis par leurs élèves. C’ est la

33 Cor. 24 :35. Niche pour accueillir une lampe. Emprunt à l’éthiopien (Muh : 125, référant à
Muǧāhid ; Jeffery : 266).
34 Kifl : le double (Cor. 28 :57).
35 Appelation de l’ araméen, selon Nöldeke, cité dans Muh: 121. Les traditions sont diver-
gentes et parlent d’ une origine nabatéenne, araméenne ou syriaque (ibid.).
36 Ils sont au sens littéral ‘la famille de la ʿarabiyya’, l’ayant constituée comme science et
langue normée. En effet, la ʿarabiyya, par opposition à kalām al-ʿarab, désigne, dans nos
sources, la langue codifiée par les grammairiens, voire la grammaire. Voir Ayoub 2007a.
37 ʾaqdamū ʿalā kitāb allāh bi-ġayr mā ʾarāda-hu allāh.
38 La tradition arabe considère qu’ʾAbū al-ʾAswad al-Duʾalī (m. 69/688) à Baṣra, a posé la
pierre d’ angle des études grammaticales. Cette opinion est reçue avec quelque scepti-
cisme par les chercheurs occidentaux. Voir par exemple Fück 1986. Blachère considère
que c’ est ʾAbū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ, un demi-siècle plus tard, qui en est le véritable fondateur.
La question reste obscure et objet de débat. Quoiqu’ il en soit, il a fallu quelque temps pour
qu’ il y ait une opinion articulée sur les emprunts.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 305

réaction de Baṣra, si on en juge par Ibn Fāris, du moins d’ une partie de ses
savants, à l’ancienne école mecquoise d’exégèse.
Car le premier nom de philologue cité par Ibn Fāris est celui d’ ʾAbū ʿUbayda,
évoqué plus haut, un des maîtres de l’école de Basra du viiie siècle, élève avec
ʾAṣmaʿī (m. 212/828) d’ʾAbū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ (m. 153/770), maître d’ ʾAbū ʿUbayd,
qui s’intéressa surtout aux généalogies, aux récits des événements historiques
et légendaires, et secondairement aux faits de langue. Son enseignement a
constitué, selon Gilliot 1990a, un tournant dans l’ exégèse. Ses propos sont
rapportés par Ibn Fāris, qui s’y range sans réserve. Ibn Fāris commence par
signaler que d’aucuns ont prétendu que dans le Coran, il y avait des mots qui
n’ étaient point arabes. Ils sont allés jusqu’ à parler de mots grecs, coptes ou
nabatéens (Ṣāḥ : 59). Puis il cite le propos d’ʾAbū ʿUbayda pris dans Maǧāz
al-Qurʾān qui vient, sans ambiguité, stigmatiser cette opinion : « Qui prétend
que le Coran contient des mots non-arabes profère un blasphème » (man
zaʿama ʾanna fī-hi ġayr al-ʿarabiyya fa-qad ʾaʿẓama al-qawl, Maǧāz: i, 17; Ṣāḥ:
59).
On le sait, ʾAbū ʿUbayda dans Maǧāz explique les mots qui se trouvent dans le
Coran et qui ont sensiblement la même forme en arabe et dans d’ autres langues
par la thèse du tawāfuq, ou thèse de la «concordance» fortuite, à savoir que le
mot se trouve avoir la même forme et le même sens dans plusieurs langues.

Il se peut [en revanche] que deux formes, l’une en arabe, l’ autre en persan
ou dans une autre langue, soient concordantes ( yuwāfiq al-lafẓ al-lafẓ)
et très proches ( yuqāribu-hu)39 et que leur sens soit identique (maʿnā-
humā wāḥid). Ainsi « al-ʾistabraq », qui désigne « le brocart lorsqu’ il est
grossier», ou « firind », [le premier mot] a la forme ʿistabrah en persan’40.
ibid.

Il est en effet peu plausible d’ attribuer à ces mots une origine arabe à partir de
laquelle ils seraient passés dans d’autres langues, vu leur opacité grammaticale
(cf. plus haut). L’hypothèse de l’emprunt dû à un contact linguistique étant
stigmatisée, la doctrine est dès lors l’universalité du mot, ou, du moins, qu’ il
est commun, de manière purement fortuite, à plusieurs langues.
On a souligné, à juste titre, qu’ʾAbū ʿUbayd41 a professé, dans ce débat, une
thèse conciliatrice. Il a surtout professé une thèse qui reconnaît l’ historicité de

39 Nous traduisons yuqāribu-hu (Maǧāz : i, 17; Muz: i 266), plutôt que yufāriqu-hu (Ṣaḥ : 59)
qui nous semble être un taṣḥīf.
40 Istabrak : habit fait d’ une soie grossière ; Istabraq : satin épais, selon Demaisons.
41 Plusieurs chercheurs l’ ont déjà noté, on doit lire dans Muz: i 269, ʾAbū ʿUbayd, comme lit
306 ayoub

la langue et son métissage, «nuançant» ainsi l’ acception que nous supposons

postislamique de la faṣāḥa, celle qui en souligne la pureté. Sa thèse qui, du
point de vue du contact des langues, est la plus plausible, souligne la nature
double de ces mots: non arabes par leur origine (ʾuṣūl), arabes par leur devenir,
assimilés qu’ils ont été aux mots arabes:

Pour moi, la doctrine juste est celle qui confirme les deux thèses égale-
ment; car ces mots sont à l’origine des mots non-arabes comme l’ ont
professé les juristes, mais ils sont tombés [dans l’ usage linguistique] des
Arabes qui les ont modifiés de par leur propre prononciation, et qui ont
transformé leur forme non arabe en une forme arabe. Puis le Coran a
été révélé alors que ces mots s’étaient fondus dans la langue des Arabes.
Aussi ceux qui affirment que ces mots sont arabes ont raison et ceux qui
déclarent qu’ils sont non-arabes ont raison aussi.
Muz: i 269

Ibn Fāris se prononce lui-même nettement en faveur de l’ opinion d’ ʾAbū

ʿUbayda, balayant sèchement l’argumentaire d’ ʾAbū ʿUbayd sur l’ ignorance, et
l’absence de révérence aux anciens qu’elle implique :

ʾAḥmad b. Fāris dit: «Ce n’est point parce qu’ on n’est point tombé d’ ac-
cord avec quelqu’un, quant à la thèse qu’ il professe, qu’ on le considère
comme ignorant. La génération des premiers a connu des désaccords et
des divergences dans l’interprétation de certains versets du Coran. Puis
sont venus leurs successeurs. Certains ont adopté une opinion, d’ autres
une autre, différente, guidés en cela par leurs efforts de réflexion et les
preuves qu’ils ont pu appréhender. L’opinion [juste] est donc [pour moi]
celle d’ʾAbū ʿUbayda, même si un groupe des [savants], parmi les pre-
miers, a professé une opinion différente.»42
Ṣāḥ : 62

Chouaymī dans Ṣāḥibī, et non ʾAbū ʿUbayda, ce qui rendrait les opinions d’ʾAbū ʿUbayda
incompréhensibles car contradictoires.
42 Nous ne faisons pas sur ce point la même lecture du texte que L. Kopf: 44 pour qui Ibn
Fāris est d’ accord avec l’ opinion d’ ʾAbū ʿUbayd : «Ibn Fāris (d. 1005) agreed in the main
with the view of Abu Ubaid, whilst stressing especially that the Qurʾan was free from any
non-Arabic element ». Suyūṭī souligne bien qu’Ibn Fāris est de l’avis d’ʾAbū ʿUbayda (qāla
Ibn Fāris fī Fiqh al-luġa: wa-hāḏā kamā qāla-hu ʾAbū ʿUbayda, Muz : i 266).
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 307

3.2 tawāfuq et réinterprétation

Suyūṭī le souligne, la grande majorité des savants (le ǧumhūr) suit l’ opinion
d’ ʾAbū ʿUbayda et considère «qu’il n’y a rien dans le livre de Dieu qui appar-
tienne à d’autres langues que l’arabe» (Muz : i, 266). Dans son Muhaḏḏab
(Muh: 102), il énumère de grands noms de juristes, théologiens et exégètes qui
ont défendu cette thèse: Šāfiʿī (m. 204/820), Ṭabarī (m. 310/923), Baqillānī (m.
403/1013). Parmi les théologiens, il cite dans Muzhir Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (m.
605/1209), l’un des plus grands théologiens et exégètes de l’ Islam tardif :

Nous n’admettons point que des mots qui se trouvent dans le Coran tels
miškāt, qisṭāṣ, ʾistabraq, siǧǧīl43, ne soient point arabes; toute la question
est que ce que les Arabes ont là institué (waḍʿ al-ʿArab) coïncide avec [ce
qui existe] dans une autre langue, ainsi al-ṣābūn44, al-tannūr45 ; ce sont là
des mots sur lesquels les langues s’accordent.
Muz: i, 267

Ibn Ǧinnī (m. 392/1002) professe la même opinion pour tannūr, rejetant l’ idée
de l’emprunt à partir d’une seule langue: «Nous ne connaissons point de
précédent à cela» (Ḫaṣāʾiṣ: iii, 289) et argumentant que si ce mot était manqūl
(i.e. s’il est emprunté par l’arabe à une autre langue), il faudrait toujours
supposer qu’il est commun à plusieurs autres langues. Il n’ y a donc pas de
raison de ne pas appliquer la même règle à l’arabe. En revanche, il envisage
qu’ il ait pu être commun à deux ou trois langues – dont l’ arabe –, et qu’ il
se soit étendu ensuite (intašara bi-l-naql) aux autres par contact linguistique.
L’ emprunt dû au contact linguistique est donc accepté, à condition que le
terme coranique y échappe.
La théorie du tawāfuq revient certes à nier l’emprunt : un mot du Coran ne
peut avoir pour origine une autre langue que l’arabe. Mais c’ est une négation
qui sonne comme une dénégation, avec un retour du refoulé qui se manifeste
par quelque incohérence. Car si l’on peut comprendre que le texte coranique
puisse être éclairé par la connaissance de l’origine étrangère et du sens origi-
nel de certains de ses termes difficiles alors à saisir, l’ exercice qui consiste à
chercher si scrupuleusement des mots qui se retrouvent avoir même forme et
sens en arabe – dont le sens est donc déjà compris – et dans une autre langue

43 Cor. 11 :82, etc. projectile en argile. Origine persane (Muh : 96–97, référant à Muǧāhid,
ʿIkrima et Ibn ʿAbbās ; Jeffery : 164).
44 Savon. Origine persane.
45 Cor. 11 :40, etc. Four pour cuire le pain. Origine persane (Muh : 80) ou araméenne (Jeffery:
94–95).
308 ayoub

n’éclaire en rien le texte coranique! La théorie sonne comme une réinterpréta-

tion tardive d’une théorie ancienne qui a eu son utilité pour expliquer le texte
et qui a été ensuite rejetée, le sens des termes étant en revanche retenu. C’ est
explicitement ce que dit Ibn Fāris, enjoignant une (ré)interprétation qui doit
s’étendre à tout le lexique: «L’opinion des savants qui ont étudié le lexique
(ʾahl al-luġa) selon laquelle il s’est introduit dans kalām al-ʿArab des mots qui ne
font pas partie de leurs parlers doit être (ré)interprétée selon la doctrine d’ ʾAbū
ʿUbayda» ( fa-ʿalā hāḏā al-taʾwīl al-laḏī taʾawwala-hu ʾAbū ʿUbayda, Ṣāḥ: 60).
Si du point de vue philologique, la thèse du tawāfuq n’ est pas tenable, elle
est significative d’un point de vue anthropologique, indiquant un type de rela-
tion à l’autre et à sa langue: le point aveugle absolument rejeté, c’ est que l’ arabe
coranique ait pu se trouver dans la nécessité de recourir aux langues étrangères.
La thèse signe la pureté de la langue arabe [littéraire] et son incommensura-
bilité par rapport aux autres langues. Mais cette négation de l’ emprunt n’ est
pas une négation des langues étrangères. Celles-ci gardent quelques lettres
de noblesse car certains de leurs termes «s’entendent» à travers les mots du
Coran.
Une deuxième voie semble toutefois se dessiner, qu’ on serait tenté de consi-
dérer comme une variante du tawāfuq: celle de Ṭabarī (voir Gilliot 1990b et
Rippin 2002). Elle aussi constate la similitude des formes et du sens des mots et
refuse de trancher quant à l’origine. Mais elle se distingue en ceci qu’ elle refuse
l’implicite – tout à fait explicite chez Ibn Fāris – d’ une prééminence de l’ arabe
sur les autres langues, aucune langue n’ayant plus de « droits» qu’ une autre à
se considérer «origine» (ʾaṣl):

Quiconque affirme: l’origine [du terme] est arabe [litt. chez les Arabes],
les Perses l’ayant pris et utilisé, ou bien : son origine est perse [chez
les Perses] et les Arabes l’ont pris et arabisé, fonde son jugement sur
l’ignorance (kāna mustaǧhilan)46. Car les Arabes n’ont pas plus de droits
(ʾawlā) à rapporter ce terme à une origine arabe plutôt qu’ à une origine
persane, que les Perses à revendiquer une origine persane, le terme étant
passé ensuite aux Arabes.
tt : i, 15

Et Ṭabarī d’expliquer pourquoi «il fonde son jugement sur l’ ignorance » : « …

Car celui-là prétendrait quelque chose dont on ne peut affirmer la vérité
qu’avec des faits relevant d’un savoir [sûr], qui lèverait tout doute » (ibid.).

46 Faut-il voir dans ce mustaǧhil un écho du yansiba-hum ʾilā al-ǧahl d’Ibn ʿUbayda?
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 309

Cette analyse de Ṭabarī implique que les langues ont les mêmes droits, i.e.
appartiennent à la même classe. Il n’y a point de suprématie de principe de
l’ arabe sur les autres langues, du moins quant à l’ origine des mots. Le refus
de trancher sur l’origine, fait au nom d’une prudence épistémologique (on ne
peut arguer de faits sûrs), rappelle le jugement d’Ibn Ǧinnī, un siècle plus tard,
jugement qui marque un tournant du débat sur l’ origine du langage: « Aussi
je me tiens tout malheureux entre les deux thèses47. J’ ai beau les comparer,
je ne puis trancher» (Ḫaṣ: i, 47). Si s’abstenir de trancher sur l’ origine du
langage rejoint les positions les plus modernes sur cette question, celle de
Saussure en particulier, car la genèse du langage est enfouie dans un passé
inaccessible et invérifiable, il n’est pas certain que les emprunts – du moins
pas tous – soient enfouis dans un passé tel. Les faits « sûrs » qui pourraient
permettre de parler d’un transfert de mots concernent l’ histoire: histoire du
transfert des techniques et des pratiques sociales. Mais ils concernent aussi
la théorie, c’est ce que nous avons vu supra. Mais qu’ en est-il des pratiques
dictionnairiques concernant les emprunts coraniques? Nous avons choisi de
sonder ces pratiques à partir des onze mots cités par ʾAbū ʿUbayd et ʾAbū
ʿUbayda, auxquels le mot siǧǧīl cité par Rāzī a été ajouté. Ces mots ont été
choisis pour leur valeur symbolique dans ce débat. Il va de soi que ce sondage
ne remplace point une enquête exhaustive, mais il peut permettre de mettre
en valeur des traits saillants.

3.3 Les emprunts dans les textes

Le hiatus entre premiers exégètes et philologues, rapporté par ʾAbū ʿUbayd et
confirmé par le Muhaḏḏab de Suyūṭī qui fait remonter la plupart de ses tra-
ditions à Muǧāhid, ʿIkrima et ʿAṭāʾ, confirme, par une voie indépendante, ce
que l’étude des notions de laḥn et de faṣīḥ permet d’ établir, à savoir que le
purisme lié à la sacralité de la langue s’est établi progressivement, fondamen-
talement vers la fin du viiie siècle. Mais il est extrêmement difficile de suivre
cette évolution dans les textes. Les écrits des deux premiers siècles posent de
nombreux problèmes épistémologiques quant à la notion de livre qu’ il sup-
posent, au rapport complexe entre écrit et oral dans leur transmission, etc. Les
ʾisnād-s peuvent s’avérer inconsistants et leur transmission problématique. En
bref, ils sont sujets à bien des questionnements et ont donné lieu à des hypo-
thèses très divergentes de la part des chercheurs48. Deux textes, probablement

47 Les thèses de l’ institution de la langue par fixation divine ou par convention humaine.
48 Voir Schoeler 2002. Pour le tafsīr de Muǧāhid, voir Schoeler 2002: 49–52, Gilliot 1990a: 88–
89, Rippin 1981, ei2. Pour l’ usage des données linguistiques de cette littérature exégétique
310 ayoub

plus tardifs dans leur forme écrite que les dictionnaires que nous allons consi-
dérer, transmettent toutefois des matériaux anciens éclairants.
Deux éditions du Tafsīr de Muǧāhid, l’édition de Sūrtī 1975 et celle d’ ʾAbū
al-Nīl (= tm) ont été établies à partir d’un manuscrit unique (tm: 189), le
manuscrit de Dār al-Kutub n. 1074 tafsīr copié en 544/1149 (tm : 173). Rippin
(1993) et Schoeler (2002: 49sq.) soulignent que Stauth et Leemhuis ont montré
que ce manuscrit de Dār al-kutub n’était ni la source ni un extrait de Ṭabarī,
qu’il n’était point, non plus, un commentaire écrit (voir également Versteegh
1990: 206–207), mais une compilation tardive mettant par écrit, par un disciple
d’un disciple de son disciple Ibn ʾAbī Naǧīḥ, des extraits de ḥadīṯ remontant à
Muǧāhid, mais aussi à d’autres que lui. Néanmoins, malgré les vicissitudes de
la transmission, le Tafsīr publié contient toujours des vestiges évoquant cette
attitude initiale des exégètes vis-à-vis du texte coranique. Versteegh (1990: 89),
dénombre huit termes dits d’origine étrangère au total dans tm, dont quatre
font partie des douze termes cités par ʾAbū ʿUbayd et Rāzī, soit ṭūr (syriaque,
tm: 622), siǧǧīl (persan, tm: 750; ou nabatéen, ibid.), kifl (éthiopien, tm: 649) et
qistās (grec, tm: 436). En revanche, ṣirāṭ (tm : 339, 416, …), miškāt (tm : 493) sont
expliqués sans mention d’une origine étrangère. Les autres termes ne figurent
pas dans le Tafsīr. En somme, quatre termes sur douze sont référés à une origine
étrangère dans le manuscrit publié49.
Un autre texte, largement étudié par les chercheurs, Kitāb al-luġāt fī al-
Qurʾān (= Luġ), attribué abusivement à Ibn ʿAbbās, et dont le manuscrit a fait
l’objet d’une analyse minutieuse dans Rippin 1981 (voir aussi Nassār 1968: i, 74
et Baalbaki 2014: 163), explique la présence des emprunts, non pas comme des
emprunts au syriaque, au copte ou au persan, mais selon la théorie du tawāfuq.
Devant chaque emprunt répertorié, la formule du tawāfuq est religieusement
répétée selon deux tournures: pour le syriaque par exemple, wāfaqat luġat
al-suryāniyya (Luġ: 23) ou bien … bi-luġa tuwāfiq50 al-suryāniyya (Luġ: 36).
Il existe néanmoins deux termes expliqués sans les formules consacrées : al-
raqīm: kalb bi-luġat al-Rūm (Luġ: 35) et ʿaḏāb ʾalīm yaʿnī mūǧiʿ bi-l-ʿibrāniyya

des deux premiers siècles et les problèmes de méthode afférents, voir Versteegh 1990 et
1993.
49 D’ autres traditions remontant à Muǧāhid dans le Tafsīr de Ṭabarī, attestent d’autres
emprunts dont, parmi les douze: Ṭaha « « Ô homme» en syriaque» (tt : 6/16, tm : 460
n. 1), et firdaws, mot grec signifiant verger (tm : 451 n. 3).
50 Nous lisons bi-luġa tuwāfiq al-suryāniyya et non bi-luġat tawāfuq al-suryāniyya, lecture
qu’ on trouve parfois et qui ne nous semble pas bonne, le verbe tawāfaqa étant intransitif.
C’ est le même verbe wāfaqa qui est utilisé dans les deux tours, une fois à la conjugaison
préfixale, une autre à la conjugaison suffixale.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 311

(Luġ: 40). Selon Rippin (1981: 21), ces deux entrées seraient des lapsus calami
plutôt que l’affirmation de l’emprunt51. Montrant que ce texte, au niveau de
sa méthodologie, de sa terminologie et de la nature de ses définitions, ne
peut avoir été écrit qu’après l’établissement de ces procédés dans le canon
exégétique, Rippin conclut que le texte ne peut avoir été écrit par Ibn ʿAbbās.
Un examen, même préliminaire, de la langue du texte permet de déceler
des traces de moyen arabe qui confirment qu’il est tardif et laissent penser à
l’ écriture d’un enseignement oral: bi- à la place de fī dans la formule (bi-luġa
…) qui se répète systématiquement dans tout le texte y compris pour les tribus
(bi-luġat huḏayl …, Luġ: 31). On comparera, dans des tours équivalents ʿAyn: i,
309 (al-maʿṣūb … fī luġat huḏayl) et Ǧam : i, 224 ( fī luġat baʿḍ al-ʿarab)52. Autre
trace lexicale de moyen arabe dans le titre: la littéralisation de la locution tou-
jours présente dans les dialectes levantins (min ʾawwali-hi ʾilā ʾāḫiri-hi). Le sens
même du mot luġa dans ce texte nous paraît tardif (cf. infra). Ces observations
suggèrent que le texte écrit, comme le dit Leemhuis pour le Tafsīr, a été précédé
par une tradition vivante. C’est précisément la conclusion à laquelle arrive Rip-
pin (1981: 18) à partir de l’étude de la structure de l’ʾisnād de trois manuscrits
différents dont les Luġāt: «… we have a single text originating some time just
prior to or slightly after the fifth person in the isnād, that is some time in the
third hijri century, then transmitted through varying sources, being modified
slightly along each path». Un texte ainsi transmis, puisque non fixé définiti-
vement, est bien plus sensible à son propre contexte et aux opinions savantes
qui s’y font jour. Or ce qui frappe, du point de vue du contenu, c’ est l’ « excès
de zèle» dans l’application du tawāfuq. En effet, le nom propre ʾIbrāhim y est
considéré comme un cas de tawāfuq avec le syriaque (Luġ: 21), alors que, selon
Suyūṭī, il y a consensus des savants sur l’occurence de noms propres étrangers
dans le Coran (al-ʾaʿlām laysat maḥall ḫilāf, Muh : 102), sans compter le consen-
sus des grammairiens pour qui ʾIbrāhim est diptote parce qu’ il est d’ origine
étrangère (ʾaʿǧamī). Pourrait-on penser, à partir de cet « excès de zèle»53, asso-
cié à la «rigidité» des formules du tawāfuq, et aux deux lapsus calami qui pour-
raient bien se lire comme des vestiges, à la réécriture d’ un texte/d’un ensei-
gnement plus ancien sur les emprunts, en fonction d’ une « (ré)interprétation
selon la doctrine d’ʾAbū ʿUbayda», pour reprendre la formule d’ Ibn Fāris? Les
dernières lignes de l’introduction de l’ouvrage, dont Rippin constatait la non

51 Voir aussi sur cette question Gilliot 1990a qui examine les premiers Tafsīr-s.
52 Cf. aussi Ǧam: luġa sāʾira fī l-yaman … i, 42 ; luġa fī banī tamīm ibid. … fī luġat Ṭayʾ: i, 71,
etc. On lit aussi dans Ǧam: bi-luġat Ḥimyar: i, 263; bi-luġat ʾahl Naǧd: i, 265. Mais cela reste
rare.
53 Qu’ on peut rapprocher de l’ hypercorrection dans les textes de moyen arabe.
312 ayoub

pertinence par rapport au texte, prendraient alors tout leur sens : l’ auteur de
l’écrit souhaite orienter la lecture des traditions transmises en fonction de
deux thèses que ces traditions ne défendaient pas nécessairement au départ :
l’excellence du dialecte de Qurayš et l’absence de tout terme étranger dans le
Coran, liant ainsi de manière significative les deux questions.
Néanmoins si le contenu des ouvrages de luġāt a été fixé tardivement, leur
titre semble très ancien et peut remonter effectivement au premier siècle.
Preuve en est que c’est un titre consacré qui institue un genre. Or ce titre
implique de facto l’acceptation et l’intégration de l’ emprunt car celui-ci est
traité comme une luġa, i.e. une variante dialectale tribale. Le terme luġa, crucial
pour entendre ces textes, et dont le sens fluctue d’ un passage à l’ autre d’ un
texte, mérite qu’on s’y arrête.

3.4 luġa, luġāt, luġawī

On le sait, le lexicographe est un luġawī. Quel rapport exact avec luġāt ? On le
sait aussi, le terme principal pour «langue» dans le Coran est lisān, non luġa54,
terme qui ne vient à désigner «langue» que suite aux bouleversements initiés
par l’avènement de l’Islam. Lisān, tel «langue», désigne à la fois l’ organe et le
langage articulé. Ce n’est pas le cas de luġa dont les deux sèmes fondamen-
taux sont singulièrement identiques à ceux de laḥn : luġa implique le timbre
(laġwā al-ṭayr est le pépiement des oiseaux), la voix dans sa dimension sonore
(al-nuṭq /al-laġa : al-ṣawt dans Tahḏīb); luġa marque aussi une « déviance », un
māla ʾilā selon Ibn al-ʾAʿrābī, cité par Lisān. De là viendrait son sens de variante
dialectale car «ceux-ci parlent d’une manière qui dévie de la manière de ceux-
là». Le terme dit donc la variation concomitante à tout idiome : deux variantes
d’un même terme seront appelées luġāt (al-ʾukka luġa fī l-ʿukka, ʿAyn: i, 66).
luġa dit aussi le particularisme des groupes sociaux dans la communauté lin-
guistique, leur manière de réaliser un élément linguistique (ḫabʿ : ḫabʾ fī luġat
Tamīm, ʿAyn: i, 123)55. Dans le Kitāb de Sībawayhi, luġa est utilisé exclusive-
ment en ces sens, suivi en ceci par toute la tradition grammaticale dès lors
qu’il s’agit de décrire les luġāt dans l’Arabie antique. Et c’ est bien entendu

54 Voir Hadj-Salah 1986, Gilliot et Larcher dans eq. Pour les différents sens de luġa, voir Rabin
1951 : 9.
55 Luġa dit aussi ce mouvement épistémologique qui dégage une forme canonique, la plus
courante (al-ʾakṯar), et ordonne, du coup, les autres formes comme variantes particulières
à certains groupes. ʾAbū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʿ, interrogé si les lois qu’il a dégagées rendent
compte de tout kalām al-ʿArab, répond par la négative disant: ʾahmil ʿalā al-ʾakṯar wa-
ʾusammī mā ḫālafa-nī luġāt (je rends compte du plus courant et appelle luġāt ce dont
je ne rends pas compte, Zubaydī : 39) (voir Ayoub 2001: 95).
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 313

le sens du terme dans le titre al-luġāt fī al-Qurʿān, puisque le contenu traite

fondamentalement des termes lexicaux propres à telle ou telle tribu. Il faut
donc supposer qu’au premier siècle, lors des premiers enseignements, avant
l’ institution de la ʿarabiyya, le sens de ces mots n’était pas connu de tous, ce qui
permettrait de comprendre pourquoi le texte intègre sous la même rubrique de
luġat les emprunts dans le Coran. En outre, le trait saillant dans l’ usage de luġa
est l’appréhension de la pluralité, de la diversité, de la variation. Le terme se
présente souvent comme un pluriel: luġāt. Il est dès lors aisé d’ assimiler le mot
étranger à la variante dialectale tribale: ce mot présente, on l’ a vu, plusieurs
réalisations. Il est en général propre à certaines tribus qui ont eu un contact
linguistique plus étroit avec le peuple concerné. Mais l’ intégrer sous la même
rubrique, c’est dire aussi qu’il appartient à la même classe, c’ est présupposer
qu’il s’est tellement fondu à kalām al-ʿarab qu’il est devenu une variante dialec-
tale, même si son sens reste problématique comme toute idiosyncrasie. C’ est ce
que souligne, plus tardivement il est vrai, Ǧamhara qui intitule sa section sur les
emprunts: «[Des mots] non-arabes dont l’usage est si courant chez les Arabes
qu’ ils en sont devenus comme des variantes dialectales [de l’ arabe]» (ḥattā
ṣāra ka-l-luġa, Ǧam : iii, 1323). En ce sens, le titre même Al-Luġāt fī l-Qurʾān
indique un «programme de recherche» antérieur à la théorie du tawāfuq.
Mais Luġa désigne dès les premiers textes lexicographiques, à la fois la
manière de réaliser [un élément] propre à un groupe linguistique et le terme
qui résulte de cette manière de parler. Trois tours en effet, chez les premiers
lexicographes se construisent avec luġa: «le terme x est une luġa du terme
y » tour très utilisé dans ʿAyn (e.g. i, 66: al-ʾukka luġa fī l-ʿukka; i, 321 : al-ʿasd
luġa fī l-ʿazd; i, 325: mistaʿ luġa fī misdaʿ, etc.). Luġa dans ce tour se laisse
traduire par «forme alternative» «variante dialectale », les exemples de ʿAyn
illustrant à merveille la variante dialectale minimale avec la substitution d’ une
consonne à une autre dont le lieu d’articulation est proche. Cette acception de
luġa se retrouve dans l’expression: «luġa + qualificatif de nisba » très utilisée
dans Ǧamhara (e.g. luġa yamāniyya, luġa šāmiyya, Ǧam : i, 241, 246, 270, etc.)
qui est la variante dialectale tribale ou le mot étranger. Le troisième tour
est: «le terme x dans la luġa de la tribu z» (e.g. ḫabʿ: ḫabʾ fī luġat Tamīm,
ʿAyn: i, 123). Le terme luġa ici a une valeur plus générale et désigne plutôt la
manière de réaliser propre à ce groupe linguistique, et en conséquence son
dialecte, au sens linguistique du terme56. C’est cette acception plus générale
qui semble avoir fini par donner luġa au sens de langue, au terme d’ un long

56 Et non dans le sens que nous donnons au terme ‘dialectes arabes contemporains’, lesquels
ont des systèmes linguistiques différents.
314 ayoub

cheminement de codification où la manière de parler considérée la plus claire/

la plus correcte, al-luġa al-fuṣḥā, deviendra la seule manière de parler [admise],
la langue littéraire.
Or c’est le seul troisième tour qui est utilisé dans le texte de Luġāt. Dans
un ouvrage qui est un répertoire de variantes dialectales tribales, luġa est
utilisé exclusivement dans le sens de «manière de parler » (e.g. safīhan yaʿnī
al-ǧāhil bi-luġat kināna, Luġāt: 22). Il est donc utilisé dans le seul sens qui s’ est
progressivement imposé de luġa. Cela est compréhensible puisqu’ il ne s’ agit
pas de comparer deux variantes, ce que fait le premier tour, mais de classer les
termes lexicaux comme appartenant à tel ou tel dialecte tribal. L’absence du
premier tour est toutefois un indice du caractère relativement tardif de l’ écrit.
D’autre part, luġa glisse vers le sens de «langue » qu’ on trouve couramment
au ixe et xe siècles57. Dans le sous-titre qui énumère les tribus puis glisse vers
les peuples pour aboutir aux noms de langue, luġa fluctue entre « dialecte» et
«langue»: luġat Qurayš wa-Huḏayl wa-Kināna … wa-l-Furs wa-l-Nabaṭ … wa-l-
suryāniyya wa-l-ʿibriyya … wa-l-rūm … Comparons avec luġāt dans al-Luġāt fī
al-Qurʾān qui se laisse traduire par ‘Les termes propres aux tribus arabes et les
termes des peuples étrangers [dans le Coran]’.
Mais si la luġa, chez Sībawayhi, peut être lexicale, morphologique, séman-
tique ou syntaxique, c’est la seule variante lexicale qui est étudiée dans ces
ouvrages de luġāt. Et il nous semble bien que cela fournit une piste pour voir
le cheminement qui va de luġa, variante dialectale, à luġa, variante lexicale,
à luġawī, lexicographe. L’apparition de ce dernier terme semble tardive, après
plus de deux siècles d’activité lexicographique. Dans ʿAyn, Ḫalīl n’est pas qua-
lifié de luġawī. Et le terme luġawī n’y existe pas. Il n’existe pas non plus dans
Ǧamhara, ni dans Tahḏīb. Dans Ǧamhara, les lexicographes sont désignés par
l’expression ʾahl al-luġa (i, 262, 298, 319, etc.), expression utilisée aussi par Ibn
Fāris (Ṣaḥ: 60), symétrique en cela à ʾahl al-ʿilm (ibid.) et à ʾahl al-ʿarabiyya (Ṣaḥ:
61). Le terme luġawī apparaît dans Ṣiḥāḥ, Ǧawharī le mentionnant pour corri-
ger une erreur: «la nisba est luġawī. Ne dis pas laġawī ». Une citation du Lisān
indiquant au lexicographe la bonne méthode de l’ enquête linguistique auprès
des bédouins trace un fil d’Ariane entre luġa et luġawī : « Si tu veux tirer profit
des bédouins, istalġi-him c’est-à-dire écoute leurs luġāt sans leur poser de ques-
tions». Le luġawī est donc celui qui écoute les luġāt. Avec le développement du
naḥw, il sera celui qui, par opposition au naḥwī, s’ occupe de la luġa, du terme
lexical pris comme générique, donc du lexique. Ainsi Ibn Sīda est présenté dans
Muḫaṣṣaṣ comme al-naḥwī al-lugawī.

57 Cf. luġāt al-ʿaǧam supra (Ṣaḥ: 60).

l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 315

3.5 Les «termes arabisés» du Coran dans ʿAyn : L’ œil de l’ exégète

Qu’en est-il du traitement des emprunts mentionnés par ʾAbū ʿUbayd chez
les premiers lexicographes? Bien peu dans ʿAyn sont indiqués daḫīl. Sur les 12
termes, trois ne sont pas dans le dictionnaire, sept sont expliqués sans men-
tion de leur origine étrangère, et deux sont effectivement signalés d’ origine
étrangère. Sirāṭ, rabbānī, ʾistabraq ne figurent pas dans les entrées lexicales.
Le second groupe compte yamm (viii, 431), ṭūr (vii, 446), miškāt (v, 389) avec
citation d’un verset coranique (Cor. 24:35), firdaws avec citation d’ un vers de
ʿAǧǧāǧ (iii, 310); kiflayn (v, 273), qisṭās indiqué avec une variante qusṭās (v, 249)
et bien que, selon les propres critères de l’introduction, le mot pourrait être
étranger car quadrilitère et dépourvu de liquides et de labiales. Bien plus, sous
la même entrée lexicale, qaraṣṭūn (qabbān) est signalé comme luġa šāmiyya,
terme qui semble désigner le syriaque ou quelque variété araméenne. Il en
est de même de l’expression hayta la-ka (iv, 80) expliquée sans référence à
une origine étrangère mais hayta, à la ligne suivante, est min kalām ʾahl miṣr.
Dans le troisième groupe, on compte Ṭah signalé comme signifiant « ô homme »
en éthiopien, selon le tafsīr (balaġa-nā fī tafsīr Ṭah, iii, 347) la lecture Ṭahā
désignant, en revanche, les lettres de l’alphabet. Sous siǧǧīl, il est mentionné,
après l’explication lexicale, que l’exégèse le considère comme un emprunt (wa-
yufassar ʾanna-hu muʿarrab daḫīl, vi, 54).
L’élargissement de l’enquête montre une configuration similaire: plusieurs
termes coraniques, indiqués explicitement comme du muʿarrab, dans le
Muʿarrab et le Muhaḏḏab, sont mentionnés sans référence à leur origine étran-
gère: raqīm, barzaḫ (iv, 338), zakāt (v, 394), dirham (iv, 126), dīnār (viii, 22).
Il n’y a point d’entrées lexicales pour ǧahannam. Sibṭ est expliqué sans men-
tion de l’origine, du moins l’ expression en est ambigue58 et est à comparer
avec Muh : 70 qui dit clairement al-ʾasbāṭ bi-luġati-him ka-l-qabāʾil bi-luġat al-
ʿarab. Il en est de même pour sifr (cf. Muh : 72 qui indique une origine syriaque
ou nabatéenne). Ǧibt est expliqué par une notice référant au tafsīr : yufassaru
al-kāhin wa-yufassaru al-sāḥir, vi, 93. On comparera avec Muh : 81 où une tra-
dition rapportée par Ibn Ǧarīr (Ṭabarī) explique que ǧibt est un mot éthiopien
signifiant «sorcier» alors que ṭāġūt dans ce même verset Cor. 4 :5159 signifierait
« prêtre» (kāhin). On voit que les explications de ʿAyn sont liées à celles four-
nies par l’ exégèse concernant le verset. Néanmoins, l’ origine étrangère du mot
manque.

58 wa-l-sibṭ min ʾasbāṭi ʾisrāʾīla bi-manzilati al-qabīla min qabāʾili al-ʿarabi (vii, 218).
59 yuʾminūna bi-l-ǧibt wa-l-ṭāġut.
316 ayoub

On a la nette impression que le lexicographe évite d’ indiquer l’ origine étran-

gère du terme. Adhère-t-il lui-même à la théorie du tawāfuq? C’ est ce que
l’introduction de ʿAyn inviterait à croire qui évoque la thèse de l’ accord acci-
dentel entre les langues (tawāfuq) pour tannūr (lā min lisān ʾillā al-tannūr fī-hi
tannūr, i, 53) mais il n’est pas clair qui est le locuteur de ce passage: est-ce le
transmetteur de ʿAyn, Ḥamza b. Zarʿa, ou Ḫalīl lui-même60. Il est vrai, toutefois
que sous l’entrée lexicale tannūr (viii, 114) il est bien affirmé qu’ il y a univer-
salité de la dénomination. La théorie du tawāfuq n’ empêche point d’ évoquer
la langue étrangère. Préfère-t-il se tenir loin de la polémique ? Il est frappant,
en effet, que, dans les deux termes dont l’origine étrangère est signalée, il en
réfère à l’autorité des exégètes. Comme si l’autorité du lexicographe finissait là
où commençait celle de l’exégète.
L’attitude de ʿAyn vis-à-vis des termes coraniques évoque l’ embarras de
ʾAṣmaʿī (taḥarruǧ al-ʾAsmaʿī) qui refusait d’expliquer des versets coraniques,
attitude que nous rapporte Muzhir (ii, 325sq.) et qu’ analyse Kopf (1956: 35–36)
comme justement une volonté de ne pas interférer avec l’ exégèse tradition-
nelle.

3.6 Les emprunts dans Ǧamhara : usage et histoire

Un second point de vue, celui d’un lexicographe du ixe siècle, originaire de
Basra et azdite comme Ḫalīl, qui reconnaît d’ ailleurs sa dette envers ce der-
nier, lui rendant un hommage vibrant dans l’ introduction de son diction-
naire, Kitāb Ǧamharat al-luġa61, mérite examen: c’ est celui d’ Ibn Durayd (m.
321/933). Esprit curieux, généreux et ouvert ayant vécu quasiment cent ans, Ibn
Durayd a formé tous les grands du xe siècle: Sīrāfī (m. 368/978), Marzubānī
(m. 384–994), Qālī (m. 356/967), Iṣfahānī (m. 356/967), Zaǧǧāǧī (m. 337/948),
Ibn Ḫālawayh (m. 370/980) (voir Fück 1986). On retrouve dans sa Ǧamhara,
cette même rigueur de rejet du muwallad qui anime ʿAyn: reprenant quasi-
ment les mêmes exemples que ʿAyn et la même argumentation, il recommande
à son lecteur de bien l’identifier afin de le rejeter (i, 49). Et cela confirme pour
nous que muwallad et daḫīl ne doivent pas être confondus, au regard de la pra-
tique du daḫīl dans le dictionnaire. Néanmoins la démarche d’ Ibn Durayd est
quelque peu différente de celle de ʿAyn. D’emblée, dans son introduction, il
fait preuve d’un souci de comparatisme et d’universalisme : dans sa présenta-
tion des consonnes, deux pour lui sont propres aux Arabes le ḥāʾ et le ẓāʾ, mais

60 Deux jugements contradictoires sont tenus sur duʿšūqa à quatre lignes de distance dans
ce passage, ce qui laisse penser qu’ ils sont tenus par deux locuteurs différents.
61 Pour un examen de son contenu et des principes lexicographiques sur lesquels il se fonde,
voir Nassār 1956 : ii, 404–434, Baalbaki 2014 : 338–347.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 317

il se reprend en spécifiant que, selon certains, le ḥāʾ se retrouve en syriaque,

en hébreu et en éthiopien. Il reprend également l’ analyse de Sībawayhi sur la
labiale /p/ et la palatale /g/ qui n’existent pas en arabe et auxquelles on substi-
tue d’autres consonnes (Ǧam : 41–42). Mais surtout, la démarche d’ Ibn Durayd
est différente de ʿAyn, car, en fonction de la visée même de son dictionnaire,
visible par son titre, la Ǧamhara, qu’on pourrait traduire par « Le lexique cou-
rant», Ibn Durayd n’est plus dans la collecte mais il entend identifier ce qui
est le plus courant dans le corpus de référence (al-ǧumhūr min kalām al-ʿArab,
Ǧam : i, 41) et s’éloigner des mots rares douteux (waḥšī mustankar). On décèle
dans ce principe la reconnaissance implicite de l’ historicité de la langue : c’ est
l’ usage, i.e. les besoins des locuteurs contemporains, qui doivent déterminer
les matériaux d’un dictionnaire. On a beaucoup pu lui reprocher qu’ il ne s’ en
tenait pas à sa méthodologie et présentait justement beaucoup de matériaux
lexicaux rares et douteux tout en signalant qu’ils le sont (Muz : i, 72). Néan-
moins, cette méthodologie détermine son approche de l’ emprunt. Celui-ci est
reconnu et accepté. Mais il n’est accepté que dans la stricte mesure où il fait
partie de l’usage des bédouins (kalām al-ʿArab). Aussi Ibn Durayd va distinguer
dans les emprunts entre ce que les Arabes ont utilisé, et qui, du coup, rentre
dans l’usage et dans kalām l-ʿArab, et l’emprunt resté infécond dans la langue et
qu’il faut donc délaisser, cet emprunt fût-il le fait du Coran. Aussi trouvera-t-on
les deux notices suivantes: «Quant à Ṭālūt, Ǧālūt (voir Jeffery, Ṭālūt) et ṣābūn,
ce ne sont pas des mots arabes. Aussi néglige-les, même si Ṭālūt et Ǧālūt sont
dans le Coran (wa-ʾin kāna Ṭālūt wa-Ǧālūt fī al-tanzīl). Ce sont deux mots non-
arabes (ʾismān ʾaʿǧamiyyān) à l’instar de Dāwūd » (Ǧam : 1207). En revanche, il
indique pour dīnar, qu’il présente comme un mot persan arabisé: « Le dīnar,
même s’il est arabisé, les Arabes ne lui connaissent pas d’ autre nom, aussi ce
terme est-il devenu presque arabe. C’est pourquoi Dieu tout-puissant l’ a men-
tionné dans le Coran car Il s’est adressé à eux avec [les mots] qu’ ils connais-
saient» (Ǧam : ii, 640). Le ton tranche, par rapport à celui, prudent, de ʿAyn. Il
étonne également par rapport au débat sur la langue du Coran. Non seulement
l’ emprunt lexical arabisé est reconnu dans le Coran, mais le Coran contien-
drait également des emprunts non consacrés par l’ usage et qu’ il faut négliger.
Ibn Durayd a-t-il développé son point de vue dans son ouvrage sur les Luġāt du
Coran mentionné plus haut? En tout cas, il y fait référence à trois reprises dans
Ǧamhara.
En fait, la problématique de «l’usage [des contemporains]» sur laquelle
s’ appuie Ibn Durayd et qui inscrit la langue dans l’ histoire l’ amène à consacrer
d’ importants développements aux emprunts lexicaux. Il tente de classer en
chapitres distincts les emprunts au persan, au grec et au syriaque (Ǧam: iii,
1322–1327). Il justifie ces chapitres, on l’a vu plus haut, par le fait que ces mots
318 ayoub

ont un usage si courant qu’ils en sont devenus comme des variantes dialectales
de l’arabe. Parmi ces emprunts figure bon nombre de mots du Coran. Des douze
que nous avons examiné plus haut, quatre ne figurent pas dans le dictionnaire :
Ṭaha, rabbānī, miškāt, hayta la-ka; quatre sont reconnus comme des emprunts :
yamm (i, 171) et ṭūr (ii, 761) au syriaque, sans que l’ emprunt ne soit considéré
comme certain pour ṭūr, qiṣṭās (iii, 1203) au grec, ʾistabraq au persan (iii, 1326).
Des quatre autres restants, il est fait mention pour deux d’ entre eux d’ une
origine arabe – ce qui suggère que c’est là une réponse implicite à l’ hypothèse
d’une origine étrangère. Il s’agit de siǧǧīl dérivé de siǧǧil (iii, 1192); firdaws
de fardasa (iii, 1146); kifl(ayn), signifie «chance » « comme l’ a mentionné
ʾAbū ʿUbayda» pour le verset coranique (ii, 969). Enfin al-ṣirāt, avec les deux
variantes, est simplement mentionné comme maʿrūf (ii, 737). Mais des mots du
Coran, on trouvera également dans les emprunts ʾinǧīl, bārī, tannūr, ǧahannam,
dirham, dāwūd, zanǧabīl, etc. En fait, la même méthodologie est appliquée
aux termes coraniques et aux autres mots de la langue. tannūr est présenté
comme mot persan arabisé, l’argumentation est cette fois d’ ʾAbū Ḥātim [al-
Siǧistānī] (m. 255/869): «les Arabes ne connaissent point d’ autre nom que
celui-là. C’est pourquoi il est mentionné dans le Coran (Cor. 3 :75) car la parole
leur a été adressée avec les mots qu’ils connaissent » (ii, 395). L’argumentation
qui s’appuie sur l’usage est tenue aussi pour les emprunts non coraniques. Dans
l’une des trois notices consacrée à nāṭūr, on lit: « Mot en usage chez les Arabes,
bien qu’il soit non arabe» (iii, 1206).
Que permet ce bref examen de conclure? En premier lieu, que la polémique
sur la langue du Coran est très présente. On en entend l’ écho dans l’ insistance
d’Ibn Durayd à affirmer l’origine arabe de firdaws et siǧǧīl: on aurait prétendu
que siǧǧil duquel est dérivé siǧǧīl est un mot persan arabisé. ʾAbū ʿUbayda a
rejeté cette hypothèse (475) et Ibn Durayd la néglige (lā ʾaltafit ʾilā qawli-him,
1164). La polémique est aussi présente parce qu’ il faut justifier à chaque fois
pourquoi l’emprunt est présent dans le texte coranique. On l’ entend aussi car
deux hypothèses sont évoquées pour ṭūr sans qu’ il ne soit tranché entre elles,
wa-llāhu ʾaʿlam (op. cit.) Il faut y ajouter la grande contrainte qui entoure toute
explication du texte coranique. Muz (ii: 327–328) relève des passages de Ǧam
où, explicitement, Ibn Durayd s’abstient d’expliquer des mots coraniques – qui
ne sont pas des emprunts –, se contentant de dire: wa-llāhu ʾaʿlam bi-kitābi-hi
(voir aussi Kopf 1956: 38 et Baalbaki 1987–1988 : 26) qui en cite d’ autres où Ibn
Durayd dit sobrement, devant un terme coranique: lā ʾuḥibb ʾan ʾatakallam fī-hi,
457; lā ʾuḥibb ʾan ʾuqdim ʿalay-hi, 571.
Néanmoins, la nature de l’argumentaire dessine une vision de la langue
inscrite dans l’histoire. Est mis en valeur le critère de l’ usage des locuteurs
dans l’histoire: même si le mot n’était pas le leur, les Arabes n’en avaient pas
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 319

d’ autre. Le second critère est de pragmatique linguistique, celui qui règle toute
communication réussie: Dieu s’adresse à chaque peuple avec les mots qu’ il
connaît afin qu’ils l’entendent.
Ǧamhara, à la fois dans son répertoire et son argumentation, servira les
générations qui suivront. On mesurera l’audace que ces notices représentent
si l’on pense que dans Maqāyīs al-luġa, dictionnaire d’ Ibn Fāris qui tient ʿAyn
et Ǧamhara comme ses sources, sur les douze mots que nous avons examiné,
six sont expliqués62 sans qu’aucune notice ne fasse mention d’ une origine
étrangère. Ici on ne peut attribuer le silence qu’à l’ opinion doctrinale. Et cela
laisse fortement suggérer que la pression doctrinale a une influence silencieuse
puissante ailleurs.
Ǧawāliqī (m. 539/1144) se fondera beaucoup sur le travail d’ Ibn Durayd
qui, étant donné l’organisation de son dictionnaire, est resté difficile d’ accès,
reprenant souvent, mot à mot parfois, ses explications. Suyūṭī, quant à lui,
reprendra dans son Muhaḏḏab l’argumentation d’ Ibn Durayd pour justifier la
présence des mots étrangers dans le Coran.

3.7 Les apports suivants

Baalbaki (2014: 162–163) fait remarquer que, contrairement aux autres
branches de la lexicographie, les ouvrages sur le muʿarrab ont été les plus tardifs
à apparaître dans le champ des savoirs et qu’il faut attendre le xiie siècle avec le
Muʿarrab de Ǧawālīqī, pour avoir un ouvrage qui répertorie l’ emprunt dans la
langue – à la fois dans le lexique coranique et le lexique profane. C’ est en effet
étonnant. La sagacité des lexicographes ne manque point, leur connaissance
des langues étrangères non plus. Après tout plusieurs lexicographes des quatre
premiers siècles semblent avoir connu d’autres langues que l’ arabe: Sībawayhi,
ʾAbū Ḥātim al-Siǧistānī, ʾAzharī, Ǧawharī connaissent le persan. Selon Ǧam-
hara : iii 499, ʾAbū Ḥātim al-Siǧistānī connaissait le syriaque. La mère d’ ʾAbū
ʿAmr al-Šaybānī (m. 210/825) un des plus grands représentants de l’ école de
Kūfa du viiie siècle et un des plus grands transmetteurs de la poésie ancienne,
était nabatéenne (selon le Lisān qui rapporte les propos de Tawwazī d’ après
Ibn Ǧinnī, sous ḥazraq).
Certes, comme le fait remarquer Kopf, dans les générations qui suivent
s’ affirmera plus amplement l’étude de l’emprunt. Surtout dans le lexique cou-
rant. Son étude, on l’a vu, est initiée dès ʿAyn. Ṯaʿālibī dans Fiqh al-luġa, aligne
des mots arabes courants comme étant des mots d’ origine étrangère (Fiqh:
337, repris dans Muz : 123–124). Une œuvre comme le Muʿarrab verra le jour,

62 Soit : ṭūr : iii, 431 ; Ṭaha: iii, 407 ; yamm: vi, 153 ; qisṭās ; kifl: v, 188; hayta: vi, 22.
320 ayoub

qui inclut les emprunts au Coran et se range implicitement, dès la première

phrase, à l’opinion d’ʾAbū ʿUbayd, indiquant vouloir répertorier « ce que les
Arabes ont utilisé comme mots étrangers, et dont le Glorieux Coran a fait usage
…» (Muʿ: 91). Son auteur, Ǧawāliqī, élève du savant Tibrīzī (m. 501/1108) – il
lui succéda comme professeur à la Nizāmiyya à Bagdad –, et adepte d’ un sun-
nisme orthodoxe, y réunit les travaux des générations précédentes. D’ un autre
côté, les travaux de Suyūṭī, en particulier le Mutawakkilī, le Muhaḏḏab fī-mā
waqaʿa fī al-Qurʾān min al-muʿarrab, dont les principaux résultats sont repris
dans l’ ʾItqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, qui s’appuient sur des traditions remontant
aux premiers exégètes et intègrent les résultats du Muʿarrab, sont consacrés
à l’étude de l’emprunt dans la langue coranique et sont décisifs pour l’ étude
de l’histoire du texte63.
Néanmoins, Kopf le remarquait déjà, on ne peut pas dire que ces problé-
matiques font définitivement partie du passé. Chose étonnante, le Muʿarrab
demeure, à nos jours, une des œuvres les plus importantes sur la question de
l’emprunt dans la langue. Pour le lexique coranique, Zamaḫšarī (m. 538/1144),
lui-même d’origine persane, auteur d’un dictionnaire bilingue persan-arabe,
se sent requis de justifier pourquoi il affirme que maqālīd (Cor. 39 :63) est
d’origine persane et répond implicitement à l’ accusation implicite de trans-
gresser la parole coranique: «Et si tu demandais : quel rapport entre le Livre en
langue arabe claire et le persan? je te répondrais: les modifications que le mot
a subies [al-taʿrīb] en ont fait un [mot] arabe, exactement comme l’ usage d’ un
mot inusité en fait un mot qui n’est plus inusité» (cité en note de Muʿ: 93, n. 2).
Néanmoins au xve siècle cette problématique n’est pas vraiment devenue
caduque et sur de longues pages, dans son introduction au Muhaḏḏab, Suyūṭī
est obligé de justifier comment il se fait que le Coran ait été révélé dans une
langue arabe claire mubīn et qu’il contienne des mots d’ origine étrangère.
Arrêtons-nous un instant sur les raisons qui font que ce débat n’est au fond
jamais tranché. Ibn Fāris explique l’expression d’ ʾAbū ʿUbayda ‘il proférerait
un blasphème’ ( fa-qad ʾaʿẓama wa-ʾakbara), en fournissant trois raisons: la
première est relative au pouvoir: affirmer l’emprunt dans le Coran, c’ est mettre
à mal la suprématie des Arabes sur les autres peuples car on pourrait penser
que «les Arabes étaient incapables de les fournir » (Ṣaḥ : 62). La seconde,
sociolinguistique, trahit une demande des convertis dont la langue n’est pas
l’arabe et pour qui le texte coranique est difficile d’ accès : Ibn Fāris craint que

63 L’ étude fondamentale de Jeffery (1938) sur le vocabulaire étranger dans le Coran tient le
Muhaḏḏab pour une de ses sources fondamentales. Jeffery comptait le publier en annexe
de son ouvrage. Les frais d’ édition l’ en ont dissuadé.
l’ emprunt dans le dictionnaire arabe des premiers siècles 321

ne devienne alors légitime [la revendication] de prier dans un Coran traduit

en persan ou bien de prier en arabe dans un livre d’ exégèse plus explicite
que le texte coranique. La troisième raison est théologique : cela reviendrait
à nier l’ ʾiʿǧāz, l’inimitabilité du texte coranique, preuve de son caractère sacré.
Affirmer l’emprunt, c’est donc porter atteinte au caractère sacré du texte. Or le
fonds du rapport au Sacré, est qu’il est hors temps, valide en tous temps. Une
interprétation, même réfutée, peut se maintenir. La menace de sacrilège fait
sentir son influence silencieuse à travers les siècles.
Ce lien peut être lourd de conséquence sur le dictionnaire arabe. Ainsi la
sacralité du texte peut s’étendre à nouveau pour englober toute la langue. Ibn
Fāris, excellent lexicographe, auteur d’un dictionnaire remarquable par son
approche, Maqāyīs al-luġa, finit par dénier qu’il y ait, dans la langue toute
entière, des emprunts. Les assertions des lexicographes affirmant qu’ il y a dans
kalām al-ʿarab des termes étrangers, doivent être interprétés, dit-il, selon la
théorie de l’accord entre les langues, professée par ʾAbū ʿUbayda (Ṣāḥ : 60).
Celui-ci déjà citait des emprunts non coraniques en affirmant « Tout ceci fait
partie des variantes dialectales [en usage parmi] les Arabes (luġāt al-ʿArab) »
(Ṣāḥ: 60). Al-ʾAḫfaš, grammairien contemporain de Sībawayhi, grâce à qui le
Kitāb nous a été transmis, semble avoir été bien plus puriste que lui. Dans une
Baṣra cosmopolite où la population persane est très présente, des quartiers
entiers étant persans, il demande à ses élèves, dans un ḫabar rapporté par
Ḥarīrī: «Épargnez-moi bas64 et baḫt!65» (Durra : 183), deux mots empruntés
au persan et destinés à une longue carrière dans les dialectes orientaux où leur
présence est encore avérée!
Une autre dimension de cette sacralité du texte est, on le sait, d’ affirmer
l’ excellence du dialecte de Qurayš. Les deux versions du texte de Farābī, l’ une
rapportée par Suyūṭī dans Muz : i, 212 et dans Iqtirāḥ : 19–20, l’ autre dans
l’ édition de Muḥsin Mahdī du Kitāb al-Ḥurūf de Farābī, publiée en 1970, en
sont une illustration frappante. Dans les seuls textes de Suyūṭī mention est faite
de l’excellence du parler de Qurayš. Langhade (1994) puis Larcher (2006) ont
tenté d’analyser les implications de cette mention, Larcher (2006) tentant aussi
de fournir une hypothèse quant à ce mystérieux ajout. Or les deux doctrines,
la négation de l’emprunt et l’excellence du dialecte de Qurayš, sont liées. C’ est
précisément ce qu’affirme l’auteur de l’introduction des Luġāt.
Mais les interprétations liées au Sacré sont elles-mêmes historiques. Ainsi la
démarche fondamentale de Suyūṭī dans le Muhaḏḏab est de réinterpréter les

64 Ça suffit ! Assez ! (du persan : bès qui a même signification).

65 Chance, fortune, étoile (du persan baḫt qui a même signification).
322 ayoub

versets coraniques de telle manière qu’affirmer la présence de mots d’ origine

étrangère dans le Coran n’est plus ressenti comme sacrilège. S’ appuyant sur
des traditions antérieures, il affirme, en particulier, qu’ en réponse aux doutes
de Qurayš (Cor. 41:44), Dieu a fait du Coran un texte polyglotte et la révélation
a inclus des mots d’origine étrangère. Il affirme également l’ universalité du
message.
Nous le notions ailleurs, une langue est un champ constamment travaillée
par des lignes de force différentes qui indiquent la complexité d’ une culture.
Dans un rapport très particulier à la temporalité, aucune interprétation n’ est
une fois pour toutes rejetée. Elles se maintiennent toutes. L’affirmation de
la pureté de la langue se trouvera réaffirmée au long des siècles sans que ne
soit évincée l’affirmation de l’historicité et du métissage de la langue recon-
nus de fait par la reconnaissance de l’emprunt. Le lexique coranique semble
bien dans la pratique dictionnairique, toujours interprété sous l’ œil attentif de
l’exégèse mais les anciens ont «connu des désaccords et des divergences dans
l’interprétation de certains versets du Coran». Au gré des contextes, il y a résur-
gence d’une interprétation ou d’une autre, inscrivant dans le cœur de la langue
et de la culture, à la fois l’ouverture à l’autre et son rejet.

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 chapter 15

The Noun Pattern ʾufʿūlatun in Arabic Philological

Tradition*

Reinhard Weipert

1. Prompted by his studies of Akkadian noun patterns, in particular the noun

form purussāʾ (von Soden 1989: 69–82), the celebrated specialist in Assyriology,
Wolfram von Soden, made an important contribution to our knowledge of the
classical Arabic morphology of nouns in an article (von Soden 1995: 137–144). At
an advanced stage of his life, he collected together a few dozen nouns with the
pattern ʾufʿūlatun and ʾufʿūlun. These examples were all taken from the com-
monly used dictionaries of Lane, Freytag, Dozy, Wehr, and of course the wkas.
He was rightly critical of the fact that, rather surprisingly these noun patterns
are neither indicated in Brockelmann 1908–1913: i, § 190, nor in Wright 1967³:
i, §196. He himself, in fact, overlooked that the noun patterns in question are
mentioned with nine examples in Ewald 1831–1833: i, 142 § 243 and Barth 1894²:
132 §83 and 225 § 153, and that Fleisch 1961: 407 § 89c, had recorded another
three examples, and in 490 another four. Since then, only Fischer 1987²: 45, has
addressed the semantic aspect of the noun pattern ʾufʿūlatun. His view that it
designates literary genres has rightly been criticized by von Soden as “much too
narrow.” Von Soden has ascertained, p. 141, that “approximately three-quarters”
of the nouns he collected are “Wörter für Aussagen jeglicher Art, irrige Aus-
sagen, Versarten, Dichtungen und Lieder mannigfacher Art, Rätsel, Scherze,
Spiele, besondere Arten von Klängen, auch Handlungsweisen” [words for state-
ments of all sorts, erroneous statements, verse forms, poems and songs of mul-
tifarious kinds, riddles, jokes, games, particular kinds of sounds, as well as ways
of behaving]. Thus he is the only scholar who gives quite precise information
on the semantic dimension of this noun pattern.
Stefan Weninger took up the research results of von Soden and has discussed
them in a lecture.1 Since then, no one has dealt any further with the subject.
Consequently, it is high time to return to this subject and finally to examine

* I am deeply indebted to my friend John O’Kane for his English translation of this text.
1 ‘Die Nominalform ʾufʿūlatun innerhalb der arabischen Wortbildung.’ A paper read on 26/9/
1995 during the 26th Conference of German Orientalists in Leipzig. To my knowledge the
paper has never been published.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_017

328 weipert

more closely the collections of this noun pattern made by the old Arab philol-
ogists, which so far has not been done.2 What follows below is intended to
address this deficiency. I have listed over forty nouns of the pattern ʾufʿūlatun,
in alphabetical order according to their roots, along with a translation of their
meaning. The list is followed by a chronologically arranged table of the sources
together with the words they cite in pertinent chapters or sections.

1. ʾuṯbiyyatun ‘company of men’3

2. ʾuṯʿiyyatun ‘company of men’
3. ʾuṯfiyyatun ‘stone upon which the cooking pot is placed’
4. a) ʾuḥǧiyyatun b) ʾuḥǧuwwatun ‘enigma, riddle’
5. ʾuḥdūṯatun ‘story, narrative, conversation’
6. ʾuḥlūfatun ‘oath’
7. ʾuḥmūqatun ‘foolish action’
8. ʾudḥiyyatun ‘place of the laying of eggs of the ostrich’
9. a) ʾudʿiyyatun b) ʾudʿuwwatun ‘enigma, riddle’
10. ʾurbiyyatun ‘groin’, also ‘men of the household’4
11. ʾurǧūḥatun ‘seesaw, swing’
12. ʾurǧūzatun ‘a poem of the metre raǧaz’
13. ʾurwiyyatun ‘female mountain goat’
14. ʾuzmūlatun ‘vociferous (mountain-goat)’
15. ʾusbūbatun ‘reviling speech, insult’
16. ʾusṭūratun ‘myth, legend, fabulous story’
17. ʾusǧūʿatun ‘rhyming prose’
18. ʾuṣbūḥatun ‘morning’
19. ʾuḍḥūkatun ‘object of ridicule, joke’
20. ʾuḍḥiyyatun ‘a sheep (or animal) that is sacrified’
21. ʾuṭrūḥatun ‘a question that one proposes’
22. ʾuẓlūfatun ‘a piece of rugged ground’

2 Present-day Arab scholars as well have not contributed anything new to the subject. In Fāḍil
Ṣāliḥ al-Sāmarrāʾī 2007²: 62, in his standard work on Arabic morphology one only finds a
brief list of nine nouns of the type along with a completely inadequate description of the
meaning of the ʾufʿūlatun pattern according to Kaffawī Kulliyyāt, 1094: ṣīġat ʾufʿūla … tuṭlaq
ʿalā maḥqarāt al-ʾumūr wa-ġarāʾibi-hā. Others follow him uncritically, e.g. ʿAbd al-Nāṣir Hāšim
Muḥammad al-Hītī, al-ʿUdūl ʿan ṣīġat ism al-mafʿūl wa-dalālātu-hu fī taʿbīr al-Qurʾān. In:
Maǧallat Ǧāmiʿat al-ʾAnbār li-l-luġāt wa-l-ʾādāb 3 (Ramadi 2010), 311.
3 Information on the meaning of these words from Lane 1863–1893.
4 The earliest source to transmit this meaning is ʾAbū ʿUbayd Muṣannaf : i, 110 following ʾAbū
Zayd al-ʾAnṣārī; see also Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara etc.
the noun pattern ʾufʿūlatun in arabic philological tradition 329

23. ʾuʿtūbatun ‘a speech with which one is blamed, blame, reproof’

24. ʾuʿǧūbatun ‘miracle, wonder’
25. ʾuʿyiyyatun ‘enigmatical, obscure speech’
26. ʾuġlūṭatun ‘captious question’
27. ʾuġniyyatun ‘song’
28. ʾuġwiyyatun ‘pitfall, trap’
29. ʾukḏūbatun ‘lie’
30. ʾukrūmatun ‘generous act, favor’
31. ʾulʿūbatun ‘game, toy’
32. ʾulqiyyatun ‘that which is thrown down, problem’
33. a) ʾulhiyyatun b) ʾulhuwwatun ‘object of pleasure, toy’
34. ʾumsiyyatun ‘evening’
35. ʾumṣūḫatun ‘a sheath/coat of ṯumām’
36. ʾumniyyatun ‘wish’
37. ʾunšūṭatun ‘slipknot, knot’
38. ʾunšūġatun ‘bobbin’
39. ʾunqūʿatun ‘the hollow of ṯarīd, in which the gravy collects’
40. a) ʾuhǧiyyatun b) ʾuhǧuwwatun ‘satiric poem, lampoon’
41. ʾuhwiyyatun ‘abyss, chasm’
42. ʾūqiyyatun ‘ounce’

List of the works and the words recorded in them:

1. Kisāʾī Laḥn: 41/132f.: 20, 11, 12, (ʾunbūbatun),5 5, 24.

2. ʾAbū ʿUbayd Muṣannaf : ii, 517–518; following ʾAbū Zayd al-ʾAnṣārī: 5, 27,
32; following al-Farrāʾ: 18, 34; following al-ʾAḥmar: 23; following other
transmitters 17, 33a, 4b, 26, 9a, 20, 3, 41, 24, 11, 12, 16, 30, 37, 29, 19, 31;
following ʾAbū ʿAmr: 14; following others: 40b, 40a; ii, 526 following al-
Kisāʾī: 11, 10, 41, 20, 26, 5, 15, 9a, 4b.
3. Ibn al-Sikkīt ʾIṣlāḥ: 272f., chapter 62 = Tibrīzī Tahḏīb: 416–418, chapter 61:
11, 41, 20, 26, 5, 15, 9a, 4b, 27, 24, 42.
4. ʾAbū Misḥal Nawādir: ii, 461: 4a, 4b, 9a, 9b, 33a, 33b.
5. Ibn Qutayba ʾAdab: 395: 27, 36, 5, 24, 42.
6. Ṯaʿlab Faṣīḥ: 299f.: 37, 5, 12, 11, 20, 36, 42; see the commentaries by Ibn
Durustawayh ŠFaṣīḥ: 344 and 353–354, Ibn al-Ǧabbān ŠFaṣīḥ: 242 f.,
Harawī ʾIsfār: ii, 716–718, Laḫmī ŠFaṣīḥ: 162–164.

5 Only found in one manuscript Cairo, Dār al-kutub, maǧāmīʿ maktabat Ṭalʿat 190; probably
mistakenly listed.
330 weipert

7. Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara: ii, 1195a: 5, 24, 19, 31, 17, 11, 9a, 9b, 33a, 33b, 4b, 4a, 32,
25, 36, 3, 41, 28, 13, 10, 37, 26, 6, 21, 7, 1, 2, 8.
8. Fārābī Dīwān: i, 275b–276b: 23, 24, 29, 31, 5, 11, 18, 34, 35, 16, 12, 26, 37, 17, 39,
38, 19, 14, 30 and in iv/1, 32a–32b: 40b, 10, 4a, 20, 34, 9a, 3, 32, 27, 33a, 13, 28,
41.
9. Ibn Sīda Muḫaṣṣaṣ: xiii, 27: 4b, 4a, 9a, 9b, 25, 26, 32, 21.
10. Ibn al-Qaṭṭāʿ ʾAbniya: 233: 22, 24, 14, 3.
11. Ps. Zamaḫšarī ŠFaṣīḥ: ii, 520–525: 5, 11, 20, 42, 36, 24, 26, 19, 4b, 9a, 3.
12. Suyūṭī Muzhir: ii, 126–127: 5, 24, 19, 31, 17, 11, 9a, 9b, 33a, 4b, 4a, 32, 20, 25,
36, 3, 41, 28, 13, 10, 37, 26, 6, 21, 1, 8, 7, 27, 18, 34, 23, 12, 16, 30, 29, 14, 40b, 40a,
15, 35, 39, 38.

It is not possible in every case to make a pronouncement with certainty about

the interdependence of the sources based on the words cited and their se-
quence. What is clear is that ʾAbū ʿUbayd records his teachers’ remarks made
during teaching sessions and that Ibn al-Sikkīt, whom Ibn Qutayba in the ʾAdab
al-kātib and Ṯaʿlab in the Faṣīḥ follow, for the most part draws on the Muṣannaf
in his ʾIṣlāḥ. The two large compilations in Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara and Fārābī
Dīwān, both of whose sources cannot be determined with certainty, provide
the foundation for the relevant chapter in Suyūṭī Muzhir. There one finds the
words from the Ǧamhara almost entirely in their original sequence, whereas
only fifteen words have been taken over from Fārābī Dīwān in a completely
different sequence. Ibn Sīda’s sources are the Muṣannaf of ʾAbū ʿUbayd and
Ibn Durayd’s Ǧamhara.

2. The collections make it clear that the lexicographers considered ʾufʿūlatun

to be a noun pattern which in principle has no connection with ʾufʿūlun, i.e. is
certainly not a derivative of that pattern. Even a cursory glance at the compiled
list of words in the ʾufʿūlun pattern, for instance in Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara: ii,
1193b–1195a or Fārābī Dīwān: i, 275b–276b clearly shows the nature of the basic
differences involved. The following are some examples:

1. ʾuṯkūlun variant form of ʾiṯkālun‚ ‘the fruit-stalk upon which are the ripen-
ing dates’; cf. Hebrew eškol, Geʿez askāl.
2. ʾuḥbūlun variant form of ḥibālatun‚ ‘snare with a drawnet, trap’6
3. ʾuḥdūrun variant form of ḥadūrun ‘slope’
4. ʾuḫdūdun ‘trench’

6 ei² ix, 98b.

the noun pattern ʾufʿūlatun in arabic philological tradition 331

5. ʾuḫṣūmun ‘loop of a sack’

6. ʾurkūbun variant form of rakbun ‘company of riders’
7. ʾuzbiyyun ‘evil’
8. ʾusbūʿun ‘week’
9. ʾusrūʿun variant form of yasrūʿun ‘a species of worm’
10. ʾuskūfun variant form of ʾiskāfun ‘shoemaker’
11. ʾuslūbun ‘way, mode of acting’
12. ʾuslūmun ‘name of a tribe’
13. ʾuṣmūḫun variant form of ṣimāḫun ‘ear-hole’
14. ʾulhūbun variant form of ʾilhābun ‘swift running’
15. ʾumʿūzun variant form of maʿzun etc. ‘goats’, also ‘herd of gazelles’
16. ʾumlūdun variant form of ʾimlīdun etc. ‘tender’ (twig, girl)
17. ʾumlūkun ‘name of a tribe’
18. ʾunbūbun ‘the portion between two joints of a cane, tube’
19. ʾunbūšun ‘pulled out (plants)’

The noun pattern ʾufʿūlun, with the exception of the adjective ʾumlūdun, is only
used in forming nouns, exclusively concrete nouns of quite varied meaning
such that no particular semantic field can be recognized. Moreover, it is notice-
able that in the case of most words one or more variant forms are attested and
it is problematic to determine what should be considered the chief form and
what their variant form. The formation of singulatives with -atun is possible,
but appears to be relatively rare, e.g. ʾunbūbatun and ʾunbūšatun.

3. In contrast to this, approximately two-thirds of all examples of ʾufʿūlatun

nouns designate form of human verbal expression (see below). The old Arab
philologists were aware of the nature of this noun pattern as is clear from how
they indicated derivations. One only has to compare the explanation of words
in Ibn al-Sikkīt ʾIṣlāḥ 272: Wa-hiya al-ʾuġlūṭa, li-l-šayʾ yuġlaṭ bi-hi, wa-bayna-hum
ʾusbūba yatasābbūna bi-hā, or in Ps. Zamaḫšarī ŠFaṣīḥ ii, 524: fa-ammā al-
ʾuʿǧūba, fa-l-šayʾ al-laḏī yutaʿaǧǧab min-hu, ʾuḥǧiyya wa-ʾudʿiyya = al-šayʾ al-laḏī
yuḫabbaʾ wa-yuḥāǧī ʿalay-hi, which is to be understood as follows: ʾUġlūṭatun is
what leads someone to make an error or a mistake, i.e. ‘error, false reasoning,
captious question’; ʾusbūbatun = that which reviles, abuses, insults a person,
i.e. ‘insult, argument, quarrel’; ʾuʿǧūbatun = something that causes one to be
amazed, i.e. ‘amazement’; and finally ʾuḥǧiyyatun and ʾudʿiyyatun = something
that is hidden and puzzles one, i.e. ‘a riddle’. Many other words such as for
instance ʾuġniyyatun = that which is sung, i.e. ‘song’, or ʾumniyyatun = what
is wished for, i.e. ‘a wish’, leave no doubt in the matter that ʾufʿūlatun is a
derivation of passive character closely related to the perfect passive participle:
332 weipert

As in the derivation mafʿūlun < *mā fʿūlun < **mā faʿūlun, ʾufʿūlatun arises
from ***faʿūlun > **fʿūlun > *ʾufʿūlun (with prosthetic vowel to avoid an initial
double consonant as in the case of the imperative of the verb’s first stem) >
ʾufʿūlatun (with suffix -atun). An excellent, though unique, instance in favor
of this hypothesis is the existence alongside one another of ʾurǧūḥatun and
marǧūḥatun which has continued from the distant past up until the present.
If one passes in review the words presented in § 1, it becomes clear that von
Soden was right, since in their majority the words designate a multifarious
variety of human forms of verbal expression, such as speech or conversation
in general (nº. 1.5: ʾuḥdūṯatun), poetical speech (nº. 1.12: ʾurǧūzatun, nº. 1.17:
ʾusǧūʿatun, nº. 1.40 a, b: ʾuhǧiyyatun and ʾuhǧuwwatun), enigmatic speech (nº. 4
a, b: ʾuḥǧiyyatun and ʾuḥǧuwwatun,7 nº. 1.9 a, b: ʾudʿiyyatun and ʾudʿuwwatun, nº.
1.25: ʾuʿyiyyatun), speech with which one is blamed (nº. 1.15 and 1.23: ʾusbūbatun,
ʾuʿtūbatun), wish (nº. 1.36: ʾumniyyatun), question, problem (nº. 1.21: ʾuṭrūḥatun,
nº. 1.26: ʾuġlūṭatun, nº. 1.32: ʾulqiyyatun), song (nº. 1.27: ʾuġniyyatun), oath (nº.
1.6: ʾuḥlūfatun), joke (nº. 1.19: ʾuḍḥūkatun), lie (nº. 1.29: ʾukḏūbatun).
In some words a shift away from the primary meaning “kind of speech
act” has taken place, for instance in the case of nº. 1.7: ʾuḥmūqatun, which
originally meant something stupid one said. In saying something stupid one
simultaneously committed a stupid action. Similarly a shift in meaning in the
case of nº. 1.30: ʾukrūmatun, nº. 1.34: ʾumsiyyatun and nº. 1.18: ʾuṣbūḥatun must
have taken place. The latter two words designated time in the morning and the
evening respectively. In the meantime, in the case of ʾumsiyyyatun occurrences
and acts that occur in the evening came to be meant, i.e. evening events.
Finally, the pattern ʾufʿūlatun comes to indicate not only the action but the
object used in performing the action as in nº. 1.31: ʾulʿūbatun and nº. 1.33: a)
ʾulhiyyatun and b) ʾulhuwwatun.

4. Alongside this large group of nouns that share a similar semantic dimension,
the remaining words fall into two further groups. The first includes words that
lexicographers have erroneously assigned to the pattern of ʾufʿūlatun, whether
it is a question of loan words or feminine formations from ʾufʿūlun for example.
These words are the following:

nº. 1.1: Ṯubatun is without doubt the older and most frequently attested
form; ʾuṯbiyyatun should therefore be seen as the younger variant
that has been adapted in accordance with a three-radical scheme.

7 See ei² v, 807a.

the noun pattern ʾufʿūlatun in arabic philological tradition 333

nº. 1.2: No further instance of this word could be found, which is only
recorded in Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara. It is highly questionable whether
the word really exists since al-Suyūṭī in his Muzhir, who accurately
copies the Ǧamhara, does not include the word in his presentation.
nº. 1.8: ʾudḥiyyatun is a singulative (nomen unitatis) derived from ʾudḥiyyun,
and thus belongs to the ʾufʿūlun pattern.
nº. 1.13: The existence of the animal in the mountainous regions of Yemen
suggests that the word, which is attested in Old South Arabic with
the same meaning in the plural form ʾrwy-n,8 is a loan word from one
of the Old South Arabian languages. For further parallels in other
Semitic languages see Leslau 1987: 40 (s.v. ʾarwe).
nº. 1.14: In Sībawayhi Kitāb: ii, 316 this word is vocalized as ʾizmaulatun, as
in Zubaydī ʾAsmāʾ: 112, and the verse by Tamīm b. Muqbil Dīwān:
183 nº. 24/13, is cited as an instance of the word, though it occurs in
the Dīwān vocalized as ʾuzmūlatun. In the lexicons such as ʾAzharī
Tahḏīb: xiii, 222bf., Ǧawharī Ṣiḥāḥ: iv, 1718b and b. Sīda Muḥkam:
ix, 47a, both forms are usually given, following various Arab philol-
ogists like ʾAbū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ and al-Farrāʾ who follow ʾAbū al-
Hayṯam. However, the definitions offered differ from one another:
ʾAbū ʿAmr gives ‘vociferous’ (cf. ʾazmalun ‘sound’), whereas al-Farrāʾ
gives ‘running swiftly’ (cf. the verb zamala ‘to run swiftly’). An unam-
biguous explanation of the matter is not possible.
nº. 1.16: As far as both the form and the meaning are concerned, it makes
better sense in my opinion to postulate that the word is a borrow-
ing from Latin, historia, or directly from Greek ἱστορία. Less prob-
able is the derivation from the Semitic root for “writing” in Akka-
dian šaṭāru(m), Arabic saṭara and Old South Arabic sṭr, because the
nine instances of the word in the Koran refer to vaguely transmit-
ted myths and legends, and not to something that was accurately
established in writing. For a discussion of the various points of view
see the contribution ‘ʾasāṭīr al-ʾawwalīn’ by F. Rosenthal in ei² xii,
90f.
nº. 1.20: Since ʾiḍḥiyyatun is also transmitted along with ʾuḍḥiyyatun, the
suspicion is raised that in both cases we are dealing with variants
of ḍaḥiyyatun ‘sacrifice’. Moreover, it may also be possible that from
ʾaḍḥātun—an additional variant of ḍaḥiyyatun—the plural ʾaḍḥan,
and from this form a further plural ʾaḍāḥin, were formed, from

8 Beeston 1982: 7 (s.r. ʾrw) = Biella 1982: 26.

334 weipert

which the two singulars ʾuḍḥiyyatun/ʾiḍḥiyyatun were created as

back-formations.
nº. 1.35: ʾUmṣūḫatun is a nomen unitatis derived from the nomen generis
ʾumṣūḫun.
nº. 1.37: It is conceivable that ʾunšūṭatun was formed in parallel with ʾuḥbū-
latun, given their very similar meanings.
nº. 1.38: Zabīdī Tāǧ: vi, 34 (s.r. nšġ) has taken over the form ʾunšūġa from
Ṣaġānī ʿUbāb: xix, 83b (s.r. nšġ), where the paraphrase ʾunšūġa =
al-ʾistīǧ ‘bobbin’ shows that the latter drew on Fārābī Dīwān as his
source. The fact that the manuscripts of the edition do not have
‫أنشوغة‬, but ‫ أتسوعة‬and ‫أنشوعة‬, makes one suspect that al-Ṣaġānī has
here adopted a reading that seemed plausible to him, whereas
Suyūṭī Muzhir has ‫أنسوعة‬, and thus transmits the rasm of Fārābī
Dīwān without any change. Yet all these forms are erroneous: the
correct version is found in Ḫalīl ʿAyn: vi, 49, followed by ʾAzharī
Tahḏīb: x, 573bf. and Ibn Manẓūr Lisān: iii, 119 (all s.r. stǧ), in which it
says: al-ʾistāǧ wa-l-ʾistīǧ min kalām ʾahl al-ʿIrāq, wa-huwa al-laḏī yulaff
ʿalay-hi al-ġazl bi-l-ʾaṣābiʿ, tusammī-hi al-ʿaǧam ʾustūǧa wa-ʾusǧūta
…
nº. 1.42: A loanword from Greek ούγκία.

There remains a small number of apparently old genuine Arabic words with the
pattern ʾufʿūlatun that cannot be associated with any particular semantic field.
Among them in the first place belongs the ‘hearth-stone’ (stone supporting the
cooking pot) no. 1.3: ʾuṯfiyyatun, which has parallels9 in the Hebrew ašpoṯ and
ašpōṯ ‘fire-place’ (Köhler and Baumgartner 1958: 95a.) as well as in the Aramaic
t(i)fāyā ‘cooking-hearth’ (Dalman 1922²: 446a.) or tfayyā ‘focus’ (Brockelmann
1928²: 830b).10 And then there is ‘groin’ no. 1.10 ʾurbiyyatun which is found in

9 These parallels among other things serve as proof that the root is ṯfy and not ʾṯf. There is no
agreement among Arab lexicographers, since already in Ḫalīl ʿAyn: viii, 246 it is stated that
one can consider fuʿliyyatun as well as ʾufʿūlatun as the underlying pattern. It is strange
that both Lane 1863–1893: 20b–20c and Nöldeke 1950: 8a present ʾuṯfiyyatun as based on
the radicals ʾṯf.
10 Nöldeke 1901: 21–22, already deals with the form and the plural formation and provides
many additional source references. He was the first to notice that the broken plural form
ʾaṯāfiyyu, which one would expect, was not absolutely required in the passages known
to him. The use of the short form ʾaṯāfin/al-ʾaṯāfī predominates by far, which in my own
experience is also the case with the frequently used plurals ʾamānin and ʾaġānin for
ʾumniyyatun and ʾuġniyyatun respectively.
the noun pattern ʾufʿūlatun in arabic philological tradition 335

all the ḫalq al-ʾinsān-works11 with only the meaning given and no indication
of its etymology. Finally, in this same category are no. 1.22 ʾuẓlūfatun, no. 1.28
ʾuġwiyyatun, no. 1.39 ʾunqūʿatun and no. 1.41 ʾuhwiyyatun.

5. In addition to the nouns discussed above, more than twenty words occur
among the lemmata in dictionaries which, in accordance with the oldest
sources known to me, are presented here without of course any claim to abso-
lute completeness:12

1. ʾubṭūlatun ‘false, vain saying’ (Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara: i, 359b)

2. ʾuḥbūlatun ‘snare, trap’ (Ṣaġānī Takmila: v, 308a)
3. a) ʾuḥdiyyatun b) ʾuḥduwwatun ‘song of the camel driver’ (Ibn ʿAbbād
Muḥīṭ: iii, 179)
4. ʾuḥkūmatun ‘judgement, sentence’ (Ḫalīl ʿAyn: iii, 67)
5. ʾurǧiyyatun13 ‘a thing postponed’ (Ibn Sīda Muḥkam: vii, 378b)
6. ʾurʿuwwatun14 ‘yoke’ (ʾAzharī Tahḏīb: iii, 164a)
7. ʾusbiyyatun ‘streak (of blood)’ (Ḫalīl ʿAyn: vii, 313 (ʾisbiyyatun is wrong))
8. ʾuslūfatun ‘affinity by having married to sisters’ (Ibn ʿAbbād Muḥīṭ: viii,
323)
9. ʾušġūlatun ‘a thing with which one is busied’ (Ibn ʿAbbād Muḥīṭ: iv, 540)
10. ʾuḍlūlatun ‘error, deception’ (Ḫalīl ʿAyn: vii, 9)
11. ʾuṭrūfatun ‘pleasing rarity, a thing that is strange and deemed good’
(Zabīdī Tāǧ: vi, 181)
12. ʾuʿlūmatun ‘mark, sign, signpost’ (Ibn Sīda Muḥkam: ii, 126a)
13. ʾuġrūdatun ‘twittering, song of birds’ (Zamaḫšarī ʾAsās: 583b) (only the
plural ʾaġārīdu: it is explained in Schol. Ḥarīrī Maqāmāt: ii, 445 as the
plural of the singular ʾuġrūdun or ʾuġrūdatun)

11 ʾAṣmaʿī Ḫalq: 225, the source of Ṯābit Ḫalq: 312, Zaǧǧāǧ Ḫalq: 48, ʾIskāfī Ḫalq: 159, Ḥasan
Ḫalq: 64.
12 I have expressly abstained from accepting onto my list those words where it was clear
in advance that they do not belong to the ʾufʿūlatun pattern, whether it is a matter of a
foreign word as in the case of ʾurṣūṣatun/ʾursūsatun ‘a melon-shaped hat’ (ei² x, 615a), or
a feminine formation as with ʾumrūʿatun ‘fertile’ in ʾarḍun ʾumrūʿatun ‘fertile land’ (Ibn
ʿAbbād Muḥīṭ: ii, 47) or again whether the radicals have been changed as has happened in
Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara: ii, 847a where ʾuskuffatun ‘threshold’ (cf. Hebrew saf, Aramaic seppā
und Accadian sippu) is equated with ʾuskubbatun and ʾuskūbatun.—In addition I have
not included words that have remained unknown to me which occur in the secondary
literature such as ʾuḫlūṭa in von Soden 1995: 141 a 7 taken from the lexicon of Wahrmund.
13 Originally ʾurǧīʾatun from the radicals rǧʾ.
14 Geʿez arəʿut, Tigre arʿot and Tigrinja arʿut, see Leslau 1987: 36b.
336 weipert

14. ʾuġnūǧatun ‘coquetry, coquettish behaviour’ (Ibn Sīda Muḥkam: v, 233b)

15. ʾufkūhatun ‘wonderful thing’ (Ibn ʿAbbād Muḥīṭ: iii, 360)
16. ʾuqsūmatun ‘portion, lot’ (Ḫalīl ʿAyn: v, 87)
17. ʾulġūzatun ‘riddle, enigmatic expression’ (Ibn Sīda Muḥkam: v, 265b)
18. ʾumṯūlatun ‘deterrent example, lesson’ (Ibn ʿAbbād Muḥīṭ: x, 150)
19. ʾumḥūḍatun ‘true, sincere advice’ (Ibn Sīda Muḥkam: iii, 100b)
20. ʾumdūḥatun ‘praise, eulogy, panegyrical poem’ (Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara: i,
506a)
21. ʾumlūḥatun (Ḥarīrī Maqāmāt: i, 197 with the explanation of the scholiast:
al-ʾumlūḥa wa-l- mulḥa wa-l-malāḥa = al-kalām al-ḥasan; Zabīdī Tāǧ: ix,
403 (s.r. fkh) = ʾuʿǧūbatun)
22. ʾunbūṯatun15 ‘a children’s game in which an object is buried in a hole dug
in the ground. The child who takes it out is the winner of the game’ (Ibn
Sīda Muḥkam: xi, 150b)
23. ʾunšūdatun16 Schol. Ḥarīrī Maqāmāt: i, 31; al-ʾanāšīdu = ǧamʿ ʾunšūda wa-
hiya mā yunšad miṯl al-ʾuḥdūṯa; Fīrūzābādī Qāmūs: i, 341: ‘recited poem’
24. ʾuhǧūratun variant form of hiǧǧīrā, ʾihǧīrā etc. ‘speech’ (ʾAbū Ḥātim Tafsīr:
36)
25. ʾuhzūǧatun ‘twanging of a bow’ (Kumayt Dīwān: i, 181, nº. 295/2: bi-ʾahā-
zīǧa min ʾaġānīyi- hā …); ‘buzzing (of flies)’ (Šammāḫ Dīwān: 97: ʾahāzīǧu
ḏibbānin …)
26. ʾuhkūmatun ‘derision, mockery’ (Ibn ʿAbbād Muḥīṭ: iii, 364).

These words for the most part, as in the case of the words listed in § 1, belong
to the semantic field “kinds of human speech,” e.g. poetical speech (nº. 5.20:
ʾumdūḥatun, nº. 5.23: ʾunšūdatun), enigmatic speech (nº. 5.17: ʾulġūzatun), joke
(nº. 5.21: ʾumlūḥatun, nº. 5.26: ʾuhkūmatun) and other varieties of speech like
error (nº. 5.10: ʾuḍlūlatun), idle talk (nº. 5.1: ʾubṭūlatun), sentence (nº. 5.4: ʾuḥkū-
matun), good advice (nº. 5.19: ʾumḥūḍatun), song and different sounds (nº. 5.2
a, b: ʾuḥduwwatun and ʾuḥdiyyatun, nº. 5.13: ʾuġrūdatun, nº. 5.23: ʾunšūdatun, nº.
5.25: ʾuhzūǧatun).
The remaining words are simply synonyms of the expressions already pre-
sented in §1, e.g. nº. 5.15: ʾufkūhatun of nº. 1.24: ʾuʿǧūbatun, nº. 5.22: ʾunbūṯatun
of nº. 1.31: ʾulʿūbatun and nº. 5.1: ʾubṭūlatun of nº. 1.29: ʾukḏūbatun; only very
few of these nouns such as nº. 5.6: ʾurʿuwwatun, nº. 5.7: ʾusbiyyatun and nº. 5.8:
ʾuslūfatun have meanings far remote from the pattern’s semantic field.

15 Given mistakenly as ʾunbūṭa in von Soden 1995: 142, a 34.

16 Given mistakenly as ʾunṣūda in von Soden 1995: 142, a 35.
the noun pattern ʾufʿu¯latun in arabic philological tradition 337

In the case of some words attested in later sources, there appear to be sec-
ondary singular back-formations based on an ʾafāʿilu plural which is to be
formed from several different singular forms, namely ʾifʿālun, ʾifʿālatun, ʾifʿīlun,
ʾufʿūlun, ʾufʿūlatun, or from the plural form ʾafʿālun. The development of haz-
aǧun → pl. ʾahzāǧun → pl. ʾahāzīǧu,17 with its back-formation of the singular
ʾuhzūǧatun, may serve as an example, which is also visible in the shift of its
meaning ‘twanging of the bowstring’ → ‘pitch of the voice’ (Lane 2893c) → ‘song’
(Wehr 1985: 1349b). The exact explanation of the matter cannot always be deter-
mined, as for instance in the case of the relationship of ʾuḥbūlatun to ʾuḥbūlun.
In any case, the older form is ʾuḥbūlun according to Ibn Durayd Ǧamhara: ii,
1195a, Ibn ʿAbbād Muḥīṭ: iii, 108 and Ibn Sīda Muḥkam: iii, 271b. The form
ʾuḥbūlatun only first appears as equal to ʾuḥbūlun in Ṣaġānī Takmila: v, 308a and
later in Fīrūzābādī Qāmūs: iii, 353. The question must remain open whether
ʾuḥbūlatun was created through back-formation from ʾaḥābīlu, the plural of
ʾuḥbūlun, following the synonym ḥibālatun, or was directly derived as a singu-
lative from ʾuḥbūlun.

6. In modern written Arabic the noun pattern ʾufʿūlatun is still productive.

An example for this is ʾuqṣūṣatun which enjoys less popularity than qiṣṣatun
qaṣīratun, the literal translation of the English ‘short story’ (see Allen 2000: x,
796–799). A further new acquisition is ʾunbūlatun according to Baʿlabakkī 2004:
245, a foreign word that has been perfectly assimilated to Arabic morphology
and in which thanks to its meaning one has no difficulty in recognizing the
French original ‘ampoule’. The extent to which this noun pattern is still alive is
also demonstrated by the shift in meaning that several words have undergone,
for example: no. 1.21: ʾuṭrūḥatun ‘a question that is proposed’ → ‘dissertation,
thesis’, nº. 5.15: ʾufkūhatun ‘wonderful thing’ → ‘joke, jest’, nº. 5.21: ʾumlūḥatun
‘nice speech’ → ‘joke, anecdote’, nº. 5.23: ʾunšūdatun ‘recited poem’ → ‘song,
hymn, anthem’ and in the above mentioned nº. 5.25: ʾuhzūǧatun.
In the spoken Arabic dialects the pattern ʾufʿūlatun does not occur and is
replaced by other noun patterns. For example, in the Egyptian dialect ḥaddūta
appears in place of ʾuḥdūṯatun and ṣubḥiyya, probably formed in imitation of
ʾumsiyyatun, appears in place of ʾuṣbūḥatun.18

17 Likewise, ʾumṯūlatun, and other words may have been formed in an analogous manner.
18 Badawi and Hinds 1986: 195a and 493a.
338 weipert

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 chapter 16

Gerboise: l’entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour

de Louis xiv

Elie Kallas

1 Introduction

Le Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch xix (Orientalia) (few 1967 : 57a),

affirme:

ǧerbūʿ (magreb.-ar.) springmaus.

Nfr. gerbo. m. ‘genre de mammifères rongeurs et sauteurs, habitant
l’ancien monde’ (seit 1700), gerboa (Valm 1791 – Lar 1872) ; mit suff w. ger-
boise f. (seit Buffon); gerbille ‘genre de mammifères, voisin de la gerboise’
(seit AcC 1836).
Ablt. Nfr. gerboisiens m. pl. ‘animaux du genre des gerboises’ (Li ;
Lar 1872); gerboïdes ‘famille de rongeurs qui comprend les gerboises’
(AcC 1840-Lar 1872).

En commentant ce terme dans son Addenda au few xix (Orientalia) – après

avoir cité les commentaires précédents et avoir illustré deux citations de ce
terme entre 1655 et 1700 et seize citations entre 1743–1900 – Arveiller (1999: 132–
134) conclut (p. 133) que: «Le Ierbuah de 1655 est à peine un mot français. C’ est
une citation dans le texte auquel renvoie l’itinéraire … » de Wicq Ole. Alors
que Gerbo, noté en 1700 dans le récit de Bruin 406b, est « un nom d’ animal
qu’il a entendu à Venise»1. Quant au terme gerboise, de 1712 il précise, citant
Paul Lucas ii, 742: «[qu’il] a été répandu dans le monde savant français par le

1 1655 « Ierbuah, espece de rats, ou d’ ermines », … Wicq Ole, in «Itinéraire du voyage»; 1700
« Pendant que je demerois à Venise, on me fit present d’un petit animal nommé Gerbo qui
avoit été apporté de Barbarie par rareté » Bruin 406b. Arveiller (1999: 132–133).
2 C’ est dans la réédition de l’ Université de Saint-Étienne (Lucas 2002), présentée par Duran-
ton – qui en a modernisé l’ orthographe – que nous puisons pour nos citations et c’est
précisément dans les pages 196–198 que se trouve l’évènement cité par Arveiller (1999:
133).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_018

gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 343

médecin Paul Lucas. Ce dernier avait rapporté du village de Biamuf, près d’ El

Faïoum (Égypte), sept gerboises.»3
Or, le manuscrit bav Sbath 2544 – écrit par l’Alépin maronite Hanna Diyab,
relatant son voyage en 1707 avec son maître Paul Lucas5, d’ Alep vers Paris et
Versailles – nous révèle d’autres détails inédits, écrits de la main de Diyab,
qui concernent, parmi bien d’autres curiosités, la question des « gerboises»
emmenées par Lucas et Diyab dans la chambre même du Roi Louis xiv à
Versailles.

2 Le but de cet article

Le but principal de cet article est 1) de révéler la version inédite – jusqu’ à pré-
sent (02.10.2014) – de Diyab, témoin et interprète de Lucas, en ce qui concerne
cet évènement; 2) de réévaluer l’origine (magreb – ar.) du terme ǧerbūʿ don-
née par le (few 1967:57) et enfin 3) de son passage au ‘gerboise’ français, parce
que «La forme de ce mot français, assez éloignée de celle de l’ arabe pose un
problème …» comme l’a bien noté Arveiller (1999 : 133).

3 Le Petit Robert date ce mot du 1712 et en donne le sens suivant: gerbo 1700; lat. zool. gerboa, ar.
maghrébin gerbu, class. yarbu: Petit rongeur d’ Asie et d’ Afrique, bien adapté au saut grâce à
ses pattes postérieures quatre fois plus longues que les antérieures.
4 ‘Le manuscrit est incomplet : il manque cinq folios au début, comme le montre une numé-
ration manuscrite des quarante premières pages. Le folio 1 de la numération actuelle corres-
pond donc à l’ ancien folio 6. Cent soixante-quatorze folios, vingt et une lignes par page. Texte
très dialectalisant, riche d’ informations et de notations de toutes sortes …’ Lentin (1997: 49).
Après l’ avoir ainsi décrit, Lentin ajoute (ibid.) ‘Nous en préparons une édition et une traduc-
tion, en collaboration avec B. Heyberger pour l’ aspect historique’.
5 Paul Lucas (1664–1737): naturaliste, médecin et antiquaire du Roi Louis xiv. En sa qualité
de spécialiste en médailles, il effectue son premier voyage commandé par la République de
Venise. À son retour (1703), il publie son Voyage du Sieur Lucas au Levant et repart vers l’Orient
l’ année suivante, comme antiquaire de Louis xiv, chargé par le ministre Pontchartrain de
rapporter maintes curiosités : médailles, pierres précieuses et gravées, manuscrits, etc. Lucas
quitte Paris le 15 octobre 1704 (Lucas, 2002: 25) et arrive à Alep le 4 mars 1707, y demeure
jusqu’ au 24 mars (Lucas, 2002: 164). C’ est durant son voyage d’Alep à Tripoli de Syrie qu’il
rencontre Hanna Diyab (voir ci-dessous). Les deuxième et troisième récits de ses voyages,
publiés en 1714 (Paris N. Simart, deux tomes) et 1719 (Rouen, R. Machuel le jeune) sont
téléchargeables. Les récits de Lucas concernant le trajet raconté par Hanna Diyab se trouvent
à la fin de la première partie (chapitre xxxix) et dans toute la seconde partie du Deuxième
Voyage.
344 kallas

3 Lucas et Diyab selon Sbath 254

Diyab et Lucas quittent Tripoli (de Syrie) en février 1707, pour le Mont Kis-
rouan (10v1–), Beyrouth (11r8–), le Mont des Druzes (12v16–), Sidon (12v20–)
où Lucas laisse Diyab seul chez le Consul et se dirige avec certains moines vers
Jérusalem (13r2–). Le 5 mai 1707, Diyab et Lucas s’ embarquent à Sidon pour
Chypre (14r7–), puis, en juin 1707, pour Alexandrie (18v1–) où ils reprennent
une autre embarcation pour le Caire, passant par les ports de Rosette puis de
Damiette (21r17–18). Après un bref séjour au Caire, Lucas décide de faire voile
vers el-Fayoum (27v6) où ils arrivent après quelques jours de navigation (28r1–).
Lucas renonce à poursuivre son voyage vers la Haute-Égypte (al-Ṣaʿīd) (32v16),
ils font marche arrière vers le Caire qu’ils quittent pour Alexandrie (33v5–
10), d’où ils s’embarquent en 1708, pour Tripoli (Libye) et les pays magrébins
(34r7–). Après un long séjour à Tripoli, ils repartent pour Tunis (48v13–), pas-
sant par Djerba (48v16–), Sfax (50r5–), Hammamet (53r1–). Ils arrivent à Tunis
(54v11–) qu’ils quittent le 1er juin 17086, sur un vaisseau anglais, pour Livourne
(62r6–), passant par La Corse (62r9). Ensuite ils se dirigent vers Gênes (83v18–),
d’où ils s’embarquent pour Marseille (86r9), la quittent (mars 1709) pour Paris
(90v15–). Ils passent cinq jours à Lyon (91r3–) et dans la province de Bourgogne
(92v20–), arrivent enfin à Paris en février 1709 (93v16).
Avant de partir pour Versailles, Lucas termine ses préparatifs: il se fait faire
un habit très coûteux et envoie imprimer son livre dans lequel il décrit minu-
tieusement ses voyages à travers les pays qu’il a parcourus, tout ce qu’ il a vu
comme merveilles et perçu comme nouvelles (93v18–20). Puis il ordonne à
Diyab de revêtir le costume qu’il a apporté d’Alep (94r2–3). Ils quittent Paris et
arrivent à Versailles (94r8–), se dirigent vers le palais du ministre Pontchartrain,
chargé de l’Orient (94v7–8), qui les présente à sa Majesté le Roi Louis xiv. Diyab
y passe huit jours, puis rentre à Paris où son maître Lucas avait loué un logis.

4 Le récit de Paul Lucas

Lucas raconte ainsi cet événement:

En revenant, nous paſſâmes par biamuf : c’ eƭt un Village. qui n’eſt éloi-
gné de Phioume que d’une demie lieuë. […] Aſſez proche de ce Village
ſont des Grottes qu’on m’aſſura être fort curieuſes. Je m’y tranſportai, &

6 Le 4 juin 1708 d’ après Lucas (2002 : 220).

gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 345

figure 16.1
Gerboise dessinée par Paul Lucas

trouvai que c’étoit peu de choſe. Je ſus viſiter le Chek du lieu ſous ſes
pavillons: il me reçût fort bien. Comme j’étois occupé à viſiter cet endroit,
j’apperçus un petit animal qui couroit très-fort ſur ſes deux jambes de
derriere; elles étoient ſi longues, qu’il ſembloit monté ſur des échaſſes.
Je fus retrouver le Chek pour le prier de me faire avoir de ces animaux,
ſi cela étoit poſſible; il me demanda ce que j’ en voulois faire; c’cſt pour
éxaminer, lui-dis-je, ſi je ne trouverai en eux rien qui puiſſe me ſervir pour
la Medecine. Il envoïa ſur le champ une douzaine de ſes gens à la chaſſe
de ces animaux: je les accompagnai de loin, & j’ eus le plaiſir de voir
cette chaſſe. Ces animaux teyrent comme les lapins ; les hommes du
Chek ſe mettoient à l’affut proche du trou, & quand l’ animal ſortoit, un
d’eux allois vîtement reboucher ce trou dans le fond ; ne laiſſant d’ ouvert
qu’environ la longueur du: bras: après quoi il retournoit dans ſon poſte,
pendant que les autres chaſſoient l’animal, qui revenoit ſe ſauver dans
ſon terrier; dont celui qui étoit caché venoit boucher la ſuperficie, &
enſuite prenoit l’animal avec la main. On en prit ſept de cette manière,
que j’emportai à la Ville de Phioume, où je fis faire une cage de fil de
fer; pour les tranſporter avec moi. Les Arabes ſe ſervent de ces animaux
pour apprendre à courir à leurs levriers. Dans la ſuite de mon voïage, il
ne m’en eſt reſté que deux, que j’ai apportez en vie en France: j’ ai eu
l’honneur, de les preſenter moi-même au Roi, qui les admira comme une
eſpece d’animaux que l’on n’avoit point encore vûë ici. Sa Majesté les fit
mettre à la Menagerie, où on leur fit un petit logement exprès dans un
 346 kallas

des appartemens; de l’ordre de Madame la Ducheſſe de Bourgogne, qui

recommanda à Mademoiſelle de la Roche : d’ en avoir bien ſoin : ils y ont
vecu plus de deux ans, & ont été admirez de tous ceux qui les ont vûs.
Ces animaux ſe nomment Gerboiſe; en voici le deſſein. (Lucas 1714 tome
ii:56–58) cf. Lucas (2002: 196–198)

5 Le récit de Hanna Diyab

À Tunis, un commerçant invite chez lui Lucas accompagné par Diyab (56v18–)

‫( رجل من التجار الي بيته‬19) ‫( و يوم اخر دعانا‬18‫ب‬56) (56v18) Un autre jour, nous avons été invités (19)
par un commerçant pour un malade qu’il avait
‫( بيت‬20) ‫ فمضينا الي‬.‫لاجل مريض الذي كان عنده‬
chez lui. Nous sommes allés (20) chez ce com-
‫ و بعد ما شرف معلمي علي‬.‫ فاستقبلنا باكرام‬.‫ذلك التاجر‬ merçant qui nous a accueillis avec tous les hon-
neurs. Quand mon maître a eu terminé de visiter
.‫( المر يض فهيا لنا ذلك التاجر الفطور مكلف‬21) ‫ذلك‬
ce (21) malade, le commerçant nous a préparé un
‫( القهوه اخد ذلك الرجل‬1‫أ‬57) ‫و بعدما فطرنا وشر بنا‬ déjeuner très coûteux. Après avoir mangé et bu
(f.57r1) le café, cet homme nous a montré son
‫( فراينا قفص‬2) ‫ فمر ينا علي ديراخانه‬.‫يفرجنا علي سرايته‬
sérail; nous sommes passés par un salon ouvert
.‫وداخله وحشين زغار‬ (2) où nous avons vu une cage avec à l’intérieur
deux petits fauves.

‫( فراهم غريبين الزي‬3) ‫فتفرس معلمي في تلك الوحوش‬ Mon maître les a fixés (3) et a constaté qu’ils
étaient bizarres (4) et qu’ils avaient l’air très
‫( وكانت خلقتهم‬4) ‫ وخلقتهم عجيبه غريبه‬.‫جميلين المنضر‬
beau. Leur aspect était très extraordinaire,
(5) ‫ وهي قد كل واحد منهم بقد ارنب‬.‫علي هذه الصفة‬ étrange et avait ces caractéristiques: la taille
d’un petit lapin (5), des pattes de cigogne, deux
‫ و يديه قصار تحت‬.‫ واجر يه طوال مثل رجلين الـكركي‬.‫زغير‬
courtes mains au-dessous (6) du menton, une
.‫( حنكه مثل كف بني ادم بخمسة اصابيع بياكل فيهم‬6) paume telle qu’en ont les fils d’Adam, avec cinq
doigts pour manger, une longue queue (7) de lion
‫ وثلتين‬.‫( مثل دنب سبع مرتفع فوق ظهره‬7) ‫ودنبه طو يل‬
relevée au-dessus du dos, dont les deux tiers sont
.‫ وعيناه عينين غزال‬.‫( ابيض واسود درقلي‬8) ‫دنبه ر يش‬ en poils (8) blanches et noires entrelacées, deux
yeux de gazelle, un museau de porc, (9) un pelage
‫( وتو به توب غزال ايل فموجود فيهم‬9) ‫و بوزه بوز خنز ير‬
de daim. Il y a en eux quatre ou cinq traits de (10)
.‫( الوحوش‬10) ‫ار بع خمس خلق من‬ fauves.
 gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 347

(11) ‫فلما راهم معلمي اتعجب من خلقتهم الغر يبه وقال‬ Quand mon maître les a vus, il s’est émerveillé de
leur étrange aspect et a dit (11) à ce commerçant
(12) ‫لذلك التاجر بانه قط ما راء ز يهم مع انه ساح في الدنيا‬
qu’il n’en avait jamais vu de pareils bien qu’il ait
‫( بان‬13) ‫ فاجابه التاجر‬.‫طول عمره اخير ًا استمنه بانه يبعيهم له‬ parcouru le monde (12) toute sa vie. Enfin il l’a
prié de les lui vendre. Alors le commerçant (13)
‫هل وحوش مرسلين من رجل صاحب من اراضي السعيد‬
a répondu: ‘ces fauves m’avaient été envoyés par
‫( ولاجل خاطرك بكتب لذاك الرجل بانه يرسلي منهم‬14) un ami du Ṣaʿīd (14), mais en ton honneur je lui
écrirai pour qu’il m’en envoie d’autres (15). S’ils
‫ وان‬.‫( واذا وصلوني بعطيك اياهم بلاش‬15) ‫كام واحد‬
m’arrivent je te les donnerai gratuitement et si je
.‫( اياهم‬16) ‫كان ما صح منهم انا بعطيك‬ n’en trouve pas je te donnerai les miens’ (16).

‫ ينوجد منهم كثيرفي تلك الاراضي‬.‫حينٍد ساله معلمي هل‬ Alors mon maître lui a demandé ‘y en a-t-il beau-
coup dans ces régions-là?’ (17) Et lui de répondre:
‫ لان هل‬.‫ لـكن صيدهم قوي صعب‬.‫( فاجابه نعم‬17)
‘oui, mais la chasse de cet animal est très difficile
‫( احد لا كلب حتي ولا طير ولا‬18) ‫وحش ما بيلحقه‬ parce qu’il est très agile, plus rapide (18) qu’un
chien, un volatile ou un cavalier. Oui, très agile
‫( الطيور انما‬19) ‫خيال لانه خفيف في سيره اسرع من‬
et plus rapide qu’un (19) volatile, mais on le cap-
‫ ولما‬.‫( اوكاره‬20) ‫ وهو ان الصيادين بيعرفوا‬.‫بيصادوه بحيله‬ ture par ruse. En fait les chasseurs connaissent
(20) ses terriers et quand il en sort pour se nour-
‫( الوكر‬21) ‫ فبيمد الصياد يده الي‬.‫بيخرج من وكره حتي يرعي‬
rir, le chasseur glisse sa main (21) dans le ter-
‫ واذا رجع‬.‫الي حد عكسه و بيسد ذلك الوكر من داخل‬ rier jusqu’à l’autre sortie et la lui bouche de
l’intérieur. Quand le fauve rentre (57v1) dans son
.‫( ذلك الوحش الي وكره فبيمد يده الصياد بيمسكه‬1‫ب‬57)
terrier, le chasseur glisse sa main à l’intérieur et
‫ اخير ًا اوعد ذلك التاجر الي‬.‫( الحيله بيمسكوهم‬2) ‫و بهذه‬ l’attrape. C’est grâce à cette ruse (2) qu’on les
attrape’. Enfin le commerçant a promis à mon
‫( الي صاحبه حتي يرسله من تلك‬3) ‫معلمي بانه بيكتب‬
maître d’écrire (3) à son ami pour qu’il lui en
.‫الوحوش كام واحد‬ envoie d’autres.

(7) ‫( … ولا زال حضرة البيك يعمل الي معلمي‬6‫أ‬61) (f.61r6) … L’honorable Bey a continué de trai-
ter mon maître (7) avec respect et amabilité
‫اكرام و يرو يه محبة الي يوم الذي هم معلمي في السفر‬
jusqu’au jour où ce dernier fut sur le point de
.‫( فدخل الي عنده وودعه واستكتر بخـيره‬8) ‫من تونس‬ quitter Tunis. (8) Mon maître est alors allé le
remercier, puis nous sommes rentrés chez nous.
‫( القنصر صادفنا‬9) ‫ورجعنا الي محلنا وقبل دخولنا الي بيت‬
Mais avant d’entrer chez le (9) Consul nous
(10) ‫ بانه‬.‫ذلك الرجل التاجر الذي كان اوعد الي معلمي‬ avons rencontré le commerçant qui avait promis
à mon maître de (10) lui apporter les fauves que
(11) ‫يرسل يجيب من تلك الوحوش الذي رايناهم في منزله‬
nous avions vus chez lui (11). Après l’avoir salué il
‫فبعد ما سلم عليه بشره ان الوحوش وصلوا الي عنده وهن‬ lui a annoncé la bonne nouvelle: ‘les fauves sont
 348 kallas

‫ ففرح معلمي في وصولهم فمضينا معه الي منزله‬.‫( خمسه‬12) arrivés et (12) il y en a cinq.’ Mon maître s’est
réjoui de leur arrivée, nous sommes partis avec
.‫( وهم في قفص من عروق النخل‬13) ‫فرايناهم‬
lui et les avons vus (13) dans une cage de nervures
de palme tressées.

.‫( في اتيانهم الي عنده‬14) ‫حينٍد راد معلمي يعطيه ما اصرفه‬ Alors mon maître a voulu lui payer les frais (14) de
leur transfert, mais il n’a pas voulu un sous; il a au
‫( بانه‬15) ‫ بل امر الي احد خدامه‬.‫فما قبل ياخد منه شي‬
contraire ordonné à un de ses serviteurs (15) de
‫ فشكر معلمي فضله ومضينا الي بيت‬.‫ياخدهم الي محلنا‬ les apporter chez nous. Mon maître l’a remercié
de cette faveur. Quand nous sommes arrivés chez
‫( ذلك الغلام والقفص في يده وهو في‬16) ‫القنصر فوجدنا‬
le Consul, nous avons trouvé ce serviteur, la cage
‫( واعطاه حكم عشرة غروش‬17) ‫ فاخرج معلمي‬.‫انتظارنا‬ à la main, qui nous attendait. Mon maître a pris
(17) dix girch, les lui a donnés comme bakchich
‫( نجار الي‬18) ‫ وفي الحال ارسل احضر‬.‫بخشيش واصرفه‬
et l’a renvoyé. Il a tout de suite envoyé chercher
‫عنده واشر له شكل قفص له بيوت ومخاضع حتي ينفردوا‬ (18) un menuisier, lui a dessiné une cage avec des
cases et des litières pour les isoler. (19) Après les
‫ وفي الحال‬.‫ ووضعناهم في ذلك القفص‬.‫( عن بعضهم‬19)
avoir mis dans cette cage, nous avons vu chacun
.‫( واحد منهم دخل في مخضع واختفي‬20) ‫راينا كل‬ (20) entrer dans sa litière et s’y cacher.

‫( و بندق وغير‬21) ‫ووضعنا لهم شي للاكل من قسم لوز‬ Nous leur avons posé de quoi manger: des mor-
ceaux d’amandes, (21) de noisettes et autres
‫ فصاروا ياكلوا من جميع ما نضعه لهم من غيراللحم‬.‫حبوب‬
graines. Ils se sont mis à manger tout ce que nous
‫( و بعدما ياكلوا يكنسوا صحن القفص في ادنابهم‬1‫ب‬61) leur donnions, sauf la viande (f.61v1) et après
avoir mangé, ils nettoyaient le plat de la cage avec
‫ وكان لهم‬.‫( خارج القفص‬2) ‫و يخرجوا الوسخ وز بلهم الي‬
leur queue et expulsaient leurs saletés et leurs
‫( ياكلوا‬3) ‫ وكانوا‬.‫رو ياء ومناقب عجيبه في اكلهم ونضافتهم‬ crottes (2) hors de la cage. Ils ont vu des com-
portements et des vertus merveilleuses dans leur
‫وهن وقوف و ياخدوا بايدهم الحبوب و يضعوها في فمهم‬
façon de manger et leur propreté. (3) Ils man-
‫( و بعد خلوصهم من الاكل يدخل كل‬4) .‫مثل الاوادم‬ geaient debout, prenaient les graines dans leurs
mains et les portaient à leur bouche comme les
.‫واحد منهم الي مخدعه و يختفي‬
humains. (4) Après avoir fini de manger, chacun
rentrait dans sa litière et se cachait.
 gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 349

‫( لهم في القفص صوف جز كانوا يكتوه‬5) ‫وكنا نضع‬ Nous leur mettions (5) de la laine brute qu’ils
émiettaient, en faisaient sortir la saleté, entraient
.‫( مختفيين حتي يدفوا‬6) ‫و يخرجوا الوسخ منه و يدخلوا فيه‬
dedans (6) et s’y cachaient pour se chauffer,
(7) ‫ وكان ذلك التاجر حرسنا‬.‫لان اراضيهم حاره جدًا‬ parce que leur terre d’origine est très chaude.
Le commerçant nous avait avertis (7) de ne pas
‫ ونوضع لهم من ذلك الصوف لاجل‬.‫بلا ندعهم يبردوا‬
les laisser prendre froid et recommandé de leur
‫ حينٍد وكلني‬.‫( رتبنا لهم ذلك القفص‬8) ‫ اخير ًا بعدما‬.‫الدفا‬ mettre de la laine pour qu’ils aient chaud. Après
avoir fini (8) d’arranger la cage, mon maître m’a
‫( الذين هم داخله‬9) ‫معلمي في ذلك القفص والوحوش‬
chargé de prendre soin de la cage et des fauves
(10) ‫بان احترس عليهم قوي كثير من البرد ليلا يموتوا وان‬ (9) qui s’y trouvent et m’a dit: ‘protège-les bien
du froid pour qu’ils ne meurent pas et s’ils (10)
‫ لان‬.‫وصلنا الي بهر يز وهم طيبين بينو بك منهم خير عظيم‬
arrivent vivants à Paris, tu en auras un grand
.‫( الي اماكن ما بيقدر غيرك يدخلها‬11) ‫بواسطتهم بتدخل‬ bénéfice, car grâce à eux, tu entreras (11) dans des
lieux où personne d’autre n’entrera jamais’. Alors
‫( من جوخ وجللنا‬12) ‫حينٍد شرت اليه بان نضع لهم جلال‬
je lui ai suggéré de les recouvrir d’une pièce (12)
.‫ذلك القفص‬ de drap, nous avons donc recouvert leur cage.

Quand ils arrivent à Marseille, Lucas envoie tout ce qu’ il a accumulé d’ objets à
Paris ne conservant que les vêtements et les cages des fauves dont trois étaient
morts, au cours du voyage (90v10–12).

‫( وكان دخولنا الي مدينة بهر يس في شهر شباط‬16‫ب‬93) (93v16) Notre entrée à Paris au mois de février
1709
١٧٠٩ ‫سنه‬
‫( فاستقمنا مدة ايام في بيت ذلك الرجل الي حين ما هيا‬17) (17) Nous sommes restés quelques jours chez
cet homme jusqu’à ce que mon maître ait ter-
‫ وارسل‬.‫ وفصل له بدله ثمينه في الغايه‬.‫( اشغاله‬18) ‫معلمي‬
miné (18) ses préparatifs, se faisant faire un habit
‫( طبع كتاب سياحته التي ساحها بالتدقيق‬19) ‫الي المطبعه‬ très coûteux et envoyant imprimer (19) son livre.
Celui-ci décrivait minutieusement ses voyages
‫( دخلها وجميع الذي راه وسمعه‬20) ‫في جميع بلاد التي‬
dans tous les pays (20) où il était entré, tout ce
‫( كل يوم الامور‬21) ‫ لانهكان يكتب‬.‫من الاخبار والفرج‬ qu’il avait vu comme merveilles et perçu comme
nouvelles. En effet il notait (21) chaque jour ce
‫ واخير ًا امر بتنجير قفص مكلف لتلك‬.‫التي يراها و يسمعها‬
qu’il voyait et entendait. Enfin il a ordonné de
.‫ وكان بقي منهم اثنين لا غير‬.‫( المر ذكرهم‬1‫أ‬94) ‫الوحوش‬ fabriquer une cage en bois, coûteuse, pour les
fauves (94r1) mentionnés ci-dessus, dont il ne
restait que deux spécimens.

Ils arrivent à Versailles (94r8–) et se dirigent vers le sérail de Ponchantrain, le

vizir chargé de l’Orient (94v7–8). Pendant leur colloque avec lui Diyab raconte:
 350 kallas

‫( والفقيركنت واقف من بعد عنهم وفي يدي‬14‫ب‬94) (94v14) Moi, l’humble, j’étais debout loin d’eux
avec, à la main, (15) la cage des ‘fauves’. Quand
‫ فالتفت الوز ير فراني واقف ًا وفي يدي‬.‫( قفص الوحوش‬15)
le vizir m’a vu debout, la cage à la main (16) il
.‫( فسال معلمي ماهذا الغلام وما الذي في يده‬16) ‫القفص‬ a demandé à mon maître: ‘qui est cet homme et
qu’a-t-il à la main?’. Il lui a répondu en disant:
‫ ولما‬.‫( الغلام كان ترجماني في سفري‬17) ‫فاجابه قايلا ًهذا‬
(17) ‘cet homme était mon interprète pendant
‫( بعض الوحوش غريبي‬18) ‫كنا في بلاد الصعيد فوجدت‬ mon voyage et quand nous étions au Ṣaʿīd j’ai
trouvé (18) certains ‘fauves’ d’apparence étrange
(19) ‫ وما رايت لهم وجود في سا ير بلاد‬.‫الشكل والمنظر‬
que je n’ai jamais vus dans les autres pays (19)
‫ فاخدت منهم سبعة الذي بالجهد حتي قدروا‬.‫التي درتها‬ que j’ai parcourus. J’en ai pris sept que les chas-
seurs ont eu du mal (20) à attraper. Je les ai mis
‫( ان يمسكوهم فوضعتهم في قفص وجبتهم‬20) ‫الصيادين‬
dans une cage et les ai emportés avec moi. Mais
‫( خمسه فبقي منهم‬21) ‫ ولـكن في الطر يق مات منهم‬.‫معي‬ au cours du voyage cinq d’entre eux sont morts
(21). Il n’en est resté que deux.
.‫اثنين‬

Quand Ponchantrain a vu les ‘fauves’ et leur aspect étrange, (3) il a dit à mon
maître qu’il voudrait montrer ces ‘fauves’ au Roi, demain (95r2–3)

‫( الملك ان كان بير يد‬17) ‫( … اتقدم الوز ير وسال‬16‫أ‬95) (95r16) … Enfin le vizir a demandé (17) au Roi s’il
avait plaisir à contempler ces ‘fauves’. Alors le Roi
(18) ‫ فامر الملك باحضارهم‬.‫يتفرج علي تلك الوحوش‬
a ordonné de les lui présenter (18) À ce moment-
.‫ حينٍد اخدوا من يدي القفص ووضعوه امام الملك‬.‫امامه‬ là, on m’a pris la cage des mains et on l’a mise
devant le Roi. Quand (19) celui-ci a vu les ‘fauves’
‫ فسال معلمي‬.‫( راء الوحوش تعجب من خلقتهم‬19) ‫فلما‬
il s’est étonné de leur aspect et a demandé à mon
‫ فساله‬.‫( في بلاد الصعيد‬20) ‫من اي بلاد وجدهم فاجابه‬ maître dans quel pays il les avait trouvés, alors
ce dernier lui a répondu: (20) ‘dans le Ṣaʿīd’. Il
‫( كانوا سبعه‬21) ‫ فاجابه يا سيدي‬.‫ضا انهم انثي وذكر‬
ً ‫اي‬
lui a aussi demandé s’ils étaient mâle et femelle.
‫وكان موجود فيهم ذكر وانثي والان ما عدت اعرف انكان‬ Mon maître lui a répondu ‘Monseigneur (21) il y
en avait sept, mâles et femelles et maintenant je
.‫( موجود فيهم انثي ودكر‬1‫ب‬95)
ne sais plus si (95v1) parmi eux il y a une femelle
et un mâle’.
 gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 351

‫( وما كان‬2) ‫ فخجل معلمي‬.‫ضا ما اسمهم في بلادهم‬

ً ‫فساله اي‬ Le Roi lui a alors demandé: ‘comment s’appel-
lent-ils dans leur pays?’. Mon maître a eu honte
‫ فالتفت اليّ وقال لحو لحضرة‬.‫بيعرف اسمهم او انه نسي‬
(2) parce qu’il ne connaissait pas leur nom
‫ حينٍد‬.‫( بان هل غلام الذي معي بيعرف اساميهم‬3) ‫الملك‬ ou qu’il l’avait oublié. Il m’a regardé et a dit
à la respectable Majesté: (3) ‘cet homme qui
‫ وسالني واحد‬.‫( وكل اكا بر الدوله نحوي‬4) ‫التفت الملك‬
m’accompagne connaît leurs noms’. Alors le Roi
‫( فقلت له بان في بلادهم‬5) ‫منهم عن اسم هذه الوحوش‬ (4) de même que les dignitaires de l’État ont
tourné leur regard vers moi. L’un d’entre eux
‫( وقرطاز‬6) ‫ فامر الملك بان يقدموا لي قلم‬.‫بيسما جر بوع‬
m’a demandé le nom de ces ‘fauves’. (5) Alors
‫ فلما قدموا لي القرطاز فكتبت‬.‫حتي اكتب اسمهم بلساني‬ je lui ai dit que dans leur pays on les appelle
ǧarbūʿ. Le Roi a donc ordonné de m’offrir
ً ‫ وكتبته اي‬.‫( اسمهم بلسن العر بي‬7)
‫ضا بلسان الفرنساوي‬
plume (6) et papier, alors j’y ai écrit (7) leur
(13)… ‫( اقري واكتب بالفرنساوي‬8) ‫لاني اعرف‬ nom en langue arabe et aussi en langue fran-
çaise, parce que je savais (8) lire et écrire en
français. … (13)

‫( الدلفين ا بن‬14) ‫وفي ذلك الوقت دخل منسيو منسنيور‬ À ce moment-là est entré Monseigneur (14) le
dauphin, fils du Roi, qui était un homme sain et
(15) ‫ وهذا‬.‫الملك وهو رجل مربوع القامه عفي من الرجال‬
trapu. (15) On disait de lui que son père est Roi et
‫كان يقال عنه بان ابوه ملك وابنه البكر ملك اصبانيا وما‬ que son fils aîné est Roi d’Espagne, mais que lui
n’est pas (16) roi. Il s’est avancé et a contemplé
‫ فلما راهم‬.‫ فاتقدم واتفرج علي تلك الوحوش‬.‫( ملك‬16) ‫هو‬
ces ‘fauves’. À leur vue il s’est émerveillé (17) de
‫ وكان عنده صورهكبيره عظيمه‬.‫( من خلقتهم‬17) ‫اتعجب‬ leur aspect. Il avait une immense planche sur
laquelle sont dessinés tous (18) les ‘fauves’ du
‫( الوحوش الموجودين في الدنيا باسرها‬18) ‫مصور فيها جميع‬
monde, à l’exception de celui-ci.
.‫ما عدا هذا الوحش‬

.‫( امر باحضار حكيم الملك الذي اسمه موسه فكو‬19) ‫حيند‬ À ce moment-là, (19) il a ordonné d’amener le
médecin du Roi qui s’appelait ‘Monsieur Fagon’.
‫( ومعلم وماله مثيل في سا ير الدنيا في‬20) ‫وهذا رجل عالم‬
C’était un homme savant (20) un maître qui
.‫( وما شاكل ذلك من العلوم‬21) ‫علم الطب والطبيعيات‬ n’avait pas son égal dans le monde entier, en
médecine, sciences naturelles (21) et similaires.
‫( علي تلك‬1‫أ‬96) ‫فلما حضر موسه فكو المذكور واتفرج‬
Quand le susmentionné ‘Monsieur Fagon’ s’est
(2) ‫ فساله ا بن الملك المذكور قايلا ًله هل له خبره‬.‫الوحوش‬ présenté et a observé (96r1) ces ‘fauves’, le fils du
Roi en question lui a demandé s’il les connais-
‫ فاجابه بان ما‬.‫فيهم او انهم مذكور ين في كتب الطبيعيات‬
sait (2) ou s’ils étaient cités dans quelque traité
.‫( ذكر ولا صوره‬3) ‫راء لهم‬ de sciences naturelles. Il lui a donc répondu qu’il
ne les avait jamais vus (3) mentionnés ou dessiné
nulle part.
 352 kallas

‫حينٍد ارسل واحضر المصور حتي يصورهم داخل صورة‬ Alors il a envoyé chercher un peintre pour qu’il
en dessine une image, sur la planche (4) des
‫ بان يبقي‬.‫ و بعده امر الملك للوز ير‬.‫( الوحوش التي عنده‬4)
‘fauves’ qu’il possède. Ensuite le Roi a ordonné
‫( وحاملهم في مكان ولا يدع احد يراهم‬5) ‫هل وحوش‬ au vizir de garder ces ‘fauves’ (5) et celui qui les
apporte quelque part et de ne laisser personne
‫( من الصيد التي‬6) ‫الي حين ما ترجع ماداما دبركونيوا‬
les voir tant que Madame [Duchesse] de Bour-
(7) .‫هي كنت الملك مرت ا بن الملك يدعا دوك لدبركونيو‬ gogne (6) ne serait pas rentrée de la chasse. Celle-
ci était la belle-fille du Roi, c’est-à-dire la femme
‫ وهذه اول مره‬.‫وكان الملك يحبها غاية المحبه و يسميها بنته‬
du fils du Roi, Duc de Bourgogne. (7) Le Roi lui
‫( تشرفت في رو يت الملك المذكور في ديوانه اعني‬8) ‫الذي‬ vouait un amour extrême et l’appelait ‘sa fille’.
C’était la première fois que j’avais l’honneur de
‫ وجميع‬.‫( ليو يز الرابع عشر من هذا الاسم‬9) ‫به سلطان فرنسا‬
voir ce Roi dans son dīwān, à savoir la salle du
‫( التحقيق من غير زود ولا‬10) ‫الذي ذكرته الان هو بغاية‬ trône. J’entends par là, le Sultan de France (9)
Louis xiv. De ce nom et de tout ce que j’ai men-
.‫نقص‬
tionné maintenant je suis tout à fait (10) certain
sans rien ajouter ni omettre.

‫ ودخلنا‬.‫( … فخرجنا من ديوان الملك صحبة الوز ير‬15‫أ‬96) (96r15) nous sommes sortis du grand salon du
Roi avec le vizir et sommes rentrés (16) dans
‫ وامر الوز ير للقبجيه بان لا يدعوا احد‬.‫( الي منزولنا‬16)
notre logis. Le vizir a donc ordonné aux huis-
‫( اماره وغيرهم ليلا يتفرجوا علي‬17) ‫يدخل لعندنا من‬ siers, kapıcı, de ne laisser entrer chez nous (17)
ni princes ni autres personnes, de peur qu’ils
‫( كما امر‬18) ‫الوحوش قبل ما تراهم كنت الملك المذكوره‬
ne regardent ces ‘fauves’ avant que la belle-
‫ فاستقمنا الي حين ما صارة الساعه في العشره‬.‫حضرة الملك‬ fille du Roi mentionnée ne les voit (18) comme
l’avait ordonné sa Majesté. Nous y sommes restés
‫ حينٍد امر الوز ير في‬.‫( اعني قبل نصف الليل بساعتين‬19)
jusqu’à dix heures (19) c’est-à-dire deux heures
‫ مشي وامامه ار بعة فنودة‬.‫( فلما حضرنا‬20) ‫حضورنا امامه‬ avant minuit. À ce moment-là, le vizir a ordonné
qu’on se présente devant lui (20) et quand nous
‫( ماداما دبركونيا المذكوره‬21) ‫شمع الي ان وصلنا الي صراية‬
nous sommes présentés, il est parti avec quatre
‫( اذن‬1‫ب‬96) ‫ حينٍد دقر الوز ير وارسل ياخد‬.‫كنت الملك‬ cierges devant lui, jusqu’à ce que nous arrivions
au sérail de la susnommée Madame de Bour-
.‫منها في الدخول‬
gogne, belle fille du Roi. Il s’est alors soudain
arrêté et envoyé quelqu’un lui demander (96v1)
la permission d’entrer.
 gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 353

‫( الوز ير‬2) ‫و بعد هنيهه خرج من عندها سر يتين وكلفوا‬ Un instant plus tard, deux dames de compagnie
sont sorties et ont prié (2) le vizir d’entrer; celui-
‫ وكيف ان‬.‫بالدخول فدخل الوز ير واحكي لها عن الوحوش‬
ci est entré et lui a parlé des ‘fauves’ et du fait
.‫ فامرت باحضارنا امامها‬.‫( امر لا احد يراهم قبلك‬3) ‫الملك‬ que le Roi (3) avait donné l’ordre que personne
ne les voit avant elle. Alors elle a ordonné que
‫ فرايت الملـكه‬.‫( فلما دخلنا‬4) ‫فخرجوا السر يات وادخلونا‬
nous nous présentions à elle, et les dames de
ً ‫( جالسين اي‬5) .‫جالسه علي كرسي وامامها اولاد الاماره‬
‫ضا‬ compagnie sont sorties pour nous laisser entrer.
(4) Quand nous sommes entrés, j’ai vu la ‘Reine’
(6) ‫ بيلعبوا في الورق وامام كل واحد منهم‬.‫علي الـكراسي‬
(sic.) [la Duchesse!] assise sur une chaise et
‫ ولابسين‬.‫كومة دهب وحولهم من السر يات كانهم اقمار‬ devant elle les fils des princes (5) assis eux aussi
sur des chaises, jouant aux cartes et devant cha-
.‫( الديباج المدهب الثمين‬7) ‫عليهم‬
cun d’eux (6) un tas de pièces d’or et autour
d’eux beaucoup de dames de compagnie, belles
comme le jour, portant (7) des vêtements somp-
tueux, précieusement brodés d’or.

‫( بالحسن‬8) ‫فلما امتثلنا امام الاميره المدكوره وهي‬ Quand nous nous sommes présentés devant la
‘princesse’ (sic.) en question, (8) elle était la plus
‫ فاندارت وتفرجت علي الوحوش‬.‫والملبوس تفوق الجميع‬
belle et portait les habits les plus somptueux.
‫ اخير ًا صاروا‬.‫ضا تفرجوا‬
ً ‫( ونهضوا تلك الاماره اي‬9) Elle s’est retournée et a contemplé les ‘fauves’
(9) et les princes se sont levés et les ont contem-
‫ ومنهم يمد‬.‫ و يكشفوا ديالي‬.‫( ملبوسي‬10) ‫يتفرجوا عليّ وعلي‬
plés aussi. Ensuite ils se sont mis à me contem-
.‫( و يكشف راسي‬11) ‫ ومنهم يرفع قلبقي‬.‫يده الي صدري‬ pler, (10) ainsi que mes vêtements et à soulever la
queue de mon manteau. Certains allongeaient la
(12) ّ‫فتركوا فرجت الوحوش وصاروا يتفر يتفرجوا علي‬
main et la posaient sur ma poitrine. D’autres sou-
‫ اخير ًا سالت الاميره الي معلمي‬.‫وعلي ملبوسي و يتضحكوا‬ levaient mon ‘colback’ (11) et me découvraient
la tête. Ils ont ignoré les ‘fauves’ pour contem-
.‫( ومن اي بلاد فاحكي لها كما ذكرنا‬13) ‫ما هذا الغلام‬
pler ma personne (12) et mes vêtements en riant.
‫( فاجابها بان هذه‬14) ‫فقالت له ليش له دقن اعني شوارب‬ Enfin, la princesse a demandé à mon maître: ‘qui
est cet homme (13), de quel pays est-il?’ Il lui a
‫( هذه‬15) ‫ فاستقمنا عند‬.‫عادة بلادهم ما بيحلقوا شوار بهم‬
dit ce que nous avons déjà mentionné. Elle lui a
.‫الاميره مقدار نصف ساعه‬ demandé: ‘pourquoi porte-t-il une barbe (sic.) ou
plutôt des moustaches (14). Il lui a répondu que
c’est la coutume dans son pays, ils ne rasent pas
leurs moustaches’. Nous sommes restés (15) près
d’une demi-heure chez cette princesse.
 354 kallas

‫ وفيما‬.‫( الوز ير‬16) ‫اخير ًا خرجنا من عندها و بقينا صحبة‬ Enfin nous sommes sortis de chez elle avec (16)
le vizir et chemin faisant nous avons rencontré
‫( ولابسه‬17) ‫نحن ماضيين تعارضة لنا بنت جميلة المنضر‬
une belle jeune fille (17) portant une somptueuse
‫ردا ملوكي من الديباج وفي راسها اكليل مرصع بحجار‬ robe royale. Sur sa tête, une couronne, ornée de
pierres précieuses: (18) diamants, hyacinthes et
.‫( مثل الماس و ياقوت وزمرد شي بيخطف النضر‬18) ‫كر يمه‬
émeraudes: un éblouissement. Elle était accom-
‫( بثياب فاخره وحسن وجمال‬19) ‫وحولها ار بع سر يات‬ pagnée par quatre dames de compagnie, somp-
tueusement habillées et d’une grande beauté. Il
‫( الوز ير وقف وعمل‬20) ‫ فلما راها‬.‫فخال لي بانها بنت الملك‬
m’a semblé que c’était la fille du Roi. Quand le
(21) ّ‫ حينٍد سالته عنا‬.‫لها تمني بغاية الادب والاحتشام‬ vizir l’a vue (20) il s’est arrêté et lui a fait une
révérence pleine d’égards et de respect. Elle lui
‫ فامرته بانه يفرجها‬.‫فاحكي لها قضية الوحوش التي معنا‬
a demandé qui nous étions (21), alors il lui a
‫ وفي الحال اخدوا‬.‫( سمع ًا وطاعه‬1‫أ‬97) ‫ فاجابها‬.‫عليهم‬ raconté l’histoire des ‘fauves’ que nous avions
avec nous. Elle lui a ordonné de les lui montrer
‫( حينٍد كشف‬2) ‫القفص من يدي الخدام وقدموه امامها‬
et lui, il a répondu: (f.97r1) ‘à vos ordres’. Sur
‫ فلما نضرت‬.‫ وصار يفرجها‬.‫الوز ير الغطي من علي القفص‬ le champ, les serviteurs m’ont pris la cage des
mains et la lui ont présentée. (2) Le vizir a décou-
.‫( الي الوحوش فارتعدت وفرت هار به‬3)
vert la cage et s’est mis à lui montrer les ‘fauves’.
Quand elle les a vus (3) elle s’est mise à trembler
et a pris la fuite.

‫( حتي يجرعها و يعاودها حتي‬4) ‫فسعي الوز ير في اثارها‬ Le vizir a couru derrière elle (4) l’encourageant et
l’invitant à revenir les voir, mais en vain. Alors (5)
‫( عاود الوز ير وامرنا‬5) ‫ حينٍد‬.‫ٺتفرج فما امكن انها ترجع‬
le vizir nous a ordonné de poursuivre notre che-
‫( والا‬6) ‫ فما لحقنا خطينا كام خطوه‬.‫المسير الي صرايته‬ min vers son sérail. Après quelques pas, (6) un
ordre de sa ‘Seigneurie’ le Roi nous est parvenu,
‫جانا الطلب من عند حضرة الملك مع سر يتين من خواص‬
apporté par deux dames de compagnie (7) des
‫ بانه يرسل قفص‬.‫ وامروا الوز يرمن قبل الملك‬.‫( سراياته‬7) plus distinguées. Elles ont ordonné au vizir, de
la part du Roi, de lui envoyer la cage des ‘fauves’
‫ فامرنا الوز ير بالرجوع الي‬.‫( والذي حامله‬8) ‫الوحوش‬
(8) et celui qui la portait. Le vizir nous a ordonné
‫( واقفين رجال ابطال‬9) ‫ان دخلنا قصر الملك فرايت‬ de rebrousser chemin jusqu’au palais du Roi, où
j’ai vu (9) une quarantaine d’hommes, héros de
.‫( بطل‬10) ‫طو يليين القامه كانهم ارهاض مقدار ار بعين‬
haute taille, qui ressemblaient à de gigantesques
‫ اخير ًا دخلنا‬.‫وهذه الرجال حراس ذات الملك في قصره‬ (10) héros. Ces hommes constituaient la garde
personnelle du Roi, dans son Palais. Enfin nous
.‫( مخدع وهو منامة الملك‬11) ‫الي‬
sommes entrés (11) dans une chambre, celle où
dort le Roi.
 gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 355

‫( واستقام‬12) ‫حينٍد دخلوا السر يات واخدوني صحبتهم‬ À ce moment-là les dames de compagnie sont
entrées et m’ont accompagné (12) alors que le
‫ فلما انتهيت الي داخل‬.‫الوز ير ومعلمي خارج المقصوره‬
vizir et mon maître sont restés dehors. Quand j’ai
‫ وفي‬.‫ وامامه شمعتين‬.‫( الملك جالس علي كرسي‬13) ‫رايت‬ été à l’intérieur, j’ai vu (13) le Roi assis sur une
chaise avec deux bougies devant lui, un livre à la
‫( ورايت من جانب الاخر سر ير مجلل‬14) ‫يدهكتاب بيقرا فيه‬
main, entrain de lire (14) et j’ai vu de l’autre côté
‫( والبنت التي رايتها في‬15) ‫بالديباج وداخله اميره متكيه‬ un lit recouvert d’une somptueuse étoffe bro-
chée, une princesse accoudée à l’intérieur (15)
‫( الحال قدموني‬16) ‫ ففي‬.‫الدرب واقفه من جانب السر ير‬
et la jeune fille que j’avais vue chemin faisant,
‫السر يات امام تلك الاميره وجعلوا القفص فوق كرسي‬ debout près du lit. (16) Les dames de compagnie
m’ont immédiatement présenté à la princesse et
.‫( حتي ٺتفرج الاميره علي الوحوش‬17)
ont mis la cage sur une chaise (17) afin qu’elle
puisse admirer les ‘fauves’.

‫( علي الـكرسي واجا الي‬18) ‫وفي ذلك الوقت نهض الملك من‬ À ce moment-là, le Roi a quitté (18) sa chaise, s’est
dirigé vers nous, un candélabre en or à la main
‫( الي تلك‬19) ‫طرفنا وفي يده شمعدان الدهب وصار يفرج‬
et a commencé à montrer (19) les ‘fauves’ à la
‫ وكنت الفقير واقف بجانب‬.‫الاميره المذكور علي الوحوش‬ princesse. Quant à moi le pauvre, j’étais debout
près du Roi (20) et cause de ma stupidité et de ma
‫( وعلي قلة عقلي وسداجتي تناولت الشمعدان‬20) ‫الملك‬
naïveté, je lui ai enlevé le candélabre des mains,
‫( الملك فاعطاني هو بعلمه‬21) ‫من يد الملك ومن ز يادة حلم‬ mais grâce à son excessive bienveillance (21) il me
l’a cédé, sachant que j’avais agi par ingénuité et
(1) (1‫ب‬97) ‫باني فعلت هل امر بسداجه من غير معرفه‬
inconscience, (f.97v1) car ce que j’avais fait était
‫ لان من له جراعه يمد يده الي‬.‫لان الذي فعلته امر غريب‬ si bizarre! En effet qui aurait jamais eu le courage
d’allonger la main vers le Roi et de lui prendre
‫( الذي في يده وكان معلمي يحكي في بهر يس‬2) ‫الملك و ياخد‬
(2) des mains ce qu’il tenait. Mon maître disait et
.‫( من يد الملك‬3) ‫و يقول هل غلام اخد الشمعدان‬ redisait à Paris: ‘cet homme a pris le candélabre
(3) de la main du Roi.’

‫اخير ًا بعدما تفرجت الاميره فعاود الملك الي مكانه‬ Quand la princesse eut fini de les regarder, le
Roi retourna à sa place et on me rendit (4) la
‫ فرايت‬.‫( القفص فخرجت من ذلك المكان‬4) ‫فاعطوني‬
cage; je suis sorti de cet endroit, j’ai alors vu le
‫ حينٍد سرنا صحبة‬.‫( استنداري‬5) ‫الوز ير ومعلمي واقفين في‬ vizir et mon maître debout (5) qui m’attendaient.
Ensemble nous nous sommes dirigés vers notre
‫( سرتين مرسلين من‬6) ‫ فراينا‬.‫الوز ير الي ان وصلنا الي محلنا‬
logis où nous avons vu (6) deux dames de
(7) ‫ فامروا‬.‫ وهي من بنات الملوك‬.‫قب ُل مادامه دور يان‬ compagnie, envoyées par la princesse Madame
⟨Dūryān⟩ [d’Orléans?], qui ont ordonnés (7) au
‫ فامرني‬.‫الوز ير بان يرسل قفص الوحوش والذي حامله‬
vizir de lui envoyer la cage des fauves et celui qui
.‫( معهم‬8) ‫الوز ير بالمضي‬ la portait. Le vizir m’a donc ordonné d’aller (8)
avec elles.
 356 kallas

‫ولما انتهيت الي قصرها رايت مجموع عندها جملة من‬ Quand nous sommes arrivés à son palais j’ai vu
chez elle un groupe de princesses (9) qui étaient
.‫( حتي يتفرجوا علي الوحوش والذي حاملهم‬9) ‫الاميرات‬
là pour admirer ces fauves et celui qui les portait.
ً ‫ فارسلوني اي‬.‫ضا‬
‫ضا‬ ً ‫( اي‬10) ّ‫فلما تفرجوا علي الوحوش وعلي‬ Après nous avoir regardés – les fauves et moi – on
nous a envoyés chez une autre princesse, et puis
(11) ‫ ومن هناك الي عند غير اميره‬.‫الي عند اميرة اخره‬
chez une autre encore et encore chez une autre
‫ولا زل ياخدوني من مكان الي مكان حتي مضي ساعتين‬ (11) et on a continué à m’emmener d’un endroit
à l’autre jusqu’à deux heures du matin. Enfin on
‫( عاودوني الي منزول الذي نحن‬12) ‫بعد نصف الليل اخير ًا‬
m’a reconduit au logis que nous occupions, où
‫( فاستقمنا تلك‬13) ‫ وكان معلمي في استنضاري‬.‫قاطنين فيه‬ mon maître m’attendait (13) Nous avons passé la
nuit, jusqu’au matin, dans les meilleures condi-
.‫الليله الي ان اصبح الصباح ونحن في ارغد عيش‬
tions.

‫( بان مادامه دو بركونيوا التي هي كنت الملك‬14) ‫فاتفق‬ Il est arrivé (14) que Madame de Bourgogne,
belle-fille du Roi – que nous avons déjà men-
‫( مجازها منحرف من‬15) ‫ اصبحت مجز‬.‫الذي مر دكرها‬
tionnée – s’était levée de mauvaise humeur, fati-
(16) ‫تعبها في الصيد القنص التي عانته قبل بيوم كما ذكرنا‬ guée par la partie de chasse de la veille que nous
avons évoquée (16). Autour d’elle les femmes des
‫فاجتمعوا عندها نسا الاماره حتي يسلوها وهي متكيه في‬
princes étaient réunies pour la réconforter alors
‫( بينهم اميره سمعت خبر الوحوش فرادة‬17) ‫سر يرها وكان‬ qu’elle était étendue sur son lit; parmi elles il y
avait une princesse qui avait entendu parler des
‫( المذكورهكنت الملك بانها تامر‬18) ‫تراهم فاستمنت مادامه‬
fauves et qui a voulu les voir. Elle a prié Madame
‫( ففي الحـين‬19) ‫في احضارهم امامها حتي ٺتفرج عليهم‬ (18) – la belle fille du Roi – de les lui faire apporter
pour les voir. (19) Sur le champ, elle a envoyé un
(20) ‫ارسلت من قبلها خادم الي عند الوز ير المذكور تامره‬
serviteur chez le vizir en question lui ordonnant
.‫بانه يرسل قفص الوحوس والشرقي الذي حامل القفص‬ (20) de faire venir la cage des fauves et l’Oriental
qui la portait.

‫ فامره في الامر‬.‫( المرسال من الي عند الوز ير‬21) ‫فلما وصل‬ Quand le messager est arrivé chez le vizir il
lui a transmis l’ordre mentionné et ce dernier
‫( امامه وامرنا‬1‫أ‬98) ‫ ففي الحال ارسل فاحضرنا‬.‫المذكور‬
nous a tout de suite fait venir (f.98r1) devant lui,
(2) ‫ فلما انتهينا الي قصر الاميره‬.‫بالمضي مع ذلك الخادم‬ nous intimant l’ordre d’accompagner le servi-
teur. Quand nous sommes arrivés au palais de la
‫فدخلوني وحدي وانا حامل القفص الي مقصورة الاميره‬
princesse (2), on m’a fait entrer seul, portant la
.‫( فلما دخلت رأيت ذلك السر ير الملوكي‬3) ‫ومكان منامتها‬ cage, dans l’appartement privé de la princesse
et dans sa chambre à coucher. (3) Quand j’y
‫( وداخله متكيه تلك الاميره التي‬4) ‫هو مجلل بالديباج الثمين‬
suis entré, j’ai vu ce lit royal, orné de lourdes
‫( وحول السر ير‬5) ‫هي فر يدة عصرها من الحسن والجمال‬ et précieuses étoffes brochées (4). À l’intérieur,
accoudée, cette princesse, d’une beauté unique
‫( ما بقدر‬6) ‫جالسين نسا الامارهكانهم الاقمار ولابسين حلل‬
(5) entourée par les femmes des princes, assises,
 gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 357

‫اوصف لميعهم من كثرة الجواهر والحجار الثمينه المرصعه فيهم‬ très belles, ornées de bijoux (6) dont je ne peux
décrire l’éclat, à cause de l’abondance des dia-
.‫( اخير ًا قدموني امام الاميره المتكيه داخل السر ير‬7)
mants et des pierres précieuses sertis. (7) Enfin
on m’a présenté à la princesse accoudée sur son
lit.

‫( تركت القفص من يدي وانحنيت‬8) ‫فلما امتثلت امامها‬ Quand je suis arrivé devant elle (8) j’ai posé la
cage et je me suis incliné jusqu’à terre lui fai-
.‫( علمني معلمي‬9) ‫الي الارض وعملت لها تمني مثل ما‬
sant la révérence comme (9) me l’avait enseigné
(10) ‫ولما انحنيت تبا ين الي واحده من الاميرات طرف‬ mon maître. Quand je me suis incliné une des
princesses a entrevu la pointe (10) du couteau
‫ فمدت يدها ومسكت‬.‫السكين المفضضه التي كنت شاكلها‬
d’argent que je portais à mon côté; elle a tendu
‫( السكين وقالت للحاضر ين تعالوا تفرجوا علي سيف‬11) la main et l’a saisi (11) et elle a dit aux personnes
présentes: ‘venez voir l’épée du Musulman’. (12)
‫( سمعت منها هل كلام ففي الحال كشفت‬12) ‫ فلما‬.‫المسلم‬
Quand j’ai entendu ce qu’elle a dit, j’ai soulevé
‫( لا يا سيدتي ما هو سيف الذي‬13) ‫ديل الجوخه وقلت لها‬ la queue de mon vêtement, et je lui ai dit (13):
‘Non madame, ce que vous voyez n’est pas une
‫( باسم سكينه ففي الحال‬14) ‫ فلما سمعت‬.‫بتر يه هذه سكينه‬
épée mais un couteau’. Quand elle a entendu (14)
‫( الشي‬15) ‫ لـكن ما عطت‬.‫ابعدت عني وتغيرة الوانها م‬ le mot couteau elle s’est éloignée d’un coup et
elle a changé de couleur; mais n’a pas insisté.
‫ واستقاموا الاميرات يتفرجوا علي الوحوش وعلي‬.‫بالشي‬
(15) Après avoir admiré les fauves et mes vête-
‫( اخير ًا اطلقوني فحملت القفص وخرجت من‬16) ‫ملبسي‬ ments, les princesses (16) m’ont enfin laissé libre
de m’en aller, alors j’ai pris la cage et je suis sorti.
.‫ذلك المكان‬

‫ فلما‬.‫( معلمي واقف من بعد ومشاهد الحاليه‬17) ‫فرايت‬ C’est là que j’ai vu (17) mon maître debout, qui
avait assisté à la scène de loin. Quand je me
‫( الزجر والغضب وما‬18) ‫تقدمت الي عنده نضر اليّ بعين‬
suis approché de lui il m’a jeté un regard (18)
(19) ‫ ولما وصلنا الي منزولنا‬.‫راد يكلمني من شدة غيضه‬ plein de reproches et de colère et il n’a pas voulu
m’adresser la parole, tant sa colère était grande.
‫مد يده الي زناري واخد السكينه وخبطها في الارض‬
Quand nous sommes arrivés à notre logis, (19) il
‫( والتفت اليّ وصار يو بخني علي فعلي‬20) ‫وراد يكسرها‬ a tendu la main vers ma ceinture, a pris le cou-
teau et l’a fiché en terre; il voulait le rompre
‫( مره تواقحت واخدت‬21) ‫ بقوله لي بان اول‬.‫وقلت عقلي‬
(20), puis il m’a regardé et m’a reproché mon
‫( ما‬1‫ب‬98) ‫الشمعدان من يد الملك وهذه جساره عظيمه‬ comportement et mon manque de jugement, me
disant que la première (21) fois j’avais été effronté
‫ ولز ياده حلمه‬.‫ لـكن حضرة ملكنا حليم‬.‫سبقت لواحد غيرك‬
en prenant le chandelier des mains du Roi et
.‫( حتي تاخده من يده‬2) ‫ترك الشمعدان‬ que c’était une impudence immense: (f.98v1) ‘ce
n’était jamais arrivé avant toi. Mais notre Roi est
clément. Si clément qu’il t’a laissé prendre le
chandelier (2) de sa main.
 358 kallas

‫والان ثاني وقاحه التي صدرت منك بقولك للاميره بان‬ Et voilà que tu commets une deuxième impu-
dence en disant à la princesse que (3) ce n’était
‫ اما بتعرف بان الحاكم منبه‬.‫( ما هو سيف هذه سكينه‬3)
pas une épée mais un couteau. Ne sais-tu pas
‫( حتي الملك نفسه بان كل من‬4) ‫ومقرط تقر يط كلي‬ que le juge et le Roi lui-même ont catégorique-
ment menacé (4) quiconque se trouve en pos-
‫( الي مركب‬5) ‫انوجد معه سكينه براس او بنيار يرسلوه‬
session d’un couteau pointu ou d’un poignard,
‫ و بعضهم بيحكموا عليهم بالقتل‬.‫الحجر اعني الكليره يستقيم مابد‬ de l’envoyer (5) pour toujours sur ‘le vaisseau de
pierre’ c’est à dire la galera (galère)? D’aucuns le
‫ بقولهم ان السكينه والبنيار عدو‬.‫( اذا كانوا مشبوهين‬6)
condamnent à mort (6) s’il est soupçonné, disant
‫ لان السيخ مشهور بيتوقي الانسان‬.‫( السيخ‬7) ‫مخفي خلاف‬ que le couteau et le poignard sont des ennemis
cachés contrairement (7) à l’épée qui est visible
.‫( ولـكن السكينه او البنيار‬8) ‫من صاحبه الذي حامله‬
et la voyant, l’homme se garde de celui qui la
‫ وما‬.‫( انه يعرف‬9) ‫بيمكنك تقرب الي عدوك وٺتضر به بغير‬ porte (8); quant au couteau et au poignard, tu
peux t’approcher de ton ennemi et le frapper
‫ ولاجل هل سبب امروا الحكام بان لا‬.‫هو مستحضر منك‬
avant (9) qu’il s’en aperçoive et qu’il se mette sur
.‫( احد يحمل معه سكنينه او بنيار بحرف‬10) ses gardes. C’est pour cette raison que les juges
ont ordonné que (10) personne ne porte sur soi
un couteau ou un poignard pointu.’

‫( والتقر يط سا ير في مدينة‬11) ‫حينٍد قلي انكان هل تنبيه‬ Alors il m’a dit: ‘si ces avertissement (11) et inter-
diction sont de règle dans la cité de Paris, com-
‫( بان وقح‬12) ‫بهر يس كم بالحري في صراية سلطان فرنسا‬
bien seraient-ils plus nécessaires dans le sérail du
‫مثلك يدخل الي بيت منامته وهو حامل سكين محرفه‬ Sultan de France! (12) Comment se peut-il qu’un
insolent comme toi entre dans sa chambre à cou-
.‫ لـكن اللـه نجاك ونجاني من هل مصيبه‬.‫( هذه‬13) ‫مثل‬
cher, portant sur lui un couteau aussi pointu (13)
‫ اخير ًا‬.‫( وكسر حرفها وابقاها معه‬14) ‫وللوقت اخد سكين‬ que celui-ci? Mais Dieu nous a sauvés de cette
catastrophe.’ Il a pris le couteau sur le champ
‫( فقلي لاجل‬15) ‫استعدرت منه بقولي له ما كنت بعرف‬
(14), a rompu sa pointe et l’a gardé avec lui.
‫انك فعلت هذا عن غشم اللـه نجاك وحضرة الملك ما‬ Enfin je lui ai demandé pardon lui disant que je
n’en savais rien (15), alors il m’a répondu: ‘c’est
‫( حينٍد سرت اساله عن تلك الامكان التي‬16) ‫واخدك‬
grâce à ton ignorance que Dieu t’a sauvé et sa
‫( التي رايتها في حجرة الملك‬17) ‫ وعن تلك الاميره‬.‫دخلناها‬ Majesté le Roi ne t’en a pas voulu.’ (16) Alors j’ai
commencé à l’interroger sur les lieux où nous
‫( لنا في‬18) ‫والبنت التي كانت واقفه بجانبها التي تعارضت‬
sommes entrés, sur la Princesse (17) que j’avais
‫ ولـكن هذه قصه طو يله‬.‫الدرب لعلها بنت الملك قال لا‬ vue dans la chambre du Roi, et sur la jeune fille
qui était debout près d’elle et qui nous avait arrê-
.‫( اعرفك فيها حتي تعرف وتحكي بالذي رايته‬19) ‫بر يد‬
tés chemin faisant, ‘s’agit-il de la fille du Roi?’ Il
a dit: ‘non! C’est une longue histoire que je vou-
drais (19) que tu connaisses pour raconter ce dont
tu as été témoin.
 gerboise : l’ entrée du terme arabe ǧerbūʿ à la cour de louis xiv 359

‫( التي في حجرة الملك و بيت‬20) ‫فان سالت عن الاميره‬ Si tu me demandes qui était la Princesse (20)
dans la chambre du Roi et là où il dort,
.‫( الملك‬21) ‫منامته هذه تسما ماضاما دميتنون وهي زوجة‬
elle s’appelle, Madame de Maintenon, et c’est
‫والبنت التي رايتها هي تـر باي الملـكة المذكوره جاعلتها بنتها‬ l’épouse (21) du Roi. Quant à la jeune fille que
tu as vue, elle a été élevée par la ‘Reine’ (sic.) en
.‫ فسالت معلمي هل هذه هي زوجة الملك‬.‫( بالتر بيه‬1‫أ‬99)
question, qui la considère comme sa fille (f.99r1)
‫( من كل حسن وهيبه وما عليها من اشارة‬2) ‫وهي خاليه‬ adoptive.’ Alors j’ai demandé à mon maître:
‘comment l’épouse du Roi peut-elle manquer (2)
‫ والملك‬.‫( هذه قصتها طو يله عجيبه‬3) ‫ فاجابني بان‬.‫ملـكه‬
de toute beauté, de prestance et n’avoir même
‫( عقلها العجيب الذي ما له مثيل‬4) ‫اخدها له زوجه لحسن‬ pas l’air d’être Reine’. Il m’a répondu que le Roi
l’avait épousée pour sa belle (4) âme exception-
(13‫ب‬101) .‫( الملك‬5) ‫ ولاجل هذا عشقها‬.‫في كل ممكلته‬
nelle, qui n’avait pas sa pareille dans tout le
‫( ثمانية ايام الي‬14) ‫اخير ًا استقمت انا الفقير في صراية الملك‬ royaume. C’est pourquoi le Roi est tombé amou-
reux d’elle. (5) (101v13) Enfin, moi l’humble, je
‫( ا بن‬15) ‫حين ما كمل القفص الذي امر في عملانه دلفين‬
suis resté dans le sérail du Roi (14) pendant huit
.‫ ودخلوا تلك الوحوش الي ذلك القفص‬.‫الملك‬ jours, jusqu’à ce que la cage ordonnée par le Dau-
phin, fils du Roi, ne soit complétée (15) et que les
fauves n’y entrent.

Conclusions

Le cours des événements fourni par Lucas souvent ne concorde pas avec celui
de Diyab. A-t-il vraiment assisté à la chasse des gerboises à « Biamuf » près
de «Phioume» d’après lui, ou bien ces gerboises ont-elles été offertes par un
commerçant de Tunis d’après Diyab? Étaient-elles au nombre de ‘ſept’ ou bien
de cinq? Lucas connaissait-il leur nom en arabe ou bien était-ce Diyab lui-
même qui le suggérait à Louis xiv et inscrivait «leur nom en langue arabe et
aussi en langue française»? Ce nom ‘Gerboiſe’ cité par Lucas s’ inspirait-il de la
transcription de Diyab pour le Roi ou bien du terme inscrit sur la planche de
son Dauphin?
Le public auquel Lucas s’adresse est l’un des plus illustres du Royaume. Il
est souvent superbe, citant souverains, événements mythologiques et histo-
riques, négligeant les traditions populaires et ses interprètes. Il suffit d’ observer
les titres pompeux de ses récits de voyages et la transcription des mots indi-
gènes qu’il offre. Tandis que Diyab, en Chrétien oriental pratiquant, considère
maintes fois ses mésaventures avec Galland et Lucas comme le fruit d’ une
volonté divine, (136r20) comme s’il écrivait spontanément pour lui-même.
Chez Lucas, l’exagération est fréquente: ainsi situa-t-il le « Phioume », sur la
lisière du désert Lybique, à côté de Thèbes. Confusion et fantaisie certes. Mais
360 kallas

ces premiers ouvrages sur l’Égypte et ses déserts ont suscité tant de rêves et de
vocations! … Les livres de Paul Lucas ont été l’ un des principaux ferments du
grand siècle de l’égyptologie française (voir Levallois 1992 : 248–249).
Or, sans Lucas, Diyab n’aurait pas pu se lancer dans toutes ses aventures,
entrer à Versailles, dans la chambre de Louis xiv et de son entourage. Sans lui
nous n’aurions pas connu avec tant de détails, son rapport avec Galland, sa
contribution aux 1001 nuits (Kallas 2015 et Bauden 2011 : 48–49) et ses informa-
tions sur la «Gerboise», etc. Mais nous nous interrogeons sur la raison pour
laquelle dans son Deuxième Voyage, nulle part Lucas ne cite Diyab.
Quant à la perplexité d’Arveiller (1999: 133) en ce qui concerne la forme
française du terme ‘gerboise’7, ajoutons qu’après avoir revu les termes arabes
et non arabes de certains voyageurs français ou francophones au Levant, on ne
peut ignorer la fluctuation impressionniste de leurs normes orthographiques
et de leur perception phonétique.
Or si c’était Diyab à le suggérer au Roi et à son Dauphin en arabe et en
français, nous nous permettons d’avancer que si Diyab a transcrit ǧarbūʿ en
gerbo ou gerboa, jerboi ou gerboi (le /ʿ/ n’existant pas en français et le « a » final,
en arabe, étant le suffixe féminin et de nom d’ unité par excellence), il se peut
en effet que les deux gerboises ayant survécu étaient des femelles. Ce qui aurait
été féminisé à la française en gerboise sur le modèle de bourgeois > bourgeoise,
donnant la forme officielle de gerboise.

Bibliography

Arveiller, Raymond. 1999. Addenda au few xix (Orientalia), Ed. Max Pfister (Beihefte
zur Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie; Bd. 298). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Ver-
lag.
Barthélemy, Adrien. 1935–1970. Dictionnaire arabe-français, dialectes de Syrie: Alep,
Damas, Liban, Jerusalem, 6 fasc. Paris: P. Geuthner.
Bauden, Frédéric and Waller, Richard (eds.). 2011. Le journal d’Antoine Galland (1646–
1715). La période parisienne. Vol. 1. (1708–1709). Leuven/Paris/Walpole: Peeters.

7 « La forme française, assez éloignée de celle de l’ arabe pose un problème que permet peut-
être de résoudre la lecture de l’ ouvrage cité. Les adaptations de Lucas sont, en effet, peu
fidèles » … Dans les Voyages de Lucas, Arveiller conclut: «Chez le seul Lucas: le couscous
devient ‘couscoussou’ (ii : 235), le molla ‘moullak’ (i : 175, 191, 192, etc.); le kiosque ‘Cheostre’
(i : 48), ‘chiostre’ (i : 99), ‘quiostre’ (i : 197). De même, ‘lieutenant’, majordome ‘Caïa’ (i: 282),
‘kaia’ (ii : 172 et 173) etc. »
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Cantineau, Jean. 1934. Le dialecte arabe de Palmyre. i. Grammaire; ii, Vocabulaire et

textes. Beirut: n.e.
Denizeau, Claude. 1960. Dictionnaire des parlers arabes de Syrie, Liban et Palestine
(Supplément au Dictionnaire arabe-français de Barthélemy). Paris: G.P. Maisonneuve.
Dozy, Reinhart. 1881. Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes. Leyde: Brill. Reproduction
de l’édition originale. Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1991.
Dozy, Reinhart. 1843–1845., Dictionnaire détaillé des noms des vêtements chez les Arabes.
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Eine darstellung des galloromanischen sprachschatzes, Band 19 (Orientalia). Basel:
Zbinden Druck und Verlag ag.
Kallas, Elie. 2015. ‘Aventures de Hanna Diyab avec Paul Lucas et Antoine Galland (1707–
1710).’ Romano-Arabica 15: 255–267.
Larzul, Sylvette. 2007. ‘Further Considerations on Galland’s Mille et Une Nuit: A Study
of the Tales Told by Hannâ.’ The Arabian Nights in Transnational Perspective. U. Mar-
zolph (ed.). Detroit: Wayne State up, 17–31.
Lentin, Jérôme. 1997. Recherches sur l’histoire de la langue arabe au Proche-Orient
à l’époque moderne, Thèse pour le Doctorat d’État ès-lettres, Université de Paris
iii. Levallois, Nicole. 1992. Les déserts d’Égypte. Courbevoie (Paris): acr Édition
Internationale, 248–249.
Lucas, Paul. 1714. Voyage du sieur Paul Lucas fait par ordre du roi dans la grece, l’asie
mineure, la macedonie et l’afrique. Tome ii. Contenant la deſscription de Jerusalem,
de l’Égypte, & du Fioume; avec un Mémoire pour ſervir à l’h’iſtoire de Tunis, depuis
l’année 1684. Amsterdam, Aux dépens de la Compagnie.
Lucas, Paul. 2002. Deuxième Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas dans le Levant (octobre 1704 –
septembre 1708), présenté par Henri Duranton. Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Uni-
versité de Saint-Étienne.
Martin, Maurice. 1976. ‘Souvenirs d’un compagnon de voyage de Paul Lucas en Égypte
(1707).’ Hommages à Serge Sauneron. J. Vercoutter (ed.). Cairo: Institut Français
d’Archéologie. 2: 471–475.
Marzolph, Ulrich. 2007. ‘Sindbad der Seefahrer.’ Enzyklopädie des Märchens. Berlin: de
Gruyter, 12: 698–707.
Marzolph, Ulrich. 2012. ‘Les contes de Hannâ.’ Les Milles et Une Nuits. Catalogue de
l’exposition «Mille et Une Nuits». Paris, Institut du Monde Arabe (27 novembre
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Geuthner.
 chapter 17

On the Semitic Origin of the English Word fustian

Fabrizio Angelo Pennacchietti

The English word fustian, together with its cognates in Romance languages,
belongs to the host of terms that as yet did not get to a certain etymology. At
least three different ways of explaining its origin have been proposed.
Being a technical term for a twilled cloth with a cotton weft and a short
nap—a fabric known since the Middle Ages—the word fustian is said on one
hand to be derived from al-Fusṭāṭ, the oldest Arabic name of Cairo, the capital
of Egypt, in its turn the land where the cotton textile industry first developed.
On the other hand fustian is said to derive, via Old French fustaigne and
Anglo-French fustayn, from Medieval Latin fustaneum, an adjective meaning
“wooden, ligneous” and referring to cotton as “woody wool.”
A third opinion maintains that fustian is a word of Persian or Turkish extrac-
tion. Yet the fact that the original medieval fustian had a linen warp may steer
the research for the etymology of its English name in the direction of a Semitic
word used by the Canaanite languages. The area where these languages have
been spoken has an old tradition of making cloth out of flax.

1 Words without a Certain Etymology

The English word fustian and its cognates in some other European languages,
mostly Romance languages, as well as in a number of languages of the Mediter-
ranean basin and farther on1 belong to a host of terms that did not, until now,
reach a certain etymology.2
It is suitable to state in advance that not all the cognates of the word fustian
share the same meaning. While in English, Dutch, and in the Romance lan-

1 See French futaine, Italian fustagno, Spanish fustán and fustaño, Catalan fustany, Portuguese
fustão, Sicilian fustanu, Dutch fustein, Arabic fustān, Turkish fıstan, Persian festān, Albanian
fustan, Greek phoustáni (φουστάνι), and Esperanto fusteno. Rumanian is the only Romance
language where a cognate of fustian is absent, see Balaci 1996: 441; Ciorănescu 2001: 15, s.v.
aba.
2 An authoritative opinion on the uncertainty of the etymology of the Italian cognate of English
fustian, i.e. fustagno, has been couched by De Mauro 2000: 1008.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_019

on the semitic origin of the english word fustian 363

guages they mean a specific kind of fabric, namely a twilled cloth with a cotton
weft and short nap, a fabric known since the Middle Ages, in Arabic ( fustān),
Turkish ( fıstan), Persian ( festān), Albanian ( fustan), and Greek (phoustáni)
the cognates of fustian mean a light woman’s dress.
By the way, the semantic shift from a fabric to a garment tailored with
that fabric is not unusual. This kind of metonymy has affected, for instance,
English words like blue jeans3 and jersey.4 In Italian, I can mention the case of
barracano, from Arabic barrakān, once a synonym of fustagno (see Lehmann-
Stroux 2011: 592; cf. German Barchent “fustian”), now a word meaning a heavy
goat-wool or camel hair fabric and by extension a long woollen, but also cottony
or silken, garment used in North Africa (see Lessico Universale Italiano 1969:
679; De Mauro 2000: 258). Another good example is Italian orbace, from Arabic
al-bazz “the cloth”: a coarse handmade waterproof woollen fabric from Sardinia
which became the name of the Italian fascist party uniform made of black
orbace (see De Mauro 2000: 1699). In reality, no one would ever find a garment
called fustian or the like that has been tailored with a heavy fabric such as
fustian. That means that a woman’s dress, called fustān or the like, in North
Africa and in the Middle East was and still is tailored with another kind of cloth.
Only the Andalusian Arabic word fušṭān and its allomorph fušṭāl, the latter
of which is mentioned by Pedro de Alcalá’s Vocabulista aravigo en letra castel-
lana (Grenada 1505, see Dozy 1881: 269), are said to have meant “fustian,” but
it may be that they too meant a less heavy linen or cotton cloth. In any case
fušṭān/ fušṭāl lives on in Spanish as fustán and fustal with the meaning of “fus-
tian.” The Persian language, in its turn, presents the problematic word fāstūnī
“serge, worsted, a strong material of combed wool used to make jackets and
trousers,” a term which is believed to have come from Russia along with the
concerned material (see Moin 1985/1987: 2470; Dehkhoda 1963: 20).5 Neverthe-
less the segment -tūn- of this word reminds the Persian term tūne “fringe, edge,
border, salvage” (see Steingass 1892: 337),6 a term tightly associated with a fab-
ric. Moreover, in the jargon of the Iranian carpet-sellers I have consulted, tūn
means “warp.”7

3 Blue jeans is the name of a rough blue-coloured cotton cloth once exported from Genoa that
became the name of well-known practical and resistant style of working trousers with five
pockets.
4 Jersey is the name of a soft combed-wool knitted fabric that became the name of a kind of
pullover.
5 See also fāstūnī in www.farsidic.com.
6 Steingass (1892: 928) translates Persian festān “a loose gown, petticoat.”
7 See the saying tūn o pūd-e dūstī-ye mā hast “the warp and the weft of our friendship hold well.”
364 pennacchietti

The shape and the fabric of the woman’s dress in question have not been
stable and have actually changed in time and space, yet it seems that its oldest
fashion was a short, low-necked gown to wear above the trousers.8
The Sicilian cognate of fustian too, namely fustanu, means a woman’s dress,
in particular a skirt or a petticoat, but, as in English, it also refers to the well
known fabric (see Tropea 1985: 166).
A peculiarity of the Turkish,9 Albanian (see Fjalori 1980: 520), and Greek (see
Andriōtē 1971: 410 and Dizionario Greco Moderno—Italiano 1993: 1070) cognates
of fustian is that they mean at the same time a woman’s dress and a particu-
lar man’s suit, the fustanella, once worn by men in Greece and Albania, a light
jacket whose interior hems look like a knee-length pleated skirt.10 The question
is which of the two meanings, the woman’s dress or man’s suit, came first. Early
Arabic evidence seems to suggest that in the 14th century some people in Mecca
wore garments made of ‘a cotton fabric called fustian.’11 As a matter of fact the
famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. 769/1368–1369 or 779/1377) tells in
his Riḥla (i, 351) that in Mecca he saw in a dream a Meccan sheikh ‘wearing a
short white tunic of cotton fabric called fušṭān which he used sometimes to put
on.’12 In reality we do not know whether, at that time, fušṭān meant a heavy cot-
ton fabric like the current fustian or a lighter and thinner kind of cotton cloth.
Probably the fact that the white cotton tunic mentioned by Ibn Baṭṭūṭa was
short (maybe it did not reach the knees and was tight-waisted) hints at its being
worn by men on a pair of trousers, just as the jackets of the Evzones. Anyhow
I do not believe that those trousers looked like the white tights of the Greek
Presidential Guards.13

8 Dozy (1881: 266) translates Arabic fustān as “cotte, jupe, robe pour femme, non ouverte par
le milieu,” i.e. “skirt, petticoat, a woman’s dress not open in the middle.” Quoting Marcelin
Beaussier’s Dictionnaire pratique arabe-français, Alger 1871, Dozy (1881: 269) ascribes to
the Arabic variant fušṭān the meaning of “étoffe brodée que les Mauresques mettent par-
dessus le pantalon quand elles sortent,” i.e. “an embroidered cloth the Moresque women
wear above the trousers when they go out.” Steingass (1892: 928) explains the Persian word
festān as “a loose gown, petticoat.”
9 See Zenker (1866: 666): “Weiberrock,” i.e. “a woman’s skirt,” and “die Fustanella, der weite
Rock (wie die Arnauten tragen), auch eine Art Beinkleid” or, with Redhouse’s words (1890:
1384) ‘a kilt-like skirt of white calico, worn by men in Albania.’
10 The fustanella has become the uniform of the Greek presidantial guard, the Evzones.
11 So is written in three manuscripts of Ibn Battuta’s Riḥla. Other manuscripts present the
word qufṭān “kaftan,” see Kitāb riḥlat Ibn Baṭṭūṭa 1904: 92–93; Ibn Baṭṭūṭa 2008: 168.
12 See Gibb (1995: 218): wa-kunt ʾarā-hu ḥīn ḏālik lābis ǧubba bayḍāʾ qaṣīra min ṯiyāb al-quṭn
al-madʿūwa bi-l-fušṭān kān yalbasu-hā fī baʿḍ al-ʾawqāt.
13 The close-fitting breeches under a long jacket appear in the figurative arts as the most
popular man’s suit in Medieval Europe.
on the semitic origin of the english word fustian 365

A similar tunic, also called fustān, worn on a long skirt or loose-fitting

trousers, remains fashionable among ladies, from Morocco to Turkey and Iran.

2 Three Different Opinions Concerning the Origin of fustian

One can number at least three different opinions concerning the origin of
fustian and of its cognates.

(a) Being a technical term for a twilled cloth with a cotton weft and short
nap, the word fustian is said to derive from al-Fusṭāṭ, the oldest Arabic
name (from Latin fossatum) of Cairo, the capital of Egypt, the land where
the cotton textile industry first developed in the Mediterranean area. This
etymology is maintained by, among others, Dauzat 1938: 348; Hatzfeld and
Darmesteter 1964: 1135; Andriōtē 1971: 410; Oxford English Dictionary 1989:
292; Diccionario 1992: 711.
(b) On the other hand fustian is said to derive, via Old French fustaigne, from
Medieval Latin fustaneum, an adjective meaning “wooden, ligneous”
(from Latin fustis) and referring to cotton as a vegetable wool, see Ger-
man Baumwolle and Swedish bomull “cotton.”14 This etymology has been
sided by, among others, Wartburg 1934: 920; Devoto and Oli 1971: 969; Tré-
sor 1980: 1350; Mpampiniōtē 2010: 1555.
(c) As for the Arabic cognate of fustian, namely fustān, the Arabic lexi-
con al-Munǧid (1966: 581) maintains that it is a word of Persian ori-
gin, as often the Arabic lexicographers do when they are confronted
with words they consider of foreign extraction. Actually neither Frey-
tag (1835) nor Lane (1877) enter fustān in their dictionaries, for it is not
among the words that the Arabic traditional lexicography regarded as
authentically Arabic. In their turn Belot (1952: 272), Corriente (1970: 226),
and Wehr (1979: 833) enter Arabic fustān without giving any etymol-
ogy. Instead El-Said Badawi and Martin Hinds (1986: 655) link fustān
with fiston, a conjectural Turkish word. Evidently it is a misinterpreta-
tion of the French word veston “jacket.” To this latter refer Traini (1966:
1085) and Baldissera (2004: 415). Dozy (1881: 266) had already asserted
that Arabic fustān is of Turkish origin, but he did not link the Turkish
cognate with a presumable loanword from a European language. On the

14 See Trésor (1980: 1350): Septuaginta Greek xúlina lína “cotton cloths,” from xúlon “wood;
tree, plant; stick.”
366 pennacchietti

contrary Dauzat (1938: 348) maintains that Andalusian Arabic fušṭān has
its origins in Romance languages.

3 The Semitic Origin

I set aside the etymologies (a) from Arabic [al-]fusṭāṭ and (c) from French
veston, which I deem untenable for both historical and phonetical reasons, and
I take into account only the etymology (b) from Medieval Latin fustaneum.
With regard to this etymology I think that it is based on an ingenious hypothe-
sis, but that, nevertheless, it is the outcome of an erudite but incorrect medieval
explanation. This latter consisted, in my opinion, in identifying the segment
fust- of fustian and its cognates with the root of Latin fustis “stick; pole; perch”,
and in considering fustis as a synonym of “tree”. Hence cotton became the
“wool of a tree”.
Instead, relying on the Andalusian Arabic evidence, that is fušṭān and its
allomorph fušṭāl, I believe that the theme *fust- of present-day English fustian
goes back to an original theme *pišt- of Semitic provenance. It is known that the
fustian fabric in former times had a warp of linen and a weft of cotton, that is to
say it was not exclusively made of cotton as it is nowadays (See Encyclopaedia
Britannica 1971: 1059–1060). Now, I deem it probable that the theme *fustān-
originally referred to the flax component of the fabric rather than its cotton
component, which later got the upper hand. By looking at the languages of the
Mediterranean basin we find that linen was called ⟨pšt⟩ in Phoenician.15 Since
the 3rd millennium bc, we have evidence that Egyptian linen was imported
into Lebanon and Syria (see Biga and Roccati 2012: 28, note 34).
In Biblical Hebrew, a sister language of Phoenician, péšet means “flax” as well
as “linen” (see Brown et al. 1977: 833) and pištā means both “flax” and “wick” (see
Brown et al. 1977: 834). In Modern Hebrew too, flax, as well as linen, are called
pištā (see Artom 1965: 715; Achiasaf 2010: 215). Linen as a material is also called
pištān (see Artom 1965: 715; Sivan and Levenston 1967: 576; Levenston and Sivan
1968: 638), while pištānī (Ibid.) means “linen” as an adjective as well as “a linen
manufacturer” or “a linen seller.”
It is significant that in Modern Hebrew the English word fustian is translated
pištān gas “rough linen” or šaʿaṭnēz šel pištîm we-kûtnā “mixture of flax and
cotton” (see Artom 1965: 882; Levenston and Sivan 1968: 458), where šaʿaṭnēz
means “mingling of fabrics,” i.e. the prohibited mixture of fibres according

15 See the Carthaginian inscription cis, i°, no. 4874: bʾlyḥn bn m … / mkr h-pšt “Baʿalyaḥon
son of m … / linen dealer.”
on the semitic origin of the english word fustian 367

to the Jewish precept no. 238 ‘You shall not wear cloth combining wool and
linen’ (Deut. 22: 11).
Therefore the history of fustian and of its cognates in different languages
can be reconstructed, in my opinion, in the following way. The Hebrew and
probably also the Phoenician word pištān, meaning “linen,” seeped into Spain
long before or during the Arabic occupation of Andalusia, brought there by
Jewish weavers. In Spain pištān conformed itself to the Arabic pronunciation,
so that it became *fištān16 and, at the same time, its theme *fišt- merged into
the theme of the Spanish word fuste “shaft” becoming that way *fušt-: so we
get fuštān, a dialect word that the Andalusian grammarian Ibn Hišām al-
Laḫmī (d. 577/1181–1182) already defined ṯiyāb al-rūm “a Roman garment,”17 in
his treatise al-Radd ʿalā Zubaydī fī laḥn al-ʿawāmm.18 Probably the phonetic
coincidence of fuštān with Spanish fuste is the circumstance that triggered
what I deem a false etymology: the derivation of fustian and its cognates from
Latin fustis “stick; pole; perch” through the Medieval Latin fustaneum. Owing
to that merging, Hebrew pištān became that way fušṭān and later fustán as it
reads nowadays in Spanish. The spreading of the Andalusian word fustān in all
the countries of North Africa, in the Middle East as well as in Turkey and Persia
might have been enhanced by the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and
by the exclusion of the Moriscos between 1609 and 1614. It could well be that
the old pronunciation with the vowel -i- has been preserved in Turkish fıstan
and in Persian festān.
What possibly happened in the meantime at the semantic level? I think
that the original meaning of pištān/fušṭān/fustān “linen cloth” shifted in Spain
to “cotton cloth.” An evidence of this semantic change could be the meaning
“petticoat, slip” that Spanish fustán preserves nowadays in South America as
an archaism.19 I do not know when (perhaps since the 14th century?) and
where the weaving technique for the production of fustian by combining a
linen warp with a cotton weft was first introduced. Maybe it has been worked
out somewhere in Europe outside Spain, for only in Europe, present-day Spain
and Portugal inclusive, the word fustian and its cognates mean “a twilled cloth
with a cotton weft and a short nap.”

16 In Hebrew [p] and [f] are allphones of the same phoneme /p/, while in Arabic /p/ is
pronounced only [f].
17 With the meaning of “European or Western garment.”
18 See ʿAhwānī s.d.: 202: www.almaktabah.net/vb/showthread.php?t=100070.
19 See Diccionario 1992:711. In the same page of the Diccionario appears also fusta with the
meaning “cierto tejido de lana.” See also Greek phoústa “petticoat,” Prōïas s.d.: 2559, and
Albanian fustë “petticoat,” see Leotti 1937: 237.
368 pennacchietti

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 chapter 18

La lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa: Les

questions lexicales du Kitāb al-hawāmil
wa-l-šawāmil
Lidia Bettini

1 Introduction

Dans le domaine de l’histoire de la lexicographie arabe, les ouvrages qui ont

retenu particulièrement l’attention sont sans doute les grands lexiques et dans
une moindre mesure les recueils onomasiologiques, dont les caractères ont été
décrits plusieurs fois1.
Ces lexiques ont préservé une quantité remarquable de matériel et prêté
un soin constant à compléter, discuter et corriger les ouvrages des prédéces-
seurs2, mais, leur but étant plutôt de définir et de donner des témoignages de
la forme correcte des mots en question, ils n’ont pas consacré une attention
systématique aux relations sémantiques entre lexèmes divers ou au rapport
entre forme linguistique et signifié. Ceci a été plutôt la préoccupation des gram-
mairiens, tels qu’Ibn Durustawayh (m. 347/958), Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (m. 316/928), ou
Ibn Ǧinnī (m. 392/1002), lesquels, tout en partageant la même conception de
la fonction et de l’origine du langage, ne sont pas arrivés nécessairement aux
mêmes conclusions3.

1 Ces lexiques, avec les ouvrages qui les ont de quelque manière préparés ou accompagnés
tout le long de la tradition lexicographique arabe médiévale, ont été présentés et décrits
entre autres par Haywood (1960), Sanni (1994), Seidensticker (2002), et tout dernièrement
par Baalbaki (2014). Pour les recueils onomasiologiques, les kutub al-farq, voir la liste citée
par ʿAbd al-Tawwāb (1982) dans l’ introduction à l’ édition du Kitāb al-farq d’Ibn Fāris (m.
395/1004) et, récemment, Hämeen-Anttila (2004–2005). Je tiens à remercier Jérôme Lentin,
qui a eu l’ amabilité de corriger le français de ce texte.
2 Voir par exemple Farrāǧ (1993) qui, dans sa longue introduction au Tāǧ al-ʿarūs, examine dans
l’ ordre chronologique les sources de cet ouvrage tardif et leurs apports respectifs.
3 Ibn Durustawayh répète tout au long de son Taṣḥīḥ que chaque variation formelle dans
un mot entraîne une différence de signification ; cela est dû nécessairement à une cause
(ʿilla) qui remonte à l’ institution du langage, ou du mot en question, même si elle peut
être difficile à saisir. À ce propos Ibn al-Sarrāǧ compare (Ištiqāq : 21) ces «causes» origi-
nelles, qu’ il appelle ʾasbāb, à celles des proverbes, qui sont parfois inconnues (voir également

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_020

372 bettini

C’est en revanche ce genre de réflexion lexicologique que nous envisageons

de prendre en examen ici, parce que c’est l’angle sous lequel les questions de
Tawḥīdī (m. 414/1023) et les réponses de Miskawayh (m. 421/1030) se situent4.
Ceci est représenté par une autre source, les ouvrages dits de furūq, c’ est-à-dire
ceux qui traitent des nuances qui distinguent entre eux des mots considérés
au sens large comme synonymes. Ces mots, à la différence de ceux examinés
dans la majorité des lexiques onomasiologiques, surtout les plus anciens, ne
réfèrent pas le plus souvent à des notions concrètes (les ʾasmāʾ proprement
dits au niveau du waḍʿ, qui réfèrent à un seul mawḍūʿ), mais également à des
notions abstraites.
Cette branche de la pensée linguistique arabe ancienne comprend d’ abord
des ouvrages exclusivement consacrés au furūq, dont les plus célèbres sont
le Kitāb al-furūq al-luġawiyya d’ʾAbū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī (m. après 400/1010) et le
Kitāb al-furūq wa-manʿ al-tarāduf d’al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmiḏī (m. c. 318/936) (Baal-
baki 2014: 209–211), mais on comprend aisément qu’ elle se trouve représentée
également dans les remarques non systématiques que l’ on repère dans des sec-
tions d’ouvrages divers5.
Nous examinerons ici d’abord l’exposé théorique de Miskawayh en le situ-
ant dans son contexte intellectuel et ensuite cinq des questions lexicales posées
par Tawḥīdī à Miskawayh avec les réponses de ce dernier, qui relèvent en même
temps de la falsafa et de l’ʾadab, étant donné la nature des deux interlocuteurs,
en le comparant, le cas échéant, aux données de ʿAskarī et également à celles
de Kaffawī (m. 1094/1683) dans son Kulliyyāt.

ʾAnbārī ʾAḍdād: 7). Ibn Ǧinnī est parmi les peu nombreux tenants de l’existence de la syno-
nymie qui ont jugé utile de la discuter théoriquement (Ḫaṣāʾiṣ: ii, 113–133). Il la considère
comme un des caractères d’ excellence de la langue arabe (qawī al-dalāla ʿalā šaraf hāḏihī
al-luġa, Ḫaṣāʾiṣ : ii, 113) tout en posant des conditions pour que deux mots puissent être
considérés comme vrais synonymes (voir Schulz 1994, Munaǧǧid 1997: 58–67). Des condi-
tions d’ ordre différent pour établir si deux mots semblables (mutašābihatayn) sont iden-
tifiables l’ un à l’ autre (huwa huwa) sont également posées par Ibn al-Sarrāǧ Ištiqāq : 39–
40.
4 Dans leur Kitāb al-hawāmil wa-l-šawāmil.
5 Par exemple Ḫaṭṭābī (m. c. 386/996) (Bayān : 29–34), qui examine un certain nombre de
synonymes dans le contexte de la balāġa coranique. Des remarques pertinentes à ce sujet
se trouvent également dispersées dans des ouvrages qui ont trait aux termes techniques
de disciplines diverses, comme la philosophie, la théologie, la mystique ou le droit (voir
par exemple Rosenthal: 1966). Baalbaki (2014 : 209) affirme que la floraison du genre furūq
appartient au ive/xe siècle, ainsi que les ouvrages où la question du tarāduf est débattue et
les recueils de mots synonymes.
la lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa 373

Un problème majeur se pose, évidemment, et c’ est celui du rapport de ces

considérations à l’usage. Pour des raisons d’espace, seuls des sondages très
sommaires seront ici possibles.

2 L’exposé théorique de Miskawayh

Dans la première question du Kitāb al-hawāmil wa-l-šawāmil6, Tawḥīdī inter-

roge Miskawayh au sujet des nuances qui séparent la signification d’ un certain
nombre de vocables et, plus généralement, il se demande s’ il est nécessaire
( yaǧib) qu’il y ait toujours une différence entre les mots qui peuvent alterner
dans l’expression d’une même idée.
Pour répondre, Miskawayh estime nécessaire de remonter à l’ origine et à la
fonction du langage. Celui-ci, écrit-il, naît de la nécessité que les hommes ont
de se réunir en société pour subvenir, dans un échange mutuel, aux besoins
de leur survie dans des circonstances très nombreuses et variées. Puisque les
gestes ne peuvent pas suffire à cet échange, le Créateur (al-bārī), dans sa sagesse
(ḥikma) et prévoyance, a doté l’homme d’un instrument qui est le plus mobile
et souple parmi ses membres, en faisant en sorte qu’ il s’ accorde, par sa position
(dans la bouche), avec l’articulation de la voix sortant avec le souffle (et qui
serait autrement indistincte) et qu’ il accomplisse, avec les autres instruments
de la production du langage, les mouvements qui produisent les sons indiquant
leurs intentions. Ces sons isolés, appelés consonnes, sont en arabe au nombre
de vingt-huit et ils se composent par deux, trois ou quatre, de manière finie et
en nombre compté, parce que les éléments simples en sont comptés, ainsi que
les composés qui en dérivent.
La raison exige que ces mots, considérés du point de vue de leur rapport avec
la signification, soient classés selon cinq états établis et invariables, notam-
ment: que forme phonique (ʾalfāẓ) et signification se correspondent biunivo-
quement (al-muttafiqa); qu’elles soient biunivoquement différentes (al-muta-
bāyina); qu’une même forme phonique corresponde à des significations diffé-
rentes (al-mutawāṭiʾa); que des formes phoniques différentes correspondent à
une signification égale (al-mutarādifa); ou, dans les composés, que consonnes
et significations en partie se correspondent et qu’ elles divergent dans le reste.
Ces cinq types ont été dénombrés par Aristote dans son premier livre sur la
logique et expliqués par les commentateurs.

6 Hawāmil: 5–10.
374 bettini

S’il en est ainsi, un seul type de correspondance entre formes phoniques et

significations devrait être envisageable: celui où à une forme différente corres-
pond une signification différente. Les autres types qui existent ne découlent pas
des raisons primaires qui ont présidé à l’institution du langage, mais de circons-
tances contraignantes postérieures7. Par exemple, affirme Miskawayh, puisque
les éléments signifiants constitutifs de la langue, établis par commun accord
(bi-l-tawāṭuʾ), sont comptés, ainsi que leurs composés, contrairement aux états
et idées se présentant à l’esprit qui ne le sont pas, et puisque, si l’ on divise
un grand nombre par un petit, une grande partie du premier reste indistincte
nécessairement (ištarakat ʿidda min-hā fī wāḥida lā maḥāla), il en résulte que
l’on peut trouver des noms qui, identiques dans la forme, ont des significations
différentes, comme dans le cas du mot ʿayn qui peut signifier « œil », « source»,
«cavité de [la partie antérieure] du genou»8, « inclinaison d’ un plateau de la
balance», «pluie qui tombe plusieurs jours de suite », et d’ autres noms. C’ est
là un fait qui mène à des ambiguïtés et à des erreurs aussi bien dans les actes
que dans les croyances et qui ne s’est pas produit par choix, mais par nécessité
naturelle, comme nous venons de l’expliquer.
Ensuite, il advint que les professionnels de l’ éloquence, de l’ art oratoire,
de la poésie et de la prose rimée, qui se trouvent dans la nécessité d’ être
persuasifs en vue d’établir un accord (ʾiṣlāḥ) entre tribus, d’ inciter aux combats
ou au contraire les faire cesser, ou dans d’autres circonstances où il faut parler
avec faconde et répéter une même idée pour qu’ elle s’ empare des esprit des
présents et qu’elle s’y grave – il advint donc que ceux-ci n’aiment pas répéter
le même mot (lafẓa) plusieurs fois, surtout les poètes, qui sont toujours en quête
de mots interchangeables pour compléter correctement le mètre en poésie
ou la clausule de la prose rimée. On a eu donc besoin de vocables nombreux
indiquant une seule signification: par nécessité, comme on a vu, et à l’ opposé
de la fin première de l’invention du langage.
Après avoir répété la classification déjà citée des mots selon leur relation à la
signification, Miskawayh ajoute que parfois des mots existent qui, ou bien ont
des significations proches, ou bien se réfèrent à des états différents d’ une même
réalité (šaḫṣ): ces noms sont ceux qui sont employés comme synonymes, par

7 Ces arguments sont les mêmes chez d’ autres auteurs anciens qui considèrent que tout ce qui
sort d’ une correspondance biunivoque entre les « noms» et les «choses» va à l’encontre de
la « sagesse» (ḥikma) de l’ instituteur du langage et également de la logique et de la raison,
qu’ il s’ agisse de ʾaḍdād, d’ homonymes ou de synonymes. Voir Ibn Durustawayh Taṣḥīḥ : 56 et
la présentation de Baalbaki 2014 : 188–198 et 198–211 respectivement.
8 Que l’ on nomme « creux poplité » en anatomie.
la lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa 375

exemple les noms qui se réfèrent au «malheur»9, ou au « vin » ou à l’ « épée »10.

En les examinant, on trouve qu’ils ont en réalité des significations différentes,
mais, puisqu’ils qualifient un seul nom (mawḍūʿ : objet du waḍʿ), ils sont traités
comme s’ils avaient la même signification.
Ceci se produit à cause de l’emploi extensif du langage, lorsqu’ on a besoin
de s’exprimer sans affectation avec une certaine tolérance.

3 Le contexte de la réflexion

Ces considérations de Miskawayh méritent quelques remarques, car son ex-

posé est tissu de thèmes qu’il n’a pas inventés, mais qu’ il compose selon son
style et ses convictions. La mention de la sagesse divine, d’ abord, se limite
chez lui à ceci que Dieu a pourvu les hommes de l’ instrument physique apte
à la production du langage; en revanche, c’est la seule raison qui établit les
caractères idéaux du langage au moment de son institution11.
Un autre argument, auquel Miskawayh donne une tournure scientifique,
est la relation quantitative des maʿānī et des ʾalfāẓ. Déjà Ǧāḥiẓ (m. 255/869),
lorsqu’il compare de ce point de vue les maʿānī et leurs ʾasmāʾ affirme (Ǧāhiẓ
Bayān: i, 76) que les premiers s’étendent sans fin (mabsūṭa ʾilā ġayr ġāya
mumtadda ʾilā ġayr nihāya), alors que les deuxièmes sont limités et comptés
(maqṣūra maʿdūda). Toutefois, c’est un autre auteur, contemporain de Miska-
wayh, al-Rāġib al-ʾIṣfahānī (m. fin ve/xie)12, qui donne à cette idée une formu-
lation proche de celle de Miskawayh, lorsqu’il dit, à propos de l’ homonymie,
qu’ elle est inévitable, parce que les maʿānī sont infinis, contrairement aux
ʾalfāẓ, même composés, et que l’infini ne peut pas être contenu par le fini (wa-
ġayr al-mutanāhī lā yaḥwī-hi al-mutanāhī)13.

9 C’ est un thème particulièrement connu, auquel des ouvrages et des sections d’ouvrages
ont été consacrés. Voir Weipert 2004.
10 Dans ce domaine, comme on le sait, il a été vite fait, pour les tenants de l’opinion contraire
à l’ existence de la synonymie, d’ observer que les synonymes apparents des noms, par
exemple, du « vin » ou de l’ « épée » n’étaient en réalité que des épithètes. Voir Suyūṭī (m.
911/1505) Muzhir : i, 405.
11 Cette sagesse est en revanche généralement attribuée au wāḍiʿ al-luġa, qui souvent est
Dieu (voir par exemple Ibn Durustawayh Taṣḥīḥ : 71), mais non nécessairement, voir par
exemple Suyūṭī Muzhir : i, 369, qui à propos des homonymes rapporte comme explication
possible de ce phénomène l’ action de deux wāḍiʿ, chacun desquels aurait donné au même
mot une signification différente. Voir également Weiss 1987: 341.
12 Pour une mise au point de la biographie de Rāġib, et surtout de sa datation, voir Key 2012:
32–46.
13 Cité apud Key 2012 : 112 note 358. La source en est : Muqaddimat ǧāmiʿ al-tafāsīr maʿ tafsīr
376 bettini

Le troisième point à souligner dans l’exposé de Miskawayh est la relation

entre synonymie et discours littéraire14. Miskawayh, comme bien d’ autres
savants et philologues anciens, considère que la synonymie n’existe pas15
puisqu’elle va à l’encontre de la fonction même du langage, mais il constate
aussi que, si ceci est vrai pour le langage ordinaire, dont le but premier est
l’intercompréhension, le langage littéraire, en poésie comme en prose, exige au
contraire qu’une même idée ou image soient exprimées de plusieurs manières :
pour ainsi faire on a nécessairement recours à des vocables qui ont des signifi-
cations proches, même si elles ne sont pas identiques, et même si cela n’est pas

al-Fātiḥa wa-maṭāliʿ al-Baqara édité par ʾAḥmad Ḥasan Farḥāt, Kuwayt: Dār al-daʿwa, 1984:
29. Cf. également Suyūṭī Muzhir, i : 369. Il faut souligner encore une fois la nécessité de
situer dans le contexte des mots techniques tels que, en l’occurrence, maʿnā et lafẓ et
de les traduire en conséquence. Dans le contexte de l’homonymie ou de la synonymie,
donc du mot isolé, où de plus lafẓ alterne avec šayʾ (voir Ibn Fāris Ṣāḥibī: 114–115) ou
avec šaḫṣ ou mawḍūʿ comme nous avons vu dans l’exposé de Miskawayh, la traduction
uniforme « expression» et « idea » proposée par Key 2012 ne semble pas adéquate. L’usage
même des auteurs anciens montre que ces mots ont une signification différente selon
que le langage est considéré du point de vue de l’ intercompréhension ou de l’expression
littéraire. Pour rester dans le domaine qui nous occupe, on peut comparer l’affirmation
de Ǧāḥiẓ déjà citée et celle d’ Ibn Wahb al-Kātib (m. mi-ive/xe) Burhān: 142 selon laquelle
dans le discours des Arabes on a besoin (ʾuḥtīǧa) de la métaphore parce que leurs ʾalfāẓ
sont plus nombreux que leurs maʿānī. Ces affirmations ne sont contradictoires qu’en
apparence, parce que la deuxième vise le discours littéraire, dans lequel effectivement
un seul maʿnā (ici « image ou idée » exprimée dans un vers ou un segment en prose) peut
(et doit) être exprimée de plusieurs façons (lafẓ).
14 Ibn Qutayba (m. 276/889) Taʾwīl: 13 déjà évoque la manière de procéder de l’orateur lequel,
dans les diverses circonstances, doit diversifier ( yaftann) son discours.
15 Ce courant a été de toute manière minoritaire, comparé au nombre de ceux qui ont
tout simplement constaté l’ existence des synonymes, voire les ont considérés comme
une des qualités de la langue arabe, par exemple Ibn Ǧinnī, comme nous avons vu.
De plus, très souvent les mêmes auteurs qui ont nié l’existence de la synonymie sur la
base du présupposé linguistique qu’ une même signification ne peut pas correspondre
à des signifiants différents, ont par ailleurs fourni des listes de synonymes, à partir du
même ʿAskarī dans son Talḫīṣ fī maʿrifat ʾasmāʾ al-ʾašyāʾ, ou bien ils se sont servi de
la proximité sémantique entre deux noms ou verbes pour expliquer des irrégularités
morphologiques, comme Ibn Durustawayh (Taṣḥīḥ : 37 et passim). On peut également
faire état d’ une attitude différente envers le même couple de «synonymes», si celui-
ci est considéré du point de vue lexical ou littéraire (voir par exemple ʿAskarī Furūq :
14 et Ṣināʿatayn: 114 à propos de naʾy et buʿd). Pour une présentation claire et exhaus-
tive des questions liées à la question de la synonymie chez les savants arabes médié-
vaux, voir Munaǧǧid 1997, qui attribue ces incohérences à l’opacité de leur définition de
« synonyme ».
la lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa 377

conforme au but de l’invention du langage. Celle-ci est l’ attitude de la grande

majorité, si non de tous les philologues anciens, parce que leur point de vue
change selon le niveau du discours16. Le même ʿAskarī, auteur de l’ ouvrage le
plus célèbre de furūq, dans un autre ouvrage également célèbre (Ṣināʿatayn :
387), définit l’artifice stylistique appelé taḏyīl comme « la répétition des expres-
sions qui se suivent selon la même signification» (ʾiʿādat al-ʾalfāẓ al-mutarādifa
ʿalā al-maʿnā bi-ʿayni-hi). Il est évident que l’identité de signification doit ici
être comprise du point de vue littéraire et non lexical.
Un exemple de l’ampleur et la souplesse que la notion de synonyme peut
revêtir dans la poétique est fourni par Ibn al-ʾAṯīr (m. 637/1239) (Maṯal : iii, 238)
à propos du type de sariqa qu’il appelle salḫ. Ceci, affirme-t-il, peut se faire
en remplaçant un mot par son synonyme, mais il est bien mieux réussi si l’ on
reprend une ṣifa du mot en question. Il cite un vers de Ǧarīr (m. c. 110/728–729)
qui décrit les ennemis comme si leurs hommes étaient des femmes (respecti-
vement ḏū al-ʿimāmati wa-l-ḫimāri «celui au turban et celui au voile»), repris
selon lui par al-Mutanabbī (respectivement fī kaffi-hī … qanātun « qui a dans
sa main une lance» et fī kaffi-hī … ḫiḍābū «qui a dans sa main une teinture »).

4 La synonymie dans la réalité littéraire

Quelle qu’ait été la situation à l’origine du langage, la constatation de l’ exis-

tence de fait de la synonymie est générale, et l’ examen des textes, à partir
du Coran, la corrobore17. C’est là un fait qui oblige de sortir du domaine

16 Nous avons eu l’ occasion de le constater plusieurs fois, voir récemment Bettini 2009.
17 Les interprètes du Coran n’ont pas eu cependant une opinion unanime à ce sujet. Pour
certains parmi ceux qui ont eu une attitude négative, des considérations relatives à la
faṣāḥa sont entrées en jeu, comme dans tout ouvrage de poétique: deux mots peuvent
ne pas être équivalents tout en ayant la même signification, si l’un est plus harmonieux
que l’ autre, voir par exemple Suyūṭī ʾItqān: iv, 22–23, nawʿ 64; d’autres auteurs, comme
Zarkašī Burhān: iv, 78 ont mis en garde contre les faux synonymes dans le Coran (ʾalfāẓ
yuẓann bi-hā al-tarāduf wa-laysat min-hu) en assumant explicitement la distinction des
juristes entre la signification du mot isolé et celle du mot en contexte ( fa-ʾinna li-l-tarkīb
maʿnan ġayr maʿnā al-ʾifrād). Suyūṭī (ʾItqān: ii, 306–310, nawʿ 42) reprend les exemples
de « faux synonymes» cités par Zarkašī, sans ce préambule. Voir la définition de tarāduf
d’ un auteur tardif comme Ǧurǧanī Taʿrīfāt s.v. : tawālī al-ʾalfāẓ al-mufrada al-dālla ʿalā
šayʾ wāḥid bi-iʿtibār wāḥid « la succession des mots isolés indiquant une chose seule
d’ un seul point de vue », avec allusion évidente à la distinction entre noms (ʾasmāʾ) et
épithètes (ṣifāt). Munaǧǧid (1997: 120–126) expose également les opinions des savants
arabes contemporains sur le sujet.
378 bettini

dans lequel la réflexion, fondée sur les présupposés que l’ on vient d’ évoquer,
est plus à l’aise: celui de la correspondance entre les « noms » et les réalités
concrètes et c’est à ce point que bien des considérations d’ ordre varié (litté-
raire, religieux, éthique, philosophique) interviennent avec leurs a priori res-
pectifs. Par exemple, un des ouvrages les plus anciens qui refusent à partir du
titre l’existence de la synonymie est dû à la plume d’ un mystique, qui la refuse
non tant sur la base de considérations linguistiques, mais en ce qui concerne
l’ambivalence des actes humains lesquels, «tout à fait semblables en appa-
rence» sont «clairement distincts du point de vue de l’ intériorité»18. Même s’ il
parle d’impossibilité de la synonymie, Tirmiḏī n’a pas pour but une réflexion
sur la langue19; il utilise les différences entre des mots qu’ on peut considé-
rer comme équivalents au sens large, pour y bâtir son doctrine éthique et sa
gnose20.
Pour donner un exemple de la façon de procéder des auteurs qui opèrent
tous dans le domaine des furūq et pour mesurer la possibilité de les compa-
rer, nous prendrons en examen le premier cas cité par Zarkašī (m. 794/1392)
(Burhān: iv, 78–79)21: la différence entre ḫašya « crainte » et ḫawf « peur », cas
présent également dans l’ouvrage de ʿAskarī.
Zarkašī (Burhān: iv, 78) affirme que les philologues ne font pas de distinc-
tion, ou presque, mais d’abord la signification lexicale montre que ḫašya est
plus fort que ḫawf: on dit šaǧara ḫašiyya «arbre sec », donc complètement
perdu, tandis que nāqa ḫawfāʾ «chamelle malade » montre une carence (naqṣ),
non une disparition ( fawāt); pour cela le mot ḫašya s’ applique spécialement
à Dieu. En plus ḫašya se produit à cause de la grandeur de ce que l’ on craint,
même si celui qui éprouve la crainte est fort, alors que ḫawf se produit à cause
de la faiblesse de celui qui a peur, même si ce qui fait peur est une chose
modeste ( yasīr): cela est montré par les consonnes mêmes ḫ.š.y., lesquelles,
même si l’on en inverse l’ordre, indiquent la grandeur, comme dans le cas du
mot šayḫ.

18 Gobillot (2006 : 217). N’ ayant pas pu avoir accès à l’ œuvre originale de Tirmiḏī, celle-ci sera
citée selon Gobillot : 2006. Voir également Nwyia 1991: 117–119.
19 Comme le dit Geyoushi (1974: 11) « neither its [du kitāb al-furūq] contents nor its approach
have anything in common with philology ». Plus nuancé, Nwyia (1991: 118) insiste toutefois
sur le recours à l’ expérience psychique pour « définir … l’hétéronomie de ce qui, au niveau
du vocabulaire, apparaît comme synonyme ».
20 Comme par exemple dans son Bayān al-farq bayn al-ṣadr wa-l-qalb wa-l-fuʾād wa-l-lubb,
édité par Nicholas Heer, Cairo : 1958 ; voir également Geyoushi (1972).
21 Repris par Suyūṭī (ʾItqān: ii, 302–306 nawʿ 42, qāʿida fī al-ʾalfāẓ al-latī yuẓann bi-hā al-
tarāduf wa-laysat min-hu).
la lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa 379

Tirmiḏī (Gobillot 2006: 450–451, section 152) ne prend en considération

que la différence entre ḫašyat allāh et ḫašyat al-ḫalq : la crainte de Dieu « est
proportionnelle à l’abondance de science en Dieu. Ainsi la plus savante des
créatures est aussi celle qui craint le plus Dieu.» Celle des créatures « provient
de l’ignorance de l’homme vis-à-vis de Dieu et de sa pensée négative à son
égard»22.
Ce farq n’a donc aucun fondement linguistique, mais il s’ appuie en re-
vanche sur le Coran et non seulement en relation avec le verset cité. Le lien
entre crainte et connaissance est mis en évidence d’ abord par Rāġib23 (Mufra-
dāt s.v. ḫašya) qui affirme que la crainte est une peur mêlée d’ une « recon-
naissance de grandeur» (taʿẓīm), et qu’elle provient pour l’ essentiel de la
connaissance de ce dont on a crainte. C’est pour cela que Cor. 35 :28 dit : ʾinna-
mā yaḫšā allāha min ʿibādi-hi al-ʿulamāʾu «craignent Dieu parmi Ses esclaves,
ceux qui savent» (trad. Hamidullah). Ce verset est à l’ évidence à la base de tout
lien entre «crainte» et «connaissance». Par contre, pour Rāġib (Mufradāt s.v.
ḫawf ), la peur est le fait de s’attendre à quelque chose de détestable (tawaqquʿ
makrūh) par des signes supposés ou connustout comme raǧāʾ « espoir » est le
fait de s’attendre à quelque chose de désirable (tawaqquʿ maḥbūb), et il cite
Cor. 17:57 wa-yarǧūna raḥmata-hu wa-yaḫāfūna ʿaḏāba-hu « cependant qu’ ils
espèrent Sa miséricorde et qu’ils craignent Son châtiment » (trad. Hamidullah).
ʿAskarī (Furūq: 236, bāb 19) affirme que ḫawf peut se référer à quelque chose
de détestable ou non (bi-l-makrūh ʾaw bi-tark al-makrūh). On peut dire: « j’ ai eu
peur de Zayd» (ou, comme dans Cor. 16:50: yaḫāfūna rabba-hum « ils craignent
leur Seigneur», trad. Hamidullah), ou bien: «j’ai eu peur d’ une maladie » (ou,
dans Cor. 13:21: yaḫāfūna sūʾa al-ḥisābi), tandis que ḫašya se réfère au statut

22 Gobillot (2006 : 450). L’arrière-plan est l’ interprétation de Cor. 33:37: «et tu redoutes les
gens, alors que Dieu a plus droit que tu Le redoutes» (trad. Hamidullah), révélé à propos
de l’ épisode du mariage du prophète avec Zaynab, lorsque celui-ci n’avait pas compris que
ce mariage avait été voulu par Dieu et qu’ il pensait s’ en abstenir par peur des ragots des
hommes. Sur cette affaire Tirmiḏī s’ était déjà étendu, voir Gobillot 2006 : 229–230, 236.
23 Suyūṭī (ʾItqān: ii, 302–306, nawʿ 42), dans le chapitre sur les «faux synonymes» qui nous
occupe, met explicitement en relation l’ œuvre de Rāġib avec la question des synonymes.
Rāġib ne traite pas des différences entre synonymes apparents comme ʿAskarī, mais il
insiste (Mufradāt: 6) sur la nécessité, pour ceux qui s’occupent des sciences du Coran,
d’ un examen soigné des mots isolés (taḥqīq al-ʾalfāẓ al-mufrada) qui sont le premier
support pour la connaissance de ce que le Coran veut signifier, ainsi que les briques le sont
pour ceux qui veulent bâtir. C’ est donc à cet effet qu’il a composé son ouvrage, arrangé
selon l’ ordre alphabétique. Il exprime enfin l’ intention d’en composer un autre sur les
mots mutarādifa et leurs différences absconses (ġāmiḍa) difficiles à saisir. Comme on le
sait, cet ouvrage n’ a probablement jamais été composé, voir Key 2012: 57.
380 bettini

(manzila) de la chose détestable et la peur (ḫawf ) de la chose détestable

elle-même ne s’appelle pas ḫašya (voir Cor. 13:21 yaḫšawna rabba-hum wa-
yaḫāfūna sūʾa al-ḥisābi «[qui] redoutent leur Seigneur et craignent le mauvais
compte», trad. Hamidullah). Pour l’exemple coranique (Cor. 20 :94) qui semble
contredire cette distinction (ʾinnī ḫašītu ʾan taqūla farraqta bayna banī ʾisrāʾīla
«je craignais que tu me dises: ‘tu as fait des divisions chez les enfants d’ Israël’ »)
il y a une explication ad hoc : il a craint – dit ʿAskarī – le discours qui mène à la
division et ce qui mène à quelque chose est comme celui qui la fait (al-muʾaddī
ʾilā al-šayʾ bi-manzilat man yafʿalu-hu).
Il n’est donc pas possible de négliger l’importance, du point de vue linguis-
tique et littéraire à la fois, des opinions des interprètes du Coran, lequel reste
également le guide premier et la mesure de la compatibilité des réflexions de
ceux qui s’occupent de lexique: les occurrences qui n’entrent pas parfaitement
dans le cadre sont soigneusement expliquées à part24.

5 Les synonymes considérés

5.1 ʿaǧala et surʿa25

Selon Miskawayh, ʿaǧala «hâte, précipitation» est employé particulièrement
pour les mouvements physiques qui se succèdent, et plutôt dans un contexte
négatif de blâme. En fait on dit à quelqu’un : tu t’ es précipité contre moi
(ʿaǧilta ʿalayya)26 et il est évident que c’est une critique, contrairement à ce

24 Pour les débuts de la réflexion lexicographique en relation avec l’exégèse du Coran, voir
Nwyia 1991 et Rippin 1988.
25 Hawāmil: 11.
26 Un exemple célèbre de cet usage est Cor. 19:84: lā taʿǧal ʿalay-him qui est traduit par
Hamidullah « ne te hâte donc pas contre eux ». L’examen d’autres passages pourrait
toutefois permettre, dans une phrase hors contexte comme la nôtre, également d’autres
traductions de la préposition ʿalā. Par exemple Ṭabarī (m. 310/923) (Taʾrīḫ: viii, 99–100,
année 158) narre que lorsqu’ al-Manṣūr donna l’ ordre de tuer Fuḍayl b. ʿImrān, on chercha
à le dissuader en lui disant : wa-qad ʿaǧilta ʿalay-hi. Il envoya alors un messager en lui
promettant une récompense s’ il arrivait à temps pour empêcher l’exécution, ce qui ne put
être fait. Dans ce cas, me semble-t-il, la traduction n’est pas «contre lui», mais plutôt «tu
t’ es trop hâté envers lui ». Zamaḫšarī (m. 538/1143) (Kaššāf: iii, 42) dans le commentaire
du même verset dit : ʿaǧilta ʿalay-hi bi-kaḏā ʾiḏā istaʿǧalta-hu min-hu «tu l’as pressé de
(faire) quelque chose, c’ est-à-dire tu as essayé d’ en accélérer (l’accomplissement) de sa
part ». Dans les Mille et une nuits on trouve des exemples comme ʾin ʿaǧilta ʿalā qatli-hi
nadimta « si tu te hâtes de le tuer tu le regretteras», voir par exemple la nuit 580 de l’édition
de Būlāq (ʾAlf layla wa-layla, ii : 56).
la lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa 381

qu’ on comprend lorsqu’on dit: un tel a été rapide. De plus, ʿaǧala s’ applique
seulement à ceux qui s’occupent de bas métiers et pour ceux qui sont inférieurs
à toi.
surʿa «rapidité, promptitude» en revanche est employé dans un contexte
positif de louange et le plus souvent pour les mouvements non physiques,
puisqu’on dit: un tel a l’esprit rapide, ou il est prompt (sarīʿ) à apprendre, ou il a
été rapide dans la réponse ou dans l’affaire; wa-allāhu sarīʿu al-ḥisābi « Dieu est
prompt de compter» (Cor. 3:199, trad. Hamidullah) ou le cheval d’ un tel est plus
prompt que le vent ou que l’éclair. On dit encore « prompt, rapide» à propos
d’ un coup d’œil, d’un jugement ou d’un astre rapide dans le mouvement. En
aucun de ces contextes on ne trouve ʿaǧil, ni ʿaǧala.
Cette différence, conclut-il, est évidente, mais l’ emploi large et imprécis du
langage et la proximité des deux significations mènent à employer les deux
mots l’un à la place de l’autre. ʿAskarī (Furūq: 198, bāb 14) définit surʿa comme
« la hardiesse là où il faut l’avoir» (al-taqaddum fī mā yanbaġī ʾan yutaqaddama
fī-hi), présentée comme louable et son opposé ʾibṭāʾ « le fait de traîner» est
blâmable. À l’inverse ʿaǧala, définie comme «la hardiesse là où il ne faut pas
l’ avoir» (al-taqaddum fī mā lā yanbaġī ʾan yutaqaddama fī-hi), est blâmable et
son contraire ʾanāt «patience, pondération» est louable.
Tirmiḏī considère ʿaǧala comme «le fait de se presser pour une affaire
relative à la passion», pour soi-même et non en vue de Dieu. C’ est donc
quelque chose de négatif, qui s’oppose à «promptitude» (mubādara ; Gobillot
2006: 335, section 66).
Rāġib (Mufradāt : s.v.) ne souligne pas le caractère positif de surʿa, à propos
duquel il affirme qu’il s’applique aux actions et aux corps. En revanche il définit
ʿaǧala (Mufradāt : s.v.) comme le fait de chercher à avoir quelque chose avant
son temps, ce qui provient de la passion (šahwa). Par conséquent ce mot a
une connotation négative dans le Coran. Il ajoute toutefois que, dans le Coran,
cette action blâmable peut avoir des mobiles louables, tels que la recherche de
la satisfaction de Dieu. Cette explication n’est pas prise en considération par
ʿAskarī lequel, à propos de Cor. 20:84 wa-ʿaǧiltu ʾilay-ka rabbī li-tarḍā « et je me
suis hâté vers Toi, Seigneur, afin de T’agréer» (trad. Hamidullah), se limite à
observer que dans ce cas ʿaǧiltu est employé dans le sens de ʾasraʿtu.

5.2 faraḥ et surūr27

Selon Miskawayh, faraḥ et surūr sont proches l’ un de l’ autre, mais surūr ne
s’ utilise que lorsque la « joie» est provoquée par un agent extérieur à celui qui

27 Hawāmil: 11–12.
382 bettini

l’éprouve ( fāʿilu-hu bi-ka ġayru-ka), à l’encontre de faraḥ qui se produit sans

un agent qui le provoque. La preuve en est que surra est un verbe passif, au
contraire de fariḥa.
Selon ʿAskarī (Furūq: 260–261, bāb 23) surūr ne se produit qu’ en présence
d’un bénéfice ou d’un plaisir réels, à l’encontre de faraḥ, qu’ on utilise par
exemple pour indiquer la joie des enfants qui dansent, courent ou nagent, ou
s’engagent dans d’autres activités qui les fatiguent ou leur font du mal. À ce
propos on dit al-ṣibyān yafraḥūn «les enfants se réjouissent» dans la natation
ou la danse et non yusarrūn. Le contraire de surūr est ḥuzn et puisque ce
dernier a lieu dans les malheurs, il faut que surūr s’ accompagne de bénéfices.
Le contraire de faraḥ est ġamm «souci, inquiétude ». On peut s’ inquiéter pour
un mal qu’on imagine ( yatawahhamu-hu) et qui n’est pas réel, et se réjouir
( yafraḥ) pour ce qui n’est pas réel comme l’émission de sperme en rêve. ʿAskarī
souligne également que les schémas morphologiques confirment ce qu’ il vient
de dire: faraḥ est le maṣdar d’un verbe de forme faʿila, intransitif, tandis que
surūr a la fonction de maṣdar d’un verbe transitif, qui exige un agent.
Kaffawī (Kulliyyāt: 508) définit surūr comme « joie pure et cachée (al-ḫāliṣ
al-munkatim)» tandis que faraḥ provoque exultation ou gaieté excessive
(ʾašran ʾaw baṭran)28; selon lui faraḥ est blâmable comme le montre le verset
du Coran 28:76: ʾinna allāha lā yuḥibbu al-fariḥīna (« Dieu vraiment n’aime pas
les exultants» trad. Hamidullah) et il provient de la faculté concupiscente.
Tirmiḏī ne fait pas allusion à cette différence, mais il cite faraḥ plusieurs fois,
dans des contextes positifs, tels que la joie par Dieu, ou en Dieu, qui se produit à
l’intérieur, même si l’extérieur s’attriste (Gobillot 2006 : 321, section 53), ou bien
négatifs, comme la joie conférée à Iblis au moyen des passions qui entourent
la porte de l’Enfer (Gobillot 2006: 381, section 100), ou la joie provoquée par le
malheur d’autrui (Gobillot 2006: 454, section 155)29.

28 baṭar chez Tirmiḏī est traduit par « pétulance » par Gobillot (2006: 312, section 46), en
relation aux bienfaits de Dieu. Elle provient de la vanité.
29 Dans l’ usage, surūr semble indiquer plutôt le sentiment de la joie et faraḥ sa manifesta-
tion. Ṯaʿālibī (m. 961/1038) (Fiqh : 194–195) emploie le mot surūr comme terme général, et
il en dénombre les degrés (tartīb) : faraḥ est le pénultième, il est glosé baṭar «exultation,
pétulance » et à son propos Ṯaʿālibī cite lui aussi Cor. 28:76. Voir encore la glose de Marzūqī
(m. 421/1030) (Šarḥ : 837) au verbe yastahill « il jubile»: ʾaṣl al-tahallul wa-l-istihlāl fī al-
faraḥ wa-l-ṣiyāḥ « le sens originaire de tahallul et de istihlāl est (ce qu’on exprime) dans
la jubilation et les cris ». Gobillot (2006 : 295, section 41) traduit par «bonheur» le surūr
apporté par la bonne intention (niyya). Voir encore Gobillot (2006: 364, section 88): «le
bonheur rayonne sur les traits » d’ un croyant qui rencontre un croyant.
la lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa 383

5.3 ḥuǧiba et ṣudda30

Miskawayh compare ces deux mots dans l’expression ḥuǧiba fulān wa-ṣudda
« un tel a été empêché et il a été détourné». Le fait de poser une barrière,
affirme-t-il, est un accident antérieur (al-ḥiǧāb maʿnan sābiq), presque une
cause du détournement et puisque ṣudūd, qui signifie « détourner le visage»,
arrive après que la barrière a été posée, il est devenu proche et utilisé à sa place.
Les deux mots ont de toute manière des significations voisines31.
ʿAskarī ne compare pas directement ces deux mots, mais il compare d’ un
côté manʿ et ṣadd (Furūq: 106–107, bāb 5) et de l’autre ḥiǧāb et sitr (Furūq: 282,
bāb 26). Selon lui aussi bien ḥiǧāb que ṣadd impliquent que l’ on empêche une
volonté et une intention (qaṣd) de s’accomplir, à l’ encontre de manʿ, qui peut
être employé par exemple lorsqu’on empêche un mur, qui ne peut pas en avoir
l’ intention, de pencher.
Kaffawī (Kulliyyāt: 28 et 360) donne simplement la définition lexicale des
deux mots, sans les comparer, ni citer pour ḥiǧāb sa valeur de maṣdar.

5.4 maʿnā, murād et ġaraḍ32

Selon Miskawayh il existe une différence évidente entre ces trois mots : maʿnā,
affirme-t-il, est un nom qui subsiste par lui-même, indépendant. Il lui arrive de
devenir murād, mais il pourrait être un maʿnā sans être murād. Quant à ġaraḍ,
sa signification lexicale est le but (maqṣūd) de la flèche : lorsqu’ il est référé à
toi, qui y tends par tes mouvements et ta volonté, il devient comme la cible de
la flèche, par similitude.
Ce que Miskawayh entend ici, sans exemples ni explications ultérieures,
n’ est pas évident à saisir avec certitude. Il est fort possible que maʿnā soit
employé non dans le sens de «correspondant du lafẓ», « signification corré-
lative à une forme phonique», mais dans le sens philosophique d’ accident
inhérent aux choses de la réalité extérieure, qui fait en sorte que quelque chose
ait droit à une certaine qualité33. Selon Kaffawī (Kulliyyāt: 841–842) maʿnā a

30 Hawāmil: 13.
31 ḥiǧāb est ici employé comme maṣdar, voir par exemple Rāġib (Mufradāt s.v.) al-ḥaǧb
wa-l-ḥiǧāb: al-manʿ min al-wuṣūl « al-ḥaǧb wa-l-ḥiǧāb signifient le fait d’empêcher de
rejoindre ».
32 Hawāmil: 13–14.
33 Horten (1910: 391) définit maʿnā au sens philosophique comme une réalité incorporelle
laquelle, dans le monde extérieur, est inhérente aux choses comme un accident. Peters
(1976 : 42 note 15) le définit d’ abord provisoirement comme «something which causes an
object to have a certain qualification » ; il le précise ensuite comme «qualifier» (Peters
1976 : 156–158) et il le rapproche de ʿilla, tout comme Frank (1978: 12), qui le rend par
384 bettini

deux significations: il peut indiquer ce qui correspond ( yuqābil) à lafẓ (que

ce soit une essence, ʿayn34, ou un accident, ʿaraḍ) ; ou bien ce qui correspond à
l’essence subsistant par elle-même: on dit hāḏā maʿnan, c’ est-à-dire « ceci n’ est
pas une essence», soit que ceci soit représenté (sawāʾun kāna) par ce qu’ on
comprend ( yustafād) à partir du lafẓ, soit que ce soit un lafẓ.
La définition de cet auteur tardif, aux visées encyclopédiques dans son
domaine, aide à comprendre les affirmations de Miskawayh: le maʿnā dans son
sens plus large peut devenir objet de signification au sens linguistique, et être
donc un murād «ce qu’on entend (par le langage) ».
Si nous sommes ici manifestement dans un milieu philosophique et non
linguistique, ʿAskarī en revanche veut se tenir au sens linguistique de maʿnā:
par exemple, à propos de la différence entre maʿnā et ʾirāda, il affirme (Furūq:
119, bāb 7) que maʿnā concerne le seul langage, au sens propre ou figuré,
alors que ʾirāda concerne aussi bien la parole que l’ action. Il insiste encore
(Furūq: 25, bāb 2) en affirmant que maʿnā est limité au langage, à l’ exclusion
de (la réalité ontologique de) ce que l’on entend (al-maʿnā maqṣūr ʿalā al-
qawl dūn mā yuqṣad). Si l’on dit: ʿanaytu bi-kalāmī zaydan « j’ ai entendu par
mes paroles Zayd», ce que l’on entend est d’en parler, non sa présence. Cela
n’empêche qu’il définisse (Furūq: 26, bāb 2) maʿnā comme « le but (qaṣd)
selon lequel le discours se produit d’une manière et non d’ une autre». Le
langage, affirme-t-il, ne s’articule en ʾiḫbār, istiḫbār wa-ġayr ḏālik (« donner
une information, en demander, etc.»)35, c’est-à-dire il ne communique, que
selon l’intention: si l’on disait «Muḥammad est l’ envoyé de Dieu » en ayant à
l’esprit Muḥammad b. Ǧaʿfar, l’affirmation serait fausse. La même affirmation
est par contre vraie si on la réfère à Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh. Si l’ on disait
«Zayd est chez lui» en entendant le Zayd des exemples des grammairiens, on
ne donnerait aucune information. Donc les relations du maʿnā « signification »
avec la réalité extérieure ne sont pas facilement contournables.
Rāġib (Mufradāt s.v.) rapproche maʿnā de ʿanā et le définit « le fait de faire
apparaître ce qui se trouve dans le lafẓ» (ʾiẓhār mā taḍammana-hu al-lafẓ),
comme on dit: ʿanat al-ʾarḍu bi-al-nabāt «la terre a produit des plantes », ou

« determinant ». Il n’est pas rare de trouver des usages très proches de celui-ci également
dans des textes non strictement philosophiques. Voir par exemple Tawḥīdī (Muqābasāt:
150) : al-taḏkīr wa-l-taʾnīṯ maʿnayān yūǧadān fī-nā «le fait d’être constitué comme mâle et
d’ être constitué comme femelle ce sont des accidents qui existent en nous».
34 Kaffawī (Kulliyyāt : 642) définit ʿayn comme : mā la-hu qiyām bi-ḏāti-hi.
35 Nous avons là une allusion aux maʿānī al-kalām, les catégories selon lesquelles le discours
traditionnellement s’ organise, voir par exemple Ibn Fāris (Ṣāḥibī: 289), qui en dénombre
dix.
la lexicographie arabe entre ʾadab et falsafa 385

ʿanat al-qirba «l’outre a coulé», c’est-à-dire «elle a montré son eau » (ʾaẓharat
māʾa-hā); ou bien il le rapproche de ʿunya, d’où «le titre (ʿinwān) du livre», sans
que la définition change. Il ajoute que maʿnā est proche de tafsīr « explication »,
même s’il y a des différences.

5.5 ṣamt et sukūt36

Selon Miskawayh, la différence n’est pas ambiguë parce que sukūt « se taire»
advient seulement après avoir parlé et seulement de la part d’ un locuteur, ce
qui n’est pas nécessairement le cas pour ṣamt «être silencieux ». En fait on dit :
un tel a apporté «ce qui crie et ce qui se tait (ṣāmit) », c’ est-à-dire sa fortune en
(troupeau) vivant et en objets inanimés; ṣāmit s’applique à ce qui n’a ni vie, ni
parole, ni voix, comme l’or ou l’argent, desquels on ne dit pas sākit, tout comme
on ne dit pas ṣāmit des biens comme les animaux.
On peut dire d’un vêtement lorsqu’il est usé: sakata al-ṯawb, par similitude,
comme s’il était comparé à quelqu’un qui parle, lorsqu’ il froufroute et cliquète
( yuṣawwit wa-yuqaʿqiʿ) à l’état neuf, et ensuite à quelqu’ un qui se tait, lorsque
l’ usure s’en empare. Cela fait partie du sel du langage et des charmes de l’ usage
figuré.
Selon Kaffawī (Kulliyyāt: 509) sukūt c’est «s’abstenir de parler tout en en
ayant la capacité» (tark al-takallum maʿ al-qudra ʿalay-hi). C’ est par cette der-
nière restriction (qayd) que ce mot se distingue de ṣamt, à propos duquel la
capacité n’est pas prise en considération: celui qui serre les lèvres un moment
est sākit, à moins que cela ne se prolonge37.

36 Hawāmil: 14–15.
37 Un sondage rapide sur le site www.alwaraq.net confirme, dans l’usage, ces définitions
qui se complètent sans être égales: ṣamt désigne le «silence» en général. Il s’oppose
souvent à nuṭq « parler » en général (Tawḥīdī ʾImtāʿ : i, 149, 207; iii, 125). Ǧāḥiẓ (Rasāʾil:
iv, 229–240) a une risāla sur le tafḍīl al-nuṭq ʿalā al-ṣamt «la précellence de la parole
sur le silence ». En revanche le même auteur (Bayān : i, 271) oppose à kalām aussi bien
ṣamt que sukūt. Quelques exemples confirment la nuance de sukūt comme «se taire»:
Ǧāḥiẓ dit (Ḥayawān: i, 50) dans sa louange du livre: ṣāmit mā ʾaskatta-hu «silencieux à
chaque fois que tu le fais taire» ; Ibn Ǧinnī (Ḫaṣāʾiṣ : i, 5) utilise sukūt pour indiquer la fin
d’ un énoncé (qawl) à la pause, ce qui se fait sur une consonne et non sur une voyelle.
De la même manière dans ʾIṣfahānī ʾAġānī: x, 154, à propos d’un vers au mètre fautif,
ʾIbrāhīm b. al-Mahdī affirme : al-sukūt ʿalā mutaḥarrik lā yumkin. D’autres exemples vont
dans le sens de la définition de Kaffawī : un mawlā d’al-Walīd b. Yazīd lui dit: ʾaqūl qawl
al-mawṯūq bi-hi bi-naṣīḥati-hi ʾaw yasaʿu-nī al-sukūt ? «je (te) rapporte les propos d’un
homme digne de confiance dans ses conseils ou bien puis-je me taire?» (ʾIṣfahānī ʾAġānī:
vii, 69). L’expression wasiʿa/yasaʿu, avec pronom suffixe, al-sukūt «il a été/ il est possible
à quelqu’ un de se taire » revient plusieurs fois, voir par exemple ʾIṣfahānī ʾAġānī: x, 153.
386 bettini

Nous pouvons conclure ce bref examen, nécessairement provisoire, en

disant que les données des différentes sources citées ne se recoupent que par-
tiellement, mais qu’elles se complètent plutôt, en donnant un tableau dans
lequel Miskawayh, sans être un philologue, ne se borne pas à répéter les affir-
mations reçues, mais il ajoute souvent des explications qui peuvent dériver
aussi bien de l’usage que du fait qu’il se situe résolument à l’ intérieur de la
falsafa. C’est celle-ci qui le guide et c’est dans son cadre qu’ il développe ses
considérations. De ce fait, par rapport par exemple à ʿAskarī, cela réduit, sans
évidemment l’éliminer, le recours comme critère de discrimination entre syno-
nymes, à ce qu’on peut ou on ne peut pas utiliser en parlant de Dieu, ou aux
données coraniques.

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 chapter 19

«Traitement» de l’«organisation » en arabe

moderne de presse, ou le point de vue d’ une
linguiste sur l’apparente synonymie ʿilāǧ/muʿālaǧa
et tanẓīm/munaẓẓama

Marie Baize-Varin

1 Introduction

Ce qu’on appelle communément «formes dérivées » en France est et reste

une partie essentielle et sujette à controverse de l’ apprentissage de l’ arabe
moderne. Il suffit de considérer le nom «infirmier(ère)» (mumarriḍ(a)), appa-
remment relié au verbe de forme i non dérivé « être malade » (mariḍa). Lors-
qu’un arabisant se fait expliquer le sens supposé de chaque forme dérivée, il
comprend mal comment la forme notée ii peut être présentée par certains de
ses professeurs comme exclusivement factitive (de sens « faire faire quelque
chose à quelqu’un» ou «rendre quelqu’un de telle manière», le « faire être de
telle manière»)1, en particulier pour ce qui concerne l’ exemple donné ici. S’ il
est admis néanmoins que la forme ii a aussi un sens privatif d’ origine dénomi-
native qui consiste à dire « faire ce que l’on fait avec n (objet désigné par le nom
qui est à l’origine du verbe)» (Larcher 2003¹: 42) – « enlever n s’ il est déjà là » –,
et que la vraie base de dérivation de marraḍa est le nom « maladie » (maraḍ), il
est alors déduit qu’un(e) infirmier(ère) «retire cette maladie qui existe déjà »,
au lieu de «rendre malade son patient». Ce sens est d’ ailleurs pris en charge
par la iv ʾamraḍa, véritable factitive de mariḍa.
Suite à ces réflexions, nous avons étudié (Baize-Robache 2009) l’ arabe
moderne de presse, et plus précisément les formes dérivées des gros titres du
journal al-Ḥayāt en novembre 20052, mais en comparaison avec un autre cor-
pus quantitativement et sémantiquement équivalent, extrait de www.aljazeera
.net3. Nous présenterons, analyserons et comparerons ici quelques occurrences

1 Il sera expliqué infra 397–398 que ce n’est pas sa valeur fondamentale.

2 Noté ha dans la suite de l’ article.
3 Noté ja dans la suite de l’ article.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_021

« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 391

significatives de prétendues synonymies – si l’on s’ en tient à leur traduction en

français – dont l’analyse n’entre pas dans la grille de lecture habituelle des ara-
bisants français. La première synonymie entre dans le cadre de notre pratique
professionnelle4 dans la mesure où il est question des deux mots désignant une
organisation en arabe moderne, tanẓīm et munaẓẓama. La seconde synony-
mie5, déjà constatée (Baize-Robache 2009), ne cesse de poser problème, de par
l’ apparition continue de nouveaux contre-exemples. Il s’ agit de ʿilāǧ/muʿālaǧa,
communément traduits en français par «traitement ».

2 Définition de l’objet

2.1 Formes dérivées ou augmentées?

Quelques arabisants français comme Blachère et Gaudefroy-Demombynes
(1975²: 49) parlent communément de «formes dérivées» mais la désignation
« formes augmentées» (ʾawzān mazīda), qui reste neutre par rapport à une
base verbale ou nominale, nous paraît plus appropriée. En effet, les grammai-
riens arabes, avant de chercher à savoir de quelle base est dérivée (muštaqq)
une forme, constatent d’abord qu’elle est morphologiquement augmentée par
l’ ajout d’un préfixe, d’un infixe, qui peut être une voyelle longue ou pas. Ils
ne sont pas les seuls: Holes parle de ‘augmented patterns’ (Holes 2004²: 100)
et Badawi, Carter et Gully de ‘augmented stems’ (Badawi et al. 2004: 59). C’ est
donc en approfondissant l’analyse de chaque forme que nous avons pu la qua-
lifier de «dérivée» – en trouvant la base sémantique et syntaxique de sa déri-
vation –, ou d’«orpheline» en l’absence de cette dernière en synchronie.
De plus, l’écart entre la manière dont sont présentées les formes augmentées
dans la tradition arabisante et leur véritable signification et construction au
sein d’un corpus authentique pose le problème de la norme à laquelle elles
peuvent être comparées.

4 Cet article est la version écrite, remaniée et augmentée de la communication faite par
l’ auteure au colloque international « Les organisations combattantes du monde arabo-
musulman », organisé par le Pôle d’ Excellence 3 « Action globale et forces terrestres» (agft)
du Centre de Recherches des Écoles de Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan (crec), Paris, École Militaire,
6 et 7 juin 2011, sur la première synonymie abordée ici. Robache 2013: 241–244 reprend les
détails de cette apparente synonymie. Voir aussi Baize-Robache 2014: 59–80.
5 Voir Robache 2010 : 67–74, citée par Larcher 2012² : 58.
392 baize-varin

2.2 Problème méthodologique: la norme en arabe et le statut de l’ arabe

de presse
La seule norme existante est celle de l’arabe classique6 – les sens chrono-
logique et sociolinguistique coïncidant ici mais n’ étant pas exclusifs l’ un de
l’autre –, et le fait que le monde arabe souffre de ce manque d’ officialisation
des évolutions linguistiques de l’arabe moderne constitue une donnée dont
nous ne cessons de devoir tenir compte dans nos recherches et notre pratique
de l’enseignement. Les occurrences analysées ici en sont un exemple frappant.
L’arabe moderne a été longtemps défini comme un arabe classique lexicale-
ment (mais non grammaticalement) modernisé, avant que l’ on ne s’ avise que
la grammaire elle-même était sujette à évolution. Le lexique en revanche a tou-
jours été vu comme le grand lieu d’innovation et de créativité de la langue
moderne. Vu comme le prolongement symbolique de l’ arabe classique, l’ arabe
moderne n’a pas de norme – sauf quand on y applique la norme classique –
mais des usages réels, comme ceux exposés infra.
Étant donné que l’arabe des deux médias étudiés ici en est lui-même une
manifestation particulière, nous nous sommes trouvés confrontés à la contra-
diction à laquelle est en butte tout linguiste qui travaille sur les états modernes
de la langue arabe, et qui les enseigne. Nous n’avons donc pas eu d’ autre
choix que de nous référer à la norme classique. Ce faisant, nous nous sommes
quelque peu écartés des théories arabisantes – entendues chez nos professeurs
et lues dans les grammaires arabisantes citées supra (p. 3) – sur le sens des
formes augmentées qui, comme Larcher (Larcher 2003¹: 42, Larcher 2012² : 54)
l’a illustré – entre autres – avec mumarriḍa, ne rendent pas compte de la cohé-
rence des dérivations au sein du système.

2.3 Méthode d’analyse

Dans le but de pouvoir étudier des variations au sein d’ un même type de dis-
cours, à savoir des médias issus du Machrek et non du Maghreb, nous nous
sommes attachés à n’analyser que des articles factuels dont le contenu est
essentiellement issu de traductions de communiqués de l’ armée américaine
ou de déclarations stéréotypées des autorités irakiennes ou des forces de la
Coalition, d’où une grande homogénéité sémantique. Actuellement, nous tra-
vaillons toujours sur le même type de corpus, n’ayant pas constitué de nouveau

6 « Au sens non d’ un état historique de la langue, mais d’ une catégorie sociolinguistique, ici
de première classe, de prestige et aussi de ce « qui s’ enseigne dans les classes», c’est-à-dire
comme norme prestigieuse et scolaire comme le rappelle Pierre Larcher (2006: 259)». Sartori
2014 : 301, note 3. Cite Larcher 2006 : 248–265.
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 393

corpus homogène. Nous analysons ici quelques occurrences étudiées en 2005,

tout en leur apportant un éclairage si possible nouveau au regard des mêmes
occurrences constatées postérieurement sur d’autres médias.
Les occurrences de formes augmentées étudiées ici sont présentées telles
qu’ elles sont employées dans les deux corpus: le participe passif substantivé, et
le maṣdar, qui peut être employé comme un infinitif exprimant la notion géné-
rale de «fait de+verbe», ou comme un nom de procès7 pouvant se mettre au
pluriel (e.g. «explosions» tafǧīrāt), à partir duquel on peut former un adjectif
de relation (e.g. «explosif, en rapport avec une explosion» tafǧīrī)8 et qui peut
être indéterminé. Cette distinction est pertinente dans l’ analyse d’ occurrences
comme ʿilāǧ et muʿālaǧa.
Avant de l’aborder, nous précisons que notre étude concerne essentielle-
ment le sens et la construction des formes augmentées des corpus en syn-
chronie. Nous n’avons fait appel à l’analyse diachronique que si la relation
syntaxico-sémantique entre les formes augmentées du même paradigme déri-
vationnel n’existe plus en synchronie. Nous nous sommes alors référés aux
dictionnaires arabe et arabisant que sont le Lisān al-ʿArab9 d’ Ibn Manẓūr (m.
711/1311), et le dictionnaire arabe-français de Kazimirski10 (1860). La difficulté
étant néanmoins que, si nous devons faire une analyse diachronique, nous
ignorons quel pourrait en être le point de départ chronologique.

3 Études de cas

Chaque occurrence traitée sera représentée ici par un exemple daté pris si
possible dans chaque corpus (Baize-Robache 2009 : vol. iii et iv).

3.1 ʿilāǧ versus muʿālaǧa

Le premier cas de prétendue synonymie présenté ici concerne la forme iii.
Cette dernière a une spécificité que n’ont pas les autres formes augmentées en
synchronie, qui est d’avoir deux types de maṣdar-s possibles : la forme mufāʿala
qui coïncide avec le féminin du participe passif mufāʿal, et la forme fiʿāl.

7 Pour l’ utilisation nominale du maṣdar et sachant qu’il existe aussi en arabe des verbes
d’ état et de qualité, Ammar et Dichy 2008² : 40, proposent «nom de procès».
8 Cet adjectif n’apparaît pas dans ʿUmar 2008 : 1673, même si l’auteur atteste de faǧǧara
dans le sens dont nous parlons ici.
9 Noté la dans la suite de l’ article.
10 Noté ka dans la suite de l’ article.
394 baize-varin

Que se passe-t-il donc si les deux formes coexistent dans un même état de
langue? Selon Badawi, Carter et Gully, fiʿāl est plutôt utilisé comme nom de
procès (‘a specific cultural and legally defined term’, ǧihād) et mufāʿala comme
infinitif (‘the general process of struggling’, muǧāhada, Badawi et al. 2004: 79).
Larcher a également traité de ǧihād et de muǧāhada (Larcher 2009b : 1–13,
Larcher 2011: 63–74), donnant au second un sens métaphorique, le premier
gardant le sens littéral de combat sacré/guerre sainte. Il en est de même dans
les exemples donnés par Imbert et Pinon (2008 : 129), et c’ est également le cas
pour des occurrences figurant dans nos corpus et que Larcher différencie par
le sens concret de «traitement» ʿilāǧ («thérapeutique » ʿilāǧī) versus le sens
abstrait de muʿālaǧa dans «traitement d’un problème» (muʿālaǧat muškila,
Larcher 2003¹: 45, Larcher 2009b: 6).
Nous avions d’abord approuvé cette explication avant de constater (Baize-
Robache 2009: 612, 974) que la différenciation sens propre/sens figuré ne se
vérifie pas toujours, muʿālaǧa étant utilisé pour désigner également le traite-
ment d’un cancer, ou encore «le traitement des eaux » (muʿālaǧat al-miyāh).
Cet emploi de muʿālaǧa dans le sens de «le traitement du cancer » ( fī muʿālaǧat
maraḍ al-saraṭān) nous est également apparu dans une brochure de l’ Associa-
tion Française des Patients du gist (acronyme anglais de « Tumeurs Stromales
et Gastro-Intestinales», cancer digestif rare, afpg : www.ensemblecontrelegist
.com) dont nous avons vérifié la traduction en arabe en novembre 2008. Le nom
de procès ʿilāǧ y est également employé à chaque fois qu’ il était question de
thérapie et de «l’observance au traitement» par les patients (al-taqayyud bi-l-
ʿilāǧ).
Si la différenciation n’est pas sémantique, elle pourrait être d’ ordre syn-
taxique, à savoir – comme l’affirment Neyreneuf et al-Hakkak – que l’ un serait
plutôt employé comme nom de procès («traitement, remède ») tandis que
l’autre le serait comme infinitif («fait de traiter, de soigner ») (Neyreneuf et
al-Hakkak 1996: 37). Ces hypothèses ne se vérifient pas intégralement dans
ha (aucun de ces deux maṣdar-s n’étant attesté dans ja), puisque muʿālaǧa
peut être soit nom de procès soit infinitif, tandis que ʿilāǧ, dont on pourrait
s’attendre qu’il soit nom de procès, est employé comme infinitif avec le même
régime syntaxique que l’autre maṣdar :

Muʿālaǧa comme infinitif à sens propre:

Le communiqué de l’armée a expliqué que l’ accident avait eu lieu
près d’une base aérienne au nord de Bagdad, où ont été transportés les
trois blessés pour être soignés (wa-ʾawḍaḥa bayān al-ǧayš ʾanna al-ḥādiṯ
waqaʿa qurb qāʿida ǧawiyya šamāl baġdād ḥayṯu nuqila al-ǧarḥā al-ṯalāṯa
li-l-muʿālaǧa, ha, 6 novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009 : 612)
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 395

Muʿālaǧa comme nom de procès à sens propre :

Al-Ǧaʿfarī ne s’oppose pas au traitement [médical] de Barzān al-Takrītī
hors de la prison […] (al-ǧaʿfarī lā yaʿtariḍ ʿalā muʿālaǧat barzān al-takrītī
ḫāriǧ al-siǧn […], ha, 1er novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009 : 612–
613)

ʿilāǧ comme infinitif à sens propre:

Ṭālābānī avait demandé dimanche à al-Ǧaʿfarī de faire sortir Barzān
de prison et de le faire entrer à l’hôpital pour qu’ il soit soigné du cancer
[…] (wa-kāna ṭālābānī ṭalaba al-ʾaḥad min al-ǧaʿfarī ʾiḫrāǧ barzān min al-
siǧn wa-ʾidḫāla-hu al-mustašfā li-l-ʿilāǧ min maraḍ al-saraṭān […], ha, 1er
novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009: 613)

Au vu de ces exemples, aucune des tentatives d’ explication ne nous semble

satisfaisante:

– sens propre-sens figuré: alors que muʿālaǧa est censé désigner un traitement
au sens figuré et ʿilāǧ un traitement (médical) au sens propre, les deux
désignent un traitement médical anti-cancer;
– infinitif-nom de procès: tandis que muʿālaǧa est censé être employé comme
infinitif et ʿilāǧ comme nom de procès, le premier est employé dans le
corpus comme nom de procès et infinitif et le second comme infinitif ! Se
pourrait-il néanmoins qu’au vu des exemples donnés, et selon Larcher (2011,
communication personnelle), muʿālaǧa soit le seul à pouvoir porter un sens
passif? «Traitement» signifierait alors dans ce cas « fait d’ être traité ». C’ est
une piste à explorer car les traductions des occurrences du corpus papier,
excepté la troisième, corroborent cette hypothèse.

Aucune solution – excepté peut-être la différenciation sémantique entre sens

particulier («thérapie») versus sens général du traitement (« traitement médi-
cal ») – ne nous étant apparue en diachronie ni dans la (Ibn Manẓūr Lisān: art.
ʿlǧ) ni dans ka (1830: 339), et aucun autre phénomène de ce type n’apparais-
sant dans nos corpus, nous ne pouvons ici trouver de nouvelles régularités. Et
ce d’autant plus que la différenciation sémantique « traitement/thérapie» est
contredite par deux nouveaux documents trouvés sur Facebook en septembre
2012, dans lesquels figurent:

– pour le premier document qui est un appel de fonds pour un hôpital anti-
cancer en Chine, à partager sur le réseau social, deux utilisations de ʿilāǧ
comme infinitif pour désigner le fait de «traiter le cancer » (« pour traiter»
396 baize-varin

qaṣd al-ʿilāǧ et «le traitement a eu lieu» tamma al-ʿilāǧ), et non pas comme
un nom désignant une thérapie;
– pour le second document, intitulé «le traitement des soucis » (ʿilāǧ al-
humūm) et citant un propos attribué au prophète de l’ islam, ʿilāǧ n’ est pas
utilisé dans le sens de «thérapie» mais dans le sens propre et nominal de
«traitement». Il invalide également la théorie citée précédemment selon
laquelle «traitement» au sens figuré était rendu par muʿālaǧa, à moins qu’ il
ne s’agisse ici d’une manière concrète ou psychologique de « soigner les sou-
cis».

Sachant néanmoins que d’autres maṣdar-s iii de type mufāʿala ont un sens
actif, mais tout en restant des infinitifs, alors que fiʿāl reste le nom de procès,
nous constatons que la différenciation des deux est à géométrie variable dans
les paradigmes dérivationnels dans lesquels ils sont usités.
Nous ajoutons ici de nouveaux contre-exemples, qui pourraient néanmoins
apporter un nouvel éclairage. Le premier a été entendu sur France 24 et était
la traduction en arabe des discours de Barack Obama et de Jacob Zuma lors
d’une conférence de presse en Afrique du Sud le 29 juin 2013. Dans la même
phrase, l’interprète dit « dans le traitement du sida » ( fī muʿālaǧat al-ʾaydz) et
«dans le traitement du virus du sida» ( fī ʿilāǧ fayrūs al-ʾaydz) comme deux
noms de procès semblant figurer dans le même syntagme prépositionnel. Ne
nous souvenant pas de la phrase dans son entier car terminée avant même que
nous ayons eu le temps de la noter, nous ne pouvons donner ici un contexte
syntaxico-sémantique plus complet. Il semble néanmoins que le contexte syn-
tagmatique des deux occurrences était le même. Il se peut que, sémantique-
ment, dans cette phrase, il y ait toutefois une différence entre les deux occur-
rences, la première désignant le traitement du sida au sens général du terme,
et la seconde le traitement du virus du sida, en tant que thérapie spécifique. Il
se peut alors que l’utilisation du terme fayrūs soit le vecteur syntagmatique de
cette nuance sémantique.
Cette hypothèse semble être corroborée par une occurrence du 14 avril
2014 sur la page Facebook de la bbc Arabic: « Les scientifiques parviennent
à fabriquer un nouveau remède pour traiter le virus de l’ hépatite c […] »
(al-ʿulamāʾ yatawaṣṣalūn ʾilā taṣnīʿ ʿaqqār ǧadīd li-ʿilāǧ fayrūs iltihāb al-kabd
c […], https://www.facebook.com/bbcarabic, 15 avril 2014). Vient également
corroborer cette hypothèse syntagmatique l’occurrence trouvée le 6 mai 2014,
sur la même page Facebook:

[…] un casque qui envoie des impulsions électromagnétiques au cer-

veau, montrant des signes encourageants de possibilité de traitement
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 397

des personnes qui souffrent de dépression, selon ce qu’ ont indiqué des
chercheurs danois ([…] ḫūḏa taqūm bi-ʾirsāl nabaḍāt kahrūmaġnāṭīsiyya
ʾilā al-muḫḫ ʾaẓharat bawādir mubaššira ʿalā ʾimkāniyyat ʿilāǧ al-ʾašḫāṣ
al-laḏīna yuʿānūn min al-iktiʾāb, ḥasab-mā ʾafāda bāḥiṯūn danimārkiyyūn,
https://www.facebook.com/bbcarabic?fref=nf)

Vient encore corroborer ceci cette occurrence du 16 mai 2014 trouvée sur la
même page Facebook, qui montre que le maṣdar muʿālaǧa s’ emploierait plutôt
avec maraḍ :

Selon des chercheurs, le fait de prendre seulement le petit déjeuner et

le déjeuner serait plus efficace que la prise plus régulière de petits repas
dans le traitement du diabète de deuxième type ( yaqūl ʿulamāʾ ʾinna
tanāwul waǧbatay al-faṭūr wa-l-ġadāʾ faqaṭ qad yakūn ʾakṯar faʿāliyyatan fī
muʿālaǧat maraḍ al-sukkarī min al-nawʿ al-ṯānī muqāranatan bi-tanāwul
waǧabāt ʾaṣġar wa-ʾakṯar intiẓāman)

Ces cas de figure méritent d’être étudiés plus systématiquement par le biais de
la composition d’un vrai corpus, et ce dans le but de dégager des tendances,
et non pas seulement des hypothèses isolées. Passons à présent à la seconde
apparente synonymie.

3.2 Les organisations (combattantes): tanẓīm versus munaẓẓama

La principale caractéristique morphologique de la ii est la gémination de la
deuxième radicale, gémination qui reflète formellement un sens de répétition
discontinue. Imbert et Pinon nomment ce sens « rythme rapide» (Imbert et
Pinon 2008: 127) et établissent eux aussi la corrélation forme-sens. Puisqu’ il est
question de sens, ne sera abordé ici que celui qui servira de cadre sémantique
à tanẓīm et munaẓẓama, à savoir la valeur intensive, ce qui prouve une fois de
plus que la valeur factitive n’est ni intrinsèque ni exclusive à la ii. Cette valeur
intensive est nommée «multiplication» (takṯīr) par les grammairiens arabes11
et marque l’itération du procès désigné par le verbe de base. L’interprétation
du verbe dépendra de sa syntaxe (il peut être transitif ou intransitif comme son
verbe de base) et de sa morphologie (sujet ou objet singulier ou pluriel). Ainsi,
dans ġallaqa al-ʾabwāb, l’agent ferme chaque porte l’ une après l’ autre. Dans
ġallaqa al-bāb, il ferme plusieurs fois la même porte.

11 Nous entendons ici les grammairiens qui traitent de l’arabe en langue arabe, mais qui
ne sont pas nécessairement Arabes. Définition donnée par Larcher le 18 avril 2014 dans
« Cultures d’ islam » sur France Culture.
398 baize-varin

Comme nous venons de l’exposer, un verbe ii doit remplir certaines condi-

tions vis-à-vis de sa base de dérivation pour être considéré comme intensif.
Tout d’abord, il faut qu’il y ait justement une base de dérivation, transitive ou
non, i ou augmentée (ici, c’est la iv ʾaġlaqa qui est syntaxiquement et sémanti-
quement la base de la ii ġallaqa). Il faut ensuite que le verbe de base soit un
verbe d’ action. Enfin, le verbe de base et le verbe ii doivent avoir la même
construction syntaxique, qu’elle soit transitive ou non.

3.2.1 Le verbe ii
Quelle est donc la base de dérivation de la ii « organiser quelque chose »
(naẓẓama-hā)? Reig atteste d’une i également transitive « agencer, mettre en
ordre quelque chose» (naẓama-hā, Reig 1987²: 703) dont le maṣdar naẓm
désigne d’ailleurs la poésie qui se caractérise par l’ agencement du discours.
Tout ceci fait donc de la ii l’intensive de la i et il semble que, dans l’ usage de
l’arabe moderne, la forme augmentée a supplanté la forme simple dont la seule
trace restante est naẓm. Si nous avions la certitude que la i a disparu, nous
ferions de cette ii une forme orpheline, mais il se peut que la i persiste dans
un contexte littéraire.

3.2.2 Nom de procès et participe passif: une différence sémantique ?

Il ne s’agit pas ici de deux maṣdar-s concurrents, mais d’ un maṣdar utilisé
comme nom de procès, et d’un participe passif, se traduisant tous les deux par
«organisation», surtout pour ce qui concerne Al-Qaïda, nommée systémati-
quement tanẓīm «al-qāʿida» dans les corpus:

tanẓīm [« …»] (nom de procès, ha): trente deux occurrences dont une
seule ne désigne pas Al-Qaïda
[…] dont l’armée américaine a annoncé qu’ ils faisaient partie de l’ or-
ganisation Al-Qaïda. ([…] ʾaʿlana l-ǧayš al-ʾamīrkī ʾanna-hum min tanẓīm
«al-Qāʿida», 1er novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009 : 584).
À Mossoul, les forces américaines ont tué un des membres des Parti-
sans de la Sunna, et en a arrêté deux autres après avoir investi un logement
dans le village d’al-Rašīdiyya. Le communiqué a également affirmé que ce
logement était une base pour le trésorier de l’ organisation des Partisans
de la Sunna, et pour harmoniser les opérations avec Al-Qaïda à Mos-
soul (wa-fī l-mawṣil, qatalat al-quwwāt al-ʾamīrkiyya ʾaḥad ʾaʿḍāʾ « ʾanṣār
al-sunna» wa-ʿtaqalat ʾāḫarayn baʿd dahmi-hā ʾaḥad al-manāzil fī qariyat
al-rašīdiyya wa-ʾakkada l-bayān ʾanna l-manzil kān maqarran li-l-masʾūl al-
mālī li-tanẓīm «ʾanṣār al-sunna» wa-li-tansīq al-ʿamaliyyāt maʿa tanẓīm
«al-qāʿida» fī l-Mawṣil, 10 novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009 : 586).
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 399

tanẓīm [«…»] (nom de procès, ja): dix sept occurrences dont toutes
désignent Al-Qaïda, ou Al-Qaïda en Mésopotamie ([al-ǧihād] fī bilād al-
rāfidayn), ou encore Al-Qaïda en Irak
La revue [américaine Time] a rapporté les propos de Khalilzad selon
lesquels le fait de mener des contacts avec les sunnites concernant leurs
craintes légitimes était quelque chose de logique, étant donné les dif-
férents entre leur camp et l’organisation Al-Qaïda en Irak (wa-naqalat
al-maǧalla ʿan ḫalīl zādah qawla-hu ʾinna ʾiǧrāʾ ittiṣālāt maʿa l-sunna bi-
šaʾn maḫāwifi-him al-mašrūʿa ʾamrun manṭiqī naẓran li-l-ḫilāfāt bayna
muʿaskari-him wa-tanẓīm al-qāʿida fī l-ʿirāq, 5 novembre 2005, baize-
robache 2009: 946–947).

Sachant que Badr est une autre organisation de type islamiste et probablement
combattante, la question de l’emploi de munaẓẓama dans ce cadre-là et au
lieu de tanẓīm se pose. Selon Soufiane al-Karjousli12 (2011, communication
personnelle), tanẓīm serait plutôt péjoratif ou utilisé pour une organisation à
peine constituée. Le maṣdar pouvant désigner un procès, il est possible que,
sémantiquement, ce soit le cas. Cependant, selon lui, on dira aussi tanẓīm ḥizb
al-baʿṯ «l’organisation du parti Baath» qui, comme chacun le sait, est constitué
depuis 1947. De plus, le maṣdar étant ici employé exclusivement comme nom
de procès et non pas comme infinitif («fait d’être organisé/d’organiser»), la
question du procès ne se pose pas, et nous ne pouvons pas le poser comme
exprimant exclusivement le procès alors que munaẓẓama n’ exprimerait que le
résultat, et donc une organisation déjà constituée.

munaẓẓama[-āt] [«…»] (nom, ha): six occurrences dont trois désignent

l’organisation islamiste Badr et trois des organisations humanitaires indé-
pendantes
Tension à al-Miqdādiyya suite à l’assassinat d’ un responsable de l’ orga-
nisation Badr (tawattur fī l-miqdādiyya ʾiṯr iġtiyāl qiyādī fī munaẓẓamat
«badr», 12 novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009 : 588).
Si l’on se base sur [les chiffres de] une organisation indépendante,
2058 militaires et civils américains ont été tués […] (wa-stinādan ʾilā
munaẓẓama mustaqilla, qutila 2058 ʿaskariyyan wa-madaniyyan ʾamīr-
kiyyan […], 12 novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009 : 588).

12 Docteur en linguistique arabe et islamologie.

400 baize-varin

munaẓẓama[t «…»] (nom, ja): six occurrences dont une désigne Badr, et
cinq désignent des organisations étrangères non gouvernementales
De son côté, Hādī al-ʿĀmirī, président de l‘organisation Badr inféodée
au Conseil Supérieur de la révolution islamique en Irak […], a nié tout
lien de l’organisation avec l’affaire […] (min ǧihati-hi nafā hādī al-ʿāmirī
raʾīs munaẓẓamat badr al-tābiʿa li-l-maǧlis al-ʾaʿlā li-l-ṯawra al-ʾislāmiyya
[…], ʾayy ṣila li-l-munaẓẓama bi-l-qaḍiya […], 17 novembre 2005, baize-
robache 2009: 947).
Par contre, une organisation non gouvernementale britannique qui
s’occupe de la prévention des conflits, dit que […] ( fī muqābil ḏālika taqūl
munaẓẓama brīṭāniyya ġayr ḥukūmiyya tuʿnā bi-tadāruk al-nizāʿāt ʾinna
[…], 23 novembre 2005, baize-robache 2009 : 947).

En arabe moderne, et non dans les deux corpus où il est davantage question
d’Al-Qaïda, munaẓẓama paraît en tout cas plus communément utilisé que
tanẓīm. Il est utilisé habituellement pour les organisations politiques comme
«l’Organisation des Nations Unies» (munaẓẓamat al-ʾumam al-muttaḥida) ou
«l’Organisation de Libération de la Palestine» (munaẓẓamat al-taḥrīr al-fila-
sṭīniyya) ou encore pour les organisations humanitaires essentiellement étran-
gères, comme c’est le cas dans les corpus. Comme il est couramment uti-
lisé pour désigner «les organisations de défense des droits de l’ homme » (al-
munaẓẓamāt al-ḥuqūqiyya, www.aljazeera.net, 22 février 2011).
Est-ce seulement un phénomène de traduction d’ « organisation» dans les
langues européennes, sachant que ce mot n’est pas utilisé – en français pour le
moins – pour Al-Qaïda? Ou alors, le nom de procès ne sert-il qu’ à désigner des
mouvements considérés comme islamistes? Cette différenciation sémantique
est contredite par l’utilisation du participe passif avec Badr.
Se pose peut-être alors la question du point de vue du rédacteur arabe:
s’il est communément admis qu’Al-Qaïda, reconnue coupable des attentats
du Onze Septembre, est une organisation islamiste, Badr n’est peut-être pas
reconnue comme telle chez les rédacteurs arabes. Serait-il aussi question d’ une
différence d’ordre chiite-sunnite? La question se pose puisque la seule orga-
nisation sunnite nommée tanẓīm, en dehors d’ Al-Qaïda, est ici « les Partisans
de la Sunna» (ʾanṣār al-sunna). Sur Internet, le site de la Maison de l’ Orient
et de la Méditerranée (http://www.mom.fr/guides/irak/irak03.htm, mai 2011),
laboratoire cnrs rattaché à Lyon 2, classe Badr parmi les organisations chiites
figurant dans la liste des mouvements victorieux aux élections législatives du 15
décembre 2005. Selon le site Iranterror (http://www.iranterror.com/fr/content/
view/114/43/, mai 2011), site se disant indépendant et regroupant des victimes
de la politique iranienne (‘Association of Victims of the Iranian Regime’s Ter-
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 401

rorism – avirt’), le «corps Badr» est une organisation combattante, appe-

lée aussi «milice» ou «brigade», affiliée à l’Iran et financée par cet État. Il
conviendrait, pour approfondir cette question d’ organisations sunnites ver-
sus des organisations chiites, d’établir des statistiques à partir de corpus, afin
de vérifier si oui ou non, tanẓīm est affecté à des organisations sunnites et
munaẓẓama à des organisations chiites.
La différenciation entre les deux formes ii en synchronie serait donc à
géométrie variable et dépendrait de critères confessionnels et de légitimité.
Aucun autre phénomène de coexistence «morphologico-sémantique » de type
tanẓīm/munaẓẓama n’apparaissant ici, nous ne pouvons pas pour l’ instant
trouver de nouvelles régularités ni déterminer si ce dernier critère est le plus
prégnant en arabe de presse, ou encore si d’autres critères existent.
Avant d’en arriver à des statistiques systématiques et comparatives, nous
avons entré tanẓīm sur www.google.com et n’avons trouvé dans les premières
entrées de noms de procès concernant des organisations, que « Al-Qaïda [en
Mésopotamie/au Maghreb islamique]» (tanẓīm al-qāʿida [ fī bilād al-rāfidayn/
bi-bilād al-maġrib al-ʾislāmī]), comme c’est le cas dans nos corpus. Par munaẓ-
ẓama, nous n’avons trouvé que des organisations mondiales de bienfaisance
telles que «Amnesty International» (munaẓẓamat al-ʿafw al-duwaliyya) « l’ Or-
ganisation Mondiale de la Santé» (munaẓẓamat al-ṣiḥḥa al-ʿālamiyya) etc., le
seul contre exemple étant, comme munaẓẓamat badr en termes d’ organisation
confessionnelle, « l’Organisation de la Conférence islamique » (munaẓẓamat
al-muʾtamar al-ʾislāmī). Cette organisation est néanmoins reconnue au niveau
mondial et membre permanent de l’onu. Al-Qaïda étant également une orga-
nisation mondiale mais non reconnue légalement, il semble donc que le critère
de choix de munaẓẓama repose sur le caractère régulier ou non de l’ organisa-
tion en question. Étant donné que munaẓẓamat badr, tout en étant une organi-
sation combattante, est représentée – même à un niveau local – au Parlement
irakien, il semble donc que le critère de régularité est déterminant.
Si nous en croyons également ce que nous avons entendu sur France 24 le
29 septembre 2013, à savoir la dénomination, par le journaliste arabophone,
de «organisation criminelle» (tanẓīm ʾiǧrāmī) pour qualifier le parti grec d’ ex-
trême droite l’Aube Dorée, il semblerait que le critère du niveau de criminalité
peut être retenu également. Si ce parti est reconnu en Grèce, alors cette occur-
rence est un contre-exemple à notre première hypothèse.
Cette double hypothèse est corroborée également par une occurrence de
tanẓīm comme nom de procès, trouvée dans un bulletin d’ informations du
site Shorouknews daté du 19 mars 2011. Il y est dit que, lors du référendum
sur la constitution égyptienne faisant suite au départ de Hosni Moubarak le 11
février 2011, Mohamed el-Baradai, candidat à la présidentielle, « […] a été pris
402 baize-varin

à partie par une bande de bandits/voyous […] » ([…] hāǧama-hu tanẓīm min
al-balṭagiyya […]) en allant voter (http://www.shorouknews.com/contentdata
.aspx?id=412476, mars 2011).
Nous avons également lu dans un bulletin d’ informations de la bbc
Arabic, le syntagme «l’organisation égyptienne des Frères Musulmans » (tan-
ẓīm al-ʾiḫwān al-muslimīn al-miṣrī), (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arabic/middleeast/
2011/06/110630_egypt_us_muslim_brotherhood.shtml, 30 juin 2011)13, laquelle
n’était pas reconnue officiellement en Égypte à cette date14. Le Parti de la Li-
berté et de la Justice qui en est issu, créé le 30 avril 2011, et qui a porté Mohamed
Mursi à la Présidence de la République en juin 2012, est pour sa part, un parti
politique reconnu comme tel (http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/Fr
%C3%A8res_musulmans/120358, 30 mai 2013, effectivement nommé ḥizb al-
ḥurriyya wa-l-ʿadāla).
Tanẓīm ḥizb al-baʿṯ mentionné supra, peut sembler être un contre-exemple,
sauf si l’on part du principe que «parti» (ḥizb) suffit à donner sémantique-
ment une légalité au Baath. La question est alors de savoir si cette occurrence
de maṣdar est employée comme infinitif («fait d’ organiser»), ce qui la différen-
cierait grammaticalement de munaẓẓama qui en désigne alors le résultat. Nous
avons effectivement trouvé sur le site officiel du parti Baath une occurrence
de munaẓẓamat ḥizb al-baʿṯ (http://www.baath-party.org/news_detail.asp?id=
507, 20 mars 2011). Les deux emplois étant apparemment possibles, nous pou-
vons nous interroger sur point de vue du locuteur ou du rédacteur quant à la
légitimité de l’organisation dont il est question ici.
Il semble donc bien que, à emploi nominal équivalent, munaẓẓama désigne
une organisation combattante ou pacifiste, religieuse ou areligieuse, mais léga-

13 Nommée tanẓīm siyāsī « organisation/parti politique» dans un historique des Frères

Musulmans sur Internet, http://www.ikhwanwiki.com/index.php?title=%D8%AA%D8%
A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AE_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%AE%D9%88%D8
%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D9
%86_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1, consulté le 30 mai 2013. Nommée
également couramment en arabe ǧamāʿat al-ʾiḫwān al-muslimīn «le groupement des
Frères Musulmans ». Nous avons également retrouvé la dénomination tanẓīm siyāsī dans
le titre « Il n’y aura pas de place pour les Frères comme organisation/parti politique au
cas où je gagnerai les élections présidentielles» (lā maǧāl li-l-ʾiḫwān ka-tanẓīm siyāsī fī ḥāl
fawzī bi-l-riʾāsa), propos de Hamdine Sabahi, candidat de gauche aux présidentielles en
Égypte, 7 mai 2014 (https://www.facebook.com/bbcarabic?fref=nf).
14 Selon une communication personnelle de Mona El-Kouedi, chercheuse égyptienne asso-
ciée au Collège de Défense de l’ otan, Londres, le groupement s’est constitué en mars 2013
en association civile (ǧamaʿiyya ʾahliyya), ce qui lui permet d’être désormais reconnu poli-
tiquement.
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 403

lement reconnue et constituée, tandis que tanẓīm désigne une organisation

religieuse ou areligieuse, mais informelle, plutôt criminelle, irrégulière et non
reconnue légalement. La question est loin d’être close puisque, entre 2012 et
2013, nous avons encore trouvé des contre-exemples, peut-être peu révélateurs
du fait de l’hétérogénéité des corpus choisis, mais dont l’ usage a le mérite de
relancer notre réflexion:

– selon Miloud Gharrafi15 (2012, communication personnelle) tanẓīm al-ʿum-

māl a été et est toujours utilisé au Maroc pour désigner un syndicat. Serait-ce
un dialectalisme? S’il s’agit d’une organisation particulière, est-elle recon-
nue par ses partenaires? La question se pose d’ autant plus que, toujours
selon Miloud Gharrafi (2014, communication personnelle), les syndicats ont
été légalisés au Maroc en 1955;
– entendu sur France 24 le 13 juin 2012: «organisations politiques » (tanẓīmāt
siyāsiyya). Comment utiliser le nom de procès alors qu’ une organisation
politique est censée être reconnue? Est-elle déjà constituée ? Faut-il faire
une différence entre «constituée» et «reconnue » ?
– dans les propos de l’ancien chef du Renseignement militaire israélien Amos
Yadlin, traduits en arabe: il mentionne «les organisations terroristes palesti-
niennes» (al-munaẓẓamāt al-ʾirhābiyya al-filasṭīniyya, www.al.jazeera.net, 6
septembre 2012). Ce n’est pas forcément un contre-exemple puisque, même
si elles sont qualifiées de «terroristes», elles restent des organisations recon-
nues dans les territoires palestiniens. Peut-être est-ce la traduction arabe qui
est révélatrice de la reconnaissance inconsciente du journaliste ;
– dans les propos d’un présentateur de France 24 en arabe: munaẓẓamāt ʾirhā-
biyya (26 février 2013), et sur la page Facebook de la bbc Arabic, « l’ Union
Européenne décide de mettre l’aile militaire du Hezbollah sur la liste des
organisations terroristes» (al-ittiḥād al-ʾurūbbī yuqarrir waḍʿ al-ǧināḥ al-
ʿaskarī li-«ḥizbu-llāh» bi-qāʾimat al-munaẓẓamāt al-ʾirhābiyya, https://www
.facebook.com/bbcarabic, 23 juillet 2013).

3.2.3 Une différence sémantique entre «organisation officielle » et

«organisation légitime»?
Marie-Claude Le Bot16, à qui nous avons exposé cette prétendue synonymie,
nous a suggéré la différenciation sémantique suivante (2013, communication

15 Maître de Conférences, Écoles de Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan, Université Toulouse-le Mirail.

16 Présidente de lidile ea 3874 « Linguistique et Didactique des Langues», Rennes i/Ren-
nes ii.
404 baize-varin

personnelle): distinguer une organisation officielle, qui a été objectivement

déclarée comme telle à un niveau local, national ou international, d’ une orga-
nisation non-officielle, mais qui se légitime d’elle-même.
Si nous appliquons cette hypothèse à tanẓīm, en supposant que ce terme
désigne une organisation non-officielle, mais qui se reconnaît et se légitime
d’elle-même:

– «l’organisation Al-Qaïda» (tanẓīm «al-qāʿida », ha, ja, 2005)

– «l’organisation des Partisans de la Sunna» (tanẓīm « ʾanṣār al-sunna », ha,
2005)
– «[…] une bande de voyous l’a attaqué […]» ([…] hāǧama-hu tanẓīm min al-
balṭagiyya, Shorouknews, 2011)
– «l’organisation égyptienne des Frères Musulmans » (tanẓīm al-ʾiḫwān al-
muslimīn al-miṣrī bbc Arabic, 2011)
– «une organisation criminelle» (tanẓīm ʾiǧrāmī, France 24, 2013)
– «l’organisation du parti Baath» (tanẓīm ḥizb al-baʿṯ, Soufiane al-Karjousli,
2005)
– «l’organisation des travailleurs/le syndicat » (tanẓīm al-ʿummāl, Miloud
Gharrafi, 2012)
– «des organisations politiques» (tanẓīmāt siyāsiyya, France 24, 2012).

… il se trouve que, sémantiquement, cette interprétation convient à chacune

des occurrences supra, qu’elles aient été des exemples ou des contre-exemples
à notre première hypothèse d’organisation «non-reconnue». La seule occur-
rence qui semble sortir de ce cadre est tanẓīmāt siyāsiyya qui désigne égale-
ment dans la presse arabe (Miloud Gharrafi, 2014, communication personnelle)
des «partis politiques».
D’autre part, si nous appliquons cette hypothèse à munaẓẓama, partant
du principe que ce participe passif désigne une organisation officiellement
reconnue, qu’elle soit pacifiste ou terroriste (qui peut être officielle sans être
vue comme légitime), confessionnelle ou aconfessionnelle :

– «l’organisation Badr» (munaẓẓamat «badr», ha, ja, 2005)

– «une organisation indépendante» (munaẓẓama mustaqilla, ha, 2005)
– «une organisation britannique non-gouvernementale» (munaẓẓama brīṭā-
niyya ġayr ḥukūmiyya, ja, 2005)
– «l’Organisation des Nations Unies» (munaẓẓamat al-ʾumam al-muttaḥida,
usage commun attesté)
– «l’Organisation de Libération de la Palestine» (munaẓẓamat al-taḥrīr al-
filasṭīniyya, usage commun attesté)
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 405

– «Amnesty International» (munaẓẓamat al-ʿafw al-duwaliyya, usage com-

mun attesté)
– «l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé» (munaẓẓamat al-ṣiḥḥa al-ʿālamiyya,
usage commun attesté)
– «l’Organisation de la Conférence islamique» (munaẓẓamat al-muʾtamar al-
ʾislāmī, usage commun attesté)
– «les organisations de défense des droits de l’homme » (al-munaẓẓamāt al-
ḥuqūqiyya, ja, 2011)
– «l’organisation du parti Baath» (munaẓẓamat ḥizb al-baʿṯ, site officiel du
Baath, 2011)
– «les organisations terroristes palestiniennes» (al-munaẓẓamāt al-ʾirhābiyya
al-filasṭīniyya, ja, 2012)
– «des organisations terroristes» (munaẓẓamāt ʾirhābiyya, France 24, 2013)
– «l’Union Européenne décide de mettre l’aile militaire du Hezbollah sur
la liste des organisations terroristes» (al-ittiḥād al-ʾurūbbī yuqarrir waḍʿ al-
ǧināḥ al-ʿaskarī li-«ḥizbu-llāh» bi-qāʾimat al-munaẓẓamāt al-ʾirhābiyya, page
Facebook de la bbc Arabic, 2013)

… il se trouve que tout semble également correspondre sémantiquement et

pragmatiquement, si l’on considère que le point de vue du rédacteur de l’ article
est déterminant ou non. Un autre contre-exemple vient de nous être apporté
par Miloud Gharrafi (2014, communication personnelle) : le cas de l’ organisa-
tion En Avant (munaẓẓamat ʾilā al-ʾamām), organisation politique clandes-
tine fondée par Abraham Serfaty dans les années soixante-dix. Cette organi-
sation a donné naissance au début des années quatre-vingt à l’ Organisation
de l’Action Démocratique et Populaire (munaẓẓamat al-ʿamal al-dīmūqrāṭī al-
šaʿbī).

4 Conclusion

Les occurrences analysées ici sont particulièrement révélatrices de l’ écart exis-

tant entre le cadre grammatical et lexical arabe et arabisant, et les usages de
l’ arabe de presse. C’est pour cette raison que nous avons tenu à les présenter ici.
Faute de place, nous n’avons pas présenté d’autres occurrences significatives,
lesquelles méritent néanmoins toute l’attention du linguiste et du didacticien.
Pour opérer une véritable linguistique de corpus, il faut des outils infor-
matiques adaptés qui permettent de traiter des corpus quantitativement plus
importants que les nôtre. À l’avenir, nous pourrons nous baser sur le Diction-
naire Informatisé de l’Arabe (diinar.1), outil développé par Joseph Dichy à
406 baize-varin

l’université Lumière-Lyon ii, et présenté par l’ auteur en 2008 (Dichy, Abbès

2008: 31–44). Cet outil a permis aux lexicographes de travailler sur un corpus
de deux millions de mots, extrait de al-Ḥayāt. Nous pourrons également systé-
matiser les corpus dont nous avons donné quelques exemples ici.
En dehors de ces questions de corpus, et concernant nos deux synonymies,
de nouvelles pistes semblent se dessiner. Tandis que ʿilāǧ, dans un emploi
verbal ou nominal, désignerait une thérapie spécifique ou le traitement ciblé
d’un virus, muʿālaǧa, dans un emploi également verbal ou nominal, désigne-
rait syntagmatiquement au sens propre le traitement général d’ une maladie.
Concernant la seconde synonymie, le critère de légitimité retient toute notre
attention, les contre-exemples de tanẓīm et munaẓẓama apportés (cf. supra)
par Miloud Gharrafi méritant néanmoins d’être regardés de plus près. Sachant
qu’il s’agit d’exemples essentiellement marocains, nous pouvons nous poser
la question diatopique des usages marocains en particulier et maghrébins en
général en arabe de presse, et ce par rapport aux usages orientaux ou d’ un
pays arabe oriental. Comme nous pouvons nous demander, d’ un point de vue
sociolinguistique, si l’usage de l’un à la place de l’ autre ne serait pas dû à une
interférence, consciente ou non, du dialecte. Il n’est toutefois pas étonnant
que la désormais connue l’organisation État Islamique soit appelée tanẓīm
dans une occurrence trouvée sur site Iqtisad le 2 août 2014, ainsi que tanẓīm
al-dawla dans la plupart des occurrences rencontrées depuis dans quelques
médias arabes:

L’organisation État Islamique (Daesh/Daech) a posé comme condition

aux journalistes et aux militants dans la ville de Deir ez-Zor de prêter
allégeance à l’État du Califat et de le reconnaître, s’ ils veulent pouvoir
continuer à travailler (ištaraṭa tanẓīm «al-dawla al-ʾislāmiyya – dāʿiš» ʿalā
al-ʾiʿlāmiyyīn wa-l-nāšiṭīn fī madīnat dayr al-zūr « al-mubāyaʿa» wa-l-iʿtirāf
bi-«dawlat al-ḫilāfa» ʾiḏā mā raġibū bi-l-istimrār fī al-ʿamal, http://eqtsad
.net/news-7516.html).

Il reste à voir également pourquoi le syntagme tanẓīm siyāsī, trouvé dans les
médias maghrébins comme dans les médias orientaux, peut être traduit par
«parti politique».
« traitement » de l’ « organisation » en arabe moderne de presse 407

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Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée. 2001. http://www.mom.fr/guides/irak/irak03
.htm.
Search unterm. 2001.
 chapter 20

Ḥayṯu: une inextricable polysémie ?

Alain Girod

Il y a près de cinquante ans Henri Pérès (1955: 256) écrivit, sous le titre « con-
structions grammaticales et emplois particuliers de mots : […]

ii. Emplois de ḥayṯu

1o ḥayṯu suivi d’un verbe: sens de «où» […] ;
2o ʾilā ḥayṯu suivi d’un verbe: «jusqu’où, jusqu’ à l’ endroit où » ;
3o bi-ḥayṯu suivi d’un verbe: «à un point tel que » […] ;
4o min ḥayṯu suivi d’un verbe: «d’où» […] ;
5o fī ḥayṯu mā suivi d’un verbe «en quelque endroit que » […] ;
6o ḥayṯu suivi d’un substantif (ce subst. reste au cas sujet : rafʿ) : « où, où
il y a, où il se trouve» […];
7o min ḥayṯu suivi d’un substantif (ce subst. reste au cas sujet : rafʿ) : « du
point de vue de, en ce qui concerne» […] ;
8o ḥayṯu ʾinna (mieux que ḥayṯu ʾanna): « attendu que, puisque, étant
donné que».»

Sans faire de commentaire sur le caractère « particulier » de ces emplois en

1955, aucun des sens de ḥayṯu sus-cités n’est ignoré de l’ enseignant d’ arabe
d’aujourd’hui, puisqu’ils sont tous donnés dans les dictionnaires et manuels
récents (et moins récents)1, par exemple:
Wehr (1976): «ḥayṯu (conj.) where (place and direction); wherever; since,
as, due to the fact that; whereas; inasmuch as | ḥayṯu ʾanna since, as, because,
due to the fact that …; in that …; […] bi-ḥayṯu inasmuch as ; in such a manner
that …; so as to …; so that …; such as …; […] bi-ḥayṯu ʾanna in such a manner
that …; so as to …; so that …».
Le dictionnaire as-Sabīl (Reig 1983: 1428) ne nous offre rien de plus, sauf qu’ il
place les mots et expressions marquant la cause/justification sous bi-ḥayṯu2 et
non sous ḥayṯu.

1 L’ entrée ḥayṯu dans le Muġnī al-labīb offre un bon résumé de l’histoire ancienne, sans grand
problème, de ḥayṯu : « wa-hiya li-l-makān ittifāqan = il est pour le lieu, unanimement». Ibn
Hišām signale en outre un rare ḥawṯu et quelques divergences de vocalisation de la finale:
ḥayṯu, ḥayṯa et ḥayṯi. Voir Ibn Hišām 1998.
2 Il est certain que, dans mon corpus, 99 % des bi-ḥayṯu ont un sens soit de conséquence, soit

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_022

ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 411

Krahl et Reuschel (1995: 405) donnent, dans le paragraphe « kausalsätze»,

ḥayṯu, ḥayṯu ʾanna, ʾanna-hu, indiquant par ce dernier, me semble-t-il, la fré-
quence d’utilisation de ce syntagme avec le ḍamīr al-šaʾn3.
Ces sens existent également en dialecte égyptien, comme le notent Badawi
et Hinds: « ḥīs (also ḥīs ʾinn-) /conj./ since, as. ḥīs kida ma-fī-š māniʿ that being
the case, there is no objection. zayyi baʿḍu ḥīs ʾinnak miṣammim o.k., since you
insist. […] bi-ḥīs ʾinn /conj./ in such a way that, so that. bi-nḥuṭṭ-i-l-ha gilda bi-
ḥīs ʾinna-ha ma-tnaqqat-š we put a washer on it so that it won’t drip » (Badawi
et Hinds 1986: 235)4.
Point n’est besoin de multiplier les références; il reste que, enseignant
l’ arabe d’aujourd’hui, en particulier l’arabe de la presse, je suis régulièrement
gêné par tel ou tel ḥayṯu dont le sens diffère clairement de ceux cités par Pérès
et ses successeurs, et ressens le besoin de le regarder de plus près. Force est de
constater que les sens de ḥayṯu dont il va être question ne sont pas abordés ou
sont peu abordés par les grammaires5, dictionnaires6 ou autres ouvrages7 qui
en traitent de près ou de loin8.
Cet article vise à vérifier et approfondir les hypothèses avancées dans Girod
(2000: 242–253) s’agissant de l’utilisation de ḥayṯu et bi-ḥayṯu comme outils
d’ expression de la «cause» en arabe de presse contemporain. Le corpus étudié
était les unes du quotidien égyptien al-ʾAhrām sur une semaine, corpus dont

de but (voir infra) ; il y a un exemple litigieux mais qui ne m’a pas semblé assez pertinent pour
être cité.
3 Voir Bloch 1990. « En effet, l’ ordre de la proposition est fixe, qu’elle soit indépendante ou
subordonnée ; la fréquence des verbes de déclaration dans la presse impose l’emploi de la
particule ʾanna/ʾinna ; l’ opération consiste donc à faire d’une ex-proposition indépendante
une subordonnée, sans que l’ ordre de celle-là ne soit modifié; si la tête de cette subordonnée
l’ exige, le ḍamīr aš-šaʾn sera alors naturellement utilisé comme enchâsseur» (Girod 2000:
231).
4 « La comparaison entre Wehr et Badawi / Hinds suggère que à ḥayṯu ʾanna en classique
correspond ḥīs ʾinn- en dialectal égyptien et laisse à penser que ḥayṯu ʾinna, donné par Reig
(1983 : 1428) serait une forme « moyenne » » (Girod 2000 : 252).
5 Voir Wright 1896–1898, Lecomte 1968, Šarṭūnī 1969, Cantarino 1974, Blachère et Gaudefroy-
Demombynes 1975, Corriente 1992, Kouloughli 1994, Neyreneuf 1996, Badawi et al. 2004,
Imbert 2008.
6 Voir Ibn Manẓūr Lisān, Kazimirski 1860, Reig 1983.
7 Voir Monteil 1960, Langer 1989, Bahloul 1993, ʾAḥmad Nāfiʿ 1997.
8 Ces travaux semblent pour la plupart se contenter de reproduire ce qui était dit de ḥayṯu
sans en vérifier l’ actualité et l’ exactitude, par un retour aux textes arabes contemporains.
Confrontés à la réalités des textes, ils semblent donc descriptivement inadéquats, ce que note
Sartori (2010 : 69, 73–78) et Sartori (2015 : 14).
412 girod

la taille me semblait appropriée pour la mise en évidence et l’ analyse de

faits d’évolution de la syntaxe de l’arabe dans al-ʾAhrām, mais qui n’autorisait
aucune conclusion statistique globale. Il n’est pas question, avec un ordinateur
personnel, de faire un traitement statistique, même en synchronie – sur un seul
jour par exemple –, de toute la presse arabe et encore moins de tout ce qui
s’écrit en arabe. J’ai une plus modeste ambition : étendre progressivement le
champ d’analyse à un corpus un peu plus étendu, à savoir passer des seules
unes au journal entier et d’un unique journal à plusieurs journaux, en utilisant
les simples outils informatiques que tout chercheur isolé peut mettre en œuvre,
hors des gros laboratoires de recherche, pour faire un relevé exhaustif des
«procédés» utilisés, pour l’expression de la « cause » en arabe contemporain
par exemple, et en analyser le fonctionnement syntaxique. De plus, s’ agissant
de mots aussi polysémiques que ḥayṯu, seul l’homme est à même, à la lecture,
de faire le départ entre les différents sens, avant de faire le classement et
l’analyse statistique. Pour reprendre l’exemple de l’ expression de la cause, il
n’est pas question de quantifier les occurrences respectives de li-ʾanna et de
ḥayṯu sans avoir au préalable, à la lecture, éliminé de l’ analyse les ḥayṯu de
«lieu», de «conséquence», ou autres. Or, plus le corpus est étendu, plus la
tâche est ardue et plus l’erreur est probable.
Le corpus colligé consiste en quatre quotidiens complets9, du même jour, le
13 février 2001, capturés sur internet: al-ʾAhrām (Égypte) http://www.ahram.org
.eg, al-Dustūr (Jordanie) http://www.addustour.com, al-Nahār (Liban) http://
www.annahar.com.lb/ et al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ (Royaume-Uni/Arabie Saoudite)
http://www.asharqalawsat.com/. Ce choix, au sein de la liste des quotidiens
répertoriés sur le site, est fondé sur trois critères : l’ importance du tirage en pre-
mier, puis la possibilité de faire une recherche automatique sur le texte arabe,
soit ne pas retenir les journaux dont le texte est sous forme de fichiers images
(fichiers *.gif ou *.jpeg) et les textes en *.pdf ; seul les textes en *.html per-
mettent de faire la recherche automatique, dans le texte arabe, des mots choisis.
Le troisième critère est que l’accès au site ne soit pas payant. L’ensemble du
corpus représente plus de 500 pages papier format a4.
Reprenant les sens de Pérès, je ne retiendrai que les ḥayṯu introduisant une
proposition, i.e. que je retrancherai le paragraphe 7° : min ḥayṯu suivi d’ un
substantif: «du point de vue de, en ce qui concerne », qui ne pose aucun
problème.

9 Publicité exclue. Il y a d’ ailleurs fort peu de publicité dans les journaux arabes on line et la
plupart du temps sous une forme non exploitable, images fixes ou le plus souvent animées.
ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 413

1 Fī ḥayṯu mā suivi d’un verbe

Je ne m’étendrai pas sur: «5°: fī ḥayṯu mā suivi d’ un verbe: « en quelque

endroit que»» que je n’ai jamais rencontré ailleurs que dans Pérès (1955: 159,
l. 4), mais dont le sens est entièrement assumé aujourd’hui, sinon hier et jadis,
par ḥayṯu-mā:

(1) al-Dustūr 13/2/2001 (culture – yuʿraḍu ġadan …)

nuṭālib ǧamīʿ al-kuttāb al-filasṭīniyyīn ḥayṯumā wuǧidū bi-ʾan yamtaniʿū …
Nous demandons aux écrivains palestiniens, où qu’ils soient, de s’ inter-
dire …

2 Ḥayṯu, ʾilā ḥayṯu, min ḥayṯu suivis d’un verbe

S’ agissant de «1° ḥayṯu suivi d’un verbe: sens de « où » […] 2° ʾilā ḥayṯu suivi
d’ un verbe: «jusqu’où, jusqu’à l’endroit où» […] 4° min ḥayṯu suivi d’ un verbe:
« d’où»», il me semble justifié de ne faire de ces trois propositions qu’ un
seul groupe, car le sens de ḥayṯu ne change qu’en fonction de la préposition
qui l’accompagne et son fonctionnement syntaxique ne varie pas de l’ une à
l’ autre.
Dans ce groupe, on trouve des emplois de ḥayṯu très classiques :

(2) al-Dustūr 13/2/2001 (sports – ʾawwal tadrīb …)

baʿda ʾan waṣala ʿammān qādiman min mālīzyā ḥayṯu šāraka fī nadwat
al-mudarribīn …
Après qu’il est arrivé à Amman, venant de Malaisie où il a participé au
séminaire des entraîneurs …

On note également un phénomène peut-être plus nouveau et en tout cas

très fréquent: la proposition introduite par ḥayṯu a un « antécédent» qui
n’ est pas un nom mais un verbe. Cela rend difficile de l’ interpréter comme
une proposition relative en français sans introduire une périphrase pour l’ en-
châsser. Dans l’exemple qui suit, ḥayṯu est lié au verbe baḥaṯa et marque le
temps:

(3) al-Dustūr 13/2/2001 (nouvelles locales – bi-riʿāyat malikat rānyā …)

kamā baḥaṯa l-sayyid al-rifāʿī maʿa l-sayyid […] taṭawwurāt al-ʾawḍāʿ […]
wa-l-qaḍāyā l-duwaliyya ḏāt al-ihtimām al-muštarak ḥayṯu ʾakkada l-say-
yid al-rifāʿī …
414 girod

Monsieur al-Rifāʿī a également discuté avec Monsieur […] des évolutions

de la situation […] et des questions internationales d’ intérêt commun,
discussion au cours de laquelle Monsieur al-Rifāʿī a affirmé …

On trouve enfin fréquemment des énoncés à l’ intersection des deux proposi-

tions précédentes où ḥayṯu marque le lieu et/ou le temps :

(4) al-ʾAhrām 13/2/2001 (nouvelles locales – laǧnat al-quwā l-ʿāmila …)

qāmat al-laǧna l-barlamāniyya bi-ziyārat šarikat al-swīs li-taṣnīʿ al-bitrūl
ḥayṯu ʾaʿlana raʾīsu-hā ʾanna …

où l’on peut considérer que, formellement, l’antécédent est le nom šarika (« la

société») qui indique le lieu:

(4.1) La commission parlementaire a visité la Société de Suez pour la trans-

formation du pétrole où [= dans laquelle] son président a annoncé que
…

mais où ḥayṯu semble plutôt lié sémantiquement au verbe « visiter» – ce qui

implique d’insérer «visite au cours de» pour rétablir une relative en français –
et marquer le temps:

(4.2) La commission parlementaire a visité la Société de Suez pour la trans-

formation du pétrole, visite au cours de laquelle il a annoncé que …

3 Ḥayṯu suivi d’un substantif

Il s’agit là de substituer à une proposition à tête verbale une proposition à tête

nominale, rien de révolutionnaire. Le cas sujet se justifie car le substantif qui le
porte peut être vu soit comme thème (mubtadaʾ) postposé dont l’ information
(ḫabar) est le relatif ḥayṯu, soit comme sujet d’ un verbe implicite (muqad-
dar) le précédant. Il n’y a que 9 ḥayṯu-s de ce type dans mon corpus, par
exemple:

(5) al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ 13/2/2001 (international – mā baʿda lūkirbī …)

fī l-yawm al-tālī tawaǧǧahat ʾilā minṭaqat « sūq al-ǧumʿa» ḥayṯu manzil al-
ʾamīn faḥīma
Le jour suivant elle s’est rendue dans la région de « Sūq al-ǧumʿa» où [se
trouve] la maison d’al-ʾAmīn Faḥīma
ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 415

On peut relever la même phrase à un mot près dans al-Dustūr en provenance

de : «Belgrade – A.F.P.» et dans al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ venant de « Zaghreb – Nūr ad-
Dīn Ṣāliḥ»

(6.1) al-Dustūr 13/2/2001 (international – ḥawāǧiz ǧumrukiyya …)

(6.2) al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ 13/2/2001 (international – bilġrād tumahhid …)
wa-l-minṭaqa l-ʾamniyya ḥayṯu yatamarkaz al-infiṣāliyyūn (6a) (= al-
muqātilūn (6b)) tamtadd ʿalā l-ḥudūd al-ʾidāriyya al-fāṣila bayna ʾiqlīm
kūsūfū wa-wādī brīsīfū ḥayṯu muʿẓam al-sukkān min al-ʾalbān
Et la zone de sécurité où se concentrent les séparatistes (6a) (= les
combattants (6b)) qui s’étend sur la frontière administrative séparant
la région du Kosovo de la vallée de Pricivo où [se trouvent] la plupart
des habitants albanais

4 bi-ḥayṯu suivi d’un verbe

La totalité des occurrences de bi-ḥayṯu dans ce corpus exprime soit la consé-

quence, soit le but. Je rappelle (Girod 2000: 247) en citant Grevisse (1955: 1661
et 1085), « De manière que, de façon que, de sorte que, impliquent une consé-
quence, réalisée ou non. Si elle est réalisée, on met l’ indicatif ; si elle ne l’ est
pas (ce qui revient à une idée de but), on met le subjonctif. » L’exemple de bi-
ḥayṯu cité par Pérès (1955: 54) nous donne un exemple incontestable d’ emploi
de l’inaccompli indicatif après bi-ḥayṯu pour exprimer la conséquence :

(7) wa-qad balaġū mina l-ʾiǧādati fī ṣināʿati-him bi-ḥayṯu yuraṣṣiʿūna l-zaǧāǧ

bi-l-ǧawhar
Ils avaient atteint une telle excellence dans leur art qu’ ils incrustaient les
pierreries dans le verre

Est-ce que, en revanche, l’arabe pourrait utiliser le subjonctif après bi-ḥayṯu

pour exprimer le but? Je ne peux répondre à cette question, n’ayant trouvé
aucun exemple avec un verbe avec terminaison en voyelle longue. Or, consé-
quence de la scriptio defectiva de l’arabe, il n’est pas possible de différencier
l’ inaccompli indicatif de l’inaccompli subjonctif, s’ agissant des verbes aux
formes «simples» de l’inaccompli, donc – si naturellement on admet la possi-
bilité d’emploi du subjonctif après bi-ḥayṯu10 –, de différencier la conséquence
du but, quand le contexte ne nous y aide pas.

10 Mais Blachère et Gaudefroy-Demombynes (1975: 459) notent: «Dans tous les cas si la
416 girod

4.1 Idée de conséquence

(8) al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ 13/2/2001 (international – ʾazmat ḥukūmat al-kuwayt …)

wa-huwa taṣrīḥ yaʿkis tafāqum al-ʾazma al-latī waṣalat ʾilā ḏarwati-hā bi-
ḥayṯu tušīr baʿḍ al-dawāʾir ʾilā ʾanna …
Qui est une déclaration qui va à l’encontre de l’ aggravation de la crise
qui a atteint son paroxysme, si bien que certains cercles indiquent que
…

4.2 Idée de but

(9) al-Dustūr 13/2/2001 (économie – ʿaqīb ʿawdati-hi …)

wa-lā budda mina l-taʿammuq fī dirāsat hāḏihi l-tiǧāra bi-ḥayṯu yatimma
al-taʿarruf ʿalā l-silaʿ al-raʾīsiyya l-latī la-hā dawr mutazāyid fī tanmiyat al-
mubādalāt
Il est indispensable d’approfondir l’étude de ce commerce pour que
soient déterminés les principaux produits qui ont un rôle croissant dans
le développement des échanges

Mais il est certain que les propositions desquelles le sens est ambigu sont de
loin plus nombreuses que celles où la distinction entre conséquence et but va
de soi.

5 Ḥayṯu ʾinna

On rencontre effectivement un certain nombre de ḥayṯu ʾinna (et ḥayṯu ʾanna,

la hamza étant parfois notée sur le ʾalif ) avec le sens de « attendu que, puisque,
étant donné que»:

(10) al-ʾAhrām 13/2/2001 (opinions – miṣr wa-l-taʿāmul …)

wa-ḥayṯu ʾanna l-ittifāqiyyāt al-tiǧāra l-ʿālamiyya tastanid ʾilā …
Et vu que les accords du commerce mondial s’ appuient sur …

proposition régie par ḥayṯu est verbale, le verbe ne peut être qu’à l’accompli ou à l’inac-
compli indicatif. » Effectivement, une recherche approfondie de ḥayṯu suivi du subjonctif
sur le site « arabiCorpus » s’ est révélée négative.
ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 417

Mais il n’est pas sûr que ḥayṯu ʾanna soit sémantiquement différent de ḥayṯu,
la différence résidant dans le fait que ḥayṯu ʾanna est naturellement suivi d’ une
proposition à tête nominale, – soit parce qu’elle ne comporte pas de verbe, par
exemple:

(11) al-ʾAhrām 13/2/2001 (opinions – qānūn al-tamwīl …)

ḥayṯu ʾanna hāḏā l-tamwīl huwa tamwīl ṭawīl al-ʾaǧal
Étant donné que cet approvisionnement est un approvisionnement à
long terme

– soit pour quelque raison phraséologique comme dans (10).

6 Ḥayṯu + verbe n’ayant pas le sens de «où »

Il nous reste ce que Pérès ne signale pas, et qui semble avoir une fréquence
d’ emploi non négligeable: ḥayṯu + verbe mais n’ayant pas le sens de « où ».

6.1 Sens «causal»

Il est très difficile, la plupart du temps, de faire la distinction entre ḥayṯu
de cause («comme, parce que») et ḥayṯu de justification (« puisque »). Il est
vrai que même en français la nuance n’est pas toujours perceptible. Ainsi
Grevisse (1955: 1657 et 1083) écrit à propos de la proposition adverbiale de
cause: «Les mots de liaison principaux sont comme, parce que et puisque. Ce
dernier n’indique pas toujours une véritable cause, mais sert à introduire la
justification de ce que l’on dit: puisque vous le voyez souvent, assurez-le que je
l’ aime beaucoup (Flaub., éd. Sent., iii, 1).»

(12) al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ 13/2/2001 (international – būsh yuraššiḥ …)

lākin taršīḥ tūmsūn yaḥtāǧ ʾilā muwāfaqat maǧlis al-šuyūḫ, ḥayṯu yarā
masʾūl kabīr fī l-ḥukūma fī hāḏā l-ṣadad ʾanna muʿāraḍa …
Mais la candidature de Thomson nécessite l’ approbation du Sénat parce
qu’un (puisqu’un) haut responsable, à cet égard, considère que l’ opposi-
tion …

Il n’est pas non plus aisé de déterminer, faute de critère(s) objectif(s) – s’ agis-
sant de l’arabe bien entendu –, si nous sommes en présence d’ une subordi-
nation ou d’une coordination de deux phrases distinctes (ou d’ une phrase et
une sous-phrase). Grevisse (1955: 1576 et 1038) précise: « La phrase ou plutôt la
sous-phrase introduite par car exprime, non pas la cause réelle du fait énoncé
418 girod

auparavant (comme le ferait parce que), mais la justification de ce qui vient

d’être annoncé». Un exemple dans mon corpus :

(13) al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ 13/2/2001 (international – fī l-ṭarīq …)

lam yataġayyar faqaṭ ṭarīq al-wuṣūl ʾilā Lībyā, wa-lākin ʾayḍan suhūlat
al-duḫūl, fa-hāḏihi l-marra ʾayḍan kānat muḫtalifa ḥayṯu lam tataǧā-
waz ʾiǧrāʾāt al-duḫūl fī maṭār binġāzī daqāʾiq maʿdūda
(13.1) Il n’y a pas que la voie pour arriver en Libye qui a changé mais aussi
la facilité pour y entrer, car, cette fois encore, celle-ci fut différente;
en effet, les formalités d’entrée, à l’aéroport, ne prirent que quelques
petites minutes
(13.2) Il n’y a pas que la voie pour arriver en Libye qui a changé mais aussi
la facilité pour y entrer, car, cette fois encore, celle-ci fut différente,
puisque les formalités d’entrée, à l’aéroport, ne prirent que quelques
petites minutes

Dans l’exemple suivant, la ponctuation – le point virgule qui précède ḥayṯu –

nous fait pencher pour la coordination:

(14) al-Dustūr 13/2/2001 (opinions – ḫāriǧ al-naṣṣ …)

[…] faḍlan ʿalā ʾanna-hu ʿālī l-kaṯāfa ; ḥayṯu tabluġ kaṯāfatu-hu 7/1 min
kaṯāfat al-raṣāṣ
[…] en vertu du fait qu’il a une haute densité; en effet sa densité atteint
7/1 de la densité du plomb

Mais la traduction n’est certainement, dans ces exemples, qu’ une question de
feeling, ce qui justifiera l’absence de distinction entre cause et justification
d’une part et entre subordination ou coordination d’ autre part dans les sta-
tistiques ci-après.

6.2 Autres sens de ḥayṯu ?

Si je reprends l’exemple (13), je serai tenté d’en donner la traduction suivante :
«Il n’y a pas que la voie pour arriver en Libye qui a changé mais aussi la faci-
lité pour y entrer, car, cette fois encore, celle-ci fut différente, les formalités
d’entrée, à l’aéroport, n’ayant pris que quelques petites minutes.» Cela revient
à formuler l’hypothèse que ḥayṯu pourrait parfois remplacer le ḥāl (complé-
ment d’état) là où le wāw al-ḥāl risquerait de ne pas être perçu comme tel. Une
telle hypothèse demanderait quelques exemples probants :
 ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 419

(15) al-ʾAhrām 13/2/2001 (enquêtes – al-ḥifāż ʿalā …)

yuʿqad al-muʾtamar fī l-qāhira li-l-marra l-ṯāniya ḥayṯu ʿuqida fī l-marra l-
ʾūlā munḏu ʿašar sanawāt …
Le congrès se tient au Caire pour la seconde fois, le premier s’ étant tenu
il y a dix ans …

Dans cet exemple, une relation de causalité ou de justification entre les deux
phrases me paraît moins facile à appréhender que le ḥāl, ḥayṯu pouvant être
aisément remplacé par «wa-qad »; mais cela restera une vague hypothèse car,
si de tels exemples sont nombreux, il n’en est pas un qui ne puisse avoir au
moins deux interprétations.
ḥayṯu possède bel et bien de multiples sens, mais l’ absence de critères
objectifs nous interdit d’en faire une classification précise. Je ne retiendrai donc
pour les données «statistiques» que trois catégories de ḥayṯu:

1) ḥayṯu–lieu; 2) bi-ḥayṯu–conséquence/but ; 3) ḥayṯu–cause/justifica-

tion/ḥāl/ …

tableau 20.1 Rubrique « Une »

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ*

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 0 0,00% 1 100,00% 1 33,33% 2 28,57%

Conséquence/but 1 33,33% 0 0,00% 1 33,33% 2 28,57%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 2 66,67% 0 0,00% 1 33,33% 3 42,86%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
3 100,00% 1 100,00% 3 100,00% 7 100,00%

* pas de rubrique «une»

 420 girod

tableau 20.2 Rubrique « Nouvelles locales »

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq* al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 3 42,86% 1 50,00% 14 66,67% 18 60,00%

Conséquence/but 1 14,29% 1 50,00% 2 9,52% 4 13,33%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 3 42,86% 0 0,00% 5 23,81% 8 26,67%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
7 100,00% 2 100,00% 21 100,00% 30 100,00%

* rubrique inexistante

tableau 20.3 Rubrique « International »

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 2 22,22% 4 100,00% 14 56,00% 3 75,00% 23 54,76%

Conséquence/but 2 22,22% 0 0,00% 3 12,00% 0 0,00% 5 11,90%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 5 55,56% 0 0,00% 8 32,00% 1 25,00% 14 33,33%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
9 100,00% 4 100,00% 25 100,00% 4 100,00% 42 100,00%
 ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 421

tableau 20.4 Rubrique « Économie»

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 1 11,11% 0 0,00% 3 16,67% 1 5,88% 5 10,64%

Conséquence/but 4 44,44% 2 66,67% 0 0,00% 3 17,65% 9 19,15%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 4 44,44% 1 33,33% 15 83,33% 13 76,47% 33 70,21%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
9 100,00% 3 100,00% 18 100,00% 17 100,00% 47 100,00%

Contrairement aux trois rubriques qui précèdent, le ḥayṯu de cause, … a une

fréquence élevée en économie dans les quatre quotidiens.

tableau 20.5 Rubrique « Opinons, enquêtes, dossiers … »

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 16 38,10% 13 50,00% 10 66,67% 3 30,00% 42 45,16%

Conséquence/but 7 16,67% 10 38,46% 5 33,33% 5 50,00% 27 29,03%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 19 45,24% 3 11,54% 0 0,00% 2 20,00% 24 25,81%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
42 100,00% 26 100,00% 15 100,00% 10 100,00% 93 100,00%
 422 girod

tableau 20.6 Rubrique « Culture, religion, sciences … »

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 0 0,00% 2 50,00% 3 50,00% 2 100,00% 7 43,75%

Conséquence/but 2 50,00% 2 50,00% 0 0,00% 0 0,00% 4 25,00%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 2 50,00% 0 0,00% 3 50,00% 0 0,00% 5 31,25%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
4 100,00% 4 100,00% 6 100,00% 2 100,00% 16 100,00%

tableau 20.7 Rubrique « Société, faits divers, justice … »

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 1 25,00% 9 90,00% 6 50,00% 6 60,00% 22 61,11%

Conséquence/but 1 25,00% 1 10,00% 3 25,00% 1 10,00% 6 16,67%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 2 50,00% 0 0,00% 3 25,00% 3 30,00% 8 22,22%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
4 10000% 10 100,00% 12 100,00% 10 100,00% 36 100,00%
 ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 423

tableau 20.8 Rubrique « Sport »

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 2 22,22% 1 100,00% 3 33,33% 3 75,00% 9 39,13%

Conséquence/but 0 0,00% 0 0,00% 0 0,00% 0 0,00% 0 0,00%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 7 77,78% 0 000% 6 66,67% 1 25,00% 14 60,87%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
9 100,00% 1 100,00% 9 100,00% 4 100,00% 23 100,00%

La faible fréquence d’emploi des trois emplois de ḥayṯu dans ce dernier tableau
ne permet pas de conclusion. D’autre part, aucun autre moyen d’ expression
de la cause analysé dans le corpus11 ne se détache dans cette rubrique, hormis
ʾiḏ (voir sq.). Il convient de préciser que, sur les 24 pages de sport d’ al-Nahār,
l’ unique particule de cause utilisée (15 fois) est ʾiḏ (sans ʾanna). À noter tout de
même l’absence totale de bi-ḥayṯu dans cette rubrique.

tableau 20.9 Tableau général

al-ʾAhrām al-Nahār al-Šarq al-Dustūr Total %

al-ʾAwsaṭ

Lieu (ḥayṯu) 25 28,74% 31 60,78% 40 45,45% 32 47,06% 128 43,54%

Conséquence/but 18 20,69% 16 31,37% 12 13,64% 11 16,18% 57 19,39%
(bi-ḥayṯu)
Cause/justifi- 44 50,57% 4 7,84% 36 40,91% 25 36,76% 109 37,07%
cation/ ḥāl
(ḥayṯu)
87 100,00% 51 100,00% 88 100,00% 68 100,00% 294 100,00%

11 À savoir: li-ʾanna, muʾakkidan ʾanna, mūḍiḥan ʾanna, mušīran ʾanna, ʾiḏ et ʾiḏ ʾanna, ʿilman
bi-ʾanna, ḏālika ʾanna, ḥayṯu, bi-ḥayṯu, ḫāṣṣatan ʾanna, naẓaran ʾanna et naẓaran li-ʾanna.
424 girod

La fréquence d’emploi de bi-ḥayṯu est assez uniforme dans les quatre quo-
tidiens. Al-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ (Arabie saoudite) et al-Dustūr (Jordanie) ont des
résultats assez proches l’un de l’autre. En revanche, dans al-ʾAhrām (Égypte)
et al-Nahār (Liban), les résultats sont inverses, dans toutes les rubriques sauf
l’économie, quant à la fréquence d’emploi de ḥayṯu–lieu, forte dans al-Nahār,
et de ḥayṯu–cause/justification/ḥāl, majoritaire dans al-ʾAhrām.
Finalement, pour l’enseignant que je suis, le bilan est triste : l’ impression
que ḥayṯu est mis à toutes les sauces, instrument facile pour pallier les difficul-
tés de traduction, dans l’urgence, des dépêches d’ agence, me donne presque
l’envie de faire retraite sur les rivages rassurants d’ une grammaire inamo-
vible.
Ce constat pessimiste m’avait dissuadé à l’époque de proposer ce travail à
la publication. Depuis, la découverte d’un dossier spécial sur l’ Égypte du The
Financial Times – 11 december 2006 – Egypt Report 2006, en anglais et traduit
en arabe dans al-Maṣrī al-yawm du 14/12/2006, m’a fourni un nouveau corpus,
qui semble ouvrir, grâce au rapprochement des textes anglais et arabe, une
nouvelle piste. Le dossier est constitué de douze articles qui ont fait l’ objet d’ un
dépouillement exhaustif:

(16) Financial Times (Banking: A learner sector and a lighter load, by Andrew
England)
The only products the bank offered were basic accounts; the only credit
facilities were overdrafts handed out willy-nilly

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (al-bunūk al-miṣriyya …)

wa-kāna l-muntaǧ al-waḥīd al-laḏī yuqaddimu-hu l-bank huwa l-ḥisābāt al-

ʾasāsiyya, ḥayṯu kānat al-tashīlāt al-iʾtimāniyya l-waḥīda l-latī yuqaddimu-
hā l-bank hiya l-qurūḍ al-latī tafūq al-masmūḥ bi-hi

En l’absence de subordination sémantique entre les deux phrases anglaises,

on peut penser que ḥayṯu n’est ici qu’une conjonction de coordination rem-
plaçant la ponctuation «;». Il semble certain que ḥayṯu est un outil permet-
tant de coordonner en arabe deux phrases courtes séparées dans la langue
source par une ponctuation («,» / «;» / «:» / « . »). À ce titre, il convien-
drait de l’ajouter (ainsi que « ka-mā ») aux basiques conjonctions de coordi-
nation, « wa-», « fa-» et « ṯumma», dans une grammaire descriptive de l’ arabe
d’aujourd’hui.
Nous pouvons d’ailleurs noter que, dans l’exemple qui suit, ḥayṯu traduit
simplement la conjonction de coordination «and» :
ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 425

(17) Financial Times (Oil and gas: Profits squeezed by cost constraints, Andrew
England)
Mr Hewitt says Egypt remains an attractive investment destination and bg
and its partners have recently agreed to invest more than $ 1bn […]

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (al-takālīf wa-l-nafaqāt …)

yuʾakkid yān hūwit […] ʾanna miṣr mā zālat makān ǧāḏib li-stiṯmārāt al-
ġāz, ḥayṯu wāfaqat brītiš gāz wa-šurakāʾu-hā muʾaḫḫaran ʿalā -stiṯmār
milyār dūlār […]

Autre exemple de ḥayṯu remplaçant les deux points « : » :

(18) Financial Times (A nation moving at different speeds, by William Wallis)

Pro-democracy protests have been broken up with force: activists have been
clubbed

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (numūw sarīʿ li-l-iqtiṣād)

tamma faḍḍ taǧammuʿāt al-mutaẓāhirīn al-muṭālibīn bi-l-dimukrātiyya bi-

l-quwwa, ḥayṯu ḍuriba l-nušaṭāʾ

Autre exemple de ḥayṯu, remplaçant le point «.»:

(19) Financial Times (The muslim brotherhood, by Andrew England)

A crucial turning point for the organisation occurred in 1992 when an ear-
thquake struck the capital, killing more than 500 people and injuring thou-
sands of others. The Brotherhood was one of the first to offer assistance

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm («al-ʾiḫwān»: al-ḥaḏr al-qanūnī lā yaʿnī ḥaḏr

šaʿbī)

wa-kāna l-zalzāl al-qawī l-laḏī ḍaraba l-qāhira ʿām 1992 wa-tasabbaba fī

qatl ʾakṯar min 500 šaḫṣ wa-ʾiṣābat al-ʾālāf, min niqāt al-taḥawwul al-kabīra
l-latī ʾaṯṯarat ʾaʿlā tanẓīm al-ʾiḫwān, ḥayṯu kānū min ʾawāʾil man qaddamū
l-ʿawn li-l-mutaḍarrirīn

Ci-dessous, la virgule qui suit «by nature», sentie comme chargée de causalité,
a entraîné l’emploi de ḥayṯu: «il est cher par nature, car il est plus profond,
[…]»
426 girod

(20) Financial Times (Oil and gas, by Andrew England)

It’s expensive by nature, it’s deeper, and it’s high pressure and high tempera-
ture, […]

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (al-takālīf wa-l-nafaqāt …)

fa-huwa mukallif bi-ṭabīʿati-hi, ḥayṯu yustaḫraǧ min ʾābār ḏāt ḍaġṭ wa-
daraǧāt ḥarāra ʿāliya wa-ʾaʿmaq ʾakbar, […]

On peut constater par ailleurs que dans les deux exemples qui suivent, «ḥayṯu
ʾinna» traduit « as», avec sans doute la même polysémie dans les deux termes
arabe et anglais: «puisque, comme, étant donné que, vu que … » :

(21) Financial Times (Banking: A learner sector and a lighter load, by Andrew
England)
Others say the deal makes sense as both have similar problems

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (al-bunūk al-miṣriyya …)

yarā ʾāḫarūn ʾanna l-ṣafqa tabdū manṭiqiyya ḥayṯu ʾinna kilā l-bankayn
laday-hi nafs al-muškilāt

(22) Financial Times (The social divide: Cairo inhabitants driven …, by William
Wallis)
it is also clear that subsidies - […] – are themselves no longer working as
Egypt’s population expands towards 80m

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (al-inqisām al-ṭabaqī …)

min al-wāḍiḥ ʾayḍan ʾanna l-daʿm al-ḥukūmī – […] – lam yaʿud ḏā qīma,
ḥayṯu ʾinna taʿdād miṣr yatazāyad ʾilā naḥwi 80 milyūn

Mais ḥayṯu seul peut aussi bien traduire « as»:

(23) Financial Times (The social divide: Cairo inhabitants driven …, by William
Wallis)
There are signs that the middle class is itself beginning to expand as more
skilled jobs become available

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (al-inqisām al-ṭabaqī …)

ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 427

wa-yumkin iʿtibār ḏālika ʾišārāt ʾilā ʾanna l-ṭabaqa l-mutawassiṭa nafsa-hā

tabdaʾ al-ʾān fī l-ittisāʿ, ḥayṯu yatawāfar ḥāliyyan al-mazīd min al-waẓāʾif
al-latī taʿtamid ʿalā l-mahārāt

Le fait que l’on utilise aussi bien ḥayṯu que ḥayṯu ʾinna pour traduire «as»
montre qu’il n’y a pas, dans ce cas, de différence sémantique notable entre
les deux emplois. Grammaticalement, il est certain que dans (21) l’ emploi de
ḥayṯu ʾinna est impératif puisqu’il introduit une proposition à tête nominale
et que cette dernière est dépourvue de verbe. Ce n’est pas le cas dans (22)
où le verbe yatazāyad est présent et où une proposition à tête verbale est
possible: ḥayṯu yatazāyad taʿdād Miṣr […]. Inversement, on pourrait réécrire
(23) avec une proposition à tête nominale introduite par ḥayṯu ʾinna : […]
ḥayṯu ʾinna al-mazīd min al-waẓāʾif al-latī taʿtamid ʿalā l-mahārāt yatawāfar
ḥāliyyan.
C’est donc très probablement pour des raisons phraséologiques ou stylis-
tiques et non pour des raisons sémantiques ou syntaxiques que le choix se fait.
Ainsi, plus que ce que peut receler le point comme charge sémantique de
cause dans les deux exemples suivants (voire de conséquence dans le pre-
mier), on peut simplement voir dans ḥayṯu un outil stylistique permettant de
fusionner les deux courtes propositions anglaises et rendre à la phrase arabe
l’ ampleur nécessaire à son génie propre:

(24) Financial Times (Manufacturing: Factories shoot up as a lot of things start

falling into place, by William Wallis)
Egypt is one of the countries where they [the Chinese] can put their money.
They see it as a platform to Europe

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (qiṭāʿ al-ṣināʿa …)

fa-miṣr wāḥida min al-duwal al-latī yumkin li-l-ṣīniyyīn ʾan yastaṯmirū ʾam-
wāla-hum fī-hā, ḥayṯu yarawna-hā bi-maṯābat ṭarīq ʾilā ʾurūba

(25) Financial Times (A nation moving at different speeds, by William Wallis)

Today, however, it is on the hit list of modernising technocrats in President
Hosni Mubarak’s cabinet. They want to disperse its myriad departments to
Cairo’s outskirts

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (numūw sarīʿ li-l-iqtiṣād …)

428 girod

wa-yaʾtī l-mugammaʿ al-yawm fī ṣadārat qāʾimat al-tiknūkrāt al-ǧadīda,

ḥayṯu tarġab al-ḥukūma fī tawzīʿ makātibi-hi l-latī tuqaddaʿ bi-l-ʾālāf ḫāriǧ
al-qāhira

Malgré tout il est souvent difficile de trancher entre telle ou telle interprétation
de ḥayṯu:

(26) Financial Times (Oil and gas: Profits squeezed by cost constraints, by An-
drew England)
[…] and bring a new field in the Gulf of Suez into production. The group
has not been actively conducting oil exploration after failing to attain the
successes it had expected in recent years […]

Traduction, al-Maṣrī al-yawm (al-takālīf wa-l-nafaqāt …)

[…] min ḫilāl iktišāf ḥaql ǧadīd muntiǧ fī minṭaqat ḫalīǧ al-swīs, ḥayṯu
lam tadḫul al-šarika bi-našāṭ fī maǧāl al-tanqīb baʿda fašali-hā fī taḥqīq
al-naǧāḥ al-laḏī tawaqqaʿat-hu ḫilāl al-ʾaʿwām al-ʾaḫīra […]

Dans un tel cas, on ne peut savoir si l’intention du traducteur en liant les deux
propositions est de noter: le lieu: «[…] le golfe de Suez où la société n’avait
jamais développé d’activité […]», ce qui ne semble pas être le cas de l’ auteur
de l’article, ou bien de noter la cause: «[…] le golfe de Suez ; en effet la société
n’avait jamais développé d’activité […]».
En revanche, nombre d’ambiguïtés grammaticales ou sémantiques peuvent
être levées:

– ambiguïté grammaticale: si l’on considère que ḥayṯu est un marqueur de

ponctuation / coordination et non une conjonction, le problème de l’ antécé-
dent dans (3) ne se pose plus:

(3) al-Dustūr 13/2/2001 (nouvelles locales – bi-riʿāyat malikat Rānyā …)

kamā baḥaṯa l-sayyid al-rifāʿī maʿa s-sayyid […] taṭawwurāt al-ʾawḍāʿ […]
wa-l-qaḍāyā l-duwaliyya ḏāt al-ihtimām al-muštarak ḥayṯu ʾakkada l-say-
yid al-rifāʿī …

Et on peut réinterpréter la traduction de (3.1) en (3.2) :

(3.1) Monsieur al-Rifāʿī a également discuté avec Monsieur […] des évolu-
tions de la situation […] et des questions internationales d’ intérêt com-
mun, discussion au cours de laquelle Monsieur al-Rifāʿī a affirmé …
ḥayṯu : une inextricable polysémie ? 429

(3.2) Monsieur al-Rifāʿī a également discuté avec Monsieur […] des évo-
lutions de la situation […] et des questions internationales d’ intérêt
commun; Monsieur al-Rifāʿī a affirmé …

– ambiguïté sémantique:

(15) al-ʾAhrām 13/2/2001 (enquêtes – al-ḥifāż ʿalā …)

yuʿqad al-muʾtamar fī l-qāhira li-l-marra l-ṯāniya ḥayṯu ʿuqida fī l-marra
l-ʾūlā munḏu ʿašar sanawāt
(15.1) Le congrès se tient au Caire pour la seconde fois, le premier s’ étant tenu
il y a dix ans
(15.2) Le congrès se tient au Caire pour la seconde fois ; le premier s’ était tenu
il y a dix ans

Il semble donc raisonnable de conclure que, sur ce corpus, ḥayṯu est un outil
de coordination de phrases, tenant lieu dans l’original anglais de différentes
ponctuations (virgule, point, point virgule, deux points). ḥayṯu ne remplace pas
totalement la ponctuation mais la renforce car il est lui-même précédé d’ une
virgule dans tous les exemples. Il a le plus souvent la charge sémantique sous-
jacente de causalité et on retrouve cette même charge dans la traduction par
« ḥayṯu ʾinna» de l’anglais «as». Il n’est cependant pas exclu de trouver dans
ḥayṯu d’autres nuances, de conséquence par exemple (20), mais ḥayṯu semble
essentiellement un incomparable nouvel outil stylistique d’ arabisation de la
phrase, dans le cadre de la traduction de l’anglais vers l’ arabe.

Bibliography

Primary Sources
al-ʿAdnānī, Muḥammad. 19802. Muʿǧam al-ʾaḫṭāʾ al-šāʾiʿa. Beirut : Librairie du Liban.
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biyya. Beirut: al-Maktaba al-ʿaṣriyya. 12th ed.
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Dīn al-ʾAnṣārī al-Rūwayfaʿī al-ʾIfrīqī al-Miṣrī Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab. Beirut: Dār
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 part 4
Arabic and Semitic Dialectology

∵
 chapter 21

Fuṣḥā Arabic Vocabulary Borrowed by Mardini

Arabic via Turkish

George Grigore

1 Introduction

The data analyzed in this paper, which I dedicate to Professor Pierre Larcher,
was collected in the framework of my project concerning the developing of a
monograph of Arabic spoken in the town of Mardin—situated in Southeast
Turkey—and its neighbouring villages. The monograph was published in 2007
(Grigore 2007). All the data which constitute the corpus that the analysis is
based on has been recorded by me.
The vocabulary of Mardini Arabic—like the vocabulary of all North-Meso-
potamian dialects to which it belongs—was affected by massive borrowings
from Turkish, because this language has been for centuries—in the form of
Ottoman Turkish and Modern Turkish—the official language of the area. At the
same time they were borrowing Turkish vocabulary, these dialects massively
borrowed Arabic words as well, which Turkish also took in its turn especially
from Fuṣḥā Arabic (fa). A similar situation was pointed out by Geva Klein-
berger concerning the Ottoman-Turkish influence on the Arabic dialects spo-
ken in Galilee:

Sometimes an Arabic word penetrated the Ottoman-Turkish and then

entered again into the Arabic glossary, e.g., the Arabic word ḥawḍ [trough
for the cattle] entered Ottoman Turkish and was changed phonologically
into havuz [artificial basin], then returned to the Arabic dialect in the past
as trough for cattle, yet has changed its meaning currently into a water
basin that is placed on the roof.
geva kleinberger 2009: 60

Our study will focus on these words and we will highlight the phonetic and
semantic modifications that these words have undergone, thus shedding light
on some general issues.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_023

436 grigore

2 Mardini Arabic

Mardini Arabic, a qəltu dialect, belongs to the North-Mesopotamian Dialects,

the Anatolian branch—which includes the Mardini group, the Siirti group,
the Diyarbakır group, the Kozluk-Sason group, etc. (Jastrow 1994: 121). With
regard to phonetics, which interests us in a very particular way in this study,
Mardini Arabic kept all the phonemes known in old communal Arabic except
the glottal stop /ʾ/—which disappeared completely—and the pharyngealized
voiced dental occlusive /ḍ/ shifted to /ẓ/, fusing with it. It must be stressed
that Mardini Arabic also retained the old interdentals /ṯ/, /ḏ/ and /ẓ/ as such,
as well as the voiced uvular /q/; these sounds are the most likely to undergo
change (Grigore 2007: 56–58). The Arabic words that entered Mardini Arabic
via Turkish show some changes that would not have occurred if they were
inherited directly by this dialect.

3 Arabic Loanwords in Turkish

Arabic loanwords in Turkish present a blurry picture, which is very hard to be

clarified satisfactorily. The most difficult aspect concerns their phonetics that
vary according to the provenience, i.e. different varieties of Arabic (from Fuṣḥā
Arabic—the vehicle of Islamic texts—to Arabic dialects spoken in the contact
areas in different periods), ways of borrowing, directly or via Persian, etc.
For our research, we shall focus on the Classical or Fuṣḥā Arabic loanwords.
The inventories of phonemes of Arabic and of Turkish are quite different. For
instance, the Arabic (either Fuṣḥā or Mardini variety) contains consonants that
Turkish does not have, such as the interdental fricatives, the emphatic and
laryngeal consonants, etc. In the Arabic loanwords in Turkish, these consonants
were assimilated to Turkish phonemes that have at least one feature in com-
mon with the replaced Arabic ones.
The interdental fricatives /ṯ/, /ḏ/ and /ẓ/ became the sibilants /s/ and /z/
and the emphatic interdental /ẓ/ became the sibilant /z/ which also lost its
pharyngeal features:

/ṯ/ → /s/: ṯāniya “second”1 → saniye “second”;2 ṯābit “fixed” → sabit

“constant” “fixed”;

1 For Arabic, I used the dictionaries of Wehr (1980) and Baranov (2006).
2 For Turkish, I used the dictionary of Parker (2008).
fuṣḥā arabic vocabulary 437

/ḏ/ → /z/: ḏihn “mind” → zihin “mind”; ḏurwa “peak” → zirve “peak”;
/ẓ/ → /z/: ẓālim “tyrannous” → zalim “tyrannous”; ẓafr “victory” → zafir
“victory.”

In Mesopotamian Arabic dialects, the emphatic interdental /ẓ/ covers the two
old consonants: /ẓ/ itself and the emphatic occlusive /ḍ/; this shifted in Turkish
into /z/, too:

/ḍ/ → /ẓ/ → /z/: ḍaʿf “wikness” → zaaf “disability”.

In some loanwords, the emphatic occlusive /ḍ/ does not shift into the sibilant
/z/, but into the occlusive /d/, perhaps under the influence of Levant Arabic
where the /ẓ/ and /ḍ/ shift, the both of them, into /ḍ/:

qāḍ[in] “judge” → qadi “judge”;

ḍarba “hit” → darbe “hit”.

The other two emphatic consonants, the pharyngealized voiceless alveolar

occlusive /ṣ/ and the pharyngealized voiceless dental occlusive /ṭ/ also lost
their pharyngeal features when the words containing them entered into Turk-
ish:

ṣabr “patience” → sabır “patience”;

ṭābūr “bataillon” → tabur “bataillon”;
ṭibbī “medical” → tıbbi “medical.”

Even though the pharyngeal features of these Arabic consonants disappear in

Turkish, they leave behind, in the loanword, a trace on the neighbouring vowels
which become back vowels (so-called palatal), such as /a/, /ı/, /o/, and /u/. But
this rule is not coherent in all the situations (Comrie 1997: 886–890).
The Arabic voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ḥ/ and the uvular voiceless frica-
tive /ḫ/ shift in Turkish to the glottal fricative /h/:

/ḥ/ → /h/: ḥayāt “life” → hayat “life”;

/ḫ/ → /h/: ḫaṭaʾ “error” → hata “error.”

The Arabic voiced pharyngeal fricative /ʿ/ disappears:

ʿaraḍ “symptom”, → araz “symptom.”

438 grigore

The uvular voiced fricative /ġ/ becomes in the Arabic loans the voiced velar
occlusive /g/:

ġāya “aim” → gaye “aim”.

The uvular voiceless occlusive /q/ is rendered by occlusive voiceless /k/:

qayd “record” → kayıt “record.”

The gemination of the consonants which occurs in Arabic loans is always

simplified:

saǧǧāda “prayer rug” → secade “prayer rug”;

ḍidd “opposite” → zıt “opposite.”

All the voiced consonants, in the end of the word, became voiceless:

qalb “heart” → qalp “heart.”

4 The Phonetic Adaptation of Fuṣḥā Arabic Borrowings into Mardini

Arabic

Concerning the Fuṣḥā Arabic borrowings that entered Mardini Arabic via Turk-
ish, Otto Jastrow considers that the ‘Arabic phonemes such as the emphatics,
the pharyngeal, and the interdental consonants are frequently recovered, e.g.
ḥālbūki “however” (< Turkish halbuki)’ (Jastrow 2006: 95).
In accordance with my own findings, mostly, the specific Arabic pho-
nemes are restored in the original Arabic loanwords. In Mardini there are other
words derived from the same roots, easily identified by the native speakers,
e.g. mʿāyane, “medical examination” (< Tk muâyene “medical examination”
from fa muʿāyana “viewing”), word connecting to a word existing in Mar-
dini, ʿayn “eye.” I consider that the verbal noun mʿāyane was borrowed from
Turkish, because in Mardini Arabic the verb ʿāyan “to see,” “to look” is not
attested. A similar explanation works for another verbal noun mdāḫale “inter-
vention” (Tk müdâhale from fa mudāḫala “intervention”) which is also bor-
rowed because its afferent verb dāḫal does not exist in Mardini. The /ḫ/ is resti-
tuted as such, by connection with other words originated in the same root as
daḫal “to enter,” dəḫle “penetration” (in the expression laylət əd-dəḫle “wedding
night”).
fuṣḥā arabic vocabulary 439

Also, if the Turkish word is derived from an Arabic word by specific suf-
fixes, and that word exists independently in Mardini, then the specific Arabic
phonemes shall be restored.

waṭandāš “citizen” (Tk vatandaş from vatan “fatherland”—fa waṭan—

plus the Turkish suffix daş). The noun waṭan already exists in
Mardini Arabic, so it is identified as such in this Turkish com-
pound.
ʿaskarlək “military service” (Tk askerlik from asker “soldier”—fa ʿaskar
“soldier”—plus the Turkish suffix -lik). The noun ʿaskar already
exists in Mardini Arabic, so it is identified as such in this Turkish
compound.

As a rule, in the vicinity of back vowels—/a/, /ı/, /o/, and /u/—the voiceless
velar stop /k/ is rendered as the voiceless uvular stop /q/, consequently over-
lapping on the original phoneme:

mnāqaše “dispute,” “altercation” (Tk münâkașa “discution,” “dispute”

from fa munāqaša “debate,” “discussion,” “controversy”);
qīmətli “valuable” (Tk kıymetli “valuable” from kıymet—fa qīmat
“value”—plus the Turkish suffix li);
qaẓa “accident” (Tk kazâ “accident”—fa qaḍāʾ “destiny,” “fate”).

Also, the vicinity of back vowels imposes the rendering of /b/, /p/, /t/, /d/, /z/,
/s/, /m/, /n/, /r/, /l/, etc. as emphatics. Some of them—/ḍ/, /ṭ/, and /ṣ/—exist in
the original Arabic words borrowed via Turkish by Mardini Arabic, where they
are recovered as such as a result of these transformations:

qāḍi “judge” (Tk kadi “judge”—fa qāḍ[in]). If this word had been
directly inherited from the Arabic background, then it would have
been qāẓi, by the shift of /ḍ/ to /ẓ/ (Grigore 2007: 57).
ṭəbbīyəli “medicine student” (Turkish tıbbiyeli “medicine student”—fa
ṭibbī “medical”—compounded from tıbbiye “faculty of medicine” plus
the suffix -li).
aṣla “never” (Tk asla “never”—from fa ʾaṣlan, ʾaṣl with tanwīn of
accusative, with negation, “not at all,” “not in the least”).

Sometimes the original Arabic consonants are not recovered completely, espe-
cially if some of them suffered changes, for instance the devoicing of /d/ and its
shift to /t/ as it is the situation in the following example:
440 grigore

maqṣaṭ “aim” (Tk maksat “aim”—fa maqṣad).

The vagueness of the Arab origin of a borrowed Turkish word is also frequent,
the proof being the use of such words with specific Turkish phonemes, as /ü/,
/ö/, etc., e.g. teǧrübe (in Turkish spelling: tecrübe) “experience” cf. fa taǧriba,
rütbe “military rank” cf. fa rutba.

5 The Nunation of the Accusative

Even though no living Arabic dialects have casual endings, a large amount of
nouns in Mardini Arabic are marked by the nunation /-an-/ that gives to this
variety of Arabic an appearance of Fuṣḥā Arabic. This nunation does not have
any connection with “the indefinite specific marking”—cf. the terminology
proposed by Kristen Brustad (2000: 27)—as a vestige of /-in-/ tanwīn, used in
many Arabic dialects as those spoken in Andalusia, Libya (Cyrenaica), Yemen,
Najd, Oman, Bahrain, Central Asia, and so on (Miller 2010: 115), but it was
borrowed together with the Arabic nouns by [Ottoman] Turkish from Fuṣḥā
Arabic.
The case and mood terminal variations—the ʾiʿrāb, in Arab grammar termi-
nology—is the peculiarity of Fuṣḥā Arabic solely. Most ʾiʿrāb endings, except
the indefinite accusative -an, marked by the grapheme ‫ا‬, do not occur in
unvowelized writing. Also, spoken Fuṣḥā Arabic which frequently uses the
principle of pausal forms—the elision of the sentence-final short vowels -a, -i,
-u or nunated vowel -in, -un—extended that phenomenon3 to all words, not
only the final ones. So, the ʾiʿrāb is completely realized in a few situations:
Qurʾānic recitation and classical poetry. As for the rest, the ʾiʿrāb is more or
less realized. Even if it is minimally realized, it is obligatory for the nominal
sentence expressing an absolute complement mafʿūl muṭlaq4 (Larcher 2014:
278–279), i.e. marked by indefinite accusative -an.

3 We mention here the famous Arab adagio concerning the way of speaking Fuṣḥā Arabic:
iǧzim, taslam ‘Cut vowels [case and mood terminal variations], you’ll be safe.’
4 ‘L’ a[rabe] c[lassique]—en entendant par là non seulement l’état ancien de l’arabe littéral,
mais encore l’ arabe tel qu’ il s’ enseigne dans les classes et qui, […] est, en principe, une langue
à flexion désinentielle, casuelle pour les noms et modale pour les verbes; dans la pratique […]
cette flexion, essentiellement redondante, outre qu’ elle n’est jamais réalisée dans certains cas
(par exemple à la pause), n’est, sauf discours spécifiques (n. a.: Le Coran d’une part, la poésie
régulière de l’ autre où la flexion est prise en considération dans la récitation psalmodiée
s’ agissant de la première, et dans la métrique, s’ agissant de la seconde), que facultativement
fuṣḥā arabic vocabulary 441

The specific Arabic phonemes in these loans are frequently recovered either
totally or partially:

taqrīban (var.: ṭaqrīban) “approximately,” “nearby” ← takrîben “approxi-

mately,” “nearby” (Tk)—taqrīban “approximately,” “nearby” (fa);
fiʿlan “indeed,” “really” ← fiilen “indeed,” “really” (Tk) ← fiʿlan “indeed,”
“really” (fa);
məḥtamalan “probable” ← muhtemelen “probable” (Tk) ← muḥtamalan
“probable” (fa).
ʿalanan “publicly”← alenen “publicly,” “openly” (Tk) ← ʿalanan “openly,”
“overtly,” “publicly”: (fa).

Some speakers alternate between the two pronunciations, the purely Turkish
one and that reconstituted in local Arabic. Example:

əṭ-ṭarēq mən ōtəl-kən lə hawnak taqrīban ṯāṯīn daqīqa yǧərr

“The road from your hotel until there takes approximately thirty minutes.”

Some of these accusative-ending Arabic nouns are used in Turkish spelling:

zaten “furthermore” (fa: ḏātan “personally”), ilâveten “in addition to” (fa: ʿilā-
watan “in addition to”), bazen “sometimes” (fa: baʿẓan “some parts”), etc.

6 A Slight Reflex of Form-iv Verbs, but Numerous Form-iv Verbal

Nouns

The form-iv—a causative/factitive verbal form—characterized morphologi-

cally by the prefix /ʾa/ disappeared from almost all modern Arabic dialects as
a result of the vowel changes and the loss of the glottal stop /ʾ/, as is shown
in a lot of works (Brochelmann 1908: 523; Fischer & Jastrow 1980: 46; Holes
1995: 113; Aguade 2012: 7). On these lines, Ferguson highlighted that ‘Even such
widespread phenomena as the disappearance of the passive and of Form-iv
verbs could be attributed in large part to phonological trends (vowel assimila-
tion, loss of glottal stop).’ (Ferguson 1997: 58).

réalisée dans un certain nombre d’ autres: or, même en cas de flexion minimale …’ (Larcher
2014: 279).
442 grigore

This phenomenon is generalized in all Mesopotamian Arabic dialects (Blanc

1964; Sasse 1971; Grigore 2007; Grigore & Bițună 2012).
In Mardini Arabic, therefore, the perfect of this form—ʾaC1C2aC3—by the
loss of the glottal stop—its specific prefix, overlapped with the form-I—
C1aC2aC3, and the imperfect—yuC1C2iC3—by collapsing its distinctive vow-
els /u/ and /i/ to schwa /ə/, fused with Form-i too: ʿaǧab—yəʿǧəb “to like” (cf. fa
ʾaʿǧaba—yuʿǧibu); ʿaṭa—yəʿṭi “to give” (cf. fa ʾaʿṭā—yuʿṭī). (Grigore 2007: 133–
135).
Despite this situation, in Mardini Arabic I found some reflexes that bring to
mind the Form-iv. So, the distinction between Form-i and Form-iv is still pos-
sible for the verbs derived from hollow (second-weak) roots, in the imperfect,
distinction set off by the semantic and morphologic opposition ū/ō≠ ī: dāṛ—
ydōṛ (cf. ca dāra—yadūru “to turn,” “to move in circle”) and dār—ydīr (cf. fa
ʾadāra—yudīru “to turn s. th”). For instance:

ydōṛūn ḥawl əl-bīʿa.

“They turn around the church.”

ydīrūn wəčč-ən la-l-ḥāyəṭ.

“They turn their faces toward the wall.”

grigore 2007: 134–135

Paradoxically, despite the inexistence of the Form-iv in the Mesopotamian

Arabic dialects—except the aforementioned slight reflex—the verbal nouns
derived on this form are highly frequent.
We don’t take into discussion some nouns which are spread over the Islamic
world, with very slight phonetic differentiation, such as active participles: məs-
ləm “muslim,” mūmən “believer” and the verbal nouns: əslām “Islam,” əmān
“faith,” əfṭār “fast breaking” and so on, but we shall focus on the other tens Form-
iv verbal nouns.
All these verbal nouns are borrowed from Turkish or Kurmanji. Almost all
the time, it is very hard or impossible to detect the source of the borrowing
because these words exist in both Kurmanji and Turkish. Sometimes the source
can be delimited according to semantic and phonetic changes of these nouns
in Kurmanji (Kr) or in Turkish, if they exist:
fuṣḥā arabic vocabulary 443

ədāne “protest” ← îdane “protest” (Kr.)5 ← ʾidāna “verdict of guilty,”

“conviction” (fa).
əǧār “rent,” “letting”←îcar “rent,” “letting” (Kr.) ← ʾīǧār “rent,” “letting”
(fa).
əqāẓ “warning”← ikaz “warning” (Tk) ← ʾīqāẓ “awaking,” “reveille” (fa).
ədmān “training” ← idman “training” (Tk), see also idmanci “trainer,”
“coach” ← ʾidmān “addiction,” “excess” (fa).
əǧbār “coercion” ← icbar “coercion” (Tk) ← ʾiǧbār “coercion” (fa).

7 Feminine Nouns Ending in /-t/

The feminine nouns in Mardini Arabic fall into one of three classes. The first
two classes are inherited:

1. the nouns ending in /a/ or /e/. Most of these nouns are inherited from old
communal Arabic, for example: baqaṛa “cow,” baṭṭa “duck,” ḥabbāye “seed,”
“pill,” etc. (Grigore 2007: 181). As first term in a status constructus, this kind of
nouns recovered the /t/ of the feminine, for example ǧaṛṛat əl-ṃayy “water
jug” (Grigore 2007: 213).
2. the nouns not ending in /a/ or /e/. A few nouns of this kind are nonetheless
feminine, for example nār “fire,” ʿayn “eye,” etc., inherited from old commu-
nal Arabic, and some loan words such ǧīhān “world.” (Grigore 2007: 182).

The third class is represented by nouns ending in -at/-et, in their absolute form.
This ending was entered into Mardini Arabic along with Fuṣḥā Arabic words
borrowed via Turkish. This ending does not occur—except with the first term
in a status constructus—in any Arabic dialects as absolute form. Examples:

dawlət “state” ← devlet “state” (Tk) ← dawla[t] “state” (fa).

mamlakət “region,” “country” ← memleket “country” (Tk) ← mamlaka[t]
“kingdom” (fa)
syēsət “policy” ← siyaset “policy” (Tk) ← siyāsa[t] “policy” (fa)
syāḥat “travel” ← seyahat “travel” (Tk) ← siyāḥa[t] “travel” (fa)
maʿīyət “escort,” “suite” ← maiyet “escort,” “suite”; “job” (Tk) ← maʿiyya[t]
(derived from the preposition maʿa “with,” “together with”) “escort”
(fa).

5 For Kurdish, I used the dictionary of Arslan (2004).

444 grigore

Some of these words circulate in parallel with their inherited synonyms:

tǧārət and tǧāre “commerce”; dawlət and dawle “state,” etc.
A large amount of the -t ending words is originated in the Arabic words
created or semantically modified by the Ottoman reformers during the 19th
century—especially during the period of tanzimat (1839–1876), the reforms of
military, administrative, legislative, economical, political spheres—until the
early 20th century. For instance, the well-known reformer Namık Kemal (1840–
1888) created ‘a new vocabulary giving old words new meanings […]. Vatan, the
Arabic word for one’s birthplace, became the equivalent of French patrie, hür-
riyet (being a free man, not a slave) that of liberty, millet (community) that of
nation’ (Zürcher 2001: 68). A great number of such words concerning abstract
notions derived from an Arabic noun by adding to it the suffix of abstractiza-
tion -iyyat, taking as model the derivation of nouns such the above-mentioned
hürriyet from hürr (i.e. in Arabic spelling: ḥurriyyat and ḥurr), e.g. cumhuriyet
“republic” (derived from the Arabic ǧumhūr “public,” kavmiyet “ethnicity,” “trib-
alism,” derived from the Arabic qawm “people” and many others) (see Rehban
1986: 69). Some of these Arabic Ottoman Turkish words entered the Fuṣḥā Ara-
bic language too as ḥurrīya, ǧumhūrīya, qawmīya, and so on, without final -t in
the pausal spelling. In Mardini Arabic, as in other Arabic varieties spoken in
Turkey, they entered directly from Turkish, keeping the final -t:

madanīyət “civilisation” medeniyet (derived from the Arabic madīna

“city” madanī “urban,” “civilized”) “civilisation”
mašrūṭīyət6 “constitution” meșrutiyet (derived from the Arabic mašrūṭ
“conditioned”) “constitution”
maḥǧūbīyət7 “timidity,” “shy” mahcubiyet (derived from the Arabic
maḥǧūb “concealed,” “hidden,” “veiled”) “timidity,” “shy”;
mawǧūdīyət8 “existence” mevcudiyet (from the Arabic mawǧūd “exis-
tent”) “existence,” “being”.
məllīyət9 “nationality” milliyet (from the Arabic milla “religious
community”) “nationality.”

6 This word is not attested in the dictionaries consecrated to Modern Written Arabic as Bara-
nov, Wehr, etc.
7 Idem.
8 Idem.
9 Idem.
fuṣḥā arabic vocabulary 445

8 Plural Forms

In Mardini Arabic, some nouns are commonly or exclusively found in the plu-
ral. These nouns, in classical plural forms, were borrowed via Turkish language,
as:

ḥəwēyəǧ “necessaries,” “everyday objects,” borrowed from the Turkish

havayiç “necessities,” borrowed from Fuṣḥā Arabic ḥawāʾiǧ, a broken
plural of the noun ḥāǧa “need,” having the meaning of “needs,”
“necessities,” “necessaries,” “everyday objects,” etc. (see also Jastrow
1969: 42). The normal plural, in Mardini Arabic, of ḥāǧa is ḥāǧāt
“stuffs,” “affairs.”
ḥəwēdəs “events,” borrowed from the Turkish hewadis “events,” borrowed
from the Fuṣḥā Arabic ḥawādiṯ, a broken plural of the noun ḥādiṯ
“event,” “incident.” In Mardini Arabic the singular *ḥādiṯ is not
attested; also, if this plural was not borrowed, but inherited, it must
have been ḥəwēdəṯ and not ḥəwēdəs.
awrāq or awrāḫ “documents,” “papers,” borrowed from the Turkish evrâk
“documents,” borrowed from the Fuṣḥā Arabic ʾawrāq, a broken plural
from the noun waraqa “a paper.” In Mardini Arabic, waraqa is means
“a Turkish lira” (in the past, before the monetary reform, “a million
liras”). The word for “paper” is kāġəḏ, with the singulative kāġḏāye.
So, the noun awrāq lacks the singular and, in conclusion, is borrowed
from Turkish and not inherited.

Some of these plurals are reinterpreted as singular and thus a plural is formed
from them. This is, for instance, the case of ǧīrān. In Fuṣḥā Arabic, ǧīrān is the
broken plural of ǧār “neighbor”, but in Mardini Arabic this noun (borrowed
from the Kurmanji çîran “a neighbor”) formed a plural ǧəwērīn.

9 Semantic Changes

Mardini Arabic shares with the other Arabic varieties thousands of cognates,
words inherited from the old communal Arabic background. These words have,
in their majority, similar meanings and forms, but there are also semantic and
phonetic differences between them due to their internal evolution. Concerning
the Mardini Arabic, apart from this internal evolution as cause of the semantic
change, there is another source for it: the borrowing of some semantic modified
Arabic words originated from Turkish. These word pairs—in Fuṣḥā Arabic
446 grigore

and Mardini Arabic—look like they might mean the same thing, yet they do
not, being known, in the specialized literature, as the so-called “false friends.”
Examples:

msāfər “guest” as the meaning gained by its Turkish cognate misafir

“guest” borrowed from the Fuṣḥā Arabic, musāfir “traveler”;
ṣəḥbət “chatting” as the meaning gained by its Turkish cognate sohbet
“chatting” borrowed from the Fuṣḥā Arabic, ṣuḥba “companionship”;
ədmān “exercise,” “training” as the meaning gained by its Turkish
cognate idman “exercise,” “training” borrowed from the Fuṣḥā Arabic
ʾidmān “addiction,” “excess.” See also ədmānǧi ← idmanci “trainer,”
“coach”;
msāʿade “permission,” “approval” as the meaning gained by its Turkish
cognate müsaade “permission,” “approval” borrowed from the Fuṣḥā
Arabic, musāʿada “aid,” “help”;
safar “military expedition,” “mission,” “incursion” as the meaning gained
by its Turkish cognate sefer “military expedition,” borrowed from the
Fuṣḥā Arabic, safar “travel.”

Sometimes, the semantic discrepancy between a word in Mardini Arabic and

its cognate in Fuṣḥā Arabic is not the result of the change of meaning of that
word in Turkish, but the conservation of its old meaning that is not in use
anymore in the Modern Fuṣḥā Arabic. Example:

səyyāre “planet” as the Turkish seyyare “planet” borrowed with this

meaning from Fuṣḥā Arabic. In Modern Fuṣḥā Arabic this word was
resemantized, giving it the meaning of “car.”

10 The Verbal-Nominal Constructions

Besides the inherited or borrowed verbs, Mardini also uses a verbal construc-
tion (Grigore 2003, 2007: 159–160) based on borrowed nouns + the verb sawa—
ysawi (to make), a second form verb which suffered a degemination (Jastrow
1995: 98) for the active verbs, and ṣār—yṣēr (to become) for the passive verbs.
This aspect is not specific only to Mardini Arabic as it can be found to a lesser
extent in other Arab dialects as well. These verbal-nominal groups consist
mainly of Kurdish and Turkish nouns but there are also Arabic nouns which
are in fact calques of Turkish or Kurdish terms with the verb translated and the
noun preserved unchanged, even if in Mardini Arabic the same meaning can be
fuṣḥā arabic vocabulary 447

expressed by using a verb. It is to be noticed that quite often the noun borrowed
from Turkish is originally an Arabic verbal derivative (past participle, present
participle or noun of action).
The Kurdish-Kurmanji language as well as Turkish didn’t borrow Arabic
verbs; instead they used an identical structural system to construct verbs from
borrowed Arabic nouns (verbal derivatives), a system used in Mardini Arabic
also. In most cases, the grammaticalization strategies of the borrowings are the
same for totally different languages (Anghelescu 2000: 157) as illustrated by the
examples below.
In Kees Versteegh’s opinion these verbal-nominal expressions—as he calls
them—seem to be all calques of Turkish expressions containing the verbs
etmek (to do) in the case of the active verbs and olmak (to be) in that of the
passive verbs. This statement is based on the already mentioned fact that the
Turkish language didn’t borrow verbs from Arabic, but only nouns of action and
participles verbalised with the help of the verbs mentioned above (Versteegh
2001: 215). The examples are quite numerous: tabir etmek “to express,” from
the Arabic noun of action taʿbīr “expression”; meşgul etmek “to occupy,” “to
preoccupy”; meşgul olmak “to be occupied,” from the Arabic passive participle
“mašġūl”; hâsil olmak “to result,” “to derive (from),” from the Arabic active
participle “ḥāṣil,” etc. The same process can be found in Kurdish, where the
abstract verbs kirin “to do” and buyîn or bûn “to be,” “to become” are used for
constructing active and, respectively, passive verbs: imza kirin “to sign,” from
the Arabic noun of action ʾimẓāʾ “to sign,” “signature”; mehrûm buyən “to be
forbidden,” from the Arabic passive participle maḥrūm, etc.
Besides the two grammaticalized verbs predominant in the construction of
the verbal-nominal expressions, there are others as well, more or less grammat-
icalized, such as the verb “to give”: in Turkish vermek; in Kurdish dan/dayən; in
Mardini ʿaṭa.
Thus we can notice a similitude between the verbal-nominal expressions in
Mardini, Turkish and Kurdish, which makes them, to a certain extent, recipro-
cally comprehensible, even if these languages belong to different families:

The English meaning Mardini Turkish Kurdish

to be gloomy ṣār pərīšān perişan olmak perîşan bûn/buyən

to phone sawa tələfōn telefon etmek telefon kirin
to promise ʿaṭa sōz söz vermek soz dan/dayən
448 grigore

In Mardini, many expressions of this kind remained in the language form-

ing, as in Turkish and Kurdish, part of the fundamental vocabulary. But besides
them, there are numerous expressions created ad hoc by the bilingual speakers
during conversation. Even if in most cases the core noun is an Arabic word bor-
rowed from Turkish, the Mardini speakers don’t recognise its origin any more,
borrowing it unchanged from Turkish with all its previously suffered phonetic
alterations. Examples: sawa ithal, cf. Turkish: ithal etmek “to import,” ithal from
the Arabic ʾidḫāl “introduction,” “admission,” “admitting”; sawa taqavət, cf. the
Turkish tekaüt etmek “to retire,” tekaüt from the Arabic taqāʿud “retirement,” etc.
Sometimes the calque source is very difficult—even impossible—to establish.

11 Conclusion

Mardini Arabic—a peripheral dialect—not a part of the known Arabic diglos-

sia, because the “high” variety of Fuṣḥā Arabic, was replaced by Turkish. It
contains an impressive amount of classical words with specific marks such as
nunation of the accusative, -t of feminine, and so on. All these classical items
entered Mardini Arabic via Turkish language that circulates a large amount of
Classical Arabic vocabulary.

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 chapter 22

Aspect Marking in Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi*

Kees Versteegh

1 Introduction

The development of tense/aspect markers in pidgin and creole languages has

been one of the central issues in creole linguistics ever since Bickerton (1974)
proposed that all creole languages develop three aspect markers, called by him
past, non-punctual, and irrealis. The exact distribution of all aspectual
nuances, such as continuous (progressive), iterative, habitual, and generic,
among these markers differs from creole to creole. We shall see below that the
main overlap occurs between the non-punctual and the irrealis marker in
the marking of habituality, which may be interpreted as real, but also as irreal.
On the one hand, habitual aspect refers to events that have actually taken place
or are taking place and should therefore be regarded as realis. On the other
hand, it does not refer to an individual event that actually takes place, and
has therefore something in common with irrealis as well. A similar ambiguity
applies to conditional sentences, which represent either a real condition, or an
irreality that may never be realized (Bickerton 1981: 256–260; Tosco 1995: 429–
431).
The total number of Arabic-based pidgins and creoles is not very high, but
since they developed fairly recently, they allow us to follow the development
of tense/aspect markers in various stages. In this paper, I propose to analyze
the expression of aspect in two different varieties of Arabic: Juba Arabic as an
example of a stable pidgin (Tosco, 1995); and (Ki-) Nubi as an example of an Ara-
bic creole (Wellens 2005; Luffin 2005). For Juba Arabic, a corpus assembled by

* This paper is the revised version of (part of) my presentation at the Time and Space con-
ference, organized by Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen, which took place at the
University of Århus, Denmark, from January 15–16, 2014. I thank the organizers and the par-
ticipants to the conference for their critical remarks. In examples taken from the literature
I have retained as much as possible the transcription of the original. In the glosses accom-
panying the examples the following abbreviations have been used: art article; cond con-
ditional; conj conjunction; dem demonstrative; interrog interrogative; pass passive; pl
plural; poss possessive; rel relative; 1, 2, 3 1st, 2nd, 3rd person; m, f masculine, feminine; s, p
singular, plural.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_024

452 versteegh

Manfredi is available in a text repository with sound archives maintained by the

cnrs (http://corpafroas.tge-adonis.fr/Archives/ListeFichiersELAN.php). Suffi-
ciently large text samples for Ki-Nubi may be found in Luffin (2004) and
Wellens (2005).
Juba Arabic is treated here as an example of a stable pidgin. In earlier
stages of pidginization, preceding stabilization, rudimentary forms of com-
munication are used, which are sometimes referred to as pre-pidgins or jar-
gons.1 Such rudimentary communication takes place almost exclusively in a
limited context between native speakers and individual learners. At this stage,
no tense/aspect markers are used (see Versteegh, forthcoming). Temporal ref-
erence is achieved by the pragmatic context or with the help of temporal adver-
bials, as in (1), an example from Pidgin Madame, a pre-pidgin used in Lebanon
between Sri Lankan domestics and Lebanese housewives (Bizri 2010):

(1) badēṃ rūh badēṃ ma īji

afterwards go afterwards neg come
‘Then I’ll go and I won’t come back’ (Bizri 2010: 162)

It is only through the context that we know that the verbal forms rūh and īji in
(1)—which derive from Lebanese Arabic imperatives—refer to the future: in
the preceding utterance the speaker has made clear that she would like to work
in Lebanon for one more year. Without this knowledge, the sentence could also
be interpreted as meaning ‘Then I went and I didn’t come back.’
In addition to temporal adverbials such as awwäl ‘at first, in the past’ and
hälla ‘now,’ Pidgin Madame uses adverbials such as kilyōm ‘always, everyday,’
which indicate habituality. Reference to the future is usually linked with the
expression of intentions, desires, or obligations, and may be accompanied by
forms like baddi ~ baddek ‘want’ or rūh ~ rūhi ‘go.’
In the present paper, pre-pidgins or jargons, like Pidgin Madame, will not be
dealt with. Instead, I shall focus on the marking of tense and aspect in stable
pidgins, with special attention to the marking of habituality. In these pidgins,
tense/aspect markers have become grammaticalized, so that the pragmatic
context plays a less important role in interpreting utterances.

1 For the classification of pidgins see Mühlhäusler (1997) and, with a different terminology,
Winford (2006). Note that the classification of Juba Arabic as a stable pidgin depends not so
much on the variety itself, but rather on which speakers we are dealing with: for some of them
it is a native language, for others a secondary means of communication in daily life, and for
yet others a lingua franca that is only used in a limited set of circumstances.
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 453

2 Aspect Markers in Juba Arabic

Unlike pre-pidgins, stable pidgins are not only used in communication be-
tween native speakers and learners, but also as a means of communication
between new learners with different first languages. Juba Arabic developed as
a pidginized variety of Arabic at the end of the 19th century in South Sudan. It
has remained in use as a lingua franca for many heterolingual groups in South
Sudan (Owens 1996; Miller 2007a; Manfredi and Petrollino 2013) and is used
by many people as a second language. In addition, it has become the native
language for an unknown number of people in South Sudan, especially in the
city of Juba, and in the diaspora. No doubt, its new status as a marker of identity
in independent South Sudan and in Juba communities outside South Sudan
(Miller 2002) will lead to an increase in the number of native speakers.
Juba Arabic must have had precursors in the region. From the time of the
Anglo-Egyptian military intervention in the Sudan and probably even before
that in connection with trading, pidginized varieties of Arabic were current in
this highly multilingual area (Owens 1996). The traces of one of these varieties,
Turku, have been investigated by Tosco and Owens (1993). This pidgin was spo-
ken by the soldiers in the army of the Sudanese warlord Rabeh, who established
a short-lived empire in Chad at the end of the 19th century. It is now extinct, but
may have descendants in Bongor Arabic (Luffin 2008), and possibly in other
Chadian Arabic pidgins.2
According to Tosco and Owens (1993: 240), two tense/aspect markers may
be reconstructed from the documentation about Turku, a continuous marker
gahed (< Arabic gāʿid ‘staying; sitting’), and a future marker bi-, both of them
inherited from its lexifier Sudanese Arabic. In their view, bi- is the older one,
which was in use in what they call the general Sudanic pidgin/creole Arabic
that emerged in the course of the Arab expansion to the south, even before the
formation of Turku. The marker bi- is found in Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi as bi
(bi-~bǝ-), while gahed probably developed into a new marker gi (gi-~ga-~ge-),
as an innovation in Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi.
The earliest description of Juba Arabic is by Nhial (1975). He describes the
verbal system of Juba Arabic as having two markers, one continuous (progres-
sive) marker gi and one future marker bi. Apparently, the latter is also used for
generic statements, as in (2):

2 Information about a much earlier trading pidgin, Maridi Pidgin Arabic, which is supposed to
have been use in the 11th century, is limited to a few quotations in an Arab geographer (see
Thomason and Elgibali 1986).
454 versteegh

(2) ná:s gusse:r-í:n zei Itákum má bǝ-jére kwé:s

people short-pl like 2p neg bi-walk well
‘Short people like you do not run well’ (Nhial 1975: 85)

In the other examples provided by Nhial, bi apparently refers to the future, as

in (3):

(3) úwa bǝ-ásrebu maríss

3s bi-drink beer
‘He will drink beer’ (Nhial 1975: 84)

This sentence might denote either a habitual or continuous aspect, but in the
absence of any context, the exact meaning is not clear.
The urbanization process in South Sudan in the 1970s, which led to the
nativization of Juba Arabic in the city of Juba, introduced additional varieties
of Arabic, in particular that of Khartoum, and even Standard Arabic. The
influence of these prestige varieties was documented by Mahmud (1978), who
describes a situation in which various markers were in competition. For some
speakers, the basilectal marker gi, which functioned as a continuous marker,
was in free variation with the marker bi. Mahmud concludes that gi is being
replaced gradually by bi, which he believes is the result of interference from
Khartoum Arabic.3
The tables of use Mahmud provides for four speakers in his sample, all of
them living in Juba, illustrate the variation.4
The general picture drawn by Mahmud is sometimes confusing, possibly also
because of his slightly idiosyncratic terminology.5 The interpretation of some of
his examples should probably be corrected, in particular, the few cases he men-
tions of perfective being denoted by gi or bi. Since Mahmud (1978: 99) himself

3 For those speakers who became conversant with Khartoum Arabic, a new set of markers
appeared, ya-, ta-, na. In Khartoum Arabic, these function as personal markers on the (imper-
fect) verb, of the 3ms, 3fs/2s, and 1p, respectively. But in Juba Arabic they were taken over as
free variants of the markers bi and gi.
4 The numbers have been recalculated in order to present a coherent view of the differ-
ences.
5 Thus, for instance, he uses the term ‘auxiliary’ to refer to the use of bi and gi (mostly the latter)
with adjectival predicates or with passive states, whereas they clearly function here either as
a copula or as an aspect marker. This category has been conflated in Table 1 with that of non-
punctual. What Mahmud calls ‘overlapping’ probably refers to the category of conditionals;
this category has been conflated here with irrealis.
 aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 455

table 22.1 Distribution of the markers gi and bi for four speakers of Juba Arabic (in
percentages of tokens for irrealis and non-punctual in each speaker; after Mahmud
1978).

Speaker i Speaker ii Speaker iii Speaker iv

adult native adult l2 adult bilingual young native

Irrealis Non- Irrealis Non- Irrealis Non- Irrealis Non-

punctual punctual punctual punctual

∅ 34 17 33 31 10 10 34.5 16
gi 21 41 0.5 16 – 0.5 1.5 31.5
bi 37 31 38 38 24 36 14 42.5
ya- etc. 3.5 0.5 14 5 52 37 38 –
other 3.5 8 12.5 10 12 14 20 9.5
99% 97.5% 98% 100% 98% 97.5% 108% 99.5%
(138) (192) (216) (316) (159) (226) (58) (73)

notes that the perfective is predominantly unmarked, these isolated examples

probably represent past imperfectives (habitual or continuous). Likewise, in
the category of future a considerable number of sentences with the marker gi
probably refer to an imminent future, as in (4):

(4) ana gi-ruwa fi sug ana gi-rakabu le ita mula ta-ki

1s gi-go in market 1s gi-prepare for 2s food poss-2s
‘I’ll go to the market and prepare your food for you’ (Mahmud 1978: 72–73)

The situation represented in Table 22.1 is highly confusing and it is obvious that
there is a great amount of variation. The older native speaker 1 uses bi or ∅ as an
irrealis marker and gi as non-punctual marker (with a considerable number of
bi tokens); this speaker does not use the personal prefixes ( ya- etc.) at all. The
young native speaker 2, a seven-year old child, has switched almost completely
to the personal prefixes or ∅ as the irrealis marker; for the non-punctual she
uses bi (with a considerable number of gi tokens). Intergenerationally, it would
seem that there is indeed a development in the use of bi, which gives up its
irrealis meaning to ya-, ta-, na-, borrowed from the Sudanese Arabic personal
prefixes (see above, n. 3).
The two bilingual speakers are even more difficult to explain. Speaker 2, who
uses Juba Arabic as a second language in addition to his native language Bari,
456 versteegh

has adopted bi (or ∅) as the main aspect marker, for both irrealis and non-
punctual. The younger bilingual speaker 3 speaks both Juba Arabic and Fajulu
regularly; she follows the pattern of the young native speaker for the irrealis, for
which she has adopted the personal prefixes. However, for the non-punctual
she uses bi or the Sudanese Arabic personal prefixes, while the young native
speaker has bi (and a number of examples of gi). The general conclusion must
be that bi is the main irrealis marker, except for those who use ya- etc. Since bi
takes over some of the functions of gi, the latter seems to be losing terrain in
the younger generation, whether native or bilingual.6
At a slightly later period, Miller (1985–1986) documents a different process,
the gradual expansion of gi to denote the habitual at the expense of bi. In her
view, this represents an innovation in urban Juba Arabic. In the countryside,
where Juba Arabic is mostly spoken as a second language, she reports the use
of gi as a continuous marker, as in (5):

(5) éta ga-ákulu senú

2s gi-eat what
‘What are you eating?’ (Miller 1985–1986: 160)

According to Miller, rural speakers use bi as a general imperfective (i.e. non-

punctual) marker, indicating prospective, iterative, generic, and virtual (i.e.
probably conditional) aspect, as in (6) and (7):

(6) ána kul yóm bi-rákabu merísa

1s each day bi-prepare beer
‘I prepare beer every day’ (Miller 1985–1986: 160)

(7) eléla éta bi-dáfa mét to

tonight 2s bi-pay death poss.3s
‘Tonight, you’re going to pay for his death’ (Miller 1985–1986: 160)

In the city of Juba, where the pidgin has been nativized on a much larger scale,
Miller claims that gi is used no longer exclusively as a continuous marker, but
also to denote generic, iterative, and habitual aspect, as in (8):

6 With respect to the marking of habituality, Mahmud (1978: 91–93) observes a great deal of
variation. All markers can be used to mark habituality and according to Mahmud, there are
no obvious factors determining the use of each marker. Since he does not identify the speaker
or the context for each example, it is difficult to see whether there are different kinds of
habituality at play here.
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 457

(8) ána ge-gúm bádri kul yóm

1s gi-get.up early every day
‘I get up early each day’ (Miller 1985–1986: 162)

With or without rúwa, gi may also be used for imminent future, as in (9):

(9) ána ge-mútu

1s gi-die
‘I’m going to die’ (Miller 1985–1986: 163)

The marker bi is still used by urban speakers as an iterative, but according to

Miller’s observations, in this function it is being replaced in urban Juba Arabic
by gi. The function of bi has become limited to that of a modal marker marking
obligation, possibility, or desire, as in (10):7

(10) éta ba-ákul asán kéda éta géne háy

2s bi-eat in.order.to 2s stay alive
‘You should eat in order to stay alive’ (Miller 1985–1986: 164)

Miller does not believe that this development may be attributed to interference
from Khartoum Arabic, because in that variety bi is not the modal marker (this
function is performed by the bare imperfect), but marks the future (see below).
Miller concludes that gi has expanded at the expense of bi as the result of urban
innovation; in the countryside, the oldest variety of the pidgin still uses both
markers in the non-punctual. In her more recent sketch of Juba Arabic in the
Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics Miller (2007a) simply states that
bi is used as an irrealis marker, and gi as a continuous marker.
It is not clear how Miller’s data relate to Mahmud’s (1978) analysis. As we
have seen above, Mahmud holds almost the exact opposite view, according to
which in the cities gi was being replaced by bi because in urban settings people
were more likely to be exposed to the Khartoum variety. Tosco (1995: 429–430)
points out the basic incongruence between the two views. He believes that
the crucial point in the development of tense/aspect markers is the category
of habituality and the question of which of the two markers expresses this
category. In his view, Juba Arabic, unlike Ki-Nubi, distinguishes between two

7 In fact, the examples Miller (1985–1986: 164) gives for prospective use of bi could also be
interpreted as modal, e.g. bókra asíya éta berúwa wín ‘où vas-tu demain?’, which probably
means ‘where would you like to go tomorrow?’; ána baámolu senú ‘que vais-je faire?’, which
probably means ‘what should I do, what can I do?’.
458 versteegh

kinds of habituality, one representing actual instances of habits, marked by gi,

as in (11), and the other potential habits, marked by bi, as in (12):

(11) ána ge-rúa kúllu yom fi suk

1s gi-go every day in market
‘I go to the market every day’ (Tosco 1995: 434)

(12) bolís ma b-ásalo

police neg bi-ask
‘The police don’t ask questions’ (Tosco 1995: 435)

Miller’s claim of an encroachment of gi on the domain of bi, taking over its

functions as markers of the realis, is rather improbable because there are no
clear-cut examples of the use of gi with future meaning. According to Tosco
(1995: 437), all examples concern imminent futures, while bi is used for general
reference to the future, as in (13):

(13) oboma bi rúa fi suk badén

Oboma bi go in market later
‘Oboma will go to the marker later’ (Tosco 1995: 437)

Tosco does not agree with Miller’s conclusion, either, that as a result of this
alleged encroachment bi was relegated to the function of modal marker. In his
view (1995: 449), bi cannot be merely a modal marker, because in that case it
would be hard to explain why it occurs in the texts more frequently than the
realis marker gi. His own explanation of this greater frequency is that in Juba
Arabic, in addition to being a modal marker, bi also marks habituality, unlike
bi in Ki-Nubi, which never marks habituality.
Tosco concludes that, originally, in Juba Arabic both gi and bi were used as
tense/aspect markers with a functional distribution that resembled the situa-
tion in Ki-Nubi, gi being used for continuous and habitual aspects, and bi for
future and irrealis.8 The function of bi has expanded under the influence of
Sudanese colloquial Arabic (which is not the lexifier of Juba Arabic, but—at

8 Something remains unclear here, because earlier on in his article Tosco (1995: 450) states that
the system of markers in proto-Juba Arabic was similar to that of Turku, which, as we have
seen above, had a frequent marker bi for habitual, future and irrealis, and a rare continuous
marker gahed for continuous aspect. Possibly, this proto-stage should be seen as preceding
the early stage of Juba Arabic, in which a fully grammaticalized gi came to mark both habitual
and continuous aspect. But then, why did gi- acquire habitual meaning?
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 459

table 22.2 Future tense markers in Juba Arabic in Manfredi’s texts

Narration Conversation Total number of

tokens

possibility bi- 5 bi- 11 19

bi-rowa 3
desire, intention bi- 3 9
bi-rowa 3
bi-doru, der, ∅, bidʒa 3
hypothetical bi- 3 4
gi-rowa 1
apodosis bi- 3 bi- 11 18
gi- 3
rowa 1
imminent future gi-rowa 1 gi- 4 12
bi- 1 gi-rowa 5
∅1
prediction bi- 2 gi- 1 3

least in the 1990s—its target language). Sudanese Colloquial Arabic does not
have a marker gi,9 but it agrees with Juba Arabic in that Sudanese bi- func-
tions both as a habitual and a future marker. The difference is that Sudanese
bi- indicates all habits, but does not serve as a modal marker, while in Juba
Arabic bi only marks non-actual habits and does serve as a modal marker.
Actual habits in Juba Arabic are indicated with the non-punctual marker gi.
This makes it more likely that bi has taken over some of the functions of
gi, as already posited by Mahmud, rather than the other way round, as in
Miller’s theory about the encroachment of gi on bi in Juba Arabic verbal struc-
ture.
From a later period (probably the 2000s) we have the texts collected by
Manfredi. In these texts, which consist of two narratives and two conversations,
I found 65 instances of future reference (see Table 22.2).

9 Sudanese Colloquial Arabic does have a marker gāʿid, which may have the same etymological
origin as Juba Arabic gi- and is also known from Turku Arabic (gahed), but, just like Egyptian
Arabic ʿammāl, it does not function as a core marker.
460 versteegh

In all texts, gi is the non-punctual marker. It marks habitual aspect, as in

(14):

(14) úmon gi-wónusu árabi ta dʒúba ássa

3p gi-speak Arabic poss Juba now
‘They speak the same Arabic as in Juba’ (conv 2/2_406)

Continuous aspect is also expressed by gi, as in (15):

(15) ána zátu záman gi-mtehin

1s self time gi-to.take.the.exam
‘me, myself, when I was taking the exam’ (conv 2/1_205)

The same applies to iterative aspect, as in (16):

(16) ána gi-dúgu kulukúlu

1s gi-knock repeatedly
‘I called repeatedly’ (conv 2/1_562)

In addition it is used for the imminent future (‘to be going to’), sometimes in
combination with rowa, as in (17):

(17) gal úo ge-rówa dʒíbu hadʒát ta musteʃfa ta dʒúba

say 3s gi-go bring things poss hospital poss Juba
‘He said he will bring the furniture for the Juba hospital’ (conv 2/1_031)

In the texts edited by Manfredi, bi is the irrealis marker, which always has
modal connotations, for instance desire or possibility, as in (18):

(18) lakin hása be taríga de kéda bikún sab šwéja

but now in condition dem so bi-be difficult a.bit
‘But now in these conditions it might be a little bit difficult’ (conv 2/2_
092–4)

Accordingly, it is also used in conditionals and in hypothetical statements, as

in (19):

(19) kan íta ma bi-wók máfi zól bi-wodí le íta bób

if 2s neg bi-work neg person bi-give for 2s money
‘If you don’t work, nobody will give you money’ (conv 1/1_156–157)
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 461

There are a few cases where this division does not hold, mainly cases
where gi is used in an apodosis. These expressions should be interpreted
as statements of a recurring reality, rather than hypothetical statements about
an irreal situation; they are roughly analogous to English ‘whenever,’ as in
(20):

(20) úo kan rówa le nas del henák úo g-rówa wónusu árabi

3s cond go to people dem there 3s gi-go speak Arabic
ta mundukurát del henák
poss northern.people dem there
‘Whenever he goes to the people there he speaks the Arabic of the north-
ern [Sudanese] there’ (conv 2/2_362–366)

The implication of this utterance is that he regularly goes to the people there.
This may be contrasted with (21), in which bi is used to underline the hypothet-
ical nature of the statement, the implication being that he has no intention to
go to them at all:

(21) kan rówa fi wáu zátu úo bárif wónusu nas

cond go to Wau dem 3s bi-know speak people
‘If he goes to Wau, he would be able to speak with those people’ (conv 2/
2_389)

Conversely, there are some cases where bi seems to be used for a realis, as in
(22):

(22) bu-guló šenú be rutaina

bi-say.pass interrog in local.language
‘What is it called in the local language?’ (narr 2/310)

But the realis reading of bi in this and similar examples may have been
prompted by Manfredi’s translation; a better translation in this case might be
‘What would it be called in the local language?’ which prompts a hypothetical
reading.
All in all, the two particles bi and gi in Juba Arabic seem to have a clearly
distinct function, even though the situation is far from stable.10 The main prob-

10 Note that in the conversations some speakers sometimes use /ḥ/ and /́ʿ/, and since the
conversations took place in the north, they may have been influenced by Khartoum
462 versteegh

lem with any language data from Juba Arabic is that it is often not clear whether
it is the pidgin or the creole system that is being represented. Mahmud (1978)
already emphasized the fact that even in the 1970s new speakers constantly
entered the speech community, usually at the basilectal end (Tosco 1995: 451).
This situation has not changed. In independent South Sudan, in spite of the fact
that English is the official language, Juba Arabic continues to play an important
role as lingua franca, for instance even in court proceedings (Miller 2007b), and
it is to be expected that this expansion of functions will lead to a further stabi-
lization and expansion of the language.

3 Aspect Markers in Ki-Nubi

We do not know what the exact historical links were between Sudanese Arabic,
Juba Arabic, and Ki-Nubi, but it seems fair to assume that there is a historical
link. Wellens (2005: 16–19) pinpoints the precise period in which the language
was stabilized, namely between 1885 and 1890. In 1885, in the aftermath of
the Mahdist revolt, the German commander of the Anglo-Egyptian army Emin
Pasha was forced to retreat with most of his men, some of them accompanied
by wive and children, to Lake Albert, where they were finally rescued by Stanley
in 1890, after having stayed there in relative isolation for almost five years. Most
of the soldiers were relocated by the British to the British colonies of Kenya
and Uganda, where they settled and married indigenous wives (for the early
history of the Nubi speakers see also Owens 1996: 135–146). There was thus
ample opportunity to set in motion a process of creolization that led to the
emergence of the Arabic creole known as Nubi or Ki-Nubi. After the fall of
Idi Amin in 1979, some Ugandese speakers of Ki-Nubi migrated temporarily to
other countries, including Sudan. This brought them in touch with both Juba
Arabic and Standard Arabic, and when they returned to Uganda, they brought
features from these varieties with them.
Two collections of texts have been published, one by Luffin (2004) and one
by Wellens (2005). In Luffin’s texts, on a total of twenty-one references to the
future, gi is used for continuous and habitual aspect, while bi is used for
hypothetical and potential statements. In conditional sentences both particles
may be used, but they have a different function. The marker gi refers to a real
situation, which may actually obtain, as in (23):

Arabic (see Manfredi 2013 about the interaction between native and non-native speakers
of Arabic in Kadugli).
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 463

(23) kan ína g-wónusu úmun gi-ásma

cond 1p gi-speak 3p gi-hear
‘If you speak with them, they will understand’ (Luffin 2004: 148)11

Contrast this with (24), in which bi is used in the apodosis, suggesting that the
sentence should be interpreted as referring to something that is not likely to
happen soon:

(24) kan shída wága na íta mun ba-áwn ta

cond problem fall on 2s they bi-help 2s
‘If you have a problem, they will help you’ (Luffin 2004: 74)

But there are also examples of conditionals with bi in the protasis and gi in the
apodosis, as in (25):

(25) kan te bi-sáim úwo te gi-logó sawáb

cond 2s bi-fast 3s 2s gi-find gift
‘If you fast, you will receive a gift’ (Luffin 2004: 67)

It is tempting to interpret this in the sense that the protasis indicates an

uncertain possibility, while the apodosis indicates a certain consequence.12
The marker bi is also used for predictions about the future which are not
controlled by the speaker or the agent, as in (26):

(26) ína bi-mútu ini bi-dafún ína ini

1p bi-die here bi-bury.pass 1p here
‘We’ll die here and we’ll be buried here’ (Luffin 2004: 141)

This may be contrasted with the use of gi as a marker of the speaker’s intention,
as in (27):

(27) ána g-álim íta ma kasida ta-ki

1s gi-teach 2s with poem poss-2s
‘I will teach you a poem’ (Luffin 2004: 56)

11 The translation here is Luffin’s; it is not entirely clear why he has chosen ‘if’; the sentence
might also be translated as ‘when we speak with them, they understand,’ which would
make it a habitual.
12 Compare the sentence following this example u kan íte bi-sáim úwo ma, te gi-logó zambi
464 versteegh

In Table 22.3 the use of bi and gi in 78 pages of Luffin’s corpus (2004: 10–70,
75–93) has been tabulated.

table 22.3 Number of tokens of bi and gi in Luffin (2004)

Stative Continuous Habituala Intention Potential Protasis Apodosis

bi 16 11 134 1 – 9b 8
gi 1 – 4 5 4 6 2

a Including iterativity and two examples of a generic statement. The large

number of habitual tokens obviously has to do with the nature of the texts,
which are dedicated to topics such as Nubi clothing, Nubi weddings, and Nubi
customs; the expression ge-nadí ‘it is called’ alone is responsible for at least
twenty occurrences.
b Including six cases of gu-rúo.

Wellens’ (2005: 146–156) analysis of Ki-Nubi in Uganda more or less confirms

Luffin’s categorization. According to her, the marker gi denotes non-punctu-
ality, including iterative, habitual/generic, and continuous aspect, and is tense-
neutral; with stative predicates it may indicate inchoativity. The marker bi is
used as a general future marker, and as such also marks modality, including
potentiality; it also frequently occurs in the apodosis of conditional clauses.
An additional point to be mentioned here is Wellens’ observation that bi
may indicate an habitual action or event, being interchangeable with gi in this
function. She attributes this use to ‘an ongoing process in which bi- is gradually
being replaced by gi- in marking the habitual’ (Wellens 2005: 154). In her view,
this process has started with the stative verbs, which indicate a state when used
without the marker gi, as in (28), but with gi they indicate inchoativity, as in
(29), or habituality, as in (30):

(28) kalám tá-ki dé hílu n-ána má

speech poss-2s dem sweet for-1s neg
‘Your problem is not pleasant to me’ (Wellens 2005: 156)

‘but if you don’t fast, you’ll commit a sin,’ where one might argue that the protasis
represents an unlikely or, at the very least, undesirable possibility.
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 465

(29) sá ab gúna dé gi-hílu n-ána

moment rel song dem gi-sweet for-1s
‘The moment the song becomes sweet for me …’ (Wellens 2005: 156)

(30) nyerekú kan íta g-álim áju dúgu gí-fí sía

child cond 2s gi-teach want hit gi-is bit
‘If you teach a child, there should be a bit of hitting’ (Wellens 2005: 156)

From the stative verbs, she believes, the encroachment of gi in the domain
of the habitual spread to other verbs. We have seen above that Tosco (1995)
regards the marking of habituality as a crucial difference between Juba Arabic
and Ki-Nubi. Nonetheless, it seems that the same distinction of two kinds of
habituality found in Juba Arabic is made in Ki-Nubi, as in (31):

(31) lakin mun ma bi-kélem árabi ta núbi je ína gi-kélem de

conj 3p neg bi-speak Arabic poss Nubi like 1p gi-speak dem
‘But they don’t speak Nubi Arabic the way we speak it’ (Luffin 2004: 26)

Here, bi is used for an irrealis statement, while gi introduces an actual habit.

This contrast is similar to the one existing in Juba Arabic, so that there is no
reason to posit an internal development in Ki-Nubi.

4 The Source of bi and gi

According to Owens (1985), the lexifier of Juba Arabic is probably a Western

Sudanese dialect. This means that in Juba Arabic, the lexifier and target lan-
guage are not identical, as pointed out by Tosco (1995: 451), since the main
target variety at a later stage is contemporary Sudanese Arabic, basically the
Arabic of Khartoum. The most recent sketch of Khartoum Arabic (Dickins
2007) states that the future is expressed by the marker bi-, or by ḥa-, the lat-
ter presumably a borrowing from Egyptian Arabic. For continuous and generic
present, both bi- and gāʿid seem to be used. According to Dickins, the forms
with gāʿid are more emphatic and give ‘greater focus and a greater sense of vol-
untariness to the action’ (Dickins 2007: 568–569).
Much less is known about the original lexifier of Juba Arabic. Its structure
may have been closer to that of a Bedouin dialect, such as Šukriyya Arabic. In
this variety, gāʿid is not current as a marker of continuous aspect (Reichmuth
1983: 294), for which bi- is used, as in (32):
466 versteegh

(32) hū fi l-faraga di bi-kūs lē gruš

3s in art-period dem bi-seek.3ms for money
‘Während dieser Zeitspanne suchte er nach Geld’ (Reichmuth 1983: 287)

But bi- is also used for potential, habitual, and generic aspect and for imminent
future, as in (33):

(33) hassīʿ bi-ju

now bi-come.3mp
‘(Jetzt) gleich werden sie kommen’ (Reichmuth 1983: 286)

Bi- also commonly occurs in the apodosis of conditional sentences.

The use of the bare imperfect verb in Šukriyya Arabic is restricted to the
expression of hesitations, wishes, and intentions, as in (34):

(34) gāl anšaġ al-buṭāna

said-3ms go.to.pasture.1s al-Butana
‘Er sagte: Ich will in der Buṭāna auf Weidezug gehen!’ (Reichmuth 1983:
287)

It may also be used to express a necessity, as in (35):

(35) al-walad da mā ygūm

art-boy dem neg get.up.3ms
‘Dieser Junge soll nicht aufstehen!’ (Reichmuth 1983: 288)

While the etymology of the marker gi (< gāʿid) is relatively easy to trace, it is
much less clear where the verbal marker bi ultimately comes from. In Arabic
dialects in general two different markers with this form seem to occur, which
leads Retsö (2014) to uphold a dual origin for bi-. On the one hand, Cairene
Arabic has a marker bi- that denotes actual present, habitual, and continuous
aspect (Woidich 2006: 280–282). There are some instances of bi- denoting an
imminent future, as in the current expression baʾullak ʾē ‘what can I tell you?’
and in (36):

(36) il-ḥukūma bukṛa bi-tmuṛṛi b-ʿazma maliyya

art-government tomorrow bi-pass.3fs in-crisis financial
‘Morgen macht die Regierung eine finanzielle Krise durch’ (Woidich 2006:
281)
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 467

The verb with bi- is not used, however, in the apodosis of conditional clauses,
nor is it used for an intentional future, for which the particle ḥa- ~ ha- (< rāyiḥ
‘going’) is used. It appears, therefore, that bi- never functions as an irrealis
marker. Etymologically speaking, it could be a reflex of the preposition bi- ‘in’,
as in the combination kāna bi- ‘to be in.’13
The second type of bi- seems to occur in Levantine Arabic, e.g. in Syr-
ian Arabic. This type is sometimes described as a volitional or modal future,
contrasting with raḥ- as a general future marker. Syrian bi- certainly does
not indicate continuous aspect, for which ʿam is used; it may derive from a
verb bġa/yibġi ‘to want’, which also occurs in the form yabbi, or it could be
connected with the expression bǝdd- ‘to want’ (< bi-wudd). This is in accor-
dance with the use of bi- in Gulf Arabic, which was investigated by Persson
(2008). According to her analysis, bi- is an irrealis marker, contrasting with
raḥ- as a real future marker. In Gulf Arabic, bi- is used for volitional futures,
conditionals, and for past habituals, which all fall into the category of irre-
alis.
Note that the two markers, the future/irrealis and the continuous one (or the
three in Syrian Arabic, where future and irrealis are separate markers) cannot
be combined in any dialect. In Juba Arabic, continuous gi and future/irrealis
bi do not appear to be compatible, either. Tosco (1995:435) regards this as one
of the most important differences between Juba Arabic and Ki-Nubi.
Note, however, that Mahmud (1978: 64–68) does give some examples with
bi-gi. It is not entirely clear what exactly the range of this combination is. In
the absence of any context, it is hard to decide what to make of examples like
(37) and (38):

(37) bi gi be juba
bi come (?) in Juba
‘It comes to Juba [frequently]’ (Mahmud 1978: 66)

(38) laman inglishi bi gi ina gulu

conj British bi come (?) there say
‘When the British came there, they said …’ (Mahmud 1978: 66)

According to Mahmud (1978: 67), the form bi-gi either derives from the combi-
nation of bi and gi, or it was borrowed as biga~bigi ‘to become’ from matrilec-

13 For continuous aspect markers deriving from prepositional expressions see Bybee et al.
(1994: 131).
468 versteegh

tal varieties.14 Hence, Tosco (1995: 442) regards biga as a resultative marker,
borrowed from Sudanese Colloquial Arabic (see below). This is a more likely
explanation of these examples than a combination of bi and gi.
As for Ki-Nubi, where Tosco accepts the compatibility of both markers,
Wellens (2005: 156, 160) reports that the combination of a verb with bi and gi
denotes a future continuous, as in (39):

(39) dua al wazé dé bu-gu-womba

prayer rel parents dem bi-gi-ask
‘the prayer which the parents will be asking’ (Wellens 2005: 156)

The combination of the two particles with the anterior marker kan is supposed
to denote ‘an unrealized event in the past of a habitual nature’ (Wellns 2005:
160), as in (40):

(40) kán ána bi-gi-kásul kíla yóum

cond 1s bi-gi-wash each day
‘I would have been washing daily’ (Wellens 2005: 160)

A similar claim is made by Owens (1996: 149), who cites as an example (41):

(41) úwo ma bi-gi-áshrubu

3ms neg bi-gi-drink
‘He won’t be drinking’

But since there is no context, it is hard to verify this claim; the sentence could
just as well mean ‘he won’t drink anymore,’ with bigi + negation.
The alleged examples of a combination of bi and gi in Juba Arabic and Ki-
Nubi should probably be regarded as reflexes of Classical Arabic baqiya, which
has acquired aspectual functions in other varieties of Arabic, too. In Cairene
Arabic, for instance, baʾa/yibʾa with a following verb indicates that “der Zustand
oder die Aktivität eingetreten ist oder eintreten wird, auf die das Verb referiert”
(Woidich 2006: 325), as in (42):

14 Confusingly, Mahmud also suggests (1978: 62–63) that bi-gi- (or bi-ga-) may be a realization
of the verb ja ‘to come’, but he does not state what its meaning in these varieties was apart
from ‘to become.’ A connection with ja ‘to come’ is rather unlikely because the usual reflex
of /j/ in Juba Arabic is /j/, not /g/, which is the reflex of Arabic /q/.
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 469

(42) Inta baʾēt bi-tišrab kitīr

2s began.2s bi-drink.2s much
‘Du trinkst jetzt viel [i.e. ‘you have started to drink much’]’ (Woidich 2006:
325)

In this sense it can be used to mean ‘to begin’ and, with a negation, ‘no longer.’

In the Bedouin dialect of Šukriyya Arabic bigi~biga is used with a following

imperfect verb to indicate an activity that has begun and continues or is
repeated in the past, as in (43):

(43) mudda ṭawīla bigu yjilbu barāhun

time long began.3mp carry.out trading.expedition
‘Schon seit langer Zeit sind sie dazu übergegangen, selbst Marktzüge
durchzuführen’ (Reichmuth 1983: 295)

All in all, the possibility of constructions with both markers in one verbal form
should probably be rejected for Ki-Nubi as well. This conclusion brings Juba
Arabic and Ki-Nubi in line with the majority of Arabic dialects, which do not
exhibit this construction, either.

5 Conclusion

The comparison of the data from the Arabic pidgins with other cases of early
pidginization, may help in elucidating their development in Arabic. The tense/
aspect markers in contemporary Nigerian Pidgin English are the ones known
from other English-based pidgins, but these have not always been part of the
language. In the early Nigerian English pre-pidgin, they were absent. This Nige-
rian pre-pidgin is partly known from a corpus of letters written by Efik notables
in their correspondence with British ship captains through the 18th/19th cen-
turies. In their variety of English, almost all verbal forms are unmarked and
there are no formal tense/aspect markers. Modality, including necessity and
capability, is expressed with the help of auxiliary verbs. The modern tense/
aspect markers do not appear until the 20th century (Fayer 1990). The cor-
pus of early Nigerian Pidgin English may not be entirely representative; at the
very least it is exceptional in that it is actually used as a written medium.
But clearly, in this pre-pidgin there were no aspect markers, just as there are
none in Pidgin Madame. These appeared only after the stabilization of the pid-
gin.
470 versteegh

In the English creole Sranan, which is spoken in the former Dutch colony
of Surinam, the origin of the aspect markers is relatively clear. Early Sranan
appears to have had a future marker sa (< Dutch zal) for expected future and
inferred certainty, as well as later time reference; go was used as a main verb
expressing movement, while desire, possibility and obligation were expressed
with auxiliary verbs like musu, man, or wanni (van den Berg and Smith 2013).
The function of the verb go was expanded at a later stage; in combination with
other verbs and with de (< there), it came to indicate predictive or prospective
future. In contemporary Sranan sa is only used for future expectation. Appar-
ently, then, the grammaticalized marker deriving from a verb of movement was
a later development, while the modal marker sa, borrowed from Dutch, was
older.
A similar competition between two future markers is described by Coghill
(2010, 2012) in a number of Neo-Aramaic dialects in the Mosul Plain. She shows
how a younger marker zil- developed from a translocational verb ‘to go,’ which
started as a present perfect and developed into a prospective future, and later
into an imminent future. The older marker b-, which was derived from a verb ‘to
want,’ expresses a less certain future and is also used for epistemic possibility
and pure prediction in the apodosis of conditional sentences.15 Here again, the
future marker deriving from a verb of desire is older than the future marker
deriving from a verb meaning ‘to go’ (Coghill 2010: 31), just like the two English
futures will and going to (Bybee et al. 1994: 243–280).
The most common scenario in the development of tense/aspect markers
seems to be that in the pre-pidgin stage there are no formal markers at all.
Temporal reference is achieved with the help of temporal adverbials, and so
is habituality. Reference to the future may be indicated with auxiliary verbs
such as ‘to want’ (desire, obligation, even potentiality) and ‘to go’ (intention,
expctation). At a later stage, a modal marker is developed from morphological
material imported from the target language. The verb ‘to go’ may remain to
express reference to the general future, but it is often replaced by a borrowed
non-punctual marker, which may take over some of the future meanings of the
modal marker.
It is hardly surprising that the non-punctual marker develops after the modal
marker because continuous aspect is the default interpretation of present
statements and, at first, has no need of formal marking. When a non-punctual
marker is introduced, it does not only mark continuous aspect, but may take

15 In Coghill’s view the development of zil- may have been influenced by the presence of a
similar marker in neighbouring Arabic dialects rāyiḥ, raḥ-.
aspect marking in juba arabic and ki-nubi 471

over the marking of habituality as well, either with respect to all forms of
habituality, or only the marking of actual habits, leaving the marking of non-
actual habits to the modal marker.
Applied to the development of Juba Arabic, this implies that the earliest
varieties of Arabic used in communication in the southern Sudan did not
have any grammaticalized tense/aspect markers. At most, there were forms
meaning ‘to want’ and ‘to go’ that expressed different types of future and
modality. Habituality was expressed with adverbials meaning ‘everyday’ or
‘always.’ At a later stage, a modal marker bi was borrowed from a variety
of Sudanese Arabic. A second marker, gi, was introduced as a non-punctual
marker. In conjunction with the verb rua ‘to go,’ gi could also express immi-
nent or intended future. In time, this marker also took over the marking of
some forms of habituality from bi. This conclusion is similar to Tosco and
Owens’s (1993) claim that the non-punctual marker gahed in Turku represents
a later development, which came after the adoption of the irrealis marker
bi-.

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Berg, Margot C. van den and Norval S.H. Smith. 2013. ‘Early Sranan.’ The Survey of Pidgin
and Creole Languages. i. English-based and Dutch-based Languages, S.M. Michaelis
et al. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–14.
Bickerton, Derek. 1974. ‘Creolization, Linguistic Universals, Natural Semantax and the
Brain.’ University of Hawaii Working Papers in Linguistics 6/3: 125–141.
Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma.
Bizri, Fida. 2010. Pidgin Madame: Une grammaire de la servitude. Paris: Geuthner.
Bybee, Joan et al. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the
Languages of the World. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.
Coghill, Eleanor. 2010. ‘The Development of Prospective Aspect in a Group of Neo-
Aramaic Dialects.’ Diachronica 27: 359–410.
Coghill, Eleanor. 2012. ‘Parallels in the Grammaticalisation of Neo-Aramaic zi(l)- and
Arabic raḥ- and a Possible Contact Scenario.’ Grammaticalization in Semitic, D. Eades
(ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 127–144.
Dickins, James. 2007. ‘Khartoum Arabic.’ Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguis-
tics, K. Versteegh et al. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, 5 vols., ii, 559–571.
Fayer, Joan M. 1990. ‘Nigerian Pidgin English in Old Calabar in the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries.’ Pidgin and Creole Tense-Mood-Aspect Systems, J.V. Singler
(ed.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 185–202.
Luffin, Xavier. 2004. Kinubi Texts. Munich: Lincom Europa.
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Luffin, Xavier. 2005. Un créole arabe: Le kinubi de Mombasa, Kenya. Munich: Lincom
Europa.
Luffin, Xavier. 2008. ‘Pidgin Arabic: Bongor Arabic.’ Encyclopedia of Arabic Language
and Linguistics, K. Versteegh et al. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, 5 vols., iii, 634–639.
Mahmud, Ushari Ahmad. 1978. Linguistic Variation and Change in the Aspectual System
of Juba Arabic. Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University.
Manfredi, Stefano. 2013. ‘Native and Non-native Varieties of Arabic in an Emerging
Urban Centre of Western Sudan: Evidence from Kadugli.’ African Arabic: Approaches
to Dialectology, M. Lafkioui (ed.). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 13–51.
Manfredi, Stefano and Petrollino, Sara. 2013. ‘Juba Arabic.’ The Survey of Pidgin and
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Miller, Catherine. 2002. ‘Juba Arabic as a Way of Expressing a Southern Sudanese
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et al. (eds.). Rabat: Amapatril, 114–122.
Miller, Catherine. 2007a. ‘Juba Arabic.’Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics,
K. Versteegh et al. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, 5 vols., ii, 517–525.
Miller, Catherine. 2007b. ‘Do They Speak the Same Language? Language Use in Juba
Local Courts.’ Approaches to Arabic Linguistics Presented to Kees Versteegh on the
Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, E. Ditters and H. Motzki (eds.). Leiden: Brill, 607–
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Westminster Press.
Nhial, Abdon Agaw Jok. 1975. ‘Ki-Nubi and Juba Arabic: A Comparative Study.’Directions
in Sudanese Linguistics and Folklore, S.Ḥ. Hurreiz and H. Bell (eds.). Khartoum:
Khartoum University Press, 81–93.
Owens, Jonathan. 1985. ‘The Origins of East African Nubi.’ Anthropological Linguistics
27: 229–271.
Owens, Jonathan. 1996. ‘Arabic-based Pidgins and Creoles.’ Contact Languages: A Wider
Perspective, Sarah G. Thomason (ed.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 125–172.
Persson, Maria. 2008. ‘The Role of the b-prefix in Gulf Arabic Dialects as a Marker of
Future, Intent and/or Irrealis.’ Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 8: 26–52.
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G. Olms.
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tives.’ Proceedings of the Oslo-Austin Workshop on Semitic Linguistics Oslo May 23
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Thomason, Sarah Grey and Elgibali, Alaa. 1986. ‘Before the Lingua Franca: Pidginized
Arabic in the Eleventh century a.d.’ Lingua 68: 317–349.
Tosco, Mauro. 1995. ‘A Pidgin Verbal System: The Case of Juba Arabic.’ Anthropological
Linguistics 37: 423–459.
Tosco, Mauro and Owens, Jonathan. 1993. ‘Turku: A Descriptive and Comparative Study.’
Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 14: 177–267.
Versteegh, Kees. 2014. ‘Pidgin Verbs: Imperatives or infinitives?’ Pidgins and Creoles
Beyond Africa-Europe Encounters, I. Buchstaller et al. (eds.). Amsterdam/Philadel-
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Versteegh, Kees. Forthcoming. ‘Temporal Reference in Basic Varieties of Arabic.’ To
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University in Cairo Press.
Wellens, Ineke. 2005. The Nubi Language of Uganda: An Arabic Creole in Africa. Leiden:
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Winford, Donald. 2006. ‘Reduced Syntax in (Prototypical) Pidgins.’ The Syntax of Non-
sententials, L. Progovac et al. (eds.). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, 283–307.
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rassowitz.
 chapter 23

Jewish Writing in Arabic in Arabic Characters in

the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

MariaLuisa Langella

1 Introduction

Jews have inhabited Arab lands since ancient times. The earliest traces of their
presence in the Arabian peninsula date from pre-Islamic times. However, the
extent to which they were settled in the area and the fact that their tribes
occupied important political and economic positions there, leads us to believe
that they arrived even earlier, before the 1st century ce (Stillman 1971: 239).
From a linguistic point of view, it is not easy to know what languages these
tribes spoke. According to Stillman, Jews at the time spoke a language that was
a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew (Stillman 1979: 5). As far as written languages
are concerned, the situation is more complicated. Certainly, Hebrew, being the
language of the Torah, played an important role in the intellectual and religious
life of the Jews, just like Aramaic, the language in which both the Palestinian
and the Babylonian Talmud (respectively c. 5th century ce and c. 6th century
ce) were written. With regard to Arabic, at the time this language was not yet
codified as a written language. The Muslim oral tradition, which is the only
available source for this epoch—there being no archaeological evidence—
records the existence of some famous Jewish poets who composed verses in
Arabic. These poets used to take part in the yearly pan-Arab fair of ʿUkāẓ, near
Mecca, and recite their Arabic verses.1 Although poetry was mainly recited and
transmitted orally, the existence of Jewish poets composing verses in Arabic as
early as the pre-Islamic times is nevertheless a sign of their use and mastery of
a form of the Arabic language characterised by strict lexical, syntactical, and
stylistic rules; a formal, higher language which differed from the spoken Arabic
dialects of the time.
This example shows that, while constantly maintaining their attachment
to Hebrew and Aramaic, which were the languages closely associated with

1 Examples include the poetess Sāra al-Qurayziyya, who lived in the 5th century ce, as well as
Samawʾal b. ʿĀdiyāʾ (mid-6th century ce) and Kaʿb b. al-ʾAšraf (7th century ce).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_025

jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 475

Judaism, Jews were at the same time interacting linguistically, economically,

and socially with the people around them. With the Arab conquest, the Arabic
language spread beyond the Arabian peninsula and came into contact with
the languages of large and diverse populations stretching from North Africa to
India. Jewish populations in some of these regions were also concerned at some
point by this Arabization, to the point that, for many of them, Arabic became
their native language.
However, this fact should not lead to the assumption that, because Jews lived
in Arab lands and Arabic was their native language, it would be natural for
them to practise this language and its characters in writing. Indeed, this was not
really, or not always, the case. As far as written languages are concerned, Jews
tended to use Judaeo-Arabic, instead, as their main and favourite way of writ-
ten expression. In G. Khan’s words, Judaeo-Arabic, which is defined as ‘any form
of Arabic language written in Hebrew characters’ (Khan 2002), represents the
most widespread practice of Arabic language writing by the Jews throughout
their history in the Arab-Muslim world. The written output in Judaeo-Arabic,
a linguistic-graphic practice which has now effectively ended, developed from
Spain through North Africa, the Middle East, and even India between the 9th
and the 20th century, with some earlier traces dating as early as the pre-Islamic
times (Newby 1971). Linguistically, despite not being by any means a homoge-
neous practice—Judaeo-Arabic took different forms according to times and
places where it was practiced—one can observe, in all its phases, some phe-
nomena of deviation from what is called “classical Arabic.” These phenomena
are a reflection of the dialects spoken in the different regions of the Arab lands
where the Jews lived (Blau 1981 and 2002; Larcher 2001). According to Versteegh
(1997 and 2014), the fact that Jews used Hebrew characters so predominantly
in their Arabic writing can be explained by their special status in the Islamic
Empire. As ḏimmī-s, they were granted protection and allowed to practice their
religion but, despite that, the social barriers between different groups were still
considerable. The use of Hebrew characters in the representation of Arabic lan-
guage is a sign of this communal inward feeling.
As opposed to such a widespread practice as that of Judaeo-Arabic, that of
Arabic language in Arabic characters appears to be more unexpected, or at best,
marginal. It may well be that the sources currently available are not all there
is, or was, and this for several reasons. For example, it is plausible, as some
scholars have explained, that Jews would have taken more care throughout
their history in the Arab lands in preserving their manuscripts and writings
in Hebrew characters, due to the importance and sacredness they attached to
these characters. This would have made the Arabic in Arabic script sources
more vulnerable and possibly explain why less sources have made their way
476 langella

to the present day. Another obstacle is the fact that, in some cases, it is virtually
impossible to identify Jewish writers, either because they bear Arab names,
or because, especially in Medieval times, when writing in Arabic, they would
conform to the tradition of starting their work with the basmala, by imitation
of Muslim Arabic writing, a tendency which is also found in Christian Arabic
writing (Steinschneider 1877–1882; Almbladh 2010). These factors can help
understand that the lack of sources does not necessarily mean that they did
not exist, but that they might have got lost in some way. At the same time,
their scarcity should not be interpreted as a sign that Jews did not master
Arabic language writing. It is unimaginable, for example, that Jews who were
active in the public life of their time because they occupied positions of high
responsibility or worked as civil servants did not master this language both in
speaking and in writing.
Despite all these considerations, the general picture one gets is that the
preferred way of writing Arabic for the Jews from roughly the 9th to the 19th
century was in Hebrew characters. It is only from the second half of the 19th
century onwards that one starts to see a number of publications in Arabic
language and characters by Jewish authors in some main Arab cities.
The questions now are: how can the appearance of this practice be mea-
sured, described, and evaluated? Was it a widespread practice or a rather lim-
ited one? Who was concerned by it and where? How did this practice manifest
itself, i.e. what kind of writings and publications were made? And how long did
it last? Is it still alive?

2 Methodological Questions and Bibliographic Corpus

In order to address these questions and give an overview of this linguistic prac-
tice, a bibliographic corpus has been established, including 654 references to
works written by Jewish authors in Arabic language and script.2 This corpus is
based on Shmuel Moreh’s pioneering bibliography published in Jerusalem in
1973 and entitled Fihris al-maṭbūʿāt al-ʿarabīyya al-latī ʾallafa-hā ʾaw našara-hā
al-ʾudabāʾ wa-l-ʿulamāʾ al-Yahūd, including over 900 works authored or edited
by Jewish writers in Arabic language, most of them found in the library of the
Ben Zvi Institute for the study of Jewish communities in the East in Jerusalem.

2 This bibliography constitutes a portion of the author’s PhD dissertation, supervised by Prof.
Pierre Larcher and defended at the University of Aix-Marseille in December 2011. (Lan-
gella 2011). The full text is available online at http://www.theses.fr/2011AIX10177 (seen on
15/12/2014).
jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 477

Moreh’s bibliography is entirely in Arabic, with a trilingual introduction in

Arabic, English and Hebrew. The bibliographic data are listed broadly by sub-
ject and include some comments and extra information that the author has
gathered from looking at the sources. This work undoubtedly constitutes an
indispensable source of information on writing in Arabic language and char-
acters by Jewish authors in modern times, and it provides an extremely helpful
tool to readers of Arabic who are interested in the subject and wish to have
an idea of the extent of such practice. The research presented here very much
benefited from this precious source. However, for the purpose of drafting a bib-
liographic corpus that would constitute the basis of this research, a choice had
to be made on which references could be kept and, mainly, on which could not
be kept. In fact, the content of Moreh’s bibliography presented a few obstacles
as it included, for example, a number of texts that did not fall under the category
of being the work of a Jewish author in the Arabic language and script. Exam-
ples of these include editions of classical Arabic and Islamic texts by known
European Jewish authors, such as, for example, Evariste Lévy Provençal (1894–
1956), whose contribution consists of annotating and explaining the Arabic text
in English or in other European languages. By the same token, other works such
as translations into Arabic of works by Jewish authors (such as Franz Kafka,
Sigmund Freud or Arthur Miller) where the translator was not Jewish or is
unknown, have been excluded from this corpus. Furthermore, the corpus has
been enriched with as many details as possible coming either from Moreh’s
own comments and annotations on many references in his bibliography, as
well as from other sources, such as online catalogues of international libraries.3
This has made it possible to fill in details such as parallel titles of works, orig-
inal authors and titles in the case of translated works, as well as to check and
record different editions of the same work, or to establish the life span of a par-
ticular journal and its reincarnations into different ones with different titles. A
further task has been that of updating Moreh’s bibliography to include works
published after 1972 and until 2008,4 and of transliterating its entries into Latin
characters following the lc Romanization tables.
Subsequently, in order to allow for a more comprehensive understanding of
what these writings are really about, and to make this corpus a tool for research,

3 Such as Worldcat, Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog kvk, Jewish National and University Library
(jnul), British Library, Library of Congress, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF), Sudoc
and Mcgill Islamic Studies Library.
4 Since then, a few other works have been published. Among them, Shmuel Moreh’s autobiog-
raphy Baġdād ḥabībatī: Yahūd al-ʿIrāq, ḏikrayāt wa-šuǧūn/Baghdad mon amour: The Jews of
Iraq, Memoirs and Sorrows. Haifa: Maktabat kull šayʾ, published in 2012.
478 langella

a thorough work of classification has been carried out, firstly, to determine what
types of writings it contains, whether fiction, non-fiction, or religious texts;
secondly, to distinguish monographs from periodicals. Within the monographs,
first, a distinction has been made between original works and translations,
then between works in prose and verse. A more careful examination has been
necessary to determine, when possible, what genres these publications belong
to. This phase has been extremely interesting as it has revealed the presence of a
variety of fiction and non-fiction genres within the corpus, such as, respectively,
novels, short stories, memoirs, biographies, poetry, but also bibliographies,
dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and legal texts. Such discovery is all the more
interesting if one thinks that some of these literary genres, such as the novel
or the short story, were seeing their beginnings in the Arabic language in the
second half of the 19th century.
As to the periodicals, the search has focused on their life span and their
types—magazines, journals, newspapers, or bulletins—as well as their main
subject areas. The challenge here was represented by the fact that, especially for
the earliest occurrences, the terminology was not yet fixed in Arabic between
different types of periodical publications, as well as by the fact that many of
these were short-lived enterprises, often lasting no longer than one year due to
budget constraints and changing editors and frequency often along the way.
The identification of subject areas has also been challenging because many
of these periodicals were not specialised, but tended to have a “global” scope
(ǧāmiʿ in Arabic), i.e. at the same time political, social, literary, as well as
covering news. As to places of publication, in order to avoid anachronisms,
relevance has been given to cities rather than countries; in fact, most of the
material included in the corpus was published before the emergence of nation
states. This classification, as any corpus-based research, has its limits. The
corpus itself is open and likely to be expanded as more texts are found or new
publications are made.
The result of this work of assembling, selecting and classifying bibliographic
records is a corpus of 654 entries, ranging chronologically from 1847 to 2008 and
geographically spanning North Africa, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, and some European
countries. The bibliographic data are presented in Latin character transliter-
ation, with translation into French of the titles. Any parallel titles, whether in
English, Hebrew, or any other language, have been noted, as well as titles of orig-
inal works in case of translations. Places and dates of publications are indicated
when available, as well as publishers. The corpus is searchable and sortable by
several bibliographic elements, for example author, place and date of publica-
tion, as well as by genre.
jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 479

3 A Limited Practice

A thorough analysis of its content shows that the use of Arabic language as a
written language in Arabic characters by the Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries
was overall a limited practice. First, from a chronological point of view: the
bibliographic data collected span a period of over 160 years, from 1847 to 2008,
and later. However, most of the publications were made between 1920 and 1950,
i.e. a period of about thirty years. This development could be attributed to
some historical, political, and social factors: first of all, to the Ottoman Reforms
(Tanẓīmāt) in the region during the first half of the 19th century, which put an
end to the ḏimma and, at least in theory, favored the integration of religious
minorities within the Ottoman society by granting them the same rights as the
Muslims. These reforms encouraged also the development of new instruction
systems, under European as well as local initiative, where not only European
languages but also Arabic were taught using modern methods. This contributed
to the gradual decline of communal schools where, for example, Jews learned
to read traditional texts and to write in Hebrew characters. Second, to the
changes brought by the Nahḍa, the intellectual and literary renaissance of
Arabic through which this language entered modernity. This resulted in the
dissociation of Arabic teaching from the religious sphere and the flourishing
of new literary genres. These changes were also favored by the development of
printing and of the press, first in Egypt and Lebanon, and then in the rest of
the Arab world. All these factors may have contributed to the opening of the
Jews, or rather, of a few communities and individuals, towards Arabic language
and culture, and promoted their active participation in the changes that this
language was experiencing.
From the 1950s, however, parallel to the creation of the State of Israel two
years before and with the migration of the vast majority of Jews from Arab
lands to Israel, but also to Europe and to North America, the number of works
published in Arabic in Arabic characters by Jewish authors starts to decrease.
This tendency accelerates from the 1970s onwards, when even those who had
stayed behind during the first migration wave of the 1950s decided to leave
their countries of origin (mainly Egypt and Iraq) and to rebuild their lives
elsewhere, and sometimes restart their writing activity in another language,
mainly Hebrew, English, or French. With the gradual disappearance of the last
generation of Jews from the Arab world, i.e. of those who were born in the 1930s,
the use of modern Arabic as a dominant Jewish vernacular and as a written
language is now gradually dying out.
This writing of Arabic in Arabic characters was limited also geographically.
In fact, most of the publications come from four cities, namely Baghdad, Cairo,
480 langella

Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is interesting to note the almost total absence of the
Maghreb from the discussion of this writing. Indeed, only five published items
have been found, i.e. one from Algeria dated 1847,5 which interestingly also
happens to be the earliest one found; one from Tunis, dated 1878;6 and three
from Morocco, dated respectively from 1946, 1955, and 1962.7 The situation of
the Maghreb region was quite peculiar as the Jewish communities there were
fragmented both linguistically and culturally. Some of these Jews had more
affiliation with Europe and European languages than with Arabic. More signif-
icantly, the impact that French language had on these regions was enormous
if compared to other regions of the Arab world: for example, in the Maghreb
the network of schools founded by the Alliance Israélite Universelle (aiu) and
the Alliance Française in the late 19th century, had the highest success.8 Fol-
lowing the Crémieux Decree in 1870, which granted French citizenship to the
Jews of Algeria, French became the language of the educated elite who came
to identify with French culture, and were increasingly alienated from Arab cul-
ture. Yet, during the same period, Judaeo-Arabic experienced a new flourishing,
even in a secular sense, everywhere in the Arab world. This represented a cul-
tural option that mitigated against the cultivation of Arabic language writing
in Arabic characters (see Attal and Naor 1996 and Attal 2007).

5 It is a drama in Algerian Arabic written by Abraham Daninos (1798–1872), who worked as an

interpreter at the civil court of Algiers. Its title is Nazāhat al-muštāq wa-ġuṣṣat al-ʿuššāq fī
madīnat Ṭiryāq fī al-ʿIrāq [The Stroll of the Enamoured and the Grief of the Lovers in the
City of Ṭiryāq in Iraq]. It was re-published in Algeria in 2002, edited by Maḫlūf Bukrūḥ.
Interestingly, this is the earliest reference found and also the only one from Algeria.
6 Its title is Mufāwaḍāt al-muʾtamar al-munʿaqad fī al-ʾAstāna, fī al-masʾala al-šarqiyya sanat
1293 wa-sanat 1294 [Negotiations of the Conference of Astana on the Oriental Question in
1293 and 1294 h (1875–1876)].
7 They are all from the same author, Elie Malka, who worked as a civil court interpreter. The
earliest one is Ha-limud ha-ʿaravi, Manuel simple et pratique de lecture et d’écriture arabes,
published in Rabat in 1944, which will be further discussed in the following pages; the second
is a compendium of laws entitled Mūǧaz al-qawānīn al-ʾIsrāʾīliyya fī al-ʾaḥwāl al-šaḫsiyya wa-
l-ʾummiyya [Compendium of the Israelite Codes of Personal and Communal Status]; then an
essay entitled al-ʿawāʾid al-ʿatīqa al-ʾIsrāʾīliyya bi-al-Maġrib min al-mahd ʾilā al-laḥd [Ancient
Mores of the Israelites in the Maghreb from the Cradle to the Grave].
8 The Alliance Israélite Universelle (aiu) and the Alliance Française are two international
institutions founded in Paris respectively in 1860 and in 1883 to promote French language
and culture around the world mainly through a network of schools and cultural centres. The
aiu had as its primary mission to provide the Jews of the Middle East with the same level of
instruction as their brethren in France.
jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 481

Amongst the four most representative cities in the corpus, one should fur-
ther put into context the role of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as one does not really
see an indigenous written production coming from these two cities. In fact,
even if a few authors were born in Palestine,9 most of the writers who published
in these two cities were Egyptians and mainly Iraqis who started their publica-
tion activity in their country of origin and, after migrating to Israel during the
1950s, continued publishing in Arabic. Therefore, it would be more appropri-
ate to say that Jewish writing in Arabic in Arabic characters migrated to Israel
together with some of its representatives. It should also be remembered that
Palestine is the place where the revitalisation of Hebrew language, begun in
Europe at the end of the 18th century, was achieved, resulting in what is known
today as modern Hebrew, or more precisely, Israeli Hebrew language. As early
as the British Mandate on Palestine (1922–1948), Hebrew was recognised as one
of the official languages, together with English and Arabic. During that time,
as it was happening with Arabic, new publications appeared in this new revi-
talised Hebrew, and schools were founded where this language was taught.10
With this new modern language appearing on the scene, which was imposed as
the main language of Israel, Arabic, though being one of the official languages
of the State, was gradually marginalised and its use (like that of other diaspora
languages) was discouraged among Jews as not corresponding to the image of
the new Jew, as promoted by the new Zionist establishment. Furthermore, it
certainly did not help that this language was now fatally associated with the
Arab enemy. Inevitably, the practice of Arabic writing by the Jews suffered from
this situation, just like its representatives.11 As a result, some writers switched
to Hebrew as their main language of expression,12 whereas few others decided
to continue writing in Arabic, finding themselves in the awkward position of
being outside the mainstream Israeli Hebrew cultural scene on the one hand,

9 The journalists Shimon Moyal (1866–1915) and Nissīm Malūl (1892–1959).

10 It is important to mention the initiatives of Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1858–1922), born Eliezer
Perlman, a Lithuanian Jewish journalist and lexicographer who was committed to the
project of resurrection of the Hebrew language. He settled in Jerusalem in 1881 and
promoted a variety of cultural initiatives such as the creation of a dictionary of Hebrew
language and the founding of schools where all teaching was carried out in Hebrew.
11 There are many accounts of traumatic experiences by these immigrants from Arab coun-
tries after their arrival in Israel, for example the memoirs in Hebrew written by Eli Amir
and Sami Mikhael, Israeli writers born in Iraq. This subject has also been explored from a
sociological point of view, with special focus on Iraqi Jews. See Shohat 2003 and Shenhav
2006.
12 For example, Sami Mikhael.
482 langella

and on the other, not fitting into the Arab cultural scene, or very limitedly so,
because of their being Israelis.13 This process brought about the gradual demise
of Arabic writing by Jews, even among those who were native speakers, edu-
cated in Arabic speaking environments.
To sum up, it is essentially in Cairo and Baghdad that this writing and pub-
lishing actually developed. These cities had some elements in common which
may have been key factors in encouraging Arabic language writing among the
Jews. Both are in fact cities with ancient Jewish communities, though Cairo, and
more broadly Egypt, had also seen various waves of Jewish migrations through-
out the centuries. Especially in the 19th century and after the opening of the
Suez canal in 1869, many Europeans had moved to the region, among them
many Jews. Just like other regions under Ottoman rule, Egypt had experienced
a period of political and social reforms, in this case initiated by Mohammed
Ali (1769–1849), which improved the situation of the Jews and gave them more
opportunities of social ascent. Together with Lebanon, Egypt was also a place of
intellectual ferment, where the Nahḍa begun and where printing proliferated
with the consequent publication of journals and magazines in both classical
and Egyptian Arabic. Some Jewish intellectuals were not indifferent to these
new cultural and political developments; on the contrary, they were so fasci-
nated by them and by the parallel nationalist sentiment that was growing in the
country at the time as a reaction to the European presence, that they wished to
be part of it.14
As for Baghdad, its situation was unique. At the beginning of the 20th cen-
tury, Jews constituted one third of its population.15 It was a homogeneous
community—at least if compared to the Jewish populations of Egypt and
North Africa—linguistically arabophone, just like the co-territorial Christian
and Muslim communities. However, each of these three religious communities
had developed its own variety of Arabic language with its own phonological,
morphological, syntactical, and lexical characteristics. In his research on the
differences between these three dialects of Arabic, Haim Blanc explains for
example that the Muslim dialects preserved traits typical of the Bedouin gilit
dialects, whereas the Jewish and Christian varieties had preserved traits char-
acteristic of the old urban qeltu dialects (Blanc 1964; Mansur 1991). Despite the
presence of communal dialects, one does not get the impression of a strictly
segregated society. In Baghdad, and more generally in Iraq, Jews experienced

13 This is the case, for example, of Samīr Naqqāš, who we will be discussed in the following
pages.
14 For example Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ, who we will be discussed in the following pages.
15 Some 80,000 out of a total population of 202,000 inhabitants. See Morad et al. 2009: 4.
jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 483

a period of political stability under the late Ottomans and which continued
with the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and until the British Mandate in Iraq
(1921–1932). They were active in Iraqi society and some occupied important
political and economic positions (Rejwan 2004: xii). Under the reign of Faisal i
(1885–1933), the feeling of belonging to Iraqi society regardless of one’s reli-
gion was reinforced. Arabic language played a crucial role in this sense and
both Alliance Israélite Universelle (aiu) schools and state schools gave impor-
tance to Arabic language teaching. European languages, mainly English and
French, as well as Hebrew, were also taught in Jewish schools, but, as Rejwan
notes, they did not manage to impose themselves as written languages as hap-
pened elsewhere (Rejwan 2004: xiv. See also Yehuda 1996). It seems that in
the case of Baghdad, there was not always another option: Arabic was the
main language of all the communities, and it seems only natural that writers
would express themselves in this language. The development of Jewish publi-
cations in Arabic language and characters in Baghdad spanned the years 1920s
to the 1950s. With the migration of most Iraqi Jews to Israel in the 1950s, pub-
lications dwindled. Arabic writing continued throughout the 1960s thanks to
those authors who were still in Iraq, but it finally ended with their depar-
ture at the beginning of the 1970s.16 To further stress the limited nature of
this phenomenon, it should be noted that it concerned a total of some 185
authors, both individuals and collective bodies, mainly men though there were
a few women. Moreover, out of that total, only about twenty wrote most of the
works in the corpus, the rest having often authored only one or two publica-
tions.

4 A Dynamic Practice

If the extent to which Jews wrote in Arabic language and characters was limited,
nevertheless their written output shows a certain dynamism due to the variety
of writings represented. Monographs constitute 80 % of the total publications
found, while the remaining 20% are periodicals. Among the monographs, non-

16 According to recent statistics, there would be 12 Jews left in Baghdad, mainly men. See
S. Farrell, ‘Baghdad Jews have become a fearful few,’New York Times 01/06/2008, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/world/middleeast/01babylon.html?pagewanted=
all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw&_r=0 (seen on 11/12/2014). The last Jew-
ish publication in Arabic listed from Iraq is a biographical work by Meir Basri (1911–2006)
entitled ʾAʿlām al-yaqaẓa al-fikriyya fī al-ʿIrāq al-ḥadīṯ [Major Figures of the Intellectual
Revival in Modern Iraq], published in Baghdad in 1971.
484 langella

fiction works are the most frequent. They include all sorts of essays, legal texts,
historical and linguistic research, but also reference works, such as dictionaries
and encyclopaedias. Fiction works feature new narrative genres in Arabic liter-
ature, such as the novel and the short story, the latter mainly from Iraq,17 as well
as biographies and memoirs, the latter authored by Egyptian or Iraqi writers
from the 1970s, after their migration from their countries of origin. Poetry is also
represented, both the classical Arabic qaṣīda and the modern šiʿr manṯūr (prose
poetry), characterized by the absence of metre and rhyme.18 Religious texts are
present, though in small proportion. Among them are some collections includ-
ing the translations into Arabic of Jewish liturgical texts such as Siddur Farḥī
and Maǧmūʿat Farḥī, published in Egypt in 1917 and 1922 by the Syrian-born Hil-
lel Farḥī. The great majority of monographs are original works, with a smaller
proportion (12%) of translations from Hebrew, English, and French. Mention
should be made also of drama, of which the earliest examples found are the play
published by Abraham Daninos in Algeria in 1847, as cited above, and Yaʿqūb
Ṣanūʿ’s plays published and staged in Egypt from the 1870s. Later, from the 1920s
to the 1950s, theatre began to develop in Iraq.
As for periodicals, they were the earliest type of publication to appear from
the 19th century.19 There are different types of them: newspapers and mag-
azines, but also bulletins and reports, mainly weekly publications, but also
monthly, and a few daily. Many of them, especially the earliest ones, had an
irregular pattern and only lasted a few months or a few years at the most.
Among them are the satirical newspaper ʾAbū Naẓẓāra, or ʾAbū Naẓẓāra Zarqāʾ
[The Bespectacled Man, or The Man in the Blue Glasses] by Egyptian journal-
ist and playwright Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ (1839–1912), who started publishing in Egypt,
then continued from his exile in Paris. Distinctive features of his newspapers
were the extensive use of Egyptian Arabic language and his own illustrations.20
Another early example from Paris is the political weekly al-Šams [The Sun],

17 According to Snir (2006: 384), it is in the short story that Jews have made their most
significant contribution to Iraqi literature.
18 Apparently inspired by the American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892), it developed in
Arabic literature at the beginning of the 20th century. Pioneers of the šiʿr manṯūr were
the Lebanese ʾAmīn al-Riḥānī (1876–1940), Niqūlā Fayyāḍ and Ǧubrān Ḫalīl Ǧubrān (1883–
1931). See Moreh (1976) and Starkey (2006).
19 The corpus only lists journals published by Jews; however, as some scholars have shown,
Jews contributed to the Arab press and wrote articles in non-Jewish Arabic journals. For
these, see Kazzaz (1990) and Snir (2007).
20 See Vial (1997). Some samples of Ṣanūʿ’s newspapers are found at http://www.asia-europe
.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/heidelberg-research-architecture/detail/m/abou
-naddara-collection.html (seen on 17/08/2016).
jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 485

including four pages, two in Arabic in Arabic characters and two in Judaeo-
Arabic, published in 1885 by the Tunisian journalists Salīm Quwaiṭa (Guetta)
and Ilyāhū Sasson. This is one of very few instances of publications in both
Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic. Here, as everywhere else, Egyptian and Iraqi authors
occupy a predominant place.

Not only were the types of publications heterogeneous; their subjects also
appear to be varied, spanning from politics and history to literature and linguis-
tics. Even though political publications do not score very high in the corpus,
their presence is clearly a sign that Jews were not indifferent to the new ide-
ologies and political movements which had started to appear from the 19th
century, such as Arab and Jewish nationalism, as well as Communism. In some
cases, they took an active part in the debate and expressed their position. News-
papers and magazines were the ideal type of publication to voice one’s polit-
ical ideas, though a few monographic works, both original and translations,
occasionally also served the purpose. Among the earliest examples of politi-
cal journals, and with an openly satirical nature, are the newspapers published
by the abovementioned Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ, who was a passionate promoter of the
Egyptian nationalist ideology, with the motto Miṣr li-l-Miṣriyyīn [Egypt to the
Egyptians].21
Zionism also had its share of supporters, as shown by the presence of maga-
zines such as the weekly ʾIsrāʾīl (1919–1923), published in Cairo in French, Ara-
bic and Hebrew by Albert Mosseri (1867–1933) and al-Šams [The Sun] (1934–
1948), a weekly founded by Saʿd Yaʿqūb Malkī (Naḥamyās 2003); from Beirut, the
literary weekly al-ʿĀlam al-ʾisrāʾīlī, [The Israelite Universe] (1921–1946), founded
by Salīm Ilyāhu Mān, and the weekly al-Salām [Peace], published in 1946. In
Baghdad, publications are found for and against Zionism, such as, respectively,
the literary weekly Yeshūrūn (1920–1921), written half in Hebrew and half in
Arabic and founded by the Ǧamʿiyya ʾisrāʾīliyya ʾadabiyya [Israelite Literary
Association] with the aim of promoting the teaching of Hebrew language and
literature, and the daily al-ʿUṣba, [The League] (1946), published by the ʿUṣba li-
mukāfaḥat al-ṣahyūniyya [League for the Fight against Zionism] and founded
by Yūsuf Zilkha and Masrūr Qaṭṭān. Some Iraqi Jews were also attracted by
the Communist ideology, as is shown by the presence of translations of clas-
sics such as Marx’s Kamūnat Bārīs [The Paris Commune] by Ḥasqīl Qūǧmān,
published in 1956.

21 From the title of one of his newspapers al-Waṭanī al-Miṣrī, Miṣr li-l-Miṣriyyīn [The Egyptian
Patriot, Egypt to the Egyptians], published in 1883.
486 langella

The history of the Arabs and the Jews, and of their relations throughout the
centuries, is the main topic of some publications, as if to stress its importance
and preserve its memory. For example the Palestinian-born Nissīm Malūl’s
eight-act Riwāyat šahāmat al-ʿarab ʾaw al-Samawʾal wa-Imruʾ al-Qays: riwāya
tamṯīliyya taʾrīḫiyya ʾadabiyya šiʿriyya waqaʿat ḥawādiṯu-hā qubayl ẓuhūr al-
ʾIslām [Novel on the History of the Greatness of the Arabs or al-Samawʾal
and ʾImruʾ al-Qays: A historic-literary-poetical play the events of which took
place shortly before Islam], published in Iraq in 1928. From the prolific Iraqi
writer Nissīm ʾAḥmad Sūsa come several monographs, such as al-ʿArab wa-
l-Yahūd fī al-taʾrīḫ [Arabs and Jews throughout History] published in 1972,
as well as Malāmiḥ min al-taʾrīḫ al-qadīm li-Yahūd al-ʿIrāq [Aspects of the
Ancient History of the Jews of Iraq] (1978). On the same subject, it is also
worth mentioning another Iraqi writer, Nissim Rejwan (1924–), who in 1998
published in Jerusalem Mūǧaz taʾrīḫ Yahūd al-ʿIrāq min sabiyy Bābil ʾilā nuzūḥi-
him ʿām 1951 [Compendium of the History of the Jews of Iraq and the Captivity
of Babylon until Their Migration in 1951], and ʿArab wa-Yahūd: dirasāt fī al-māḍī
wa-naẓra ʾilā al-mustaqbal [Arabs and Jews: Studies on the Past and View to the
Future].22
Some authors specialized in Arabic literature and dedicated their life to its
study. Most of them were Iraqi-born and started their career in Israel after
their migration. Among them are Murād Miḫāʾīl (1906 or 1909–1986), David
Ṣemaḥ (1933–1997), Sasson Somekh (1933–), Shimon Ballas and Shmuel Moreh.
In 1962, Miḫāʾīl published in Jerusalem a three-volume ‘History of Arabic Liter-
ature’ (Taʾrīḫ al-ʾadab al-ʿarabī). Ballas wrote al-ʾAdab al-ʿarabī wa-l-taḥdīṯ al-
fikrī [Arabic Literature and the Intellectual Renewal], which was published in
Cologne in Germany in 2003 by Manšūrāt al-ǧamal, a publishing house founded
by Iraqi refugees who fled Saddam Hussein’s regime. Ṣemaḥ wrote an essay
on the prominent Egyptian writer Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm (1898–1987) entitled ʾAḍwāʾ
ʿalā ʾadab Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm [Lights on the Literature of Tawfiq al-Hakim] (Haifa,
1979). Sasson Somekh published an essay on another illustrious representative
of Arabic literature, the Egyptian writer Yūsuf ʾIdrīs (1927–1991), entitled Luġat
al-qiṣṣa fī ʾadab Yūsuf ʾIdrīs [The Language of the Short Story in the Produc-
tion of Yusuf Idris] (Tel Aviv, 1984). Finally, Shmuel Moreh wrote extensively
in Arabic, but also in Hebrew and English, on several topics related to Arabic
literature and on Jewish contributions to it. To cite just two examples, al-Naṯr
al-fannī wa-taṭawwuru-hu fī al-ʾadab al-ʿarabī al- ḥadīṯ [Artistic Prose and its

22 Rejwan has written extensively on this subject, also in English and Hebrew. See his 2004
memoirs The Last Jews in Baghdad.
jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 487

Development in Contemporary Arabic Literature] (Jerusalem, 1969), and al-

Qiṣṣa al-qaṣīra ʿinda Yahūd al-ʿIrāq, 1924–1978 [Short Stories by Jewish Writers
from Iraq, 1924–1978], an anthology published in Jerusalem in 1981.
Some authors took a keen interest in Arabic language and published dic-
tionaries as well as philological studies on it. An early example comes from
Morocco: it is Elie Malka’s ha-Limud ha-ʿaravi, Manuel Simple et pratique de lec-
ture et d’écriture arabes, published in Rabat in 1944. With a title in Hebrew,
a subtitle and introduction in Judaeo-Arabic and a parallel title in French,
it was aimed at teaching speakers and readers of Judaeo-Arabic the rules of
Arabic writing in Arabic characters. Of a more ambitious scope was the five-
volume etymological dictionary written by the Karaite Egyptian lawyer, poet,
and philologist Murād Faraǧ, entitled Multaqā al-luġatayn al-ʿarabiyya wa-l-
ʿibriyya [The Points of Contact between the Two Languages Arabic and
Hebrew]. It is a comparative dictionary written between 1930 and 1950 and
focused on the similarities between the two languages. Noteworthy is also the
appearance, from the second half of the 1940s, of dictionaries and textbooks on
Arabic language in Israel.
Another aspect of the variety found in this corpus of modern Jewish publica-
tions in Arabic language and characters is the diversity of its authors, who came
from different places and cultural backgrounds, with different political orien-
tations and for whom the Arabic language was a distinctive element of their
identity. Among the most prolific authors, with his 32 plays23 and his journal-
istic activity of over thirty years, was Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ (1839–1912), who was born in
Cairo to a Jewish family of Italian origin and died in Paris. A polyglot, he mas-
tered Italian, French, and English in addition to Arabic, which was his favourite
language of written expression. According to some sources, he converted to
Islam at some point in his life.24 Whether true or not, he actively participated
through his writings in the Egyptian political life of his time and was a fervent
Egyptian nationalist. He never hid his positions against the British Protectorate
on Egypt and supported the ʿUrābī nationalist revolt in 1881–1882. His exper-
imental works in Arabic drama make him one of the pioneers of the genre,
alongside Daninos in Algeria and Marūn al-Naqqāš (1817–1855) in Lebanon. In
his theatre pieces, which were in some cases adaptations from French or Italian

23 A collection of studies on Arabic theatre containing Ṣanūʿ’s plays, together with other
plays from the main representatives of this genre, was published in Beirut in 1961 under
the title al-Masraḥ al-ʿarabī: Dirāsāt wa-nuṣūṣ.
24 See on this question Landau (1986), Moreh (1987), as well as the entry ‘Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ’ in
Mawsūʿat al-Yahūd wa-l-Yahūdiyyah wa-l-Ṣahyūniyyah: 55–58. See also Gendzier (1966)
and ʿAbduh (1953).
488 langella

drama, he also fiercely criticized the politics of the Khedive ʾIsmāʿīl, with whom
he entertained a love-hate relationship throughout his life, and of his successor
and son Tawfīq. As a result, the former sent him to exile in Paris in 1878, from
where he continued his intellectual activity and managed to smuggle his news-
papers to Egypt and elsewhere. In both his journalism and dramatic writing, he
mixed classical and Egyptian Arabic, along with European languages. However,
Arabic was his preferred language of expression, and the language in which he
voiced his nationalist feelings.
The Iraqi Nissīm ʾAḥmad Sūsa (1900–1982) is the writer with the second
highest number of publications, with 42 published works. Born in al-Ḥilla, he
studied first at the Alliance Israélite Universelle of his birthplace and then in
the United States, where he specialised in irrigation engineering. On his return
to Iraq, he published extensively on irrigation in the Mesopotamian valley. A
crucial event in his life was his conversion to Islam in 1936, an experience he
related in his two-volume memoir Fī ṭarīqī ʾilā al-ʾIslām [My Path to Islam]
(Cairo, 1936–1938). He was also a fierce anti-Zionist and an Iraqi nationalist for
whom Iraqi identity could not be separable from Islam (Snir 2005: 887).
Samīr Naqqāš (1938–2004) was a novelist and short-story writer born in Iraq.
He lived in Baghdad until the age of 13, when he migrated to Israel along with
most of the Iraqi Jews during the 1950s. Despite his very young age at the time
of his migration, he later wrote exclusively in Arabic. His early life was marked
by the trauma of his departure from Iraq and the two subsequent years spent
with his family in a transit camp in Israel. He tried several times to flee the
country and return to Iraq. During ten years of wandering, he was several times
in Iran and in Bombay, where he lived for one year. Throughout his life, he
never made a mystery of his feeling of being exiled in Israel, to the point of
stating in an interview: ‘I live in the hope of leaving or travelling’ (Alcalay 1996:
108). He is the author of six novels, five collections of short stories and three
plays, all published in Israel from the 1970s. In his works, he makes use of the
Jewish and Muslim Baghdadi dialects, such as in ʾAnā wa-haʾulāʾ wa-l-fuṣām
[Me, Them and Schizophrenia] (1978), a collection of short stories and novels
set in Baghdad during the 1940s and 1950s, and in his novel Nuzūla wa-ḫayt
al-šayṭān [Tenants and Cobwebs] (1986). Through his choice to publish only
in Arabic, he consciously alienated himself from Israeli mainstream Hebrew
literature, keeping the Arabic language as his homeland.
Esther Azharī (ou Lazharī) Moyal (1873–1948) was a writer, journalist, and
translator born in Beirut. She was active in the field of women’s rights since her
youth, and represented Lebanon at the International Conference of Women in
Chicago in 1893. Her career as a journalist and writer spans over fifty years and
at least three main cities: from Beirut to Cairo, where she moved in 1894 after
jewish writing in arabic in arabic characters 489

marrying Shimon Moyal, a medical doctor from Jaffa who himself published
in Arabic, and Jaffa, where she settled after her husband’s death. She published
articles on women’s issues in the main Arabic newspapers and magazines of the
beginning of the 20th century, such as al-ʾAhrām [The Pyramids], founded by
the brothers Taqlā in 1875, and al-Hilāl [The Crescent], founded in 1892 by the
Lebanese writer Ǧurǧī Zaydān (1861–1914). In 1898 she founded al-ʿĀʾila [The
Family], a monthly, then weekly magazine on women and family issues. In
1914 she co-edited with her husband the short-lived Zionist-oriented magazine
Ṣawt al-ʿUṯmāniyya [The Voice of Ottomanism]. Throughout her career, she
promoted women’s emancipation through Arabic language.

5 Conclusion

As a final word, the use of Arabic language and characters by Jews is not
to be interpreted as an obvious or expected fact. Indeed, Jewish writing and
publication in Arabic in Arabic characters was not a ubiquitous phenomenon
in the Arabic-speaking world, but only concerned a minority of writers, mainly
in Egypt and Iraq. This is all the more evident if one observes this production
within the broader context of non-Jewish publications made in Arabic at the
same time,25 as well as compares it with publications in Judaeo-Arabic from
all over the Arab lands and beyond in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.26
Despite all these limitations, the variety of publications and of the subjects
addressed, as well as the different levels of Arabic language used, show that
this practice was characterised by a certain degree of dynamism. Some of the
main representatives of this writing have shown their openness towards all the
new developments in Arabic language and literature on the one hand, and their
implication in the social and political life of their homelands on the other.
Nevertheless, this dynamism does not seem to have allowed the practice to
survive. The study of the bibliographic corpus shows that the use of Arabic
language in Arabic characters by the Jews is now coming to an end with the
passing of most of the communities of Jewish speakers, writers and readers in
and from the Arab world.

25 Just as an example, in his bibliography Taʾrīḫ al-ṣiḥāfa al-ʿarabiyya (1913) Philippe De

Ṭarrāzī lists Arabic periodicals by place and date of publication, and according to the
religious community to which their editors belonged. Interestingly, between 1800 and
1929, out of a total of 3026 Arabic periodicals, 48 % were published by Muslims, 37% by
Christians, and only 2 % by Jews.
26 See Yaʿari (1936), Attal and Naor (1996), Hill (2004 and 2008) and Attal (2007).
490 langella

However, these results are not necessarily definitive. For example, it would
be interesting to investigate the current situation in the Arab countries where
small Jewish communities are still present, such as the Maghreb. Could there
be for example a Jewish literary activity in Arabic in the Maghreb, now that
Judaeo-Arabic writing has ended and after the implementation of the Arabiza-
tion policies in the region? Also, since Arabic is still one of the official languages
of Israel, could one imagine one day a revival of Jewish writing in Arabic lan-
guage in this country? These questions remain open and could invite new
research and a re-evaluation of the current findings.

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 chapter 24

Between Linguistics, Poetry, and Ideology: The

Literary Periodical L-ʾArzyāda in the Lebanese
Language (June 2009 – October 2014)
General Presentation, Intellectual Impacts, Index
of Authors, and “Lebanese” Lexis*
Arkadiusz Płonka

1 Introduction

In the book on linguistic nationalism in Lebanon (Płonka 2004), then, in an

article published on the initiative of Pierre Larcher in Arabica (Płonka 2006),
we mentioned, with skepticism and caution, the future of the idea of a Lebanese
language, linked to poet Saʿīd ʿAql (1912–2014). This ideological concept remains
in its content and form, too controversial in Lebanese and other Arab societies.
Yet, in November, 2014, while writing these words, after the caesura—the death
of Saʿīd ʿAql—we cannot refute the growing production of literary works in the
Lebanese language. Although written by poets recognized in their milieu, these
works, absent in newer media forms, published in a limited number of copies
and at the authors’ own expense, are at risk of never getting discovered, despite
their literary, linguistic, and ideological quality, by Orientalists or even within
Lebanon itself. In this paper, we will focus on this phenomenon, which has lit-
tle in common with the ideas propagated by prestigious and influential Arabic
newspapers.

* The second part of this work is soon to be published. It will contain the dialectological analysis
of the corpus and the presentation of its notation. Due to its dialectal characteristics, this
article does not follow the general rules of translitteration in use in this volume [Editors’
note]. However, in accordance with editors’ demands, we write the assimilation of the definite
article only in Lebanese examples and not in citations from Standard Arabic. We cite the
names of toponyms after Wardini (2002), but in this case, for the cohesion of the text, we take
into account the assimilation of the definite article.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_026

494 płonka

2 ʾAmīr Hlayyil from Kfar Šīma

ʾAmīr Hlayyil, a Maronite, was born in 1982 in Kfar Šīma, a village in the Bʿabda
county.1 All of his work is signed in the Lebanese language, understood here
in the sense given by Saʿīd ʿAql (Płonka 2004). Hlayyil’s first book, published
in 2008 and titled ‘Tomorrow I will be Lebanon’ (Bukra ʾana Ləbnēn), was
positively received by poets such as Maurice ʿAwwād, Robert Ġānim, Quzḥayyā
Sāsīn,2 and Georges Ṭarābulsī (Hlayyil 2010a: 11–13). His next book ‘The Lady
of the Coincidence’ (Sayyidit ǝṣ-ṣǝdfi, 2010), containing forty poems, has been
criticized for its excessive formal and thematic reliance on Maurice ʿAwwād’s
poetry.3 Among his literary works, we will also mention here: ‘I am not for
Myself’ (ʾAna mǝš ʾǝl-i, prose, 2011), two other books of poetry ‘I have been here
for a long time’ (ʾǝl-i hawn ktīr, 2014), ‘The Hairpin’ (Dabbūs ǝš-šaʿ ǝr, 2014),4 ‘The
Room’ (l-ʾŪḍa, prose, 2014),5 ‘Ideas from Notebooks of the Village of Poetry’

1 Kfar Šīma is well known thanks to its authors. We will mention here Šiblī Šumayyil, a
philosopher; ʾIbrāhīm al-Qahwaǧī, a poet, see his poems in [ʿAwwād (ed.) 1983; further in the
text l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 167–168, 483, n. 54]; Nāṣīf al-Yāziǧī, a poet and one of the Bible translators
into Arabic; Salīm Taqlā, one of the founders of the Egyptian newspaper al-ʾAhrām in 1875
(Van Mol 2003: 26), and Philémon Wahbī, a recognized composer. Three other poets from
Kfar Šīma, who published a poem in the literary periodical l-ʾArzyāda, are: Rašād al-Raǧǧī,
Munīr ʿAbd al-Nūr, and Nicolas al-Fatā, see infra § 3.3. Kfar Šīma is also mentioned in Hlayyil’s
literary works, e.g. (2008: 23–28) and in l-ʾArzyāda (29: 2, 31: 2, 33: 2; further in the text, the issue
number is followed by the page number): the series ‘From the Anecdotes of Kfar Šīma’ (Mǝn
ḫabriyyēt Kfar Šīma); for more information on the role of this village in Lebanese literature,
see Abdel-Nour (19662: 67, n. 1).
2 See two texts in Standard Arabic, written by Quzḥayyā Sāsīn: 1) 2008. ‘“Bukra ʾana Ləbnēn”
li-l-šāʿir ʾAmīr Hlayyil.’ Al-Masīra, September, 8: 30 and 2) 2009. ‘“Bukra ʾana Ləbnēn” li-ʾAmīr
Hlayyil. Kamā yuḍrabu al-ṣawwān li-ʾaǧl iḥtirāq šahī.’ Al-Nahār, August, 5: 15.
3 See text in Lebanese: Sāsīn, Quzḥayyā. 2010. ‘Safar. Sayyidit ǝṣ-ṣədfi (la-ʾAmīr Hlayyil).’ Al-
Masīra. Al-Naǧwā, September, 6: 40. Hlayyil admits this influence and writes ‘I bloomed on
Maurice ʿAwwād’s field’ (ʾAna zahhart b-ḥaʾ ǝl Morīs ʿAwwād) (Hlayyil 2008: 152). Under the
impact of his mentor, Hlayyil uses dialogs in his poems, invented names for places (e.g. ‘the
Village of poetry’, Kfar šəʿ ǝr), and original orthography, criticized by other poets. He also
spells in his periodical the following month names: ‘October’ (tišrīn), ‘November’ (tašrūn),
‘December’ (kānūn), and ‘January’ (kwānu), cf. (Płonka 2010: 32, 33, n. 37). The literary pages
of l-ʾArzyāda also owe much to l-ʾAnṭolōžya, see infra §3.3.
4 See its extract (61: 3).
5 ‫ل ُأوضا‬
ْ [sic]. In the newspaper, the definite article, if it is used, is written 1) with the word as
in Standard Arabic, when /l/ is assimilated and not pronounced, e.g. ‫سم َن ْدرا‬
ْ ‫ ال‬s-smandra or 2)
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 495

(Zattēt mǝn dafātir Kfar šəʿ ǝr,6 prose, 2014), and ‘Your Breast is My Little Moon’
(Ṣədr-ik ʾamar-i z-zġīr, prose, 2014). Hlayyil also published in Arabic and ʿAql’s
Latin alphabets ‘Three Stories’ (Tlēt ʾəṣaṣ, 2010) for children (see § 3.2.1.5). He
has also been a contributor to the Lebanese newspapers al-ʾAnwār, al-Dabbūr
and—since June, 2009—the editor and main author of l-ʾArzyāda, the only
newspaper in Lebanon which is currently published in Lebanese.7

3 The Literary Periodical L-ʾArzyāda (‫)ْل أرْز يادا‬

3.1 General Presentation

The title l-ʾArzyāda, translated by ʾAmīr Hlayyil as ‘epic poem of cedars,’ is a
hybrid word based on 1) ʾarz (coll. ‘cedars’) and 2) -yāda, referring to Homer’s
Iliad.8 The periodical continues a long tradition of press devoted to dialectal
literature in Lebanon and in the Syrian-Lebanese diaspora.9 Some texts, such as
ʿAql’s work, some of Hlayyil’s poems, and the essay by Rafīq Rūḥāna, are written
in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet.10

separated from the word, when it is not assimilated and pronounced, e.g. ‫ل أنكرَ ي‬ ْ l-ʾankari;
for these words, see infra § 3.4.
6 ‫ زت ّات‬zattēt < zatt/yzǝtt ‘to throw.’ The translation ‘ideas’ was accepted by the author.
7 For the newspaper al-Mawāhib in Canada, see n. 9. The first issue of l-ʾArzyāda was
published in June 2009. The date on its first page is July 2009.
8 Arab. 1) al-ʾIlyāḏa (‫الإلياذة‬, cf. in Modern Greek: Ιλιάδα Iliáda). The part of this word yāḏa
> yāda is sometimes interpreted by the Lebanese poets as a suffix. We find it, for example,
in the titles of Maurice ʿAwwād’s Morīsyāda and May(y) Murr’s Ləbnānyāda/Ləbnēnyāda;
2) rarely used al-ʾIlyās, ‫( الإلياس‬cf. in ancient Greek: Ιλιάς Iliás), see Sulaymān al-Bustānī’s
introduction in (Hūmīrūs 2011: 30).
9 We will only mention here (titles in Standard Arabic, except the fifth title): 1) al-Sabʿalī,
newspaper founded by ʾAsʿad al-Sabʿalī in the 1930’s; 2) al-Karawān, a newspaper founded
by Kamīl Ḫalīfa in the 1950’s.; for both authors, see infra §3.3; 3) al-Šiʿr; 4) Ṣawt al-šāʿir, in
which Maurice ʿAwwād began to publish his poetry, in 1959, under the alias ‘Virgil’ (Fəržīl),
see (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 493, n. 20); 5) Lebnaan, notation in Saʿīd ʿAql’s Latin alphabet [Ləbnān
([ā], [sic, without ʾimāla]), S. ʿAql’s periodical, see infra §3.2.4]; 6) al-Šiʿr al-Qawmī; 7)
ʾAmīr al-zaǧal (the other titles of this newspaper, founded by William Ṣaʿb, are al-Bulbul,
Bulbul al-ʾArz, and al-Baydar); 8) ʾImārat al-zaǧal; 9) al-ʾAdab al-šaʿbī, and 10) Ṣawt al-
Ǧabal, for the five last titles (see Abdel-Nour 19662: 35, 87: 1). Qāzān, in his al-ʾAnṭūlūǧyā
al-lubnāniyya fī šiʿr wa-zaǧal, gives twenty seven titles from Lebanon (1930–) and five
titles published in the Lebanese diaspora (Qāzān 2003: 134–135). According to him, the
newspaper al-Mawāhib is ‘currently’ (i.e. in 2003) published in Canada (op. cit.: 135).
10 See infra § 3.3.
496 płonka

From June, 2009, to October, 2014—when this paragraph was being

written—sixty-five issues were published. Each of them consists of four pages
(size 30×21cm, about 2200–2400 words per issue, 260 pages in total, of which 62
were almost entirely devoted to poetry). The number of copies varied between
five hundred and seven hundred. The periodical is distributed free of charge. In
2009, l-ʾArzyāda was advertised on the ‘Free Lebanon’ (Lubnān al-ḥurr) radio
station’s program ‘Vigilant Lanterns’ (ʾǝnēdīl sahrāni, July 10th) and on ‘Radio
Lebanon’ (ʾIḏāʿat Lubnān, September 1st).11 The periodical was also distributed
during two influential annual meetings by Lebanese poets: 1) at the Šubāṭ hotel
in Bšarre, organized by the poet Antoine Mālik Ṭawq (see also Płonka 2010: 34–
36) and 2) ‘Kingdom of Poetry’ (Malakūt ǝš-šəʿ ǝr), organized every year since
April 9, 1994, in ʿAšqūt by Rafīq Rūḥāna, a poet from Wēde Šaḥrūr.12

3.2 Ideological Impacts and Intellectual Sources

Ideological impacts and intellectual sources presented below are connected in
the newspaper and should not be analyzed separately.

3.2.1 Phoenicianism
The literary periodical l-ʾArzyāda advocates for Phoenicianism, an ideological
anti-Arab movement which refers to the Phoenician past of Lebanon. Among
the texts associated with this movement, we find:

3.2.1.1. texts in the Phoenician language from the 3rd millennium bc in S. ʿAql’s
Lebanization13 (22: 2, 23: 2, 24: 3), reprint of the Lebnaan newspaper
(339, 342, 344; see also l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 15–19);

11 Also, Robert Ġānim devoted articles to Hlayyil in al-Dabbūr newspaper, see for example:
February 5th 2010, nº 3061: 19; June 4th 2010, nº 3077: 19; October 8th 2010, nº 3092: 19;
November 5th 2010, nº 3096: 19; November 26th 2010, nº 3099: 19; January 14th 2011, nº
3105: 19; January 28th 2011, nº 3107: 19; June 8th 2012, nº 3169: 19; June 29th 2012, nº 3172:
19; July 27th 2012, nº 3176: 19; December 7th 2012, nº 3189: 16; March 8th 2013, nº 3201: 16;
June 14th 2013, nº 3214: 16; September 20th 2013, nº 3223: 16. Lebanese translations of Robert
Ġānim’s poems were published in l-ʾArzyāda, see §3.3. On the review, also see the article
by Šādī Ḫalīl ʾAbū ʿĪsā, ‘L-ʾArzyāda: lubnāniyya b-imtiyāz.’ Al-ʾAnwār, July 11th 2009, nº 17195:
13.
12 We are in possession of six manuscript pages in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet, a tribute to Hlayyil
written by R. Rūḥāna. This text was read by the author during Malakūt ǝš-šəʿ ǝr in the
summer of 2010. Rūḥāna and Ṭawq are among the authors of l-ʾArzyāda, see §3.3.
13 In l-ʾAnṭolōžya two synonymous terms are used: ‘translation’ (taržama) and ‘Lebanization’
(labnana), see also (Bawardi 2015: 130, n. 298, typescript). Hlayyil uses the second term in
his periodical.
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 497

3.2.1.2. press articles (2: 1, 45: 1, 50: 1, see also n. 20 and metalinguistic texts
§3.2.8);
3.2.1.3. Hlayyil’s translation of a section on the Phoenician alphabet from A
Little History of the World by Ernst Gombrich (51: 1);
3.2.1.4. Lebanese authors’ quotations: Michel Chiha [1: 2, 7: 1, 41: 1, ʿIṣām ʿAssāf’s
(see §3.3) translation: 48: 4, cf. l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 33], Philip Hitti (25: 1),
Alfred and May(y) Murr (see infra §3.3); see also on Philo of Byblos,
author of Phoenician History §3.2.2.3;
3.2.1.5. ʾAmīr Hlayyil’s work for children: ‘Mythology’ (Mītolōžya) in Arabic and
Latin alphabets:

‘Three Stories’ (Tlēt ʾəṣaṣ, 2010): ʾArzyella (female first name), ‘The
Sea Bird’ (ʿAṣfūrit ǝl-baḥǝr), and ‘The Polar Star’ (Nəžmit ǝš-šmēl).

The latter was also published in l-ʾArzyāda (3: 2). Here is its incipit quoted in
two alphabets in two of Hlayyil’s manuscripts, and the published versions:

figure 24.1 ʾAmīr Hlayyil’s manuscript in the Arabic alphabet

figure 24.2 ʾAmīr Hlayyil’s manuscript in Saʿīd ʿAql’s Latin alphabet

498 płonka

figure 24.3 Published version in the Arabic alphabet

figure 24.4 Published version in Saʿīd ʿAql’s Latin alphabet

‘The North Star. The sailors of Phoenicia tell this story: there was a poet called
“Marsino” who lived in a cave in the forest of cedars in the north of Lebanon.’
(Nəžmit ǝš-šmēl.14 Biḫabbru baḥḥārit Finīʾya ha-l-ʾǝṣṣa: kēn fi šēʿir ʾǝsm-u “Mar-
sīno” sēkin bǝ-mġāra b-ġēbit ʾarz bǝ-šmēl Ləbnēn.)

3.2.2 Other Pre-Islamic Civilizations in Bilād al-Šām

We find other references to pre-Islamic civilizations of Bilād al-Šām in:

3.2.2.1. Sections of ‘Epics of Ugarit’ (Malāḥim ʾŪġārīt) in ʿAwwād’s translation

(47: 2, 49: 2, 50: 2, 51: 2, 52: 2; see l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 20–24);
3.2.2.2. Greek poetry of
1. Antipater of Sidon (the 2nd century bc), (38: 2, 43: 2, see l-ʾAnṭolōžya:
25–26) and
2. Meleager of Gadara (the 1st–2nd centuries before bc), author prob-
ably living in Tyre (8: 2, 29: 4, 34: 2; see l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 27–29);

14 Written in the Latin alphabet with [aa] and pronounced by Hlayyil /ē/ in: kēn, šēʿir, sēkin,
ġēbit, šmēl, and Ləbnēn.
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 499

3.2.2.3. Section written by Philo of Byblos (the 1st – the 2nd century), author of
Phoenician History (49: 4);
3.2.2.4. In the periodical the Ituraeans are mentioned once.15 Their name is
mistakenly noted in the corpus as ‫ أرطور يين‬ʾarṭūriyyīn (14: 1).16

3.2.3 Jesuits
Like ʿAwwād, Hlayyil emphasizes the role of two Jesuits (§ 3.2.3.2 and § 3.2.3.3)
and one Maronite (closely associated with the Jesuits § 3.2.3.1) in the constitu-
tion of the idea of a Lebanese language:

3.2.3.1. Mārūn Ġuṣn (1880–1940) and his two books: ‘The Life and Death of
Languages: the Colloquial Language’ (Ḥayāt al-luġāt wa-mawtu-hā: al-
luġa al-ʿāmmiyya, 1925) and ‘Does a Book Like This Exist?’ (Fi mitl-
u ha-l-ktēb?, 1925, one of the sources for the Denizeau’s dictionnary
[1960]). Mārūn Ġuṣn proposed, among other things, the replacement
of the Standard Arabic by the Lebanese, the absence of notation of
interdentals, and the notation of q>ʾ (Abdel-Nour 19662: 82–83, n. 4).
We find the same characteristics in ʿAwwād’s and Hlayyil’s writings17
(cf. 58: 1);
3.2.3.2. Rufāʾīl Naḫla (58: 1–2) ‘who, in 1940, preached in Lebanese’ (l-ʾAnṭo-
lōžya: 493, n. 20), and his books: ‘Oddities of the Arabic Language’
(Ġarāʾib al-luġa al-ʿarabiyya, 1960), ‘Oddities of the Lebanese Dialect’
(Ġarāʾib al-lahǧa al-lubnāniyya, 1962), and Grammaire du dialecte
libano-syrien (2 volumes, 1937–1938, one of the sources for the Deni-
zeau’s dictionnary [1960]);
3.2.3.3. Būlus ʾIlyās Šawkat who indicated the activity of M. Ġuṣn and R. Naḫla
to M. ʿAwwād (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 493, n. 20).

15 An ancient people living in the Mount Lebanon area, al-Biqāʿ, the Anti-Lebanon, and the
Golan Heights (Myers 2010: 2).
16 In Standard Arabic: ‫ إ يطور يين‬ʾĪṭūriyyīn Gen. ‘Ituraeans’ and ‫ إ يطور ية‬ʾĪṭūriyya ‘Iturea’ (e.g.
Lūqa 3: 1: 84), in Lebanese: ‫ إ يطور ي ّا‬ʾĪṭūriyya in [Lūʾa [sic] 3: 1: ʿAwwād (transl.) 20011: 251
and ʿAwwād (transl.) 20022: 255].
17 But l-ʾArzyāda has heterogeneous notations, each one conform to the authors’ originals,
cf. the notation of /ḏ/, among others, in the name of Druze author, §3.3, n. 40, and the
notation of /q/ in the (first) names of other authors, §3.3.
500 płonka

3.2.4 Saʿīd ʿAql’s s-sawra l-ləġġawiyye l-muzdawiže

L-ʾArzyāda is in line with Saʿīd ʿAql’s18 language policy, called ‘double linguistic
revolution’ (s-sawra l-ləġġawiyye l-muzdawiže19). Hlayyil is directly inspired by
ʿAql’s newspaper Lebnaan. This political and literary weekly publication in
the Lebanese language (and partly in Standard Arabic), whose extracts we
can find in l-ʾArzyāda,20 was published between 1975 and 1990: in the Arabic
alphabet, and, since 1983, in full, in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet (Płonka 2004 and
2006). It should be noted that in l-ʾArzyāda we find no language of violence
against Palestinians and other ethnic minorities in Lebanon which was unique
to Lebnaan.
Nevertheless, the status of S. ʿAql among the poets supporting the idea of
a Lebanese language still remains ambiguous. He is criticized for his “con-
formism” in his choice of Classical Arabic as his language of poetry. ʿAwwād
removed him from the manuscript of his poetic autobiography, in which he
refers to the sources of his intellectual development, see manuscript (Płonka
2010).

3.2.5 Other Lebanizations

Besides the translations mentioned above, we find in our corpus:

3.2.5.1. The extracts of two translations from the series in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet
‘The Most Beautiful Books in the World’ (ʾAžmal kətob ǝl-ʿālam): 1)
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, translated by a Syrian, Kamāl Šarabī,
and published in 1968 (4: 4, 7: 2, 10: 4, 18: 4), see infra Shakespeare
§3.2.5.4; and 2) ‘The Way of Eloquence’ (Nahǧ al-balāġa), attributed to

18 Written in our corpus: 1) ‫ عقل‬ʿAql and 2) ‫ عئل‬ʿAʾ ǝl in accordance with the Lebanese
pronunciation.
19 Further in the text: slm. Although in Lebanon the vowel /u/ is generally elided in the first
unstressed syllable, we write here muzdawiže in accordance with the pronunciation that
was given to us by S. ʿAql (pers. comm.).
20 (1: 1): Lebnaan (further in this note: l.) 110, S. ʿAql; (2: 1): l. 85, Mayy Murr; (3: 1): l. 131,
Melkart, S. ʿAql’s alias; (4: 1): l. 94, S. ʿAql; (4: 2): l. 137, M. Murr; (5: 2): l. 137, M. Murr; (6:
2): l. 137, M. Murr; (6: 4): l. 121, S. ʿAql; (7: 2): l. 138, M. Murr; (7: 4): l. 148, M. ʿAwwād; (8:
2): l. 93, Alfred Murr; (9: 1): l. 105, S. ʿAql; (10: 1): l. 108, Tōr, S. ʿAql’s alias; (11: 1): l. 102, Tōr;
(12: 1): l. 108, S. ʿAql; (13: 1): l. 103, S. ʿAql; (16: 1): l. 155, S. ʿAql; (17: 1): l. 157, S. ʿAql; (18: 1): l.
146, S. ʿAql; (19: 1): l. 150, S. ʿAql; (22: 2): l. 339, translation: S. ʿAql, see §3.2.1.1; (24: 2): l. 342,
translation: S. ʿAql, see § 3.2.1.1; (29: 1): l. 182, n.a.; (30: 1): l. 177, n.a.; (44: 2): l. 197, S. ʿAql;
(46: 1): l. 208, S. ʿAql; (47: 1): l. 208, Melkart; (48: 1): l. 194, S. ʿAql; (55: 1): l. n.n., S. ʿAql; (56:
1): l. n.n., S. ʿAql.
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 501

Imam ʿAlī, in the translation of a Shiʿa jurist from Bʿalbɘk, Naǧīb Ǧamāl
al-Dīn, published in 1971 (4: 2, 5: 2, 6: 2, 7: 2, 8: 2, 9: 4, 10: 2, 12: 4, 13: 4, 16:
2, 18: 2, 33: 4), on this series see (Płonka 2006: 438–440);
3.2.5.2. Hlayyil’s translations of French authors, among others: Jacques Prévert
(8: 4, 10: 4, 16: 4, 19: 4, 28: 4, 29: 4), Paul Claudel (8: 1), Jacques de
Bourbon-Busset (24: 1), Jean-Paul Sartre (25: 1), Voltaire (42: 4), and the
translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s letter to Paul Demeny, dated May 15th
1871 (23: 4);
3.2.5.3. The translation of a section of Maxim Gorky’s The Mother (Mother’s
Day special issue [further in the text: md]: 2); see also (41: 4);
3.2.5.4. Translations of short sentences/short texts, among others, those of:
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (3: 4), John Paul ii (4: 4), Paul Valéry (5: 3, 25:
2), Friedrich Nietzsche (7: 2, 26: 2–27: 2), Paul Claudel (8: 1), Marcus
Aurelius (9: 1), al-Munṣif al-Wahaybī (his criticism of the zaǧal) (11: 2),
Alexandre Dumas (18: 3), Milan Kundera (28: 4), William Shakespeare
(29: 2, 29: 4, 49: 2), Forough Farrokhzad (32: 2), André Gide (33: 1),
ʾUnsī al-Ḥaǧǧ (37: 3, 44: 2, 47: 4), Ǧalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī (37: 1), Philémon
Wahbī (37: 1), Muṣṭafā Farrūḫ (37: 4), Louis Aragon (39: 3), Rüstem
Pasha (39: 4), Jean-Baptiste Racine (39: 3), Tagore (47: 4), Albert Camus
(47: 4), Tawfīq Yūsuf ʿAwwād (48: 2), ʿAmr Farrūḫ (53: 4), Alexander
Pushkin (55: 3), Jean-Paul Sartre (61: 2), Samuel Beckett (61: 2), Simone
de Beauvoir (61: 2), Charles Mālik (63: 1), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (63: 2),
Lao Tseu (63: 3, 64: 2), René Descartes (64: 2), Jean Cocteau (64: 2), and
George Sand (64: 3).
3.2.5.5. Issue 54 is devoted in its entirety to Hlayyil’s Lebanese translation
(2012) of ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, published under
the title l-Bayēn ǝl-ʿālami la-ḥaʾʾ ǝl-ʾǝnsēn.
3.2.5.6. Extracts from ʿAwwād’s Christian translations: ‘The Gospel’ (here the
title for the four canonical gospels) (l-ʾənžīl, 1: 1–5), ‘The Apocalypse of
[St.] John’ (Ruʾya Yuḥanna, 1: 5–8) (9: 2), ‘Epistles of St. Paul’ (Rasāyil
mar [‫ ]م َْر‬Būlus, 3: 27–28) (4: 2, 44: 4).

3.2.6 Christian Original Texts

3.2.6.1. Charles Mālik’s lecture from 1973, entitled ‘Why I Read the Holy Book?!
From Lectures at the Church of ʾEnṭelyēs’ (Layš bəʾra l-ktēb ǝl-mʾaddas?!
Mǝn mḥāḍarāt b-knīsit ʾEnṭelyēs) (41: 1);
3.2.6.2. Sections from ‘Mass for First Communion’ (ʾǝddēs ʾawwal ʾǝrbēni) by
Maurice ʿAwwād (59, entire issue). This text, including 29 pages written
in 2002, is read during the mass of the first communion in the Saint
502 płonka

Taqla Church in Sǝdd ǝl-Bawšriyye (Matn) (cf. Płonka 2010: 25, n. 16);
on the interpretation of this text as part of slm, see Hlayyil’s essay (58:
2);
3.2.6.3. Sections from Saʿīd ʿAql’s Missa Solemnis in his Latin alphabet (2: 3).

3.2.7 Other Literary Texts in Lebanese. Lebanese Proverbs

Among the literary works and proverbs in Lebanese we find also in the corpus:

3.2.7.1. Sections from ‘Colloquial Masterpiece or the Story of Finyānūs’ (al-

Tuḥfa al-ʿāmmiyya ʾaw Qiṣṣat Finyānūs, 1902) of Šukrī al-Ḫūrī (1870–
1937) which were published in the issues (5: 2, 7: 2, 8: 2, 9: 2, 12: 4, 13:
2, 19: 2, 21: 2, 27: 4, 28: 2, 30: 4, 33: 4, 40: 4, 41: 4, 42: 4, 43: 4);
3.2.7.2. Sections from ‘The Letters of Šmūni’ (Rasāyil Šmūni, 1928) of Ḥannā
al-Ḫūrī al-Faġālī, published in the periodical in accordance with its ver-
sion in: Frayḥa, ʾAnīs. 1989. Al-Lahaǧāt wa-l-ʾuslūb dirāsāti-hā. Beirut:
Dār al-ǧīl li-l-našr wa-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-tawzīʿ (48: 4, 49: 4, 50: 4, 51: 4);
3.2.7.3. A section of Gabriel Bustānī’s play ‘The Locust Time. Locusta’ (Zaman
ǝž-žrād. Locusta) (28: 4);
3.2.7.4. A section of Jean ʾAbī Ġānim’s play ‘Stay with us’ (Ḫallīk maʿ-na) (48:
4);
3.2.7.5. A section of Yaʿqūb al-Šadrāwī’s play ‘The Great Peasant’ (l-Fəllāḥ ǝl-
ʿaẓīm) (57: 4);
3.2.7.6. Lebanese proverbs (22: 4, 23: 4, 24: 4, 25: 2, 27: 4, 29: 4, 39: 4, 40: 4, 42: 4,
49: 4, 50: 4).

3.2.8 Metalinguistic texts

The literary periodical l-ʾArzyāda contains some metalinguistic texts (originals
and translations), among others, (1: 1) an extract of André Martinet’s Éléments
de linguistique générale and its Lebanese translation (Płonka 2010: 34–35); (2:
1) a text on the Lebanese language; (4: 1) a text on colloquial languages in the
world; (5: 1) a text on terminology for Lebanese; (6: 1) a text on synonyms in
Standard Arabic; (7: 1) a text on linguistics; (10: 1) an extract of Hlayyil’s essay ‘I
Am My language and … My Language Is Me’ (ʾAna ləġġt-i w … ləġġt-i ʾana) (all
the text with the reference to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in nº 58); (13: 1) a text
on orthography in l-ʾArzyāda; (10: 2–19: 2) Rafīq Rūḥāna’s essay on slm, see infra
§3.3; (20: 1) a text on life and death of languages; (27: 1) a text on speech and writ-
ing; (29: 1) a text on linguistics; (30: 1, after Lebnaan 177, n.a.) a text on the intel-
lectualization of the Lebanese language; (37: 2) an interview with M. ʿAwwād;
(39: 2) an interview with Salah Stétié; and finally (45: 1) a text on the Phoenician
writing system; see also the series Kəlmi taraket-a l-ləġġa l-ləbnēniyyi § 3.4.
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 503

3.3 Index of Authors21

The corpus (issues 1–64 of the newspaper and Mother’s Day special issue)
contains more than six hundred sixty unpublished, republished, and modified
poems and prose extracts written by nearly ninety authors. They represent
different generations, Lebanese regions (Batrūn, Bʿabda, Bʿalbɘk, Beirut, l-Bqēʿ
ɘl-Ġarbe, Bšarre, Žǝb Žannīn, Žbayl, ʿAlay, Kūra, Kǝsrwēn, Marž ʿyūn, Matn,
Miniye-Ḍanniye, Šūf, Tripolis, Zaḥle, Zahrāni, and Zġarta), and confessions
(Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Shiʿa, Sunni, and Druze).22
Hlayyil stresses that confessional factors are not valid for him in the selection
of authors. He clearly makes a distinction between 1) Lebanese poetry (in
Lebanese, but also in Arabic, French, or English), 2) traditional song texts
in Lebanese (e.g. al-Raḥbānī brothers’ songs), and 3) zaǧal, dialectal, oral,
and often improvised poetry, which is partly sung. Hlayyil classifies zaǧal as
‘folklore’.23 He does not include it into the “Lebanese poetry” category, and, as
a consequence, refuses to publish it in his literary periodical. This distinction
is widespread among the poets writing in Lebanese and urges us to redefine, in
a more nuanced way, the Lebanese poetry, often classified as “folklore poetry”
or “dialect poetry.”
Most of the authors are unknown or little-known, even to specialists of Ara-
bic/Lebanese literature. It has to be emphasized that among the authors of the
periodical, only Saʿīd ʿAql, Maurice ʿAwwād, his wife Nažāt ʾAbū/ʾAbī ʿAbdal-
lāh, Alfred Murr, May(y) Murr, Rafīq Rūḥāna, and ʾAmīr Hlayyil support(ed) the

21 For the followers of linguistic nationalism in Lebanon, standard Arabic versions of Leba-
nese (first) names and toponyms are unacceptable and not ideologically neutral. In this
index, we deliberately retained the authors’ (first) names (given in other places in the
paper in Standard Arabic) in accordance with their notation in the periodical, except
the (first) names naturalized in English and French and acceptable for the followers of
slm (e.g. Salah Stétié, Khoury-Ghata etc.) and foreign first names (Maurice, Jean-Pierre,
Philémon etc.). They are written with Hlayyil’s pronunciation in parentheses. In the index,
we also give other versions of the (first) names found in the periodical. As we mentioned
(n. 17, l-ʾArzyāda has heterogeneous notations. Thus, contrary to the pronunciation, the
/q/ is noted in majority of the (first) names. We give basic information about the authors
(date of birth, date of death, place where he/she was born, and confession). In parentheses,
we give the names of the administrative districts (ʾaqḍiya). Like the names of the villages,
they are written according to Wardini (op. cit.). We were not able to gather information
about all the authors.
22 See also Šukrī al-Ḫūrī, § 3.2.7.1 and Ḥannā al-Ḫūrī al-Faġālī, §3.2.7.2.
23 Cf. al-Munṣif al-Wahaybī and his critics of the zaǧal (11: 2), quoted in §3.2.5.4. But see
also remarks on Saʿīd ʿAql’s positive attitude toward zaǧal (ʿAql 1949: 52, Beik 1978: 45, and
Płonka 2004: 56–57).
504 płonka

idea of the Lebanese language separated from Arabic. One poem was written
by an Egyptian poet, ʾAḥmad Fuʾād Naǧm. Listed below are the names of several
authors who granted an interview to the l-ʾArzyāda.24 We have not mentioned
ʾAmīr Hlayyil who wrote most of the press articles, and publishes, in each issue,
his literary works, often in two alphabets.25 In the notes, we compared the index
to l-ʾAnṭolōžya l-ləbnēniyyi, edited by Maurice ʿAwwād:

Joseph (Žōzēf) ʾAbu Dēmis (5: 3, 16: 3, 26: 3, 30: 3, 35: 3),26 ʾEliyya ʾAbu Šdīd
(1: 3, 7: 3, 16: 3, 25: 3, 34: 3, 36: 3, 38: 3, 51: 3, 60: 3, 64: 3),27 Mārōn ʾAbu
Šaqra (Šaʾra) (62: 3, 63: 3, 64: 3),28 ʾEliyya ʾAbu Māḍi (27: 3, 33: 3),29 Nažāt
ʾAbu/ʾAbi ʿAbdallāh (3: 3, 53: 3),30 Jean ʾAbi Rizq (Žān ʾAbi Rizǝʾ) (49: 2),31
Joseph (Žōzēf) ʾAbi Ḍāhir (1: 3, 6: 3, 8: 3, 10: 3, 13: 3, 15: 3, 18: 3, 20: 3, 22: 3, 24:
3, 35: 3, 38: 4, 39: 3, 42: 3, 57: 3),32 Ḥayāt ʾAbi Fāḍil (25: 3, 28: 3, 32: 3),33 Jean
(Žān) ʾAbi Ġānim (48: 4),34 Yūnis ǝl-ʾəbən (10: 3, 19: 3, 29: 3, 57: 3),35 ʿAzīz
ǝl-ʾAḥdab (50: 4),36 Huda Barakēt (31: 4),37 Rāni Ballūṭ (44: 4),38 Gabriel
Bǝstāni (25: 2, 28: 4),39 Ġāndi Bu Ḏyāb (Dyēb) (31: 3, 37: 3),40 Nəʿmēn ǝt-
Tǝrǝs (43: 3, 45: 3, 46: 3, 48: 3, 50: 3, 62: 3, 63: 3),41 Antoine (ʾÃṭwān) Žbāra

24 See also the interviews with Ivan Caracalla, President of Caracalla Dance Theatre (32: 2)
and Šarbil Rūḥāna, musician (42: 2).
25 His poems in two versions, in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet and in the Arabic alphabet (2: 3, 3: 3, 4:
3, 6: 3, 8: 3, 9: 3, 10: 3, 13: 3, 14: 3, 15: 3, 17: 3, 18: 3), and his one poem published only in the
Latin alphabet (11: 3).
26 From Bayt Mǝre (Matn), Maronite.
27 (L-ʾAnṭolōžya: 216–220, 427), (1934–1998), from l-Mṭaylǝb (Matn), Maronite.
28 Born in 1966 in Žǝb Žannīn (Žǝb Žannīn), Maronite.
29 Born in Mḥaydse (Matn), Greek Orthodox (c. 1890–1957).
30 Born in 1944, from Kfar Matta (ʿAlay), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 440).
31 Interview. The author was born in 1974 in ʿAšqūt (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite.
32 From Ġādīr (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 236–237); author, among others, of
Mawsūʿat al-zaǧal al-lubnānī, t. i–vi, Beirut, al-Šarika al-ʿālamiyya li-l-mawsūʿāt, 2001.
33 Born in 1940, from Brǝmmēna (Matn), cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 335–337).
34 Born in 1941 in Waṭa ž-Žawz (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite.
35 From Ḥmayṣ (Zġarta), Maronite (1926–2012), cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 190–193).
36 (1917–2011), from Tripolis, Sunni.
37 Born in 1952 in Beirut.
38 Shiʿa.
39 Maronite.
40 Born in 1975 in ž-Žēhliyye (Šūf), Druze; see the notation of the interdental /ḏ/ in accor-
dance with Druzes’ pronunciation (information confirmed by Hlayyil), cf. also /ḏ/ in:
Munḏir (l-Ḥažžār) and Nāfiḏ (Raʿd).
41 Born in 1970 in Zġarta (Zġarta), Maronite.
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 505

(25: 3, 28: 3, 40: 3, 43: 3, 52: 3, 55: 3, 60: 3),42 Raymond (Rēmōn) Žbāra (33:
2),43 Žəbrān Ḫalīl Žəbrān (50: 4),44 Žərmēnos Žərmēnos (4: 3, 8: 3, 14: 3,
16: 3, 18: 3, 23: 3, 26: 3, 60: 3, 62: 3),45 ʾAsʿad Žwān (1: 3, 6: 3, 8: 3, 13: 3, 15: 3,
24: 3, 26: 3, 30: 3, 32: 3, 38: 2,46 39: 3, 51: 3, 57: 3),47 Rāġida Žwān (1: 3, 5: 3, 9:
3, 29: 3, 33: 3, 38: 3, 40: 3, 43: 3, 45: 3, 46: 3, 48: 3, 50: 3, 52: 3, 53: 4, 55: 3, 57:
2, 60: 4, 61: 4, 62: 4, 63: 4, 64: 4),48 Georges (Žōrž) Zaki ǝl-Ḥāžž (38: 3, 41: 3,
45: 3, 46: 3, 48: 3),49 ʾUnsi ǝl-Ḥāžž (37: 3, 44: 2, 47: 4),50 Munḏir (Munzir)
ǝl-Ḥažžār (43: 3),51 Ḫalīl Ḥēwi (43: 3, 45: 3, 47: 3, 49: 3),52 Albert (ʾAlbēr)
Ḥarb (18: 3, 57: 3),53 Joseph (Žōzēf) Ḥarb (1: 3, 8: 3, 12: 3, 15: 3, 17: 3, 20: 3,
22: 3, 24: 3, 29: 3, 31: 3, md: 4, 35: 3, 37: 3, 39: 3, 40: 3, 41: 3, 42: 3, 44: 3, 46: 3,
47: 3, 50: 3, 56: 3, 63: 3, 64: 3),54 Ṭalāl Ḥaydar (1: 3, 8: 3, 11: 3, 14: 3, 18: 3, 22: 3,
24: 3, 28: 3, 33: 3, 36: 3, 39: 3, 41: 3, 46: 3, 48: 3, 50: 3, 52: 3, 55: 3),55 William
(Wilyam) Ḥǝswēni (20: 3),56 Vénus Khoury-Ghata (Vēnus Ḫūri-Ġaṭa) (40:
4),57 Jean-Pierre (Žān-Pyēr) Ḫalīfe (12: 3),58 Samīr Ḫalīfe (4: 3, 9: 3, 19: 2, 21:
3, 24: 3, 27: 3, 31: 3, md: 2, 34: 3, 36: 3, 38: 3, 39: 2, 40: 3, 42: 3, 43: 3, 44: 3, 46:
3, 48: 3, 50: 3, 52: 4, 53: 4, 55: 3, 56: 4, 60: 2, 61: 4, 62: 4, 63: 4, 64: 4),59 Māžida
Dāġir (35: 3, 36: 260),61 ʾAdham ǝd-Dimašqi (ǝd-Dimašʾi) (12: 3, 25: 3, 28:

42 Born in 1943, from ž-Ždayde (Matn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 338–342).

43 Interview.
44 Hlayyil’s translation, (1883–1931), born in Bšarre (Bšarre), Maronite.
45 From Karm ɘl-Mǝhr (Miniye-Ḍanniye).
46 Interview.
47 Born in 1946, from Zēn (Batrūn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 345–348).
48 Born in 1954 in Mašġra (l-Bqēʿ ɘl-Ġarbe), Shiʿa, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 358–361).
49 Written in the corpus ‫جورج زكي الحاج‬. From ʾĪʿāt (Bʿalbɘk), born in 1949, Maronite, cf. (l-
ʾAnṭolōžya: 291–292).
50 Written in the corpus ّ ‫حج‬َ ‫أنسي ْل‬. The author was born in Beirut (1937–2014); Hlayyil’s
translation, see also § 3.2.5.4.
51 From Šḥīm (Šūf), Sunni.
52 (1925–1982), from š-Šwayr (Matn), Greek Orthodox, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 314–318, 423).
53 Born in 1932 from d-Dīmēn (Bšarre), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 387–388, 434).
54 (1944–2014), from l-Mʿemriyye (Zahrāni), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 444–447).
55 Born in 1937, from Bǝdnēyǝl (Bʿalbɘk), Shiʿa, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 391–392).
56 Published for the first time. The author was born in 1933 in Ṛāṣ ǝl-Ḥarf (Bʿabda), Maronite.
57 Hlayyil’s translation. The author was born in 1937 in Bšarre (Bšarre), Maronite.
58 Born in 1989 in Žbayl (Žbayl), Maronite. The poem is written in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet.
59 Born in 1951 in Ṣafṛa (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 356–357).
60 Extract of the interview.
61 From Ḍahr ǝl-Mġāra (Šūf), Maronite. The poems were not published before.
506 płonka

3),62 Rašād ǝr-Ražži (5: 4, 6: 4, 7: 4, 32: 4),63 ʿĀṣi (ǝr-)Rǝḥbēni (36: 2,64 62:
265),66 Manṣūr (ǝr-)Rǝḥbēni (32: 3),67 Manṣūr and ʿĀṣi (ǝr-)Rǝḥbēni (35:
4, 57: 3),68 Ziyād (ǝr-)(Rǝḥbēni) (46: 2),69 Ṭarabay Raḥme (12: 3, 16: 3, 21:
3, 24: 3, 52: 3),70 Mary (Mēri) Ḫūri Raʿd (51: 3, 55: 3, 60: 3),71 Nāfiḏ/Nāfiz72
Raʿd (4: 3, 8: 3, 14: 3, 16: 3, 38: 3, 41: 3, 44: 3, 51: 3, 53: 3, 56: 3),73 Rafīq/Rafīʾ
Rūḥāna (1: 3, 2: 3, 3: 3, 7: 3, 10: 2–19: 2, 15: 3, 16: 3, 21: 3, 26: 3, 28: 3, md: 2, 34:
3, 36: 3, 38: 3, 41: 3, 41: 2–42: 2,74 46: 3, 52: 3, 62: 3, 64: 3),75 Yūsef Rūḥāna (37:
3),76 ʾElyēs (> Lyēs) Zġayb (9: 3, 21: 3, 22: 3, 23: 377),78 ʿIṣām Zġayb (53: 3, 56:
3, 57: 3, 60: 3, 61: 3, 62: 3, 63: 3, 64: 3),79 ʾAsʿad Sēba (28: 3, 32: 3),80 ʾAsʿad
ǝs-Sǝbʿale (26: 3, 29: 3, 40: 3),81 ʾEzḥayya Sēsīn (1: 3, 2: 3,82 3: 3, 4: 4, 5: 4, 6:
3, 7: 3, 8: 4, 9: 4, 10: 3, 11: 3, 12: 3, 13: 3, 14: 3, 15: 4, 16: 2, 17: 3, 18: 3, 19: 3, 20: 4,
21: 4, 22: 4, 23: 3, 24: 4, 25: 3, 26: 4, 27: 3, 28: 4, 29: 3, 30: 4, 31: 4, 32: 4, md:

62 Born in 1990.
63 Born in 1980 in Kfar Šīma (Bʿabda), Maronite.
64 Commemoration speech (ʾEnṭelyēs, 1963) for the musician, the father Būlus al-ʾAšqar; text
considered in the periodical as ‘very rare.’
65 Interview.
66 (1923–1986), from ʾEnṭelyēs (Matn), Greek Orthodox.
67 (1925–2009), from ʾEnṭelyēs (Matn), Greek Orthodox.
68 Cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 304–313).
69 Ibid.: 433; the author is often called Ziyād, without (ǝr-)Rǝḥbēni. He is born in 1956 in
ʾEnṭelyēs (Matn), Greek Orthodox.
70 Written in the corpus ‫ طر بيه رحمه‬and ‫ي ر َحمي‬ْ َ َ‫ ;َطر ب‬from Tannūrīn (Batrūn), Maronite.
71 From Bzǝbdīn (Bʿabda), Maronite.
72 Two versions of the first name in the periodical, cf. Rafīq/Rafīʾ (Rūḥāna), (Saʿīd) ʿAql/ʿAʾǝl,
and May/Mayy Murr/Merr.
73 From Tannūrīn (Batrūn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 375–377).
74 Interview.
75 Born in 1942, from Wēde Šaḥrūr (Bʿabda), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 289–290). The poems
(2: 3, 3: 3, 7: 3, and 34: 3) and extracts from R. Rūḥāna’s paper on slm (10: 2–19: 2) are
published in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet, see also (Płonka 2004: 49–50).
76 Born in 1924 in Sǝbʿal ǝš-Šmēl (Zġarta), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 181–183) and his poems
(Abdel-Nour 19662: 182–185).
77 Published for the first time.
78 Born in 1979 in Ḥṛāžǝl (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite.
79 (1950–2003), from Zūq Mkēyǝl (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite.
80 From Ġǝsṭa (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite, born in 1914, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 103–106), see his poems
(Abdel-Nour 19662: 148–157).
81 (1910–1999), from Sǝbʿal ǝš-Šmēl (Zġarta), Maronite, see his poems (Abdel-Nour 19662: 161–
164).
82 Published for the first time.
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 507

3, 34: 3, 36: 4, 37: 3, 51: 2, 55: 4, 60: 3),83 Ḫalīl Sǝmʿēn (43: 3),84 Salah Stétié
(Ṣalāḥ Staytiyye) (39: 2),85 Georges Schehadé (Žōrž Šḥēde) (27: 4, 30: 4),86
Yaʿqūb (Yaʿʾūb) ǝš-Šǝdrāwi (57: 4),87 ʿAbd ɘl-Ḥāfiẓ Šamaṣ (20: 3, 21: 3, 22: 3,
23: 3, 24: 3, 25: 3, 26: 3, 27: 3),88 Antonio Būlus ǝš-Šǝyḫūfa (ʾAnṭōnyo Būlus
ǝš-Šǝḫūfa) (31: 3, 34: 3),89 Georges (Žōrž) Ṭrābɘlsi (6: 2, 12: 2, 13: 4, 15: 4, 16:
1, 19: 1, 20: 1, 21: 1, 26: 1, 26: 3, 34: 1),90 Michel (Mišēl) Ṭrād (1: 3, 4: 3, 9: 3, 15:
3, 25: 3, 30: 3, md: 3, 36: 3, 38: 3, 41: 3, 46: 3, 51: 3, 55: 3, 60: 3, 61: 3, 62: 3, 64:
3),91 Tony (Ṭōni) Ṭrād (38: 3, 40: 3, 42: 3, 45: 3, 47: 3, 49: 3, 50: 3, 52: 3, 56:
3),92 Antoine Mēlik Ṭawq (ʾÃṭwān Mēlik Ṭawǝʾ) (1: 3, 3: 3, 7: 3, 11: 3, 15: 3, 17:
3, 22: 3, 24: 3, 26: 3, 30: 3, 33: 3, 36: 3, 57: 3, 61: 3),93 Mēlik Ṭawq (Ṭawǝʾ) (2:
3, 8: 3, 10: 3, 16: 3, 20: 3, 23: 3, 27: 3, 31: 3, 34: 3, 40: 3, 42: 3, 60: 3),94 ʿIṣām
ǝl-ʿAbdallāh (3: 3, 6: 3, 9: 3, 14: 3, 19: 3, 30: 3, 38: 3, 42: 3, 45: 3, 47: 3, 49: 3, 51:
3),95 Mḥammad ǝl-ʿAbdallāh (49: 3),96 Munīr ʿAbd ǝn-Nūr (39: 3),97 ʿIṣām
ʿAssēf (11: 3, 14: 3, 18: 3, 22: 3, 23: 3, 30: 3, 31: 3, 33: 3, 36: 3, 39: 3, 42: 3, 60: 3),98
Rāži ʿAšqūti (ʿAšʾūte) (28: 3, 32: 3),99 Saʿīd ʿAql (ʿAʾǝl) (1: 1, 2: 3, 3: 3, 4: 1, 4: 3,
5: 3, 6: 4, 9: 1, 11: 3, 12: 1, 13: 1, 16: 1, 16: 3, 17: 1, 18: 1, 19: 1, 33: 3, 36: 3, 39: 1, 42: 1,
43: 1, 44: 2, 46: 1, 48: 1, 52: 2, 53: 2, 55: 1, 55: 2, 56: 1, 56: 2, 57: 2, 61: 2, 62: 2, 63:
2, 64: 2),100 Ziyād ʿAqīqi (ʿAʾīʾe) (2: 3, 35: 3, 37: 3, 40: 3),101 Maurice ʿAwwād

83 Born in 1970, from Ḥadšīt (Bšarre), Maronite, see § 2, n. 2 and n. 3.

84 Born in 1953, from ʾEžd ʿǝbrin (Kūra), Maronite.
85 Interview. The poet was born in 1929 in Beirut, Sunni.
86 Hlayyil’s translation, (1905–1989), Greek Orthodox, born in Alexandria (Egypt).
87 (1934–2013), from Zġarta (Zġarta), Maronite.
88 Cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 439), born in 1940 in Beirut, Shiʿa. All his poems were not published
before.
89 Born in 1987 in Zġarta (Zġarta), Maronite.
90 Born in 1950 in Mašġara (l-Bqēʿ ɘl-Ġarbe), Greek Catholic; extracts (6: 2 and 12: 2) in
Hlayyil’s translation.
91 (1912–1998), from Zaḥle (Zaḥle), Greek Orthodox, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 258–266, 422), see his
poems (Abdel-Nour 19662: 165–177).
92 From Barḥalyūn (Bšarre), Maronite.
93 Born in 1947, from Bšarre (Bšarre), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 349–351).
94 (1921–2000), from Bšarre, Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 194–197).
95 From l-Ḫyēm (Marž ʿyūn), Shiʿa, born in 1940, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 332–334).
96 From l-Ḫyēm (Marž ʿyūn), Shiʿa, born in 1946, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 343–344).
97 Ibid.: 393, died in 2002, from Kfar Šīma (Bʿabda), Greek Catholic.
98 From Beirut, born in 1948.
99 Died in 2008, from Knīset ǝš-Šūf (Šūf), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 327–331).
100 (1912–2014), from Zaḥle (Zaḥle), Maronite, extracts (2: 3, 3: 3, 5: 3, 11: 3, 16: 3, 33: 3, 36: 3)
published in his Latin alphabet.
101 From Bqaʿ Tūta (Kǝsrwēn), Maronite.
508 płonka

(Morīs ʿAwwēd) (1: 1, 1: 3, 2: 2, 2: 3, 3: 2, 3: 3, 4: 2, 4: 3, 5: 3, 6: 3,102 7: 3, 7: 4,

9: 3, 10: 3, 11: 3, 12: 3, 12: 4, 13: 3, 13: 4, 14: 3, 15: 3, 16: 3, 17: 3, 17: 4, 18: 3, 19: 3,
20: 2, 21: 2, 22: 2, 23: 2, 24: 2, 25: 2, 26: 2, 27: 2, 28: 2, 29: 3, 30: 2, 31: 2, 32: 4,
md: 1, 35: 4, 36: 4, 37: 2,103 39: 3, 40: 2, 41: 2, 42: 2, 43: 3, 44: 2, 44: 3, 45: 2, 46:
2, 47: 2, 47: 3, 48: 2, 49: 3, 50: 3, 51: 4, 52: 3, 53: 2, 53: 3, 56: 3, 57: 3, 59: 1–4,
60: 2, 61: 3, 62: 2, 63: 3, 64: 2, 64: 3),104 Qayṣar (ʾAyṣar) Ġṣūb (31: 3, 33: 3, 35:
3, 47: 3, 49: 3),105 Makram Ġṣūb (21: 3),106 Robert (Robēr) Ġēnim (2: 3,107
2: 4,108 4: 4, 5: 3, 6: 4, 7: 3, 8: 4, 9: 4, 10: 3, 11: 3, 11: 4, 12: 4, 13: 4, 14: 4, 15: 4, 17:
3, 18: 3, 19: 3,109 20: 3, 21: 3, 22: 3, 23: 3, 24: 3, 25: 3, 26: 3, 27: 3, 28: 3, 29: 3,
30: 3, 31: 3, 32: 3, 33: 3, 34: 3, 35: 2,110 36: 3, 37: 3, 38: 3, 39: 3, 40: 3, 41: 3, 42:
3, 43: 3, 44: 3, 45: 3, 46: 3, 47: 3, 48: 3, 49: 3, 50: 3),111 ʿAbdallāh Ġēnim (1: 3,
8: 3, 23: 3),112 Nicolas (Nʾūla) əl-Fata (20: 4),113 Thérèse (Terēz) Farḥāt (46:
4),114 Fādi Antoine (ʾÃṭwān) Fāḍil (20: 4, 21: 4),115 Ṣalāḥ Labake (6: 3,116 9:
3),117 Nadīm Muḥsǝn (50: 3, 52: 3),118 Alfred Murr (ʾAlfrēd Murr/Mǝrr) (8:
2, 45: 2119),120 May(y) Murr (Murr/Mǝrr) (1: 3, 2: 1, 4: 2, 4: 3, 5: 2, 6: 2, 7: 2,

102 New version of the poem.

103 Interview.
104 The poet was born in 1934 in Bṣalīm (Matn), Maronite, see supra §3.2.2.1, §3.2.3, §3.2.5.6,
§ 3.2.6.2.
105 From Bayt Šabāb (Matn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 433). The texts (5: 3, 20: 2, 21: 2, 22: 2,
23: 2, 24: 2, 25: 2, 26: 2, 27: 2, 28: 2, 31: 2, 40: 2, 41: 2, 42: 2, 44: 3, 45: 2, 46: 2, 48: 2, and 49: 3)
were not previously published.
106 Maronite.
107 In press in August, 2009.
108 Hlayyil’s translations: 2: 4, 4: 4, 5: 3, 6: 4, 7: 3, 8: 4, 9: 4, 10: 3, 11: 4, 12: 4, 13: 4, 14: 4, 17: 3, 18: 3,
21: 3, 22: 3, 23: 3, 24: 3, 25: 3, 26: 3, 27: 3, 28: 3, 29: 3, 30: 3, 31: 3, 32: 3, 33: 3, 34: 3.
109 In press in January, 2011.
110 Interview.
111 Born in 1939 in Baskǝnta (Matn), Maronite.
112 (1895–1959), from Baskǝnta (Matn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 109–113), see his poems
(Abdel-Nour 19662: 118–123).
113 Born in 1937 in Kfar Šīma (Bʿabda), Greek Catholic.
114 Hlayyil’s translation, born in 1986, from l-Ḥadat (Bʿabda), Maronite.
115 From Ḥammēna (Bʿabda), Maronite.
116 Text in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet.
117 Maronite (1906–1955). Both texts are written in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 40–
43).
118 Shiʿa.
119 Hlayyil’s translation.
120 Alfred (died in 2005, Greek Orthodox) and his wife, May(y) Murr (see infra, n. 121) had
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 509

8: 3, 13: 3, 17: 3, 27: 3, 32: 3, 35: 3, 63: 3),121 Riyāḍ Maṭar (4: 3, 7: 3, 12: 3, 27: 3,
32: 3, 34: 3, 37: 3, 39: 3, 41: 3, 42: 3),122 Nāži Maʿlūf (44: 3, 46: 3, 48: 3, 51: 3,
53: 3, 55: 3, 57: 3, 61: 3, 62: 3),123 ʾAḥmad Fuʾād Nažǝm (39: 4),124 Zaki Nāṣīf
(61: 2),125 Philémon Wahbe (Filemōn Wehbe—[sic], ʾa.h.) (34: 4, 36: 4, 37:
1),126 Georges (Žōrž) Yammīn (25: 3, 29: 3, 33: 3, 35: 3, 37: 3),127 Ḥabīb Yūnis
(3: 3, 11: 3, 20: 3, 28: 3, 30: 3, 32: 3, 34: 3, 57: 3, 61: 2, 62: 3).128

3.4 The Lebanese Language Lexicon

The metalinguistic series ‘Word that the Lebanese language has abandoned’
(Kəlmi taraket-a l-ləġġa l-ləbnēniyyi) has been published since January, 2011,
(issue 19) except for the issues 54, 58, and 59. The series contains the words (and
their definitions) classified as “inherently Lebanese” (although many of them,
as Hlayyil admits himself, have been borrowed from other languages), and are
considered by the author as rarely or no longer in use. However, the majority of
words quoted above, are well represented in the dialect written sources, known
by the specialists, and still used frequently not only by the Lebanese people.
Have a close look at eighteen of them:129

a substantial role in the publication of the newspaper Lebnaan in 1975 and in activity
of Christian militias ‘Guardians of the Cedars’ (Ḥurrās al-ʾarz) see (Płonka 2004: 45–49,
passim and 2006: 46–48).
121 (1929–2008), from Btəġrīn (Matn), Greek Orthodox, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 267–276). Both
poems (32: 3 and 35: 3) are written in ʿAql’s Latin alphabet.
122 Born in 1958, from Tannūrīn (Batrūn), Maronite, cf. (l-ʾAnṭolōžya: 378–380).
123 Born in 1966 in Nīḥa (Zaḥle), Greek Catholic.
124 Egyptian poet (1929–2013), Sunni. Hlayyil stresses that he publishes his poems because
Naǧm has created in Egyptian and not in Standard Arabic.
125 (1918–2004), born in Mašġara (l-Bqēʿ ɘl-Ġarbe), Greek Catholic.
126 (1918–1985), from Kfar Šīma (Bʿabda), Greek Orthodox, see also §2, n. 1 and §3.2.5.4.
127 (1955–2000), from Zġarta (Zġarta), Maronite.
128 Born in 1959 in Tannūrīn–Šātīn (Batrūn), Maronite.
129 Here, we quote the words as they appear in the original (and Hlayyil’s pronunciation),
with or without definite articles. All English translations in this paragraph are ours, except
Wardini’s (9) and Lane’s (18) translations. These abbreviations refer to the following
authors and their works: alm = Almkvist, followed by the date of publication and the
page number; bar = (Barthélemy 1935–1969); bw = (Behnstedt and Woidich 2012); coh =
(Cohen 1926); den = (Denizeau 1960); fgh = Feghali, followed by the date of publication,
the page number, and the proverb number; fry = (Frayḥa 1973); gk = (Geva-Kleinberger
2009), followed by the page number; lan = (Lane 1863–1893); lw = (Lewin 1966); lys =
(Lev-Yadun and Shahal 1999); mʿs = (Yāsīn 2003), followed by the volume number and the
page number; sm = (Sultani and Milelli 2010), wrd = (Wardini 2002), followed by the page
number.
510 płonka

1.) 1.a) ‫ ساتي ّي‬sētiyyi ‘plate’ (20: 1) and 1b) ‫ سوتيِ ّي‬sōtiyyi ‘porcelain plate’ (50:
1); 2) ‫ ئلَ ّيطا‬ʾallīṭa ‘cake’ (21: 1) [cf. qallīṭ ‘sorte de biscuits,’ central Syria,
Fr. galette (bar: 677)]; 3) ‫سم َن ْدرا‬ ْ ‫ ال‬s-smandra ‘closet whose bottom is a
stiff clay and the door is a cloth curtain’ (24: 4 and 55: 1) [cf. sämändra
‘Wandnische zum Hinauflegen von Decken, Kissen und Polstern’ (lw: 212,
s.v. ‫ ;سمندره‬see op. cit.: 146, text 13: §28; 194, text 16: § 23)]; 4) ‫ أ ُف ّورا‬ʾaffūra
‘straw box for sewing needs’ (26: 1) [cf. (mʿs: iv, 1250), cf. qaffūra ‘grand
panier’ (coh: 96); ʾafūra/qaffūre [sic] ‘kleine Schachtel aus Weide’, ‘grosser
mit Lehm überzogener Korb zum Aufbewahren des Getreides’ (alm 1925:
46)]; 5) ‫ ساكو‬sāko ‘men’s jacket’ (27: 1) [cf. (mʿs: ii, 725), according to
Frayḥa, the Lebanese pronunciation is ṣāko with /‫ص‬/ (see also: mʿs: iii,
904) < Lat. ‘men’s clothing’ (fry: 104); cf. sāko/sākoye ‘veste ou tunique, de
coupe européenne’ (bar: 328)]; 6) ‫ ز َل ْعا‬zalʿa ‘long jar’ (29: 1) [cf. (alm 1925:
49; fgh 1935: 152; den: 224; sm: 279); < Aram. (fry: 74); zalʿa and its vari-
ants (bw: map 218 ‘Wasserkrug’: 149)]; 7) ‫ل ْمعيَ جني‬ ِ l-mʿayžni ‘clay utensil
for food’ (35: 1) [cf. (mʿs: iv, 1497; fry: 172)]; 8) ‫ ْكماج‬kmāž ‘unleavened
bread’ (37: 1) [< Pers. komādj (mʿs: iv, 1335; cf. fry: 155); kamēže (kamēž)
(sm: 512); ‘tartines grillées’, ḫubz əl-kmāž ‘espèce de pain qu’ on ne laisse
fermenter qu’une fois mis en galette’ (den: 459); ‘la fine fleur de farine’
(fgh 1938: prov. 2930)]; 9) ‫كوب‬ ّ َ ‫ ع‬ʿakkūb ‘kind of plants used for cook-
ing’ (42: 1) [< Aram. (Syr.) (fry: 120), ʿakūb (rarer kaʿūb), in Lebanese
toponym Šǝʿb ʿAkkūb (Žbayl) ‘the ravine/crag of Tournefort’s gundelia’, ital-
ics in original (wrd: 259), cf. Aram. ʿakkūḇīṯā, Hebr. ʿakkāḇīṯ, Syr. ʿakubo
‘a species of thistles’, Leb. Arb. ʿakkūb ‘Tournefort’s gundelia’ (wrd: 290);
word used in Standard Arabic, also with adjectives, e.g. ʿakkūb ǧabalī, i.e.
Gundelia tournefortii, plant of Irano-Turanian origin, well known in the
Middle East, among others, in the Golan Heights, Israel, territory of the
Palestinian Authority, Central Anatolia, and Iranian Kurdistan (lys). We
find it in Tiberias in Jewish Arabic, for example, as an ingredient of dish
called payžās (gk: 69, 74), cf. ‘cardon’, Jerusalem (bar: 542)]; 10) ‫كوشي‬ ّ‫د‬
dakkūši ‘jar for olive oil’ (44: 1) [‫‘ دكوشة‬small jar’ (mʿs: ii, 595; cf. fry:
56; sm: 235); dakkoujé (fgh 1935: 152)]; 11) ‫ ز ير‬zīr ‘big jar for olive oil’
(45: 1) [cf. ‘grande jarre’, ‘nom propre d’homme’ (fgh 1938: prov. 470; cf.
fry: 78; bw: map 218, 149; sm: 286); zīr/ẓīr ‘vase de terre cuite, grande
jarre pour conserver l’eau potable’ (bar: 325; cf. den: 232; lan: iii, 1276–
1277, s.v. ‫ ;])ز ير‬12) ‫ رِْشتا‬rǝšta ‘dish with lentils, dough, and chard’ (46: 1)
[cf. ‘pâte coupée en morceaux et bouillie avec des lentilles’, Jerusalem
< Pers. ‘ficelle’ (among other meanings—a.p.) (bar: 279; cf. mʿs: ii, 639;
sm: 255–256); borrowed at the beginning of the Abbasid era (fry: 64)];
between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 511

13) ‫ ْل أنكرَ ي‬l-ʾankari ‘large round brass dish’ (47: 1) [cf. ‘assiette très plate
en cuivre’ (bar: 17); cf. ʾankar < Tur. (mʿs: i, 150); see also (fry: 3; sm: 57,
and bw: map 216, 142). In defining l-ʾankari, Hlayyil uses the word ‫جاط‬
žāṭ ‘grand plat oval en faïence’ < Fr. ‘jatte’, Lat. ‘gabata’ (bar: 100)]; 14)
‫ الجنطاس‬ž-žǝnṭās ‘jug in which we measure milk or sour milk, also for
drinking water’ (48: 1) [cf. ‘tasse, gobelet (en métal)’ (den: 91); according
to Almkvist < Pers. ‫‘ جام‬Glas’ (among other meanings—a.p.) and ‫طاس‬
‘Tasse’ (alm 1925: 57), but cf. Tur. çan ‘cloche’ > djān ‘objet en cuivre fondu
et tourné d’un jaune brillant’ (bar: 101). Barthélemy gives the variant
with the letter /‫ص‬/, i.e. ž-žǝnṭāṣ. According to him, this word inversion is
characteristic for Lebanon, in comparison to ṭāṣet djān 1. ‘coupe de laiton’;
2. ‘tasse de ḥammām’ (bar, loc. cit.)]; 15) ‫ ب ِئسي‬bǝʾsi ‘deep vase’ (49: 4) [cf.
bəqse 1. ‘encrier’, 2. ‘petit vase utilisé pour puiser de l’ huile dans la jarre’
(den: 41; cf. fry: 14)]; 16) ‫ ْل يوُ ك‬l-yūk ‘the place where bedding is put down’
(53: 1) [< Tur. yük (lw: 212, s.v. sämändra; cf. alm 1925: 23–24)]; 17) ‫ْل كبكي‬
l-kǝbki ‘small hanging closet made of wood and net’ (56: 1) [cf. ‘planche
suspendue sur laquelle on pose la vaisselle’, central Syria (bar: 702; cf. mʿs:
iv, 1289; alm 1925: 61)]; 18) ‫كوز‬ ُ kūz ‘small clay pitcher’ (60: 1) [cf. ‘petite
gargoulette à bec et à anse’ (bar: 731; cf. fry: 156); ‘cruchon’ (sm: 516); ‘a
kind of vessel’ (lan: vii, 2638, s.v. ‫كوز‬ ُ ); for other Arabic dialects see (bw:
map 218, 150–151); on the etymology see (lan, loc. cit.); for dialectal and
classical Arabic see (mʿs: iv, 1345)].130

As we have observed above, ʾAmīr Hlayyil admits the syncretic nature of the
Lebanese lexicon with frequent borrowings, including, among others, Syriac,
Persian, Turkish, French, and Italian, but not Arabic [sic]. Features recognized

130 ‘À Damas, ce dernier mot [i.e. kūz ‘cruchon’—ap] n’est plus employé (sauf erreur); mais
il est préservé dans des proverbes: b-tammūz btǝgli l-ṃayy bǝl-kūz (= il fait très chaud),
ou des locutions: kǝll ma daqq ǝl-kūz bǝž-žarra (= ‘à tout bout de champ, à propos et
hors de propos’, car on remplit le kūz à partir de la žarra, et on le laisse à côté d’elle en
permanence) (Salamé and Lentin 2010, in préparation, dqq 2/4). Et il est intéressant de
noter que dans beaucoup de dialectes de la région (pas seulement d’ailleurs, en Égypte
aussi) le mot est resté aussi comme “count unit”: kūz rǝmmān; kūz tīn; kūz dura; cf. kūz
ṣabǝr (Elihai, Dictionnaire, p. 86, s.v. ‘figue’); Denizeau p. 463 (< Löhr, p. 127) kūs (< *kūz) iṣ-
ṣabr; Berggren kūz; kūz (= rās) ǝṣ-ṣanawbar’(Frayḥa Qarya: 152–153); etc. À Damas encore,
on emploie toujours plusieurs de ces mots, par exemple 5 sāko, 8 (ḫǝbǝz) kmāž, 14 žānṭās et
žanṭās (“n. masc., plur. -āt: récipient pour boire (comme ṭāse mais avec rebord), en cuivre
(ou parfois en bois?)”, Salamé and Lentin, en préparation, s.v.), 18 yūkʾ (Jérôme Lentin,
pers. comm.).
512 płonka

by others as typical for Lebanon, for example: the pronunciation of ṣāko (5)
(Frayḥa, supra) and the word inversion in žǝnṭāṣ (14) (Barthélemy, supra),
which could have been exploited as national or Lebanese, were not mentioned,
and did not coincide with the notation in the corpus. Hlayyil does not use
formal differences between word variations for the categorization of the “Leba-
nese” Lexis. Quoting two variants: sētiyyi (1a) and sōtiyyi (1b), he does not seek
to establish an ideologically valid, “standard” and “normative” Lebanese form.
So, how is the series Kəlmi taraket-a l-ləġġa l-ləbnēniyyi bound to express
linguistic nationalism? The majority of their referents are associated with the
concepts of home/house. They have connotations of:

1. food: ʾallīṭa (2), kmāž (8), ʿakkūb (9), and rǝšta (12);
2. food (mostly olive oil, water, and milk) storage and serving: sētiyyi (1a)/sōtiyyi
(1b), zalʿa (6), mʿayžni (7), dakkūši (10), zīr (11), ʾankari (13), žǝnṭās (14), bǝʾsi
(15), and kūz (18);
3. storage of sewing needs, linen, and kitchen utensils: smandra (3), ʾaffūra (4),
yūk (16), and kǝbki (17).

Most of these words are related to idealized prototype of an “indigenous”

Lebanese man (Lubnānī ʾaṣlī/ʾaṣīl) living a modest life, which is a frequent
concept in Maronite political texts. These words match the literary periodical
content attached with the Lebanese written tradition, that is to say, proverbs,
poems, and prose works published in extracts in the corpus. They are also
consistent with Maurice ʿAwwād’s (Hlayyil’s mentor’s, see note 3) vision of
poetical language and his literary works, close to nature and village life (Płonka
2010). Here, we see the essential difference from ʿAql’s language policy, whose
movement was, first of all, elitist and focused on the intellectualization of
Lebanese (Płonka 2004: 224–243).
Taking into account Lakoff’s well-known remarks on categorization in lan-
guage, it is obvious that these words belong, in the taxonomic hierarchy, to a
subordinate level (e.g. rocker, retriever), compared to the basic (e.g. chair, dog)
and superordinate level (e.g. furniture, animal).131 In the list, we find:

1. hyponyms of ‘closet’/‘wardrobe’ (ḫzēni): smandra (3) and kǝbki (17). The

word ḫzēni is used by Hlayyil in the definitions of these two words [for
smandra twice (24: 4 and 55: 1)]. The word yūk (16) is semantically similar
to them.

131 Examples and hierarchy [Lakoff 1990 (19871): 46].

between linguistics, poetry, and ideology 513

2. six hyponyms of ‘terra cotta container’ ( fǝḫḫāra < coll. fǝḫḫār, used by
Hlayyil in all definitions of these six words): zalʿa (6), mʿayžni (7), dakkūši
(10), zīr (11), bǝʾsi (15), and kūz (18). As we observed above, these terms fall
into the broader category of utensils with ʾankari (13), žǝnṭās (14), and a word
given with two different notations: sētiyyi (1.a), according to Hlayyil, a variant
typical of the “South of Lebanon,” and sōtiyyi (1.b).

For Lakoff, who based his conclusions also on previous findings of other re-
searchers (e.g. Hunn and Rosch), on the basic level ‘… terms are used in neu-
tral contexts’ (loc. cit.). When Hlayyil uses the basic level in the series Kəlmi
taraket-a l-ləġġa l-ləbnēniyyi, and this is, when he uses repetitively the words
ḫzēni and fǝḫḫāra, he only explains in a neutral context the meanings of, in
his opinion, Lebanese obsolete words. It is important to note that Hlayyil as-
sociates the category of national and traditional Lexis with the subordinate
level.
Without any doubt, in the complex and controversial linguistic situation
in Lebanon, neutrality is not the aim of Hlayyil’s periodical. However, reading
the corpus, one can hope that in the future, contrary to linguistic nationalism,
the literary, and aesthetic content of l-ʾArzyāda will be predominant over its
ideological frame, as it is today.132

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əl-masīḥ la-sənt 1982. d-Dawra: Maṭābiʿ m’assasit Ḫalīfe.133
ʿAwwād, Maurice (Mūrīs). 20011 and 20022. Four Gospels; translated by Maurice (Mūrīs)
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132 We thank Jérôme Lentin and Nathalie Fauveau for their precious remarks concerning the
text, and ʾAmīr Hlayyil for his kind consultations concerning the corpus and information
about the poets.
133 In the book, the bibliographic description is in Lebanese.
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 chapter 25

The Seven Deadly Sins of Arabic Studies

Michael George Carter

This paper examines a number of themes in the field of Arabic grammatical

studies which, in the author’s opinion, illustrate how Western preconceptions
can lead to a misrepresentation of the Arabs’ own linguistic theories, as well as
hinder the learner from acquiring a proper understanding of the language.
The treatment is unashamedly subjective, with many unsubstantiated asser-
tions and a few speculative digressions. It goes without saying that no living
colleague is under attack here: indeed we are all probably “sinners” (especially
the present writer) in one way or another, for which a general absolution is the
best we can hope for.
If we wanted to include other disciplines outside grammar we could cer-
tainly name, as the single most intrusive act of Western scholarship, Flügel’s
renumbering of the verses of the Qurʾān. Among linguistic topics which have
been excluded from the paper for reasons of space is “Middle Arabic,” originally
proposed as a historically intermediate stage of Arabic between Classical and
colloquial Arabic on the model of the European languages: this has shown itself
to be an over-simplification of an extremely complex linguistic situation, and
what was once termed Middle Arabic is now generally, and more accurately,
labelled “Substandard Arabic.”1 Likewise the notion of “Diglossia” falls outside
the scope of this paper, though it has had a catastrophic effect on Arabic ped-
agogy. The present writer had the good fortune to be taught Arabic well before
1959 by an energetic Lebanese lady who was quite unaware of diglossia: she
simply used the colloquial for talking and the Classical for writing as if it were
the most natural thing in the world, which it was, of course, but has ceased to
be since Ferguson’s article appeared.
It would be difficult to link each item with any individual deadly sin (perhaps
they all fall under the heading of Pride anyway), so the seven categories below
are purely rhetorical, as is the subdivision into Major and Minor sins, the
criterion being that the Minor sins have less harmful consequences in pedagogy

1 The debate has been revived by Khan 2011, but the form described there is admitted to be
“mixed” Classical and colloquial. It is thus a synchronic issue rather than diachronic, a by-
product of diglossia rather than a stage in the evolution of an independent form of the
language.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_027

the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 517

or the interpretation of the native theory. The presentation will be as brief as

possible, with minimal documentation, on the assumption that the data are
familiar to the reader.
The sources used are the great nineteenth century reference grammars, from
de Sacy, through Caspari and Wright, to Reckendorf, and a few from more
recent times which preserve and develop the tradition of those authorities. The
edition of Caspari used is the third, a corrected version of the second edition
which served as the basis for William Wright’s grammar. Wright follows Caspari
closely both in the imposition of non-Arab categories, and the references to
indigenous theory, and between them they appear to be responsible for many
of the “sins” outlined below. However, the purpose of this paper is not to criticise
them, but to point to ways in which the study of Arabic both as a cultural vehicle
and as a linguistic system, can be enhanced.

1 Transliteration Issues

Now that word processors allow all sounds to be represented by single charac-
ters in Western transliteration, we are spared such cumbersome 19th century
monsters as al-Ḥadschdschādsch for al-Ḥaǧǧāǧ in German secondary litera-
ture, or Ckoor-a′n for Qurʾān in the works of E.W. Lane.
A Minor sin here is to insist on digraphs (kh for ḫ, sh for š etc.). Regrettably
the habit persists widely in English sources. This can cause problems when,
for example, an Arabic sequence such as s+h has to be reproduced, e.g. ʾashal
“easier,” which is resolved by the unnatural spelling sʾh, to give ʾasʾhal. What
we might call the Anatolian solution, the use of c with its Turkish value for
the transliteration of ǧīm (e.g. racul for “man”) fails on at least two counts (1)
not everybody knows what the value of c is in Turkish and (2) to be consis-
tent, Arabic šīn should be represented by Turkish ş, but it is not: instead š is
used.
Another Minor sin is to treat the element ʾĀl in personal names as if it were
the definite article, as in ‘Saif bin Zayed al-Nahyan.’2
There is a Major sin in the transliteration of long vowels, but here we face
a theological challenge arising from an insurmountable difficulty in Arabic

2 This from an online Reuters report: unless it is a typographical error, it is presumably an

editorial decision by an organisation which should know better. The written sequence ʾĀl
Nahyān in Arabic script certainly ought not be read aloud as ʾĀn-Nahyān, treating the l of ʾĀl
as a sun letter.
518 carter

orthography. There are no correct solutions, and all we can do is adopt the
Ašʿarite position that, whichever one we choose, we become sinners by acqui-
sition.
There are four possibilities, aa/ii/uu, aa/iy/uw, ā/ī/ū, and [a:]/[i:]/[u:], of
which the last can be discarded on the grounds that the ipa convention is not
yet a standard for the layman. Of the others, aa/ii/uu is fine for Finnish,3 but the
second element does not reproduce the Arabic semi-vowels which occur in this
position, while aa/uw/iy is close, but the second element of aa misrepresents
the orthographical ʾalif.
This leaves ā/ī/ū as phonologically adequate transliterations, albeit ortho-
graphically inaccurate, and here is the opportunity for redemption at the ped-
agogical level: students need to be told that ā/ī/ū are only approximations to a
spelling determined by the syllable structure of Classical Arabic, which (with
a restricted and well defined group of overlong syllables) allows only cv (open
short) and cvc (closed long) syllables. The latter comprise not only the type
qad, min, qum (where the vowel is short but prosodically the syllable is long),
but also our cv̅ type (mā, fī, ḏū), which is analysed as cvc. This information will
assist the learner in grasping the principle of long vowel shortening in various
contexts (cvc to cv in weak 3rd rad. and hollow verbs, etc.) and in the scansion
of Arabic poetry.
Diphthongs likewise are closed syllables, cvc, and should always be repre-
sented as such, i.e. aw, ay, not au, ai, as if they were Western diphthongs.

2 Case and Mood

The Graeco-Latin rendering of the Arabic case/mood names is a long-standing

problem which need not be discussed in detail here. Admittedly the literal
meanings of the case/mood names are still not fully understood, but that is no
justification for merely substituting the nearest Graeco-Latin equivalent. This
is a relatively Minor sin, but it has a cost: the indigenous theory of grammatical
relationships is obliterated. In pedagogy we have to explain why two of the
“cases” are shared by nouns and verbs, why some verb forms (imperfect) have
modal inflection and some (perfect) do not (which also troubled the Arab

3 It would also reflect the Arab theory that long vowels are a sequence of two short vowels, but
while this might be valid for the articulation, it does not reflect the orthography. Moreover
to use two short vowels in this way might lead to confusion with the Arabic spelling of
tanwīn.
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 519

grammarians), why verbs like kāna take what seem to be direct objects as their
predicates, why the subjects of nominal sentences can be in the “accusative,”
and so on.
For Major sins the obvious candidate is Ewald’s invention of the term “jus-
sive” for the ǧazm,4 creating a pedagogical nightmare: it obliges us to explain to
the student that the “jussive” meaning occurs in only two contexts (imperative,
prohibitive) of the four in which the ǧazm is used, and that the other two (after
lam, and in conditional sentences) have nothing to do with the notion of “com-
manding” on which Ewald based his term. It is true that the Arabs themselves
had no general theory for this verbal inflection, but Ewald imposes a false unity
on it which has little systematic or pedagogical value.

3 Word Classes

The Arab grammarians recognise only three form classes, nouns, verbs and
particles, and attempts to find a fourth have not succeeded.5 The third category,
moreover, is a default category defined negatively as not being one of the other
two.
It is a Minor sin to try to squeeze the eight European parts of speech into
the Arabic set of three, which will blunt the learner’s perception of the Arabic
categories. But is is a Major sin to ignore altogether the theoretical basis of the
Arab classification, which distributes the limited number of forms into a large
range of discrete speech acts, where homologous structures are differentiated
by their function (for example the fifteen kinds of verbal complement), and
every particle is defined by its function, ḥarf nafy, ḥarf istifhām etc.
Many elements which we classify as pronouns, adverbs and interjections are
explicitly identified by the Arab grammarians as nouns, ism, here briefly listed:
The demonstratives are nouns in Arabic, al-ʾasmāʾ al-mubhama (“nouns of
vague reference”) or ʾasmāʾ al-ʾišāra (“nouns of pointing”), not adjectives or
pronouns. Accordingly their syntax differs from the European model of “this
man,” where “this” is adjectival, while in hāḏā l-raǧulu the second element is a
noun in apposition to the demonstrative, “this male person, the man.”

4 Ewald 1831–1833: 1,123f., 2,120 f. He does try to unify the distribution of the ǧazm by arguing
that there is a natural pressure to shorten the ending of the verb in the four contexts, and so
far there seems to be no better explanation. “Jussive” seems now to be the standard term for
this verb form in general Semitics.
5 The Kūfan al-Farrāʾ is said to have claimed that the word kallā “by no means” does not fit into
the tripartite scheme established by Sībawayhi.
520 carter

The relatives al-laḏī etc. are also nouns, al-ism al-mawṣūl “the noun to which
something is attached.”
Interrogatives such as ʾayna, kam are classed as nouns by virtue of their
syntactic behaviour, likewise the interrogative/relative man and mā.6
Most of what we call “adverbs” are nouns in Arabic (ẓarf, ḥāl, tamyīz), mostly
in the dependent (naṣb) form and usually indefinite (ǧiddan etc.). Only qablu,
baʿdu etc., with their invariable ending may be considered to be historically
marked as adverbs similar to the way that -ly is an adverb marker in English, but
they are a closed set, and still remain nouns, with a peculiar inflection which
the Arab grammarians could not satisfactorily explain from their synchronic
viewpoint.
Many interjections are treated as nouns, being the names of the action they
denote, thus Sībawayhi refers to mah, ṣah etc., as hāḏihi l-ḥurūf al-latī hiya
ʾasmāʾ li-l-fiʿl.7 The same applies to words of the faʿāli pattern with imperative
meaning.8
The ḍamīr is not a form class, but it is only a Minor (and indeed unavoidable)
sin to equate it with our “pronoun.” However ḍamīr is only valid for our personal
pronouns (including ḍamīr al-faṣl and ḍamīr al-šaʾn), and does not refer in
Arabic to any of the other categories we call pronouns, such as demonstratives,
interrogatives, and relatives, which are all explicitly nouns, e.g. ism al-ʾišāra, not
ḍamīr al-ʾišāra.9
It is a Major sin, however, to translate the cognate term muḍmar generically
as “pronoun” or “pronominalised,” because muḍmar is also applied to the sup-
pressed ʾan which causes the dependent (naṣb) form in the verb after li-, fa-,
ḥattā, etc., as in li-[ʾan] yaktuba “that he may write”. Likewise ʾaḍmara is used
for “keeping in mind” when a verb is suppressed after the interrogative in such
constructions as ʾa-ʿabdallāhi ḍarabta-hu (Sībawayhi, Kitāb d. 1,41/b. 1,52). We
can hardly speak of a “pronominalised ʾan” or a “pronominalised verb” here.
The participles are also nouns, ism al-fāʿil “noun of the agent” and ism al-
mafʿūl “noun of the patient.” No matter how much they may appear to be
adjectives, they are still nouns: kātib means “a man writing” and maktūb “a thing

6 For details see Diem 1974: 317 f., 320 f.

7 Kitāb, d 1,102/b 1,123, 125. Here Sībawayhi uses ḥurūf in the sense of “unspecified linguistic
units”, and is not contradicting his original definition of the ḥarf as being neither noun nor
verb.
8 See Diem 1974: 322. Historically these have been explained as old maṣdar forms, which makes
them nouns anyway.
9 It would be interesting to know whether modern linguistic works in Arabic use the Western
categories and speak of ḍamīr al-ʾišāra etc., but that is beyond the scope of this paper.
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 521

written,” and it is very misleading to say (Caspari 1866: 83, followed by Wright
1955: i,131) that they are ‘by their nature adjectives’ just because this is so in
Western languages. Note also that Arabic does not distinguish between kātib
as “writer” and “writing,” both of them nouns.10
The cardinal numbers are all nouns, ism ʿadad, as their syntax confirms. In
this they differ from European numbers, which are of ambiguous syntactical
status: in English, for example, they generally function as premodifiers (imply-
ing that they are adjectives), but they also occur pronominally (implying that
they are nouns). The ordinals 2nd–10th (ʾawwal “1st” is a special case) are also
nouns, pure active participles, ṯāliṯ “[person] being third” from ṯalaṯa/yaṯliṯu.
Adjectives as we understand them deserve special attention. Unlike their
apparent counterparts in Western languages, which are often marked by spe-
cific adjectival suffixes, the ṣifa “attribute” or naʿt “epithet” is not a form class
in Arabic. However the ṣifāt are morphologically almost completely identical
with nouns, one of the very few formal differences between them being the
fact that ʾafʿal has different feminine and plural patterns according to whether
it is a noun or a ṣifa (see further Diem 1974: 313). Because there are no inher-
ently adjectival forms,11 Sībawayhi can only distinguish between the noun and
the ṣifa on distributional and semantic grounds. When discussing the pattern
ʾifʿil, for example, he notes that it is recorded as a noun in ʾiṣbiʿ “finger” and
other words, but ‘we do not know of its occurrence as a ṣifa’ (Kitāb d. 2,344/b.
2,315).
Historically some of these ṣifāt are simply phonological variants of the basic
participial patterns anyway, e.g. active fāʿil in fariḥ “joyful,” and common
Semitic passives faʿīl in ǧarīḥ “wounded” and faʿūl, as in rakūb “ridden on.”
Furthermore there is usually no active participle ( fāʿil) of the stative verbs, no
*ḥāsin from ḥasuna “be good” or *qābiḥ from qabuḥa “be bad.”12 Instead, other
forms occur (our “adjectives”), which are grouped together as ṣifa mušabbaha
bi-smi l-fāʿil, lit. “attribute assimilated to the agent noun.” This, as will be appar-
ent, effectively comprises everything we call “adjectives” except the participles
themselves.

10 The well-known syntactic distinction between qātilu ġulāmika and qātilun ġulāmaka
depends of course on qātil being a noun, meaning “[already] the killer of” and “someone
going to kill” respectively.
11 Later grammarians tend to cite faʿīl as a typical ṣifa pattern, but that is only for conve-
nience.
12 It is possible to contrast the attribute with the action in some cases: fariḥ “a joyful
[person]” and fāriḥ “[a person] rejoicing,” but not with stative verbs (Wright 1955:1,132,
seemingly independent of Caspari).
522 carter

The similarity of the ṣifāt to participles is that both are deverbative nouns
containing an agent pronoun (ḥasanun = *ḥāsinun = yaḥsunu, see below). Note
that the term ṣifa is applied to several other categories, namely verbs, demon-
stratives, indefinite relative clauses, and phrases beginning with ġayr and miṯl
(see Diem 1974: 312f.), and also to agent nouns themselves under certain con-
ditions (see Diem, op. cit. 331f.). This suggests that the category of quasi-
participial ṣifa mušabbaha was set up by Sībawayhi in order to isolate what we
call “adjective” from all the other attributive constructions identified as ṣifa.
The nominal status of these “adjectives” is particularly clear in the elatives:
their equivalents in European languages are a well marked adjectival category,
which is gradable (“big, bigger, biggest”), but in Arabic they are termed ism
al-tafḍīl “noun indicating superiority.” On the other hand colour and defect
attributes in the same ʾafʿal pattern are specifically labelled as ṣifa (Kitāb
d. 2,344/b. 2,315).
The gentilic form (nisba) is a noun, al-ism al-mansūb “noun to which some-
thing is related,” so turkī means either “a man from the ethnic group collectively
known as al-turk” i.e. “a Turk,” or “something connected with the Turks,” i.e.
“Turkish,” but in both cases a noun, even though the latter would be an adjec-
tive in English, contrast the English distinction between the noun “Turk” and
the adjective “Turkish.”
It is a Major sin to insist on treating all kinds of ṣifāt as “adjectives,” because
their syntactic relationship with other words is thereby distorted: what we
think of as Head (Noun) and Modifier (Adjective) is in Arabic Head (Noun)
and Appositional Noun (Attribute). See further below, item 7.

4 Verb Morphology

It may seem trivial, but to treat the perfect tense verb endings -a, -at of the
3rd person singular as if they were agent suffixes with the same morphological
status as the other endings, -tu, -ta, -ti, -nā etc. is a violation of the Arab theory
that the -a in these endings is only a default vowel and -t a mere gender marker,
the real agent pronoun being hidden (mustatir) in the verb. It would help the
learner of Arabic to know this, as it accounts for the lack of number agreement
between verb and agent in the vs sequence kataba l-riǧālu, in contrast to the sv
sequence al-riǧālu katabū (and see below for related problems with “subjects”
and “agents”).13

13 Put more generally, there is no cataphora in Classical Arabic verbs: the famous example
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 523

Another Minor sin, from the 1960s and purely pedagogical, is to assume
that students will have difficulty handling the traditional faʿala device for
symbolising morphological patterns, perhaps because of the unfamiliar ʿayn
as the second radical. The solution was to replace the three Arabic consonants
by f-m-l, standing mnemonically for [F]irst, [M]iddle and [L]ast radical. This
all has to be unlearnt eventually.
A Major sin is to place too much emphasis on the “passive” implications of
the fuʿila/yufʿalu verb pattern, a feature which is marginal in the Arab theory.
In practice it is impossible to avoid using the term “passive,” but it should be
heavily qualified by an explanation that this form properly denotes only a verb
whose agent is unknown (maǧhūl). For this reason it is often best rendered as
an impersonal verb, cf. the formula ʾin qīla … ʾuǧība in dialectic, where an imper-
sonal active translation “if someone says … the answer will be” is preferrable to
a formal passive in English. This intrinsic impersonality means that the logical
agent can never be mentioned even periphrastically14 (unlike English “I was
taught by a native speaker”), although the instrument may be (“I was taught
by experience”). Moreover some of the active derived stems, especially v, vii,
and viii, seem more at home in English as passives (inqaṭaʿa “it got cut off”),
not forgetting that even these can be used impersonally in the passive, uḫtulifa
fī-hi lit. “disputing has been done about it,” i.e. “it is/has been disputed.”
A possible reason for the disproportionate Western interest in the “passive”
nature of the action is the Arab grammarians’ own terminology for this verb
pattern, mabnī li-l-mafʿūl “constructed for the object [as agent].” But this is a
purely formal analysis in which “passiveness” is irrelevant: these verbs have no
agent at all, and so the direct object is moved into that position to become the
nāʾib ʿan al-fāʿil “substitute or deputy agent,” simply filling the morphosyntacti-
cal gap.

5 Noun Morphology, Definiteness, tanwīn, and Inflection

It is a relatively Minor sin to impose the concept of declensions upon Arabic,

leading to the creation of the “diptotes.” To be sure these do only have two
case endings under certain conditions, but most of the time they are perfectly

ʾakalūnī l-barāġīṯ confirms the irregularity of such a structure. The same principle under-
lies the anomalous (and largely rejected) sequence ʾa-qāʾimun il-zaydānī, with singular
agent noun qāʾimun echoing the singular yaqūmu l-zaydāni, showing the contamination
of nominal by verbal syntax.
14 This has been disputed (see reference in Retsö 2011:803f.).
524 carter

ordinary “triptotes,” and it is an unnecessary burden on the student to have

to learn an extra declension. Moreover, pedagogical experience suggests that
this encourages the further misperception that the loss of tanwīn is somehow a
result of the restricted inflection of these words, which is, of course, the wrong
way round.
As Retsö (1997: 280, footnote 48) has remarked, there is a tendency to over-
look the nexus of definiteness, case, number, and state (absolute or annexed).
The theoretical and pedagogical approaches both tend to disconnect the case
system from the definiteness, number, and state markers, with the result that
in some works ‘one gets a much less clear picture of the paradigmatic relation-
ships between different categories.’
Calling the tanwīn an indefiniteness marker should count as a sin, but the
Arab grammarians themselves added this role to the functions of tanwīn, prob-
ably unaware that historically it began as a definiteness marker, which survives
in personal names such as zaydun, ʿabdu šamsin.
The new role of tanwīn as an indefiniteness marker certainly predates the
emergence of the Arabic script, but the orthographical system, based on pausal
forms, effectively silenced the tanwīn, along with the short inflectional vow-
els. The two markers, al- and tanwīn, remained in complementary distribution
(here we must leave aside the dual and sound plural suffixes, pace Retsö!), but,
in writing at least,15 a new opposition developed, in which definiteness and
indefiniteness were marked solely by the presence or absence of al- respec-
tively.
This alternation (here symbolised by + and -) appears in four basic units
which were always recognisable both visually and audibly in pausal form, viz.
(1a) - - raǧul ḥasan, (2a) + + al-raǧul al-ḥasan, (3a) - + waǧh al-raǧul, (4) + -
al-raǧul ḥasan. Three other units occur, which appear identical to some of the
first four. They are all annexations (ḥaqīqī and ġayr ḥaqīqī), namely: (1b) - waǧh
raǧul, (2b) + + al-ḥasan al-waǧh, (3b) - + ḥasan al-waǧh. Native speakers are not
troubled by these ambiguities, and learners of the language will certainly find
it easier to understand written Arabic once they have grasped this principle.16

15 It is probable that this was also true for the oral language, in which fully inflected, junctural
forms were restricted to the highest literary levels such as the recitation of the Qurʾān,
poetry and public oratory. But already in the time of al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822) even the Qurʾān
could be cited without inflection, presumably in non-liturgical contexts. This practice
would have strengthened the replacement of al- and tanwīn by the new opposition of al-
and zero as definiteness markers.
16 There are other solutions: in one of the Yorkshire dialects the opposition is the other way
round, between a marked indefinite article and zero for the definite article.
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 525

Larger units can be made by combining the above, which we need not
elaborate here, e.g. (2a) and (2b) al-raǧul al-ḥasan al-waǧh, (3a) and (4) waǧh
al-raǧul ḥasan. In general the spread of al- (+ +) marks agreement by apposition
(2a, 2b), the sequence - + indicates both kinds of annexation (3a, 3b), the
sequence - - (1a, 1b) is formally, but not semantically ambiguous, and the
sequence + - indicates predication (4).17 The delicacy of the last structure is
remarkable: it is possible to have a series of definite elements extending over
many lines of text before the boundary is crossed into the predicate by a simple
change to the indefinite, symbolically + + + […] -.
Problems with definiteness have led to a Major sin in the Western treat-
ment of relative sentences. Even though it is acknowledged that these clauses
are appositional, they are unfailingly classifed as subordinate clauses as if they
were structurally the same as Western relative clauses. And even though it is
recognised that the introductory elements al-laḏī etc. with definite antecedents
are originally demonstratives, they are obstinately termed ‘relative pronouns’
in spite of the fact that when the antecedent is indefinite there is no “relative
pronoun” in that position, leading to the absurd assertion that the Arabs have
no ‘indefinite relative pronoun’ (Caspari 1866: 356, Wright 1955: ii, 318 adds ‘like
other Semites’; Reckendorf 1921: 413). There is some irony in the fact that the ref-
erential pronoun (ʿāʾid or rāǧiʿ) within the relative clause is described as ‘refer-
ring to the qualified noun and connecting it with the qualificative sentence’
and conceded to have the ‘syntactical place of our relative pronoun’ (Caspari
358, Wright 1955: ii, 321), yet the entire presentation and arrangement of this
topic is framed as if the Arabic system were irrelevant.
Nothing has changed, to judge by recent publications. In Retsö (2011: 791)
the al-laḏī set, although presented as ‘demonstratives,’ are nevertheless subse-
quently labelled ‘relative particles,’ and in p. 806, although relative clauses are
correctly described as ‘appositional,’ they are then called ‘subordinate clauses’
as if they were both paratactic and hypotactic at the same time. In the same
work Waltisberg (2011: 311) identifies a third type of relative clause, as in maʿa l-
munkasirati qulūbuhum, which he translates as ‘[God stands] with those whose
heart is broken.’18 However this structure is not restricted to relative clauses
(his source, Diem, lists also predicates, circumstantial qualifiers and second

17 Only nominal sentences are the issue here: it goes without saying that noun phrases in
other functions, e.g. agents, objects, will be composed of the same elements.
18 Adapting Diem 1998:27, who translates more precisely ‘[Gott steht] denen bei, die ge-
brochenen Herzens sind’. Diem’s data also include non-participles in this position, ḫūṣun
ʿuyūnuhā “sunken their eyes” (plur. of ʾaḫwaṣ, a ṣifa).
526 carter

direct objects), and it might be argued that the example given is simply a par-
ticipial phrase which is classed as a relative clause because that is the easiest
way to translate it. We could reverse this principle with another example on
the same page, al-muqaddamu ḏikru-hu: it is translated there as ‘the aforemen-
tioned,’ but we could just as well replace the participle by a relative clause to
give “the one whose mention has gone before.” However that would not make
al-muqaddamu ḏikru-hu a relative clause in itself.19
At issue here is not so much the nature of relative clauses but the mech-
anisms by which parts of sentences are connected. Here we should listen to
the Arab grammarians and take into account their concept of the referential
or resumptive pronoun, ʿāʾid, rāǧiʿ, which is present not only in relative clauses
but also in verbs, participles (active and passive) and all the quasi-participial
deverbative ṣifāt (“adjectives”). In other words all elements which can function
as attributes or predicates, whether single words or sentences, contain such a
pronoun, implicit or explicit, which links them with the head word. This begins
to look like a copula, see below, Item 7.

6 “Government”

The syntactic relationship between speech elements is usually expessed by

ʿamila fī, lit. “have an effect on.” It might be regarded as a Minor sin to confuse
this with the Latin regere (which is ʿamila ʿalā), but it is a Major sin to insist that
every instance of ʿamila fī must be translated as “govern.” The term naḥw for the
science of grammar reflects the concept of language as a linear phenomenon,
and thus excludes such vertical relationships as the “governing” of one element
by another (without affecting hierarchies of status, manzila, since the higher
the status of an element, the more elements it can operate upon).
There is little likelihood of this deeply ingrained Western misperception
being rectified, but a real mystery is how a similar notion did indeed circulate
sporadically in Arabic grammar: we find the term tasallaṭa and cognates used to
denote the dominance or authority of one linguistic element over another, but
it is rare, and its origins are unknown. It does not go back beyond the 4th/10th
century, and there is no documentary evidence that it is a borrowing from Latin
regere, nor did it ever threaten to replace the native concept of ʿamal.

19 The agreement of al-muqaddamu etc. rules out a ḥāl here, but curiously there is a tendency
to confuse circumstantial phrases with relatives, e.g. by de Sacy, mufattaḥatan lahum al-
abwābu ‘dont les portes leur seront ouvertes’ (1831: ii, 269, quoting Sūra 38:50).
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 527

7 Predication, Sentence Structure and Cohesion

Two Minor sins in this field are (1) to assert that Arabic has no copula, or,
equally misleadingly, that the copula function is performed by kāna and related
verbs, and (2) to use the term copula to refer to the pronoun called ḍamīr al-
faṣl in Arabic, thereby characterising as a copula an element whose function is
actually to prevent the joining of the two items on each side, as its Arabic name
signifies, “pronoun of separation” (or possibly “pronoun of differentiation”), by
means of which the listener can separate or distinguish the subject from the
predicate.
As it happens, one Arab scholar, namely al-Fārābī (d. 339/950), did try to
identify the “copula” in Arabic equational sentences, which he called a rābiṭa,
and illustrated by paraphrasing zaydun qāʾimun as zaydun huwa qāʾimun. He
contrasts this with hast in Persian and estein in Greek, which join subjects
and predicates in a manner impossible for Arabic, which lacks such verbs.20
Significantly he makes no attempt to equate kāna with any foreign existential
verb as a copula, not least because he would have known that yakūnu cannot
mean “is” in an unqualified sense, but only “will be,” “could be,” “might well
be,” and the like. Moreover if kāna is taken to be a copula we encounter the
same difficulty as with the “relative” pronoun, in that the predicate of kāna must
always contain a pronoun connecting it to the ism kāna, and it is this pronoun
which is the true copula, not kāna.21
A Major sin in the area of predication is to ignore the difference between
mubtadaʾ [bi-hi] “subject” or “topic” of the sentence and fāʿil “agent” of the verb,
and to refer to the latter as the “subject” of the verb, as if it were of the same
nature as the subject of an equational sentence.
The Arabic terminology reflects two entirely different structures. The nom-
inal sentence consists of a definite subject noun mubtadaʾ and a (usually)
indefinite predicate noun or ṣifa, with no existential verb to connect them,
while the verbal sentence is normally in the order vso,22 with the verb marked
only for gender of the agent fāʿil and not its number, e.g. kataba l-riǧālu (see

20 For hast and estein see Ḥurūf (the Mahdi edition was not accessible but the text can be
found at pp. 28–30 of a pdf copy on line).
21 Admittedly kāna is the only type of verb whose grammatical agent is not called fāʿil but
ism kāna, perhaps a recognition of its special semantic role. But it would be difficult to
prove that this reflects any foreign influence, all the more so because there are several
modal verb related to kāna with the same syntax.
22 In this context we ought to use vao for Verb-Agent-Object, but the conventional vso
formulation is too well established to be avoided.
528 carter

Item 4 above). Sentences of the svo type are therefore compound nominal
sentences in which the predicate is a verb phrase with its own agent. If the
agent is the same as the mubtadaʾ, as in al-riǧālu katabū, the agent pronoun
is the link to that subject, but, as is well known, the mubtadaʾ itself does
not have to be the fāʿil of any verb in the predicate, as in al-riǧālu kataba
ʾabū-hum, lit. “the men, their father wrote,” now linked to the mubtadaʾ by
-hum.
The feature that predicates are linked to their subjects by a pronoun is
part of a much wider range of contexts for what are called variously ʿaʾid,
rāǧiʿ, rābiṭ(a) and a number of cognates and synonyms, all denoting linking
pronouns, performing a function which can be compared with the mechanism
of Cohesion in modern lingustics.23 They occur in the following structures, not
listed in any hierarchical order, and without regard for hidden versus overt
pronouns:

Nominal sentences where the predicate is a participle, al-raǧulu kātibun,

or a quasi-participial ṣifa, al-raǧulu ḥasanun.
Attributives where the qualifier is a participle, al-raǧulu l-kātibu, or
quasi-participial ṣifa, al-raǧulu l-ḥasanu. An expansion of this is seen in
in al-raǧulu l-muqaddamu ḏikru-hu, cf. the naʿt sababī below.
svo sentences, e.g. katabū in al-riǧālu katabū.
Relative sentences, with definite antecedents, al-raǧulu l-laḏī ǧāʾa, and
indefinite, raǧulun ǧāʾa.
Nominal sentences where the predicate is itself a sentence (i.e the
ǧumla ḏāt waǧhayn), al-riǧālu kataba ʾabū-hum.
Sentences introduced by the topic shifter ʾammā, e.g. ʾammā zaydun
fa-ʿālimun/fa-yaʿlamu.
Sentences with locative predicates, zaydun fī l-dāri, assumed to contain
an elided verb, yastaqirru, or its participle, mustaqirrun.
Circumstantial qualifiers, whether verbal, ǧalasa l-raǧulu yaktubu, par-
ticipial, ǧalasa l-raǧulu kātiban, or nominal sentences, marartu bi-l-raǧuli
wa-huwa kātibun.
The naʿt sababī construction, marartu bi-raǧulin qāʾimatin ʾummu-hu.

23 Cf. Halliday and Hasan 1976. Their focus is on Cohesion at the discourse level, that is,
between utterances. Needless to say, Cohesion at this level is achieved by similar means
in Arabic, but our concern here is the linking of elements within the same utterance,
extending at most to interclausal Cohesion in compound sentences.
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 529

It goes without saying that clauses in compound sentences will display one
or another of the above features internally, as well as being linked externally to
each other by another such pronoun, so there is no need to overburden the list
here.
It would be hard to find a phrase or sentence type which lacks this pronoun:
indeed the only common construction in which it does not occur is the tamyīz,
e.g. dirhamun waznan, ʿišrūna dirhaman and the like. But the purpose of the
tanwīn-naṣb sequence here is expressly to indicate that the two elements are
not in the same syntagm, and so there is no relationship which would require
a pronoun to link them.
If we were to look for a “copula” in Arabic it would surely be this pro-
noun, which emerges as the principal instrument of syntactic cohesion in all
attributive and predicative structures, of which the simple equational sen-
tence al-raǧulu ḥasanun is just one. The exception is predicates consisting of
non-deverbative nouns (ǧāmid, therefore containing no pronoun): as predi-
cates they are identical with the subject, and no linking pronoun is needed,
e.g. ʾallāhu ʾilāhu-nā “Allāh is our god,” ʿAbdullāhi ʾaḫū-nā “ʿAbdullāh is our
brother.”24
This pronoun is of particular importance in adjectival syntax. As already
noted (in Item 3), the ṣifa is not a formal category in Arabic. Syntactically
the ṣifāt behave like participles, and consequently they are equivalent to a
verb phrase with its implicit agent pronoun, whether attributively (raǧulun
ḥasanun = raǧulun yaḥsunu) or predicatively (al-raǧulu ḥasanun = yaḥsunu l-
raǧulu in vso order). That pronoun, although implicit, can always be artificially
extracted from the agent noun, e.g. Sībawayhi’s reconstruction of ḍāribi-hā
in marartu bi-raǧulin maʿa-hu mraʾatun ḍāribi-hā “I passed by a man with a
woman with him, [he] striking her” as ḍāribu-hā huwa “the striker of her [being]
he.”25 Later grammarians extended this to the ṣifa, so ḥasanun = ḥasanun huwa.
By treating the ṣifa as morphologically a noun and semantically an attribute,
and by grouping it syntactically with the participles (thereby confirming its
nominal and deverbative status, and the inclusion of an implicit agent pro-
noun), the Arab theory accounts exhaustively for the complete agreement of
what we call adjectives when used attributively (definiteness, number, gen-
der and case), and their partial agreement when used predicatively (number

24 Sībawayhi, Kitāb d. 1,5/b.1,6, cf. also d. 1,6/b.1,7; such sentences are symbolically para-
phrased by Sībawayhi as huwa huwa (Kitāb d. 1,237/b. 1,275).
25 Kitāb d. 1,208/b. 1,243. For clarity’s sake let it be noted that the implicit huwa in ḍāribihā is
what links ḍāribihā to rajulin, while the -hā in ḍāribihā links the whole participial phrase
to mraʾatun.
530 carter

and gender only, with loss of definiteness and default case determined by con-
text, independent in al-raǧulu ḥasanun, dependent in kāna l-raǧulu ḥasanan,
oblique in laysa al-raǧulu bi-ḥasanin).
As the Arab theory has it, the attributive ṣifa belongs to the category of the
tawābiʿ, the four types of concordants, all of which are nouns in apposition
to their head, viz. (1) as a ṣifa, (2) in coordination (ʿaṭf ), (3) in corroboration
(tawkīd) and (4) by substitution (badal). In this scheme the phrase “a good
man” raǧulun ḥasanun is not a sequence of N+Adj agreeing in the Western
manner, but two nouns in apposition, “a man, a person having the quality of
goodness”.
It is likely that apposition was the original pattern even before the ṣifa
emerged as an independent category (Wright 1955: ii, 229). There are some
archaic survivals of verbal nouns in this function, raǧulun/riǧālun/imraʾatun
ʿadlun “a just man/men/woman” (Wright 1955: i, 132f., and note the lack of
number and gender agreement, because the maṣdar contains no pronoun),
also with non-deverbative nouns, e.g. hāḏā l-ṯawbu ḫazzun “this garment is
silk,”ṯawbun ḫazzun “a garment, silk,” both variants of the more common ṯawbu
ḫazzin “a garment of silk” (Wright 1955: ii, 229f.), with a parallel in such non-
attributive appositional structures as raṭlun zaytun “a litre [of] oil.”
All the above material drawn from the Arab tradition is mentioned in the
Western grammars, but then generally ignored when the exposition reverts to
the European categories and methods. Thus it is widely acknowledged that the
ṣifa has a verbal quality and contains an agent pronoun (e.g. de Sacy 1831–1833:
ii, 527f., Caspari 1866: 336, Wright 1955: ii, 284 ‘verbal adjectives,’ Reckendorf
1921: 57, Fleisch 1971–1979, §53a), but the role of that pronoun in syntactical
cohesion is given little consideration.
And even when the Arab terminology is recognised and correctly translated,
it is often quickly replaced by a Western term. For instance al-ism al-mawṣūl
is rendered by Wright 1955: i, 105 as nomen conjunctivum (following Caspari
1866: 164) but is immediately retranslated as ‘relative pronoun’; this seems to be
an innovation of Wright’s, as Caspari retains Nomen Conjunctivum throughout.
Similarly for the gentilic ism al-mansūb Wright 1955: i, 149 reproduces Caspari’s
Latin translation of the Arabic term in his chapter heading, Nomina Relativa,
but then displays a sort of category blindness by converting that Latin into
the English ‘Relative Adjectives’. Here again he departs from Caspari 1866: 105,
who keeps close to the Arabic term with his Nomina der Beziehung, though he
hedges his bets by giving two translations of his examples, one as an adjective
and one as a noun, thus dimašqī ‘damascenisch oder ein Damascener.’ Regard-
ing demonstratives (see above, Item 3), Caspari 1866: 160 points out that these
are nouns to the Arabs but ‘pronouns according to our way of looking at it,’
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 531

and to his credit he does not impose the Western terminology, but keeps the
term Nomina Demonstrativa, whereas Wright 1955: i, 264, having reproduced
Caspari’s exact words, then proceeds to call them ‘Demonstrative Pronouns.’
These are just a few examples of the terminological mismatches in the West-
ern treatments. It is unfortunate that the adjustments to Caspari make Wright
look particularly guilty of distorting the Arab system, but this needs further
investigation and lies outside our purposes. Such an investigation should in
any case be rather less polemical than this paper: there is no doubt that all
the authorities quoted above had a deep respect for Arabic grammatical theory
(Wright, for example, stresses that he has consulted a number of Arab gram-
marians in producing his revised and enlarged 3rd edition), but, as we have
seen, there is a lack of empathy: the two systems intertwine in Western works
but seldom meet, certainly not on equal terms.
It can be argued that the Arab tradition is not necessary for a context-
free general linguistic understanding of Arabic, which is true enough, but if
so, why is it mentioned in the textbooks at all? It can also be asserted with
some justification that the learner of the language does not need to know the
native theory, or adopt its grammatical categories. That is a harder objection
to refute. Pedagogically it may be valid, but surely at some level the learner
should acquire a knowledge of the way the language is regarded by its users. All
too often the motive for learning a foreign language nowadays is merely to talk
about oneself in that language, and to be able to say, ‘Fine, thanks. I’m booked
on the 10.30 plane to Khartoum, first class’ (a genuine example from a current
textbook).

Conclusion

A concrete example of the kind of sins outlined above will serve as a conclusion
to this paper. The writer owns a copy of Bresnier’s 1846 annotated edition and
translation of the ʾĀǧurrūmiyya, which evidently has passed through the hands
of another well-known scholar of Ibn ʾĀǧurrūm, Ernst Trumpp. Bresnier’s work
is a sincere attempt to render the Arabic terms literally, so that their technical
meaning can be properly appreciated: for muḍmar he correctly has ‘latent,’ and
he glosses ḍamīr in his notes (1846: 61) as ‘ce qui est renfermé dans l’ esprit, qui
est caché dans la pensée. En grammaire arabe, il signifie pronom.’ However,
on two occasions where Bresnier’s term ‘latent’ for muḍmar occurs in the
translated text (1846: 17, 18) Trumpp has crossed it out and written ‘pronominal’
above it. This is a very good illustration of the “Procrustean” approach for which
the Arabs themselves have been criticised by Western scholars more than once,
532 carter

and it is a pity that Trumpp died before he could know of Reckendorf’s warning
against imposing our European categories on Arabic grammar (1898: 604),
though Reckendorf himself did not always heed his own advice.
Trumpp deliberately chose (1876: vi) to base his translation of the ʾĀǧur-
rūmiyya not on the standard Muslim text, but one which had been transformed
into a catechism and published (amongst other places) in Beirut in 1841, under
the title Kitāb al-ʾĀǧurrūmiyya. Al-ʾAǧwiba al-ǧaliyya fī al-ʾuṣūl al-naḥwiyya.
This work appears to be a Christian appropriation of the Muslim material, pre-
sumably for pedagogical and religious motives, though at least it retains the
Muslim names in the examples, Zayd, ʿAmr, etc., unlike Ǧarmānūs b. Farḥāt
(d. 1732), who inserted Christian names such as Buṭrus into his grammar, and
replaced the Qurʾanic data with biblical quotations. Trumpp’s declared pref-
erence for the catechetical version could be seen as an alienation of Arabic
grammar from its Muslim context, where he displays exactly the assumption
of cultural superiority which was the trigger for the present article.
The dedicatee of this paper stands free of such an accusation, being well-
known for his insights into the pragmatics of Arabic, with a perception which
is based on respect for the Arab ideas and the methods by which the Arabs
processed them. A late colleague, Richard Frank, had a similar approach, and
achieved his rare mastery of the intricacies of Islamic theology (kalām), not, as
he says (1996, esp. 615f.), by trying to ‘get into the minds’ of the Arabs (a kind
of cerebral imperialism), but by learning to think like them, and becoming so
immersed in what they were thinking that he reached the point where he knew
what was coming on the next page.

Bibliography

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Dawoud el-Sanhadjy. Algiers: Bastide, Librarie-Éditeur.
Fārābī (al-), Ḥurūf = ʾAbū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī, Kitāb al-ḥurūf. Ed. Muḥsin
Mahdi, Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 1970.
Sībawayhi, Kitāb = ʾAbū Bišr ʿAmr b. ʿUṯmān b. Qanbar Sībawayhi, al-Kitāb. (1) Ed.
Hartwig Derenbourg, Le livre de Sibawaihi. Paris: 1881–1889, 2 vols. [repr. Hildesheim/
New York: Olms 1970]. (2) Ed. Būlāq, Kitāb Sībawayhi, Būlāq 1898–1900, 2 vols. [repr.
Baghdad: Muṯannā 1965].
the seven deadly sins of arabic studies 533

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gen. Leipzig: Schmidt, 3rd ed.
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S.: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 5th ed.
de Sacy, Sylvestre. 1831. Grammaire arabe à l’usage es élèves de l’École Spéciale des
Langues Orientales Vivantes. 2 vols. Paris: L’Imprimerie Royale, 2nd ed.
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ern’. Oriens 23–24: 312–332.
Ewald, G.H.A. 1831–1833. Grammatica critica linguae Arabicae cum brevi metrorum doc-
trina. 2 vols. Leipzig: Libraria Hahniana.
Fleisch, Henri. 1961, 1979. Traité de philologie arabe. Vol. 1. Beirut: Imprimerie Catho-
lique. Vol. 2. Beirut: Dar el-Machreq.
Frank, Richard M. 1996. ‘Hearing and saying what was said’. Journal of the American
Oriental Society, 116: 611–618.
Halliday, M.A.K., Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Khan, G. ‘Middle Arabic’. The Semitic Languages. An International Handbook, S. Wenin-
ger et. al. (eds.). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 817–835.
Reckendorf, H. 1921. Arabische Syntax. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuch-
handlug.
Reckendorf, H. 1967 [1898]. Die syntaktischen Verhältnisse des Arabischen. Leiden: Brill.
Photomechanischer Nachdruck.
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Honor of Professor Ebbe Knudsen on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday April 11th 1997,
El Wardini (ed.). Oslo: Novus forlag, 268–282.
Retsö, Jan. 2011. ‘Classical Arabic’. The Semitic Languages. An International Handbook,
S. Weninger et. al. (eds.). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 782–810.
Trumpp, Ernst. 1876. Einleitung in das Studium der arabischen Grammatiker. Die Ajrū-
miyyah des Muhʾammad bin Daūd. Arabischer Text mit Uebersetzung und Erläuterun-
gen. Munich: Verlag der K[öniglichen] Akademie.
Waltisberg, Michael. 2011. ‘Syntactic typology of Semitic’. The Semitic Languages. An
International Handbook, S. Weninger et. al. (eds.). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mou-
ton, 303–329.
Wright, W. 1955 [1896–1898]. A Grammar of the Arabic Language, translated from the
German of Caspari and edited with numerous Additions and Corrections. Revised
by W. Robertson Smith and M.J. de Goeje, 2 vols. Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge. 3rd ed.
Acclamatio heroica, in honorem reverendi,
ornatissimi et doctissimi viri Professoris Dr. Petri
Sagittarii, vulgo dictu Pierre Larcher, dicata,
Facta a
servo Domini Jesu Christi indigno, Fratre Claudio
Aegidio Parvulo Ganapensi, o.p., vulgo dictu in
saeculo Claude Gilliot

(…) factus est juvenis sagittarius habitavitque in deserto Pharan (Gn 21,
20–21). Sagittae parvulorum factae sunt plagae eorum: et infirmatae sunt
contra eos linguae eorum (Ps 63, 9, Psalterium Gallicanum). Facessant
igitur omnes qui nihil docere possunt quo melius sapientiusque vivamus
(Cicero).1 Non enim judicio discipulorum dicere debet magister, sed disci-
pulus magistri (Quintilianus).2

Tenuit consuetudo, quae cotidie magis est desita, ut laudatio sive oratio solem-
nis in lingua latina haberetur aut scriberetur. Nil mirum si idioma Imperii
Romani et Imperii Christiani fuisset, quod nulla gens, nullus sermo imitando
assequi potest, quia lingua Olympii, lingua Deorum Angelorumque, lingua
Cherubim est, quod interpretatur: «plenitudo cognitionis sive scientiae »
apud Origenem, aut «scientiae multitudo» apud sanctum Hieronymum (Epi-
stula ad Paulinum … Frater Ambrosius), Johannem Cassianum, etc.
Propempticon illud, non est propempticon et elogia in discessum, neque
carmen discessus votivum. Non morabor te longo epilogo, lector benevolens.
Sed de oratione modesta hic agitur viro honoratissimo, clarissimo, amplissimo,
praestantissimo, prudentissimo, doctissimo, et multijuga eruditionis supellec-

1 « Loin de nous donc tous ceux qui n’ont rien à nous apprendre pour nous rendre meilleurs et
plus sages ». Aures tuas admove, tu Effugie Vallensis-Filie Dividentis (sive Divisionis), vulgo
dictu Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister Educationis «reipublicae» (ut aiunt!) Francogalliae,
qui linguam latinam, historiam, terrarum descriptionem, autores classicos et religionem Gal-
lorum sive Francorum (Christianorum) indigenum non amas: memini quod nomen ministri
habes, quod e « minus » derivatur, et non nomen magistri tenes, quod e «magis» derivatur!
Intelligenti pauca ! Hoc scribo, Anno Domini Jesu Christi mmxv!
2 « Car ce n’est point au professeur de parler d’ après le goût des élèves, mais l’inverse»: à
condition, évidemment que ces maîtres aient assez de culture pour en transmettre!

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004325883_028

postface: acclamatio heroica 535

tile instructissimo, in omni doctrinae genere ita versato, ut cum primis hujus
saeculi scholis certare possit, collegae amicoque, Domino Pr. Dr. Petro Sagitta-
rio Francogallo Parisiensi Avenniensi Aquensi (sive magistro Almae Aquarum
Sextiarum Universitatis), dicata.
Et cum sit Petrus Sagittarius magister artis «rhetoricae», quid quod, postea-
quam est poeta Gallicus designatus, tanta musarum benignitate, beneficio
translationum veterum carminum Arabicorum, id est septem carminum anti-
quissimorum, in templo Meccano suspensorum (has narrationes Mahome-
tani scriptores contendunt), vere dignum et justum est, ut narratio aman-
tis Verbi superni prodientis a Patre et verborum humanorum, Aurelii Augu-
stini Hipponensis, exponentis unde loqui didicerit, Magistro Petro Avenniensi
Aquensi transferatur. Scripsit enim Hipponis Regii sanctus et sublimis episco-
pus:
«Nonne ab infantia huc pergens veni in pueritiam ? Vel potius ipsa in me
venit et successit infantiae? Nec discessit illa : quo enim abiit ? Et tamen jam
non erat. Non enim eram infans, qui non farer, sed jam puer loquens eram.
Et memini hoc, et unde loqui didiceram, post adverti. Non enim docebant
me majores homines, praebentes mihi verba certo aliquo ordine doctrinae
sicut paulo post litteras. Sed ego ipse mente, quam dedisti mihi, Deus meus,
cum gemitibus et vocibus variis et variis membrorum motibus edere vellem
sensa cordis mei, ut voluntati pareretur; nec valerem quae volebam omnia
nec quibus volebam omnibus. Prensabam memoria, cum ipsi appellabant
rem aliquam, et cum, secundum eam vocem, corpus ad aliquid movebant.
Videbam, et tenebam hoc ab eis vocari rem illam, quod sonabant, cum eam
vellent ostendere».3
Elatus est Magister Petrus Sagittarius, Marcus Fabius Quintilianus redivivus,
ad summum gradum praestantiae in «scientia efficientiae [verbi] »4 (ʿilm al-
balāġa) apud Arabes et Orientales. In dissertatione sua inaugurali praetitulata:
De Enunciatione et performativo in scientia Arabico-Islamica sermonis (mcm-
lxxx) disseruit praecipue, sed non solum, de differentia inter enunciationem
(ḫabar, ʾiḫbār) et performativum (ʾinšāʾ, ʾinšāʾī). Notandum est quod voces inšāʾ

3 Augustinus, Confessiones, Liber i, cap. viii, init.

4 Larcher, Pierre. 1998. ‘Une pragmatique avant la pragmatique: «médiévale» «arabe» et
« islamique ».’ Histoire Épistémologie Language 20/1 : 101–116, p. 105: «science de l’efficience
[de la parole]» ; Id. 1992. ‘Quand en arabe, on parlait de l’arabe … (iii). Grammaire, logique,
rhétorique dans l’ Islam postclassique.’ Arabica 39/3 : 358–384, p. 359: «Un art de la parole
« efficiente » »; Id. 2009. ‘Mais qu’ est-ce donc que la balāġa ?’ Literary and Philosophical Rhe-
toric in Greek, Roman, Syriac, and Arabic Worlds, F. Woerther (éd.). Hildesheim: Olms, 197–213,
p. 197 : « science de l’ efficience ».
536 gilliot

et ʾinšāʾī derivatae sunt de verbo quartae formae cujus paradigma afʿala est :
interpretatum est ʾanšāʾa in lingua Arabica: «produxit et creavit» praesertim
de Deo.5
Videtur quod primas agit apud orientalistas et peritos in lingua Arabum cum
recta interpretatione categoriae ʾinšāʾ in hoc contextu Carolus Paulus Caspa-
rius Norvegensis, Judaeus, deinde Christianus, diserte Lutheranus Evangelicus
(†1892), qui in Grammatica Arabica in usum scholarum academicarum scripsit
(1848): «Perfectum (i.e. al-māḍī) denotat (…): 4) rem ipso, quo declaratur, tem-
poris momento perfectam, ut ʾanšadtuka Llāha obsecro te per Deum, biʿtuka
hāḏā vendo tibi hoc (his ipsis verbis pronuntiandis) ».6
Deinde in sua Germanica translatione: «Das Perfectum bezeichnet (…) : 4)
eine in demselben Augenblick, in dem ihr Geschehen erklärt wird, vollendete
Handlung, wie ʾanšadtuka Llāha ich beschwöre Dich bei Gott, biʿtuka hāḏā ich
verkaufe Dir dies (indem ich eben diese Worte ausspreche) ».
Quod Guilelmus Lignarius (vulgo dictu William Wright, † 1889) in linguam
perfidae Albionis vertit (1862): «The Perfect al-māḍī indicates (…) : d) An act
which is just completed at the moment, and by the very act of speaking ; as
ʾanšadtuka Llāha, I conjure you by God; biʿtuka hāḏā, i sell you that ».7
Sed praecedit Norvegiensem Casparium in hac re Henricus Juris Custos
(sc. Ewaldus), vulgo dictu Heinrich Ewald († 1875), etiam si ejus descriptio
hujus formae grammaticalis minus clara sit, immo falsa : « […] porro de re
quae momento jam inter loquendum praeterito tota facta vel cogita est, aut
facta certaque esse cogitanda est, ut ʾanšadtuka Llāha obsecro te per deum hoc-
que ipso te obsecratum volo Abulf. a.t. 2, p. 66.8 Sur 44,20 (wa ʾinnī ʿuḏtu
bi-rabbī). Qultu, dico, contendo, in scholiastis et alibi ; unde in pactis v(el) con-
tractibus, qui rem futuram ut jam stabilitam describunt, hac forma utuntur ».9
Apud Ewaldum de performativo quoque agitur, sed non recte describitur sicut

5 Freytagii Lexicon Arabico-Latinum, iv, 277b.

6 Grammatica Arabica in usum scholarum academicarum Scripsit Carolus Paulus Caspari …
Accedit brevis chrestomathia ex codd. mscr. concinnata, Lipsiae, sumtibus (sic!) C.L. Frit-
zschii, i–ii, 1848 viii, 140, xxiv, [141]–315, [3] p., i. pars, p. 141, §385.
7 A Grammar of the Arabic language, translated from the German by Gaspari, and edited with
numerous additions by William Wright, i–ii, London and Edinburgh, William and Norgate,
1862 (1859–1862), xvi+257 + 327 p., ii, pp. 1–2.
8 Abulfedae Annales muslemici Arabice et latine. Opera et studiis Io. Jacobi Reiskii […] Nunc
primum edidit D. Iacobus Giorgius Christianus Adler, Tomus ii […], Hafniae, mdccxc, p. 66,
penult. sq.
9 Geo. Henrici Aug. Ewald, Grammatica critica linguae Arabicae cum brevi metrorum doctrina,
i–ii, Lipsiae, Sumtibus librariae Hanianae, 1831–1833, x+397+vii+348 p., i, p. 113 §197.
postface: acclamatio heroica 537

facit Casparius latine germaniceque, juste scribens : « rem ipso, quo declaratur,
temporis momento perfectam …».
Quod pertinet ad Ewaldum, circa praeteritum ambitus fecit, et praefigurat
falsam interpretationem orientalistarum usque in tempora Henrici Carnis (v.d.
Henri Fleisch, †1985) et Davidii Presbyterii (v.d. David Cohen, ob. 2013).10
Vera locutus est Magister Aquensis. Fateor quidem cum eo categoriam inšāʾ
non ignotam apud nonnulos peritos in lingua Arabum fuisse. Hujus categoriae
sententiae quae inšāʾ nomen habet obliti sunt orientalistae, aut potius fallun-
tur in sua descriptione. Omnis honor omni domino praestandus! Non memorat
Princeps orientalistarum Baro Antonius-Isaacus Silvester de Sacy (scilicet ad
Salicem) categoriam ʾinšāʾ et adjectivum relativum ʾinšāʾī, in prima editione
suae grammaticae Arabicae.11 Sed in secunda editione, memorat breviter pro-
positionem verbalem enunciativam factorum (ǧumla ʾiḫbāriyya) quae dissidet
a propositione verbali ad productionem actionis sive modi essendi tendenti
(ǧumla ʾinšāʾiyya).12 In secunda parte ejusdem editionis scripsit categoriam
ʾinšāʾiyya (productiva) cum hac re congruere quam alio loco propositionem
volitivam appellavit.13 Sed haec congruentia falsa est sicut demonstravit Magi-
ster Aquensis in pluribus locis, precipue sub sententiola: « Culpa Silvestro de
Sacy imputanda est!».14
Quando transfert Magister Aquensis ʾinšāʾ in performativum, quod est voca-
bulum in usu quorumdam doctorum philologorum philosophorumque aequa-
lium temporibus,15 non perturbat rerum ordinem,16 quia categoria ʾinšāʾ con-
gruit, secundum quid, descriptioni performativi apud modernos philologos,
qui hodie linguisticos nomen habent. Descriptionem ʾinšāʾ invenit Petrus Sagit-

10 In sententia Petri Sagittarii expressa in electrogramma (in mense Junio Anni Domini
Nostri Jesu Christi mmxv), in qua respondit quaestioni meae discedo, et idem sentio.
11 Silvestre de Sacy, Antoine-Isaac. 1810. Grammaire arabe à l’usage des élèves de l’École
spéciale des langues orientales vivantes, i–ii. Paris : Imprimerie impériale, i, pp. 112–113,
§ 272–273 (de modis).
12 Id. 1831. Grammaire arabe à l’ usage des élèves de l’ École spéciale des langues orientales
vivantes, i–ii. Paris : Imprimerie royale. Seconde édition, corrigée et augmentée, à laquelle
on a joint un Traité de la prosodie et de la métrique des Arabes, i, p. 147, §324.
13 Op. cit., Grammaire arabe, ii, 1831, p. 513, § 913, n. 1 ; cf. Id., Principes de grammaire générale,
1803, 2ème éd. (1799, 1ère éd.), p. 182.
14 Larcher, Pierre. 2014. Linguistique arabe et pragmatique, cap. ix, ‘Les arabisants et la
catégorie de ʾinšāʾ. Histoire d’ une « occultation ».’ 173–183 (167–186), paru à l’origine in
Historiographia Linguistica, 20/2–3 (1993), 259–282.
15 E.g. Austin, John Langhsaw († 1960). 1955. How to do things with words, opus posthumum,
1962 : Dicere est facere.
16 V.d. « (…) n’ est pas anachronique ».
538 gilliot

tarius apud grammaticos Arabicos serotinos. Nil mirum ! Quemadmodum non

complectitur Alcoranus omnes scientias,17 ita Alcoranus grammaticae, scilicet
Liber Sibauvoih, non complectitur omnem materiam scientiae grammaticae
Arabicae apud Mahometanos et Christianos Arabos !
Enunciatio assertiva et enunciatio performativa inveniuntur apud Filium
Heschami Adjutorem (Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī; ob. 761h./1361 a.d.), in libro suo
qui inscribitur Corpus parvum de scientia grammatica, ubi scripsit : « Sermo est
pronuntiatio sensum perfectum praebens: est enunciatio assertiva et enuncia-
tio performativa (al-kalām qawlun mufīdun, wa-huwa ḫabarun wa-ʾinšāʾun) ».18
Refert quoque Petrus Sagittarius ad grammaticos et jurisconsultos antiquiores,
ut Filium Praefecti (Ibn al-Ḥāǧib al-Mālikī; ob. 646/1249),19 in suo Libro suf-
ficiente de syntaxe (al-Kāfiya fī l-naḥw), sive Gratum Religionis Astarabadium
(Raḍī al-Dīn al-ʾAstarābāḏī; ob. 688/1289), in Commentario in Libro sufficiente
de syntaxe, aut alios, et refert quoque Dr. Sagittarius ad grammaticos et juri-
sconsultos recensiores.
Circa rationem sive relationem grammaticae Arabicae cum jure apud Maho-
metanos ambitus fecit Petrus Sagittarius, non solum in studiis suis de enuncia-
tione assertiva et enunciatione performativa, sed etiam in studiis aliis.
Fateor de me ipso, quod delectationem habui quando scripsimus, ille et ego,
articulum nostrum commune: «Lingua et genus dicendi/scribendi in Alco-
rano».20 Voluit statim nos distinguere propositum Islamicum a propositis
orientalistarum aut linguisticorum, quia proposita (sive dogmata) Mahome-
tanorum de hac re sunt theologica et probari non possunt. Proposita linguisti-
corum sunt opiniones plus minusve probabiles.
Hic volo esse utilis et nolo scatere verbis, quamobrem hactenus fuit quod
caute a me scribi posset. Salutem aeternam ad quam pertinet visio beatifica
Dei Uni et Trini collegae amicoque Petro cupio. Humilitatem, non superbiam,
in anima ejus fovere expeto, quapropter indoles et facultates ejus numerosas
tacui et tacenda putavi, dicens illi: ad multos annos !

17 Contendunt nonnulli theologi Mahometani Alcoranum omnes scientias complecti, sed

haec postulatio ad res imaginatas hujus religionis pertinet.
18 Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī, al-Ǧāmiʿ al-ṣaġīr fī ʿilm al-naḥw, Ed. A. Maḥmūd al-Hirmīl, Le Caire:
al-Ḫānǧī (Silsilat rawāʾiʿ al-turāṯ al-luġawī), 1400/1980, 260 p., p. 10.
19 Editio princeps : Grammatica Arabica dicta Kaphia autore filio Alhagiabi, Romae, in typo-
graphia Medicea, 1592, 48 p., etc.
20 Gilliot, Claude and Larcher, Pierre. 2003. ‘Language and style of the Qurʾān’, Encyclopaedia
of the Qurʾān [eq], J.D. McAuliffe (ed.). iii, Lugduni Batavorum, apud Brill, 109–135.
Index of Bible Verses
Joshua 5.1; 9.7
1Samuel 11.2; 20.38
2Samuel 3.13; 10.9; 12.31
1Kings 1.47
2Kings 4.7; 8.17; 12.12; 22.5
Isaiah 30.32; 55.13; 61.8
Jeremiah 20.10; 22.21; 49.28; 52.11
Ezekiel 7.25; 16.49; 44.24
Psalm 30.7; 41.10; 122.7
Proverbs 1.32; 3.2; 3.17; 17.1; 21.29; 23.24; 27.24;
28.8
Job 2.7
Lamentations 2.2; 4.16; 5.3; 5.5; 5.7
Daniel 2.43; 8.25; 10.19; 11.21; 11.24
Ezra 2.1
Nehemiah 3.30; 3.31
1 Chronicles 6.20
2 Chronicles 29.12; 33.16
Index of Names

Abbo 515 Baldissera 365, 368

Abbott 95, 99 Ballas 486
Abdel-Nour 494–495, 499, 506–508, 514 Banū Tamīm 120–121, 274
Achiasaf 366, 368 Barakāt 114, 169, 246, 263
Aguadé 448 Baranov 436, 444, 448
al-Ansary 60, 70 Barth 327, 340
al-Hakkak 394, 408, 430 Barthélemy 360, 509, 511–512, 514
al-Jallad 65, 145 Baṣra 275, 294, 304–305, 321
al-Jassar 93, 100 Baṭalyawsī 162, 165, 169
Alcalay 488, 490 Bauden 360
Aleppo 8, 106, 116, 284, 323 Bawardi 496, 514
Allen 337, 340 Baʿalbakī (see Baalbaki)
Almbladh 476, 490 Baʿlabakkī (see Baalbaki)
Almkvist 509, 511, 514 Beeston xlii, 63, 68, 70–71, 226, 239, 333, 340
Altheim 70 Behnstedt 80, 84, 88–89, 99, 449, 509, 514
Amir-Moezzi 284–285 Beik 503, 514
Ammar xxxix, 393, 407 Bellamy 68, 70–71, 76
Andriōtē 364–365, 368 Belot 365, 368
Anghelescu xxxii, xliv, 5, 128, 195, 201, 210– Ben Yehuda 481
211, 447–448 Benhamouda 215, 239
Apollonius Dyscolus 249 Benmamoun 223, 239
Appleyard 111–112, 114 Berg 470–471
Aristotle 244–246, 251, 253, 266 Berthonneau 196, 205–206, 211
Arslan 443, 448 Bettini xxxii, xxxiv, xliv, 8, 377, 388
Artom 366, 368 Beucher xii, xiv, xviii
Arveiller 342–343, 360 Beyer 71
Attal 480, 489–490 Bickerton 451, 471
Auroux xvii–xviii, xxviii, 37, 52, 193, 212 Biella 333, 340
Ayoub xxxi, xliv, 7, 131, 145, 147, 289, 291, 302, Biga 366, 368, 467–469
304, 312, 324 Binaghi xliv, 5, 139, 145
Azharī (or Lazharī) Moyal (see Moyal, Esther) Bizri 452, 471
Bjørsnøs 102, 114–115
Baalbaki xxvii, xxxii, xli, xliv, 4–5, 40, 47– Blachère 137, 145, 207, 211, 215, 221, 225, 239,
49, 52, 70, 116, 131, 140, 143, 145, 155, 162, 294, 304, 324, 391, 407, 411, 415, 430,
167–168, 171, 290–291, 293–294, 297, 302, 533
310, 316, 318–319, 323–324, 337–338, 340, Blanc 442, 448, 482, 490
371–372, 374, 388 Blau xl, 71, 79–80, 99, 103, 114, 146, 475, 490
Badawi xl, 209, 211, 226, 235, 239, 275, 284, Bloch 411, 430
337, 340, 365, 368, 391, 394, 407, 411, 430, Boethius 261, 263
473 Bohas xxxvii, 127–128, 130, 146, 211, 280, 284,
Baġdādī 144–145, 159, 161, 163, 169, 191, 245– 298, 324
246, 263, 303 Boisson 29, 35, 37, 52, 55
Bahloul 411, 430 Borana 112
Baize-Varin xliv, 8, 390–409 (also see Bourdieu 131
Robache) Bowersock 71
Balaci 362, 368 Bresnier 531–532
index of names 541

Brockelmann 72, 99, 108, 115, 240, 327, 334, De Mauro 362, 368
340, 448 Dehkhoda 363, 368
Brøndal 198, 211 Denizeau 324, 361, 499, 509, 511, 514
Brown 366, 368 Derrida 31–32, 53
Brustad 440, 448 Desclés 44–45, 47, 53
Buckley 219, 224, 235, 240 Desmaisons 324
Buridant 113, 115 Devoto 365, 368
Burley 262–263 Devreesse 71–72
Bybee 467, 470–471 Dichy xxxix, xlv, 2, 29–30, 34–35, 40–47, 49,
53, 393, 405–407
Cadiot 196–197, 205–206, 211 Dickins 465, 471
Cairo 72–73, 144–145, 169–171, 192, 210, 239, Diem 61, 71, 79–81, 99–100, 110, 115, 520–522,
264, 283–284, 322–324, 329, 338–340, 525, 533
361–362, 365, 368–369, 378, 386–388, Diez xlv, 7, 272, 277, 279, 282, 284
408, 426–427, 430, 473, 479, 482, 485, Diringer 29–30, 53
487–488, 490–492, 514 Dirven 211
Calvet xi, xvi–xviii, xxxi, xliv, 75 Diyab 8, 343–344, 346, 349, 359–360
Cantarino 202–203, 211, 411, 430 Dotan 16, 28
Cantineau 67, 71, 95, 99, 361 Dozy 327, 361, 363–365, 369
Carruthers 37, 52 Driver 29–30, 53, 335
Carter xxiii, xxx, xli, xliv, 10, 53, 103, 108–109, Dror 146
113–115, 127–128, 140–142, 145–146, 173, Ḏū al-Rumma 279, 283
192, 194, 226, 235, 265, 324–325, 391, 394 Ducard 30, 35, 53
Caskel 71 Dussaud 62, 72, 74–75
Caspari 76, 148, 212, 215, 240–241, 341, 431,
517, 521, 525, 530–531, 533, 536 Edzard xxvi, xxx, xxxii, xxxiv, xlv, 3–4, 55,
Cassuto xv, xxi–xxii, xxvii, xxx, xxxiv, xxxvi, 102, 108, 114–115, 325, 472
xlv, 2, 15, 21–26, 28, 44, 52, 147, 285 Egypt xlii, 9, 88, 94, 147, 362, 365, 424–427,
Catach xxvi, 30, 34–35, 46, 52, 54 478–479, 482, 484–485, 487–489, 491,
Cervoni 196–197, 211 507
Chatar-Moumni 223, 240 Elamrani-Jamal 211
Ciorănescu 362, 368 Elihay 107, 115
Claudi 211 Eliséeff 72
Clermont-Ganneau 71 Embarki 292, 324
Coghill 470–471 Erwin 84–85, 100
Cohen 29–31, 44, 47, 52–53, 509, 514, 537 Euting 72
Comrie 437, 448 Ewald 327, 341, 519, 533, 536
Condillac 31–34, 36, 51, 53–55
Contini 71 Faber 100
Corriente 132, 143, 146, 365, 368, 411, 430 Fārābī xxx, 8, 245, 254, 299, 325, 330, 334,
Coulmas 29–30, 53–54 338, 527, 532
Creswell 71 Faraǧ 323, 387, 487
Croft 211 Farḥī 484
Fārisī xxxvii, 4, 137–138, 144, 152, 168–169, 175,
Dalman 334, 340 267
Daniels 78, 81, 99 Farrāǧ 284, 340, 371, 388
Daninos 480, 484, 487, 490 Farrāʾ xxx, xxxiv, 93, 100, 146, 155–156, 163,
Darleijn 448 165, 167, 169, 171, 278, 302, 322, 329, 333,
Dauzat 365–366, 368 519, 524
542 index of names

Fayer 469, 471 Goldenberg 78, 100, 115

Feghali 509, 514 Gombert 35, 54
Ferguson xxxix, 441, 449, 516 Gonzalez-Quijano 229, 240
Février xxxiii, 29–30, 53, 344, 349, 400–401, Goody 29, 31, 37, 54
403, 412 Grainger 44, 50, 54
Fīrūzābādī 336–338 Grevisse 415, 417, 430
Fischer xlii, 29, 56, 72, 103, 105, 113, 115, 225, Grigore xlv, 9, 435–436, 439, 442–443, 446,
240, 327, 341, 441, 449 449
Fisher 53 Grohmann 72
Fleisch 129, 142, 146, 215, 240, 267, 285, 327, Guetta (see Quwaiṭa)
341, 530, 533, 537 Guillaume (Gustave) 196–197, 205, 211
Fleischer 105, 115 Guillaume (Jean-Patrick) xvl, 4, 121, 128, 130–
Flügel 10, 516 132, 141–142, 146
Foley 211–212 Ǧurǧānī xxiv, 1, 137–138, 140–141, 143–144,
Frank 74, 383, 388, 532–533 242, 247, 249–250, 263–264, 386
Frayḥa 502, 509–510, 512, 515 Ǧurǧī Zaydān 72, 489
Freud 477 Ǧuzūlī 144
Freytag 327, 365, 369
Frost 44, 50, 53–54 Haas 30, 34–35, 38, 43, 54–55
Fück 289, 304, 316, 324–325 Ḥaddād 158, 171
Hadj Salāḥ 325
Ǧāḥiẓ 375–376, 385 Hagège 211
Ġalāyīnī 429 Halévy 72
Galilee 435, 449 Ḫalīl b. ʾAḥmad 120, 153, 267, 274–277, 280–
Galland 359–361 282, 290–296, 298, 301, 314, 316, 323, 326,
Gary-Prieur 122, 128 334–336, 338
Ġassān 62–63 Hämeen-Anttila 371, 388
Gaube 59, 72 Harawī 322, 329, 338
Gaudefroy-Demombynes 137, 145, 211, 215, Ḥarīrī 105, 114, 321, 323–324, 335–336, 338
221, 225, 239, 391, 407, 415, 430, 533 Harmatta 72
Ǧawād ʿAlī 72 Hartmann 72
Ǧawālīqī 295–296, 299, 301, 319, 322 Hārūn 127, 152, 158, 169–171, 257, 261, 264,
Ǧawharī 296, 300–301, 314, 319, 322, 333, 338 284, 322–323, 338, 386–387
Gelb 29–30, 51, 54 Ḥasan 54, 144, 169–170, 191, 210, 214–215, 239,
Gendzier 487, 490 275, 283–284, 323, 335–336, 338–340,
Gensler 110, 115 386, 388, 524–525
Gesenius 16, 21, 28 Hasnawi 245, 251, 265
Geva Kleinberger 435, 449 Hasselbach 108, 115
Geyoushi 378, 388 Ḫaṭṭābī 372, 386
Ghersetti 267, 285 Hatzfeld 365, 369
Gibb 364, 369 Haywood 325, 371, 388
Gilliot xxvii, xxix, xxxiv, xlv, 1, 302–303, 305, Healey 65, 72
308–309, 311–312, 325, 538 Heinrichs 244, 265
Giolfo xxxiv, xxxvi, xlv, 6–7, 257–258, 264– Ḥiǧāz 119–121, 127
265 Hill 489–490
Girod xxiii, xlv, 9, 411, 415, 430 Hjelsmlev 54
Gleason 30, 39–41, 54 Hlayyil 494–505, 507–509, 511–513
Glinert 107, 115 Hodges xlvi, 6–7, 245, 251, 253–254, 261–262,
Gobillot 277, 285, 378–379, 381–382, 386 265
index of names 543

Holes xli–xlii, 58, 391, 407, 441, 449 Ibn ʿAqīl 150–151, 154, 159–160, 162, 165, 167,
Horten 383, 388 169
Huehnergard 100, 472 Imbert 394, 397, 407, 411, 430
Hūmīrūs 495, 514 Irfan 72, 75

Ibn al-Ǧabbān 329, 339 Jaffré 29–30, 35, 54

Ibn al-Ḥāǧib xxiii, xxv, 42–44, 46, 54, 132– Jakobson 35, 37, 54
133, 135, 144, 147, 169, 191, 284 Jastrow 106, 115, 436, 438, 441, 445–446, 449
Ibn al-Nadīm 323 Jaussen 72
Ibn al-Nāẓim 154, 165, 170 Jeffery 300–301, 303–304, 307, 317, 320, 325
Ibn al-Qaṭṭāʿ 330, 339 Johansson 72
Ibn al-Sarrāǧ 5, 137, 144, 156–162, 166, 170, 172, Joly 32–33, 54
174–186, 188, 191, 245, 371–372, 387
Ibn al-Sikkīt 301, 323, 329–331, 339 Kaffawī 8, 328, 339, 372, 382–385, 387
Ibn al-Warrāq 150–151, 170 Kafka 477
Ibn al-ʾAnbārī 102–104, 114, 151, 168–169 Kallas xl, xlvi, 8, 360–361
Ibn al-ʾAṯīr 263, 377, 387 Kāmil al-Kaylānī 268
Ibn Baṭṭūṭa xxxiv, 364, 369 Kasher 140, 146, 172–173, 175–176, 178–179,
Ibn Durayd 272, 283, 293–295, 300, 302, 316– 183–184, 192
319, 323, 325, 328, 330, 333, 335–338 Kaufman 80, 100
Ibn Durustawayh 329, 338, 371, 374–376, 387 Kavanagh 30, 46, 54
Ibn Fāris xxx, 146, 214, 239, 267, 294, 302, Kaye 99–101, 448–449
305–306, 308, 311, 314, 319–321, 323, 325, Kazimirski 407, 411, 430
371, 376, 384, 387–388 Kazzaz 484, 491
Ibn Ǧinnī 4, 135–138, 140–141, 143–144, 162, Kaʿb b. al-ʾAšraf 474
168–169, 175, 267, 307, 309, 319, 323, 371– Key 6, 50, 53, 94, 242, 375–376, 379, 388, 482
372, 376, 385, 387 Khan xli, 115, 475, 491, 516, 533
Ibn Ḫallikān 102, 114 Kinberg 155, 171
Ibn Hišām al-ʾAnṣārī 149, 151, 158, 163–165, Kinda 62–63, 70, 74
169, 200–202, 210, 538 Kirtchuk 46, 54
Ibn Hišām 72, 149, 151, 158, 160, 162–165, 169, Kisāʾī 3, 103–104, 167, 189, 275, 296, 329, 339
200–202, 210, 274, 284, 367–368, 410, Kisseberth 98, 100
429, 538 Köhler 334, 341
Ibn Mālik xxxvii, 150, 154, 163, 169–170 Kopf 302, 306, 316, 318–320, 325
Ibn Manẓūr 277, 284, 296, 323, 339, 393, 407, Kouloughli 132, 146, 249, 265, 411, 430
411, 429 Kračkovskij 268, 285
Ibn Muqbil 333 Krahl 227, 235, 411, 430
Ibn Qutayba 302–303, 329, 339 Kropp xlvi, 2, 61, 65, 67–70, 73
Ibn Rušd 245 Kūfa 271, 303, 319
Ibn Saʿd 300, 323 Kugener 73
Ibn Sīda 314, 330, 337, 339 Kumayt 336, 339
Ibn Sīnā 7, 244–258, 260–262, 264–265 Kupferman 196–197, 206, 211
Ibn Wahb al-Kātib 387 Kusko 73
Ibn Yaʿīš 135, 144, 151, 160–161, 170 Kuzar 107, 115
Ibn ʾAbī Rabīʿa 276
Ibn ʾĀǧurrūm 114, 531 Lacerenza 73
Ibn ʿAbbād 335, 337–338 Laḫmī 329, 339, 368
Ibn ʿAbbās 302–303, 307, 310–311, 323, 325 Laḫmid 63, 69–70
Ibn ʿĀdiyāʾ 474 Lakoff 512–513, 515
544 index of names

Landau 487, 491 Marzolph 361

Lane 69, 73, 273, 327–328, 334, 337, 341, 365, Marzūbānī 284
369, 509, 515, 517 Marzūqī 162, 170, 387
Langella xlvi, 9–10, 476, 491 Marʾ al-Qays Ibn ʿAwf 63
Langer 411, 430, 469 Marʾ al-Qays 3, 59–60, 62–63
Larcher xi, xvi, xviii–xliii, 1–2, 6, 15–16, 28, Massora 20, 27
44, 52, 55, 57, 102, 115, 119, 128–129, 132– Maṭlūb 247, 262–263, 265, 387
133, 141–147, 172–173, 177–181, 186, 188, Maupertuis 31, 55
192–193, 200, 211, 213–214, 238, 240, 242– Maʿadd 62, 67, 76, 280, 282
243, 252, 257–258, 265, 267–268, 281, Maʿarrī 7, 160, 170, 267–270, 273–274, 278–
285, 290, 302, 312, 321, 325, 390–392, 285, 340
394–395, 397, 407–408, 435, 440–441, McCarus 449
449, 475–476, 491, 493, 534–535, 537– Merx 193
538 Meyer-Lübke 113, 116
Larzul 361 Mḥallamiye 106, 116
Law 298, 325 Miḫāʾīl 486
Lecomte 411, 430 Mikhael 481
Lehmann 199, 212, 369 Miller (Arthur) 477
Lentin xxxi, 343, 361, 371, 511, 513, 515 Miller (Catherine) 449, 453, 456–459, 462,
Leotti 367, 369 472
Leslau 333, 335, 341 Miller (Kerith) 440
Lev-Yadun 509, 515 Miquel-Ravenel 361
Levenston 366 Miskawayh 8, 372–376, 380–381, 383, 385–
Levin xxxix, 127–128, 131, 140, 147, 173, 193 386, 388
Lewin 509, 515 Mohamed Mahmoud Younes 143, 147
Lidzbarski 62, 73 Moin 363, 369
Lindstromberg 199, 212 Molina Rueda 132, 147
Lipiński 94, 100 Monteil 411, 430
Lucas 8, 342–344, 346, 349, 359–361 Morad 482, 491
Luffin 451–453, 462–465, 471–472 Moreh 476–477, 484, 486–487, 491
Mosel 173, 193
Maalouf 369 Mosseri 485
MacAdam 73 Mossul 106, 115
MacDonald xxxii, 67, 73, 147, 193 Motzki 145–146, 193, 303, 325, 472
Macuch 79–80, 87, 100 Mous 112, 116
Maḏḥiǧ 62, 64, 67, 69 Moyal (Esther) 488
Mahmud 454–457, 459, 462, 467, 472 Moyal (Shimon) 481, 489
Malaika 85, 100 Mpampiniōtē 365, 369
Mālik the Guardian of Fire 270 Mubarrad 130, 135, 140, 144, 156–158, 161, 170,
Malka 480 174–175, 192, 267, 276
Malkī 485 Muǧāhid 303–304, 307, 309–310, 323
Malone 83, 86, 100 Muḥammad Salīm al-Ǧundī 268–269, 283
Malūl 486 Mühlhäusler 452, 472
Mān 485 Müller xxxiii, 73, 361, 369, 491
Manfredi 452–453, 459–462, 472 Munaǧǧid 302, 323, 372, 376–377, 389
Mansur 482, 491 Munkar 270
Marogy xliii, 127–128, 265 Murādī 164, 170
Martin xl, 30, 72, 193, 284, 340, 361, 365, 368, Muraoka xli–xlii, 78, 81–83, 100
430 Myers 499, 515
index of names 545

Nacereddine 223, 235, 240 Qaryat al-Fāw 60, 73

Naǧm 144, 491, 509 Qaṭṭān 485
Naǧrān 62, 64 Qāzān 495, 514
Naḥamyās 485, 491 Qazwīnī 239, 243, 247, 257–258, 264
Naḥḥās 145, 213 Qūǧmān 485
Nakīr 270 Qurayš 132, 290, 302, 312, 314, 321–322
Naqqāš 482, 487–488 Qurayziyya 474
Naṣrid 63 Qurṭubī 162, 169–170
Nassār 290, 293, 302, 310, 316, 325 Quwaiṭa 485
Negev 74
Newby 475, 491 Rabin 74, 312, 325
Neyreneuf 394, 408, 411, 430 Rāġib al-ʾIṣfahānī 8, 375
Nhial 453–454, 472 Raschke 74
Nizār 62, 64, 67 Ratcliffe 79, 101
Nöldeke 78, 81, 83, 86, 100, 304, 334, 341 Rāzī 7, 239, 244, 246–248, 250–257, 260, 264,
307, 309–310
Olinder 74 Rebhan 450
Olson 29, 31, 37, 55 Reckendorf 517, 525, 530, 532–533
Owens xxxiii, xxxviii, xlvi, 6, 79, 87–88, Redhouse 364, 370
92–93, 95–96, 100–101, 132, 142, 145, Reichmuth xxxvii, 465–466, 469, 472
147, 172–173, 175–176, 193, 242, 265, Reig 398, 408, 410–411, 430
280, 285, 325, 453, 462, 465, 468, 471– Rejwan 483, 486, 491
473 Rescher 247, 265
Retsö xxx, xxxiv, 74, 80, 93–97, 101, 105–
Paine 285 106, 110, 116, 132, 147, 466, 472, 523–525,
Paradis 81, 98, 101, 273, 303 533
Parker 74, 436, 449 Reuschel 215, 227, 235, 240, 411, 430
Pascal 20–21, 27–28 Rey-Debove 35, 55
Passeron 143, 147 Rhodokanakis 74
Payne Smith 74, 273, 285 Riḍwān 271–272, 279–281
Peiser 74–75 Riegel 182, 193
Peled 105, 116, 177, 193 Rippin xxxiv, 302, 308–311, 325, 380, 389
Pellat 212, 274, 285 Robache 390–391, 393–395, 398–400, 407–
Peña 129, 142–143, 147 408 (also see Baize-Varin)
Pennacchietti xxxi, xlvi, 8, 212 Robin xxxvii–xxxviii, 40, 47, 55, 63, 74–75
Pérès 410–413, 415, 417, 430 Rodinson 75
Périer 215, 240 Roman xxxii, 41, 44, 54–55, 59, 74, 224, 254,
Persians 63, 69 261, 367, 441, 515, 535
Persson 467, 472 Romans 63, 69, 74
Peters 74, 383, 389 Rosenthal 78, 80–83, 85–86, 101, 333, 372,
Pigulevskaja 74 389
Pinon xlvi, 6, 221, 225, 227, 232, 236–237, 394, Rousseau 31–33, 55, 501
397, 407 Rubin 116
Pirenne 74 Rustomji 273, 278–279, 285
Płonka xlvi, 10, 493–494, 496, 500–503, 506, Ryckmans 75
509, 512, 515
Porset 31, 55 Sabuni 106, 116, 449
Pulgram 30, 55 Ṣaġānī 334–335, 340
Sakkākī xl, 6–7, 242–257, 259–266
546 index of names

Salamé 511, 515 Spang-Hanssen 197, 208, 212

Ṣaleḥ 273, 285 Spinoza 20, 27–28, 52, 55
Sāmarrāʾī 269, 285, 328, 338, 340–341 Spitaler 66, 75, 100
Šammāḫ 336, 340 Stanovich 248, 266
Šammar 62, 64–65, 67 Starcky 95, 101
Sampson 30, 46, 55 Starkey 484, 492
Sanni 371, 389 Steingass 363–364, 370
Ṣanūʿ 482, 484–485, 487, 491–492 (also see Steinschneider 476, 492
ʾAbū Naẓẓāra) Stillman 474, 492
Sartori xlvi, 129–130, 133, 137, 142, 144, 147, Street 247–248, 266
392, 408, 411, 430 Suḥaym 275, 284
Sartre 75, 501 Suleiman xxxix, 211–212
Šartūnī 430 Sultani 509, 515
Sasanian 69 Sūsa 486, 488, 492
Sasse 106, 112, 116, 442, 450 Suyūṭī 154, 160–161, 163–165, 167–168, 170,
Sasson 485–486 267–268, 271, 275, 281, 284–285, 289,
Sāwī 245–248, 250–251, 254–256, 264 295, 299, 302, 306–307, 309, 311, 319–321,
Schneuwly 31, 55–56 323, 325, 330, 333–334, 339, 375–379,
Schoeler 279, 285, 309–310, 325 387
Schulz 227, 235, 240, 372
Scribner 31, 37, 55 Ṭabarī 307–310, 315, 323, 380, 387
Segert 83, 98, 101 Ṯābit 335, 340, 436
Seidensticker xlii, 371, 389 Tafaẓẓolī 278, 285
Ṣemaḥ 486 Ṯāǧ 68
Shahid 60, 72, 75 Taha 175, 184, 187, 193, 274, 473
Shenhav 481, 491 Talmon 193, 293, 326
Shlonsky 107, 116 Tawḥīdī 8, 372–373, 384–385, 388
Shohat 481, 492 Ṯaʿālibī 319, 382, 387
Sībawayh (see Sībawayhi) Ṯaʿlab 104, 163, 170, 267, 276, 293, 329–330,
Sībawayhi xxix, xli, xliii, 3–5, 93, 101–103, 340
109, 115–116, 119–128, 130–131, 134–135, Thomason 453, 472–473
140, 143, 145, 151–159, 161–162, 166– Tibrīzī 278, 284, 320, 329
167, 169–171, 173–175, 184, 192–193, Tirmiḏī 372, 378–379, 381–382
200–201, 209–210, 257–258, 260–261, Tobi 492
264–265, 267, 271–276, 282, 284–285, Toelle 277, 285
293, 295, 298–302, 312, 314, 317, 319, 321, Tosco 451, 453, 457–458, 462, 465, 467–468,
323–324, 333, 338–339, 519–522, 529, 471, 473
532 Trabulsi 268, 285
Silvestre de Sacy 114, 137, 142, 148, 215, 241, Traini 365, 370
338, 517, 526, 530, 533, 537 Tresso 226, 241, 369
Simon xl, 243, 247, 265 Tropea 364, 370
Sīrāfī 152, 155, 162, 170, 210, 316 Troupeau xx, 154, 171, 285, 385
Širbīnī 108, 114, 144 Trumpp 531–533
Sivan 366, 369–370
Smyth 265–266 Vachek 30, 34, 55
Snir 484, 488, 492 Van Gelder 272, 279, 282, 285
Sokoloff 75 Van Mol 494, 515
Solomon 290, 292, 325 Vandeloise 196–197, 212
Somekh 486 Venezky 35, 46, 56
index of names 547

Verbrugge 16, 28 Zaǧǧāǧī xxxviii, 4–5, 42, 56, 119–120, 122, 127,
Versteegh xix, xxii–xxiii, xxx–xxxi, xxxviii– 139–141, 143, 145, 172–173, 175, 177, 179–
xxxix, xli–xlii, xlvi, 9, 53, 103, 116, 130, 194, 316
132, 140, 145–146, 148, 172–173, 175–176, Zamaḫšarī 144–145, 171, 174–175, 192, 260,
180, 183, 186–190, 193–194, 212, 243, 249, 264, 320, 330–331, 335, 339–340, 380,
265–266, 269–270, 282, 286, 289, 302, 388
310, 324–326, 408, 447, 449–450, 452, Zappa 1
471–473, 475, 492 Zarkašī 377–378, 388
Vial 484, 492 Zenker 364, 370
Violet 63, 75 Zilkha 485
Vogt 79, 83, 101 Zimmermann 245, 266
von Soden 70, 327, 332, 335–336, 341 Zuhayr b. ʾAbī Sulmā 284
Vygotsky 31, 36, 55–56 Zürcher 444, 450
Zwettler 57, 68, 70, 76
Wādī al-Ṣawt 59
Waller 360 ʾAbū al-Ḥasan Saʿīd b. Masʿada 275
Waltisberg 533 ʾAbū Ḥātim 318–319
Warburton 31, 56 ʾAbū Misḥal 329, 338
Wardini 75, 503, 509, 515, 533 ʾAbū Naẓẓāra 484, 490 (also see Ṣanūʿ)
Wartburg 361, 365, 370 ʾAbū Zubayd (Ḥarmala b. al-Munḏir) 271,
Watkins 96, 101 283
Wehr 70, 327, 337, 341, 365, 370, 410–411, 431, ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq al-Zaǧǧāǧ 278, 340
436, 444, 450 ʾAbū ʿUbayd 8, 284, 302–306, 309–310, 315,
Weil 21–22, 28, 102, 114 320, 322, 328–330, 338
Weipert xxxix, 7–8, 269, 286, 375, 389 ʾAbū ʿUbayda 294, 305–309, 311, 318, 320–
Weiss 375, 389 322
Wellens 451–452, 462, 464–465, 468, ʾAḫfaš al-ʾAwsaṭ 188, 190, 275–276
473 ʾAnbārī 102–104, 114, 151, 168–169, 372, 386
Wilmsen 106–107, 116 ʾAnṣārī 104, 149, 151, 158, 163–165, 169, 200–
Winckler 75 202, 210, 284, 328–329, 407, 429, 538
Winford 452, 473 ʾAsad 274
Woidich xli, 99, 449, 466, 468–469, 473, ʾAṣmaʿī 305, 316, 335, 338
514 ʾAstarābāḏī xxii, xxxii, 1, 6, 46, 54, 151, 161,
Wright xxxiv, 67, 76, 137, 148, 207, 212, 215, 163, 168–169, 174, 176, 191, 203–205, 208–
241, 327, 341, 411, 431, 517, 521, 525, 530– 210, 277, 284, 538
531, 533, 536 ʾAzharī 295, 319, 322, 333–335, 338
ʾIṣfahānī 8, 375, 385, 387
Yāqūt al-Rūmī 73 ʾIskāfī 335, 339
Yardeni 76 ʾUšmūnī 150, 154, 159–160, 167, 170
Yāsīn 338, 340, 509, 515
Yaʿarī 492 ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Ǧurǧānī xxiv, 1, 137–138,
Yaʿqūb 144–145, 158, 171, 243, 298, 301, 323, 140–141, 143, 242
338–339, 482, 484–485, 487, 491–492, ʿAbd al-Tawwāb 170, 339, 371, 387–388
502, 507 ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Maymanī al-Rāǧkūtī 268
Yehuda 481, 483, 491–492 ʿAbdī 164
Yūnus b. Ḥabīb 120, 140 ʿAbduh 487, 490
ʿAhwānī 367–368
Zabīdī 75, 334–336, 340, 388 ʿAql 10, 493–498, 500, 502–509, 512, 514–
Zaborski xxxiii, 10, 79, 101, 115 515
548 index of names

ʿAskarī 8, 263, 372, 376–384, 386, 405 ʿUḍayma 170–171, 192

ʿAwwād 339, 494–495, 498–504, 507, 512–513, ʿUkbarī xxxviii, 130, 145, 159, 168, 170
515 ʿUmar 144–145, 169, 171, 192, 210, 264, 276,
ʿIǧl Ibn Hofi-ʿAmm 68 284, 338, 340, 388, 393, 408
Index of Subjects

-n suffix in Amharic 111 Alliance Israélite Universelle 480, 483, 488,

absolute case 112 492
absolute conventional 251 Amharic 108, 111–112, 114
absolute object 163, 166 Anatolian branch 436
absolutive 112 anti-Zionism 488
accompli 213, 215–216, 219–221, 224, 238, apocopé 219–221, 232, 239
416 apodosis 155, 161, 164, 167–168, 257, 459, 461,
accusative 5, 46, 65, 104–105, 108, 111, 130– 463–464, 466–467, 470
131, 136–140, 149–152, 154, 158–159, 162, apposition 106, 519, 525, 530
165, 167, 174, 176, 178–179, 181–185, 191, Arab Nationalism 68
439–441, 448, 519 arabe classique xxi–xxiii, xxv–xxxiv, 6, 55,
active participle 154, 156–157, 160, 163–164, 115, 122, 145–146, 192, 207, 211, 213, 215,
442, 447, 521 221, 239–240, 285, 392, 407–408, 430,
actualiser 227 533
addition 6, 36, 44, 47, 49, 76, 78, 110, 129–130, arabe contemporain 214–216, 219, 221, 224,
142, 148, 151, 162, 166, 212, 241, 249, 256, 227, 238, 240, 412
281, 335, 341, 431, 441, 452–453, 455, 458, arabe de presse 392, 401, 406, 411
460, 487, 533, 536 Arabic xxiii–xxiv, xxvi–xxxiv, xxxvi, xxxviii–
adjectif de relation 393 xlvii, 1–11, 15–16, 29, 31, 33, 35–53, 55,
adjective 4, 35, 44, 110, 134–143, 150, 154, 157, 57–69, 71–80, 83–93, 95–103, 105–
163–164, 182, 331, 362, 365–366, 510, 519– 108, 111–117, 128–135, 139–143, 145–149,
522, 526, 529–530 152, 171–173, 175–176, 179, 188, 192–197,
adjunct 5, 172–175, 183–185, 189 200–201, 203–204, 206–207, 209–
adverb 104, 149, 154, 159, 162, 167–168, 172, 212, 239–245, 247, 249–253, 255, 257,
519–520 259–261, 263, 265–271, 273–275, 277,
Afroasiatic 2–3, 11, 71, 102, 112–116 279–287, 306, 324–329, 331, 333, 335,
agent case 112 337, 339–341, 362–367, 369–370, 388–
agent 112, 142, 149, 151, 154, 156–157, 159–160, 389, 396, 402–405, 407–409, 430–431,
163–166, 183, 187, 189–190, 297, 381–382, 433, 435–463, 465–495, 497–500,
397, 463, 520–523, 525, 527–530 502–504, 509–511, 515–525, 527–533,
al-mafhūm al-ʿurfī 251 536
al-munaẓẓamāt al-ḥuqūqiyya 405 Arabic borrowings 438
al-munaẓẓamāt al-ʾirhābiyya al-filasṭīniyya Arabic creole 9, 462, 473
403, 405 Arabic dialects xli, 66–67, 78–79, 83–85, 90,
al-muṭlaq al-ʿurfī 251 105, 107, 239, 337, 435–437, 440–443,
al-taqayyud bi-l-ʿilāǧ 394 449, 466, 469–470, 472, 474, 511
al-wuǧūdiyya al-lā dāʾima 251 Arabic in Arabic characters 479, 481, 485,
al-wuǧūdiyya al-lā-ḍarūriyya 251 489
al-ʾAšbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir fī al-naḥw 268, Arabic in Hebrew characters 475–476, 479
284 Arabic journalism 492
al-ʾUṣūl fī al-naḥw 144, 170, 191 Arabic lexicographical tradition 324–325,
alethic modalities 245–246 388
alethic 245–246, 251 Arabic linguistic tradition xxxiii, xxxix, 6,
aléthique 214, 221–222, 224 43, 129, 131, 145, 211, 242, 249, 265–266,
alienation 532 284
Alliance Française 480 Arabic memoirs 477–478, 481, 484, 486
550
Arabic pidgin 9, 453, 469
Arabic poetry 60, 268, 518
Arabic press and printing 479, 482
Arabic theatre 487
Arabic writing by Christians 489
Arabic writing by Jews 482
Aramaic-Arabic contact 80, 97
Aramaic 2–3, 20, 40–41, 59, 61, 67–68, 75, 77–
81, 83–88, 90, 92, 94–101, 334–335, 368,
470–471, 474
article xi, xiv, xvi, xxii, xxx, xli, 2–4, 15, 27,
44, 46, 57–58, 64–65, 68, 70, 78, 80, 97,
99, 102, 119, 129, 168, 180, 186, 191, 195–
198, 203, 205, 208, 210, 230, 236, 242,
268–269, 274–276, 301, 325, 327, 343,
390–393, 405, 411, 424, 428, 451, 458,
484, 489, 493–494, 496–497, 504, 509,
516–517, 524, 532
aspect markers 9, 451–453, 457–458, 462,
467, 469–471
aspectual 9, 178, 451, 468, 472
attributive qualifying adjective 4, 134–135,
137–138
badal 164, 281, 530
Baghdadi Arabic 85, 87, 96–98
base de dérivation 390, 398
base verbale 391
Baumwolle 365
Berber 112–113, 116
Biblical Aramaic 78, 81, 85–86, 92, 97–98,
101, 368
Biblical Hebrew 2, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 107
byʿ 69
calque xv, 222, 446–448
case 4–5, 10, 16, 21, 24, 36–42, 45–51, 58–
61, 64–67, 69, 78, 84, 87, 89–90, 93,
97, 103–105, 107–108, 111–116, 129–135,
137–143, 147, 150–154, 156–157, 160,
163–165, 168, 175–183, 186, 188–189, 191,
197, 205, 207–209, 248, 250–251, 256,
260, 267–268, 271–272, 274, 281, 330–
337, 348, 363, 411, 440, 445, 447–448,
454, 458, 461, 464, 469, 473, 475–478,
482–483, 485, 487, 493, 518, 521–524,
529–531
circumstance 63, 65, 69, 175, 183, 187–189,
367, 452
index of subjects
circumstantial qualifier 109, 525, 528
circumstantial 5, 109, 149–150, 152, 154, 158–
159, 162, 167, 172, 178–179, 525–526,
528
Classical Arabic xxix, xxxix, xliv, 3, 9, 11,
41–42, 61–63, 66, 69, 79, 88–89, 92–93,
95–96, 105, 107–108, 111, 115, 132, 203, 267,
281, 283, 286, 325, 448, 468, 475, 477,
500, 511, 518, 522, 533
classification of sentences 165, 251
cohesion 10, 493, 527–530, 533
comparative method 79, 101
complement 2, 6, 45, 65, 112, 140, 155, 161,
163–164, 183–185, 187, 242, 257–258, 262,
440, 519
complétive 226
complex sentences 249, 259
compound of sentences 177–179, 183
concordant 110, 530
conditional particle 155, 161, 168, 257, 260
conditionnel xxix, xxxii, 115, 230–232
conditionnelle 232, 430
constituent xviii, 122, 161, 177, 182, 184, 188,
196–197, 253, 258
constraint and repair schema 81, 84, 86, 88,
92, 97–98
contact xv, 3, 9, 77–80, 94, 96–99, 200, 289–
290, 295, 303, 305–307, 313, 324, 399,
436, 448–449, 472, 475, 487
contemporary Arabic xl, 58, 79, 487
context xli, 3–4, 7, 10, 15, 37, 46–47, 59–60,
68–69, 73, 78, 80, 83–84, 86, 88–89, 92–
93, 95, 104–105, 115, 129, 132, 147, 153, 160,
162, 166, 171, 173, 177, 180–182, 185, 196,
204–205, 208, 249, 264, 324, 452, 454,
456, 467–468, 481, 489, 513, 518–519, 524,
527–528, 530, 532
contexte syntagmatique 396
contingent 214, 239, 251
continuous 198, 272, 451, 453–458, 460, 462,
464–468, 470
copula 105–106, 116, 430, 454, 526–527, 529
Coran xxii, xxvii, xxxi, xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxvi,
28, 147, 239, 284–285, 301–308, 311–315,
317–322, 377, 379–382, 389, 440
coranique xxix–xxx, xxxii–xxxiii, 146, 211,
214–215, 221, 225, 238, 301, 303, 307–310,
315–316, 318–322, 325, 372, 380, 386, 389,
408
index of subjects
corpus xv, 6, 10, 24, 136–137, 213–221, 223–
224, 226–228, 232, 235, 237–238, 240,
261, 267, 291, 317, 368, 390–395, 397–
398, 400–401, 403, 405–407, 410–412,
414–415, 418, 424, 429–430, 435, 451,
464, 469, 476–478, 481, 483–485, 487,
489, 493, 499–500, 502–503, 505–506,
512–513, 535, 538
corroborative 106, 110, 227
cotton cloth 363–365, 367
Crémieux Decree 480
creole Arabic 453
Cushiti 112
daḫīl 292, 294–300, 315–316, 515
ḍamīr al-faṣl 520
ḍamīr al-šaʾn 430, 520
ḍamīr al-ʾišāra 520
ḍamīr 116, 151, 154, 411, 430, 520, 527, 531
ḍarūrī 251
definiteness 10, 523–525, 529–530
definition 5–6, 33, 35, 37, 42, 44, 46, 77, 129,
134, 137, 139, 168, 171–172, 174, 179, 186–
191, 203, 205, 242–244, 248, 252, 333,
512–513, 520
deictic 103, 105–106
deixis 66, 116
dependent case 104–105, 108, 111, 113–114
dérivation xi, xvi, xviii, xxii, xxv–xxvi, xxix,
xxxi, xxxiii–xxxiv, 55, 285, 390–392, 398
desinential inflection 4, 129–135, 138, 143
dia-planar diffusion 3, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87,
89, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 101
diachronic linguistic typology 195
diachronie 395
dialecte 121, 225, 311–314, 321, 360–361, 406,
411, 499, 511, 514
diatopique 218, 406
dictal 234, 239
dictionnaires arabes 361, 369
dictum 20, 234, 538
différenciation sémantique 395, 400, 403
différenciation syntaxique 394
diffusion xiv, xxxvii, 3, 77–79, 81, 83, 85, 87,
89, 91, 93–95, 97, 99, 101, 239, 275
diglossia 10, 71, 448, 516
ḏimma 479
ḏimmī 475
direct (object) 184
551
direct object 105–106, 108, 111–112, 141, 150–
151, 162–163, 173, 519, 523, 526
distribution among Arabic varieties 80
ditransitive 104–105, 110, 116, 181
Diyarbakır group 436
double linguistic revolution 500
ductus 130
duratif 215
elative 103, 108, 207, 275–276, 522
epenthesis 81–85, 88, 90–91, 93
epenthetic vowel 80–88, 90–92, 98
Epistle of Forgiveness 268, 279, 285
excepted element 109
existential sentence 182
expansion xvii, 5, 79, 94, 96, 158, 160, 172, 174,
176, 179, 181–182, 184–185, 187, 191, 243,
453, 456, 462, 528
extension 4–5, 31, 34, 36, 44, 88, 97, 150, 160,
175, 180, 182–183, 188, 190, 291, 363
Facebook 395–397, 402–403, 405, 409
faḫr 2–3, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 75,
170, 246, 264, 284, 307, 339
falsafa xxvi, 8, 371–373, 375, 377, 379, 381,
383, 385–387, 389
farq 8, 371, 378–379, 388
fāʿil 149, 151, 154–155, 159–160, 162, 166, 175,
183, 187, 189–190, 520–521, 523, 527–528
fiction 478, 484
fiqh 239, 306, 319, 323, 382, 387
fiʿāl 393–394, 396, 408
focus 2, 31, 36, 43, 54, 102, 111, 180, 186, 268,
334, 435–436, 442, 452, 465, 481, 493,
528
Form-iv Verbs 441
forme factitive 390, 397, 441
forme ii 390
forme iii 393, 408
formes augmentées 391–393
formes dérivées 390–391
frame 40, 197, 388, 513
French 5, 8, 29, 31, 35–36, 39, 46, 51, 56, 113,
195–199, 202, 204–210, 337, 362, 365–
366, 444, 478–480, 483–485, 487, 501,
503, 511
Fula 98
furūq 372, 376–379, 381–384, 386–387
fuṣaḥāʾ al-ʿArab 294
552 index of subjects

fustagno 362–363 Hebrew xxxix–xl, xlv, 2, 15–23, 25, 27–28,

fustān 362–365, 367 40–41, 44–47, 50, 52–53, 79–80, 92, 99–
fušṭān 363–364, 366–367 100, 107, 115–116, 330, 334–335, 366–368,
fustanella 364 474–479, 481, 483–488, 490–492
fustaneum 362, 365–367 hiǧāʾ 42–43, 69
fustian 8, 362–367, 369 ḥikāya 4, 119–123, 125–127, 131
futaine 362 ḥikāya 4, 119–123, 125–127, 131
futur 225, 229–230, 235–239 houris 7, 277, 282, 285
ḥurūf al-ǧarr 195
ġālib 120, 122, 228 ḥurūf šamsiyya 64
general absolute 248–252
genitive 65, 112, 130–131, 134–135, 137–140, ideology 4, 10, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 141,
149, 151, 185, 190 143, 145, 147, 485, 493, 495, 497, 499, 501,
gerboise 8, 342–343, 345, 347, 349, 351, 353, 503, 505, 507, 509, 511, 513, 515
355, 357, 359–361 immortal youths 279
Germanic 3 imperative 133, 256, 268, 332, 452, 473, 519–
ǧihād 394, 399 520
gilit dialects 482 impossibilité 378, 386
government 10, 67, 70, 151, 165, 177, 466, 526 impossible 25, 122, 127, 138, 214, 222, 234–237,
grammaire xx, xxii–xxiv, xxxi, xxxiv–xxxv, 442, 448, 476, 523, 527
1, 32, 52–55, 99, 115, 128, 145–148, 192– inaccompli 213, 216, 219–222, 224–227, 229,
193, 207, 211, 213, 215–216, 221, 224–225, 231, 235–236, 238, 415–416
227, 239–241, 285, 291, 298, 304, 361, 392, independent case 103–104
407–408, 424, 430, 471, 499, 531–533, independent parallel development 3, 77–78,
535, 537 96, 98
grammaires arabisantes 392 indicatif 219–221, 224–225, 228, 415–416
grammaticalization 5, 116, 199, 211–212, 447, indicative 131, 133
471 indirect (object) 105, 184
Ǧumal 5, 42, 56, 119, 127, 139, 145, 149, 169, infinitif 393–396, 399, 402
180–187, 189–192 inflection 4, 10, 129–136, 138, 140–143, 518–
ǧumal 5, 42, 56, 119, 127, 139, 145, 149, 169, 520, 523–524
180–187, 189–192 inflectional ending 4, 129–130, 142–143
ǧumla kubrā 158, 160 inheritance 3, 31, 77–78, 97, 101
ǧumla ẓarfiyya 177 innovation xxvi, 11, 55, 62, 132, 141, 243, 392,
453, 456–457, 530
ḫabar kāna wa-ʾaḫawāti-hā 110 intension 178, 186–187, 291–292
ḫabar xxiii, 5, 110, 150, 152, 154–156, 158–160, interprétation xvi, xxxi, xxxiv, 123, 125, 146,
162–164, 166–168, 171, 176–177, 179–182, 225, 230, 237, 294, 303–304, 306, 308, 311,
184, 186–188, 252, 258, 321, 414, 535 321–322, 379, 397, 404, 419, 428, 515
habituality 9, 451–452, 456–458, 464–465, interrogative 126, 152, 159, 186, 189–190, 200,
470–471 451, 520
habitude 222 irrealis 451, 454–458, 460, 465, 467, 471–472
hākaḏa 223 ism lā 109
ḥāl 5, 109, 138, 149–150, 152, 156, 158–159, 162, ism ʾinna wa-ʾaḫawāti-hā 110
167, 173–176, 181, 183–184, 186, 188–190, ism 109–110, 120, 136, 139, 152, 154, 162, 173,
231, 402, 418–424, 520 177, 180–182, 184, 188–190, 192, 216, 301,
Harari 77–78 328, 519–522, 527, 530
Ḫaṣāʾiṣ 135–136, 144, 162, 169, 307, 323, 372, ištiqāq xxxi, 281, 285, 371–372, 387
385, 387 ittisāʿ 173, 194, 427
index of subjects
Jewish Nationalism 485
Jews 9–10, 367, 474–477, 479–486, 488–492,
515
Juba Arabic 9, 451–459, 461–463, 465, 467–
469, 471–473
Judaeo-Arabic 475, 480, 485, 487, 489–492
jussive 77–78, 155, 519
kalām al-ʿArab 290–295, 304, 312, 317, 321
kāna al-istimrāriyya 214
kāna xxxiv, 6, 110, 149, 159, 161, 167, 181, 185,
189, 214–222, 224–226, 231, 235, 237–238,
240, 255, 259–261, 295, 300, 317, 384, 395, luġāt 280, 302–303, 310–314, 317, 321, 323,
424–425, 467, 519, 527, 530
Karaite Jews 487
Ketiv 20, 22–27
Ki-Nubi 9, 451–453, 455, 457–459, 461–465,
467–469, 471–473
Kitāb (Sībawayhi) xxix, xli, 4–5, 8, 101,
114–115, 119–128, 130–131, 134–135, 140,
144–145, 151–159, 161, 169–171, 173, 184,
192, 210, 246, 257, 261, 264, 267, 271–277, mafʿūl min ʾaǧli-hi 110
284–285, 291, 293, 295–296, 298–302,
304, 310, 312, 316, 321, 323–324, 326, 333, mafʿūl xxiii, 5, 108, 110, 150, 162–163, 165–166,
338–340, 364, 368–369, 371–373, 378,
386–388, 429, 514, 520–522, 529, 532
Kozluk-Sason group 436
Kurdish 443, 446–449
lā yakūnu 6, 227, 235–239
labials 2, 15–17, 19–21, 23, 25, 27
lafẓ 41–43, 292, 305, 376, 383–384, 388
lām-ʾalif 59, 62
lam xxv, 63–64, 133, 138, 149, 153, 155, 163–
164, 178, 209, 220, 231, 249, 259–260, 295,
301, 418, 426, 428, 519
lan yakūna 227, 237–239
laysa 6, 120–121, 138, 160, 228, 233, 235–236,
238–239, 255–256, 260, 297, 300, 304,
530
lexical 2, 7–8, 38–39, 44–46, 54, 69, 86, 189,
208, 215, 268, 280–281, 295–296, 314, 317,
376–377, 405, 407, 449, 474, 482
Lexicography xxxix, 1, 267, 280, 324–325,
365, 388–389
linear epenthesis 90
linen cloth 367
linking pronoun 528–529
Lisān al-ʿArab 73, 169, 284, 323, 339, 407, 429 mawḍūʿ 229, 252, 372, 375–376
553
Loanwords 7, 278, 285, 332, 436–438
localist interpretation 205
locative sentence 179
locative 5, 172–179, 182–183, 187, 189
logic xxxv, 1, 3, 6–7, 35, 131, 186–187, 199, 208,
212, 242–248, 254–257, 259–260, 262–
266
long vowels 64, 130, 143, 517–518
luġa xxx, 1, 132, 171, 229, 239, 271–272, 281,
283–285, 294, 297, 300, 302, 306, 308,
310–315, 319, 321–325, 338–340, 372, 375,
386–387, 408, 499
328, 499
luġawī 285, 312, 314, 538
mafāʿīl 174, 185
mafhūm 208, 250, 255
mafʿūl fī-hi 5, 172–177, 179–181, 183, 185–191,
193
mafʿūl la-hu/li-ʾaǧli-hi 165
mafʿūl muṭlaq xxiii, 163, 166, 185, 192
172–177, 179–181, 183–194, 328, 440, 523
mafʿūlā ẓanantu wa-ʾaḫawāti-hā 110
mafʿūlāt 174, 185
maḥall 4–5, 149–152, 154, 156–158, 162, 165–
167
mahmā 216, 218–220, 239
man 1, 4, 23, 31, 89, 112, 119–121, 125–126, 131,
141, 155–156, 186, 202–205, 210, 219, 233,
250, 263, 271–274, 276, 280, 282–283,
305, 328, 352, 364, 380, 425, 444, 462,
470, 483–484, 510, 512, 517, 519, 528–530
Mandaic 79, 100–101
manṣūbāt 185
Mardini Arabic 9, 435–436, 438–440, 442–
448
Mardini group 436
marking 9–10, 103, 107–108, 111–112, 440, 451–
452, 456–457, 464–465, 470–471, 533
maṣdar 103, 108, 110, 154, 162, 175, 183–184,
189, 382–383, 393–394, 396, 398–399,
530
masʾala zunbūriyya 3, 102–103, 105, 107, 109,
111, 113, 115
matres lectionis 64
554 index of subjects

maʿānī xxxiv, xl, 6–7, 100, 145, 155, 169,
242–243, 256–258, 262, 265, 322, 341,
375–376
maʿnā 104, 131, 168, 178, 376–377, 383–384,
388
meaning 2, 5–6, 8, 15, 19, 22–24, 26–27, 35–
36, 38, 104, 132, 134, 141–142, 150, 152,
163–164, 166–168, 173–174, 176, 178–180,
182, 184–189, 195–199, 201–202, 204–210,
242–244, 249–250, 255, 258, 262–263,
272–275, 277, 281–282, 328, 331–337,
362–365, 367, 435, 444–447, 452, 454–
455, 458, 468, 470–471, 510–511, 513,
518–521, 531
metaphor 5–6, 168, 195, 197–201, 203–209,
211, 244, 262
Middle Arabic xl, 10, 129, 490, 516, 533
minimal meaning 249
mise en exergue 215
modal 6, 9, 129–130, 203, 223–224, 235, 244,
253, 265, 457–460, 467, 470–471, 518, 527
modalisation 226, 234, 239
modalité 213–215, 221–227, 231, 234–235,
237–239
modalities 6, 211, 245–246, 253
modalization 6, 208
modalized sentence 251
Modern Turkish 435
modus 234
mood 10, 130–131, 133, 440, 471, 518
morphology xl, 1, 6–7, 9–11, 46, 53–54, 100–
101, 146, 242–243, 267–268, 270, 272, 280,
282, 328, 337
mubālaġa 3, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73,
75
mubtadaʾ 119, 122, 138–140, 151–152, 160, 165,
177, 180–182, 188, 414, 527–528
muḍmar 138, 152, 531
Mufaṣṣal xxiii, 144–145, 170–171, 174–175, 192,
264
mufāʿala 396
mufrad 4, 149–150
muǧāhada 394
mumkin 203
munādā 109
munaẓẓama 9, 390–391, 399–402, 404, 406–
407
munaẓẓama brīṭāniyya ġayr ḥukūmiyya 400,
404
munaẓẓama mustaqilla 399
munaẓẓamat al-Muʾtamar al-ʾislāmī 401
munaẓẓamat al-Ṣiḥḥa al-ʿālamiyya 401, 405
munaẓẓamat al-Taḥrīr al-filasṭīniyya 400
munaẓẓamat al-ʾUmam al-muttaḥida 400,
404
munaẓẓamat al-ʿAfw al-duwaliyya 401, 405
munaẓẓamat al-ʿAmal al-dīmūqrāṭī al-šaʿbī
405
munaẓẓamat Badr 400
munaẓẓamat ḥizb al-Baʿṯ 402, 405
munaẓẓamat ʾIlā al-ʾamām 405
Muqtaḍab 130, 135, 144, 156–157, 170, 174, 192
Muqtaṣid fī šarḥ risālat al-ʾĪḍāḥ 138, 144
mušabbah bi-l-mafʿūl 174
musnad ʾilay-hi 149–150
musnad 149–150, 252
mustaṯnā 109
muṭlaq xxiii, 108, 163, 166, 185, 192, 249, 251
muwallad 7, 292, 294–297, 316, 515
muʿālaǧa 9, 390–391, 394–395, 406
muʿālaǧat al-miyāh 394
muʿālaǧat al-ʾaydz 396
muʿālaǧat maraḍ al-saraṭān 394
muʿālaǧat muškila 394
muʿarrab 273, 294–297, 315, 319–320, 322–
323
muʿrab 294–296, 298
nāba manāb 5, 154, 162, 169
nafas 62, 64
nafaš 67
Nahḍa 265, 479, 482
nasab 63
naṣb 104, 108, 111, 113–114, 136, 138, 173, 192,
520, 529
naʿt 134–135, 139, 150, 521, 528
nbl 69
nécessaire 6, 141, 213–219, 221, 223–227, 229,
231, 233–235, 237–239, 241, 298, 358, 373,
427
necessary 33, 37, 40, 58, 68, 77, 94, 131, 133,
245, 251–252, 262, 445, 478, 531
nécessité 214–216, 219, 223–224, 228, 238,
308, 373–374, 376, 379
nefeš 67
négation xxxi–xxxii, 227, 235–240, 307–308,
321
nḥl 69
index of subjects
niḥrīr 294
nom de procès 393–396, 398–401, 403
Nomen unitatis 334
nominal sentence 139, 149, 151–152, 154–155,
158, 160–161, 168, 176–177, 179–182, 184,
187–188, 224, 440, 519, 525, 527–528
nominative 65, 104, 113, 130, 133, 136–140,
150–151, 181–182, 185–186
non-agent case 112
nonverbal 129
norme 360, 391–392
Noun pattern 7–8, 327–331, 333, 335, 337,
339, 341
noun phrase 176, 525
nucleus 44, 176, 188
Nunation of the accusative 440, 448
nzl 69
object 2–3, 7, 32–33, 35–36, 38, 66, 87, 89,
103–108, 110–116, 141, 150–151, 162–163,
165–166, 173, 175, 181, 183–184, 187, 189, phrase nominale 119, 122, 215, 222, 224, 226–
196, 206, 257, 274, 328–329, 332, 336, 383,
445, 519, 523, 525–527
object marker 106–107, 114, 116
object of accompaniment 110
object of reason 110
Old Arabic 4, 79, 93, 132
Old French 113, 362, 365
omnitemporalité 214–215
omnitemporel 215
omnitemporelle 215
open syllable 80–82, 84–85, 87–90, 92–93,
97
operator 177, 181, 259–261
organisation 8, 35, 174, 185, 319, 390–391, 393, possibilité 217, 219, 226–228, 231–232, 234,
395, 397–407, 409, 425, 517
organisation combattante 401–402
organisation légitime 403
organisation officielle 403–404
organisation politique 403, 405
Oromo 98
Ottoman Turkish 435, 444
Palestinian Arabic 91, 107
paradigme dérivationnel 393
parallel independent development 79–80,
97
parsing 4, 141–142, 149–152, 165, 181
participe passif substantivé 393
555
participe passif 393, 398, 400, 404
participle 154, 156–157, 159–160, 163–164, 176,
188, 331, 442, 447, 520–522, 525–526,
528–529
particle 23, 72, 110, 133, 149–150, 152, 155, 159,
161–162, 168, 177, 181, 186, 188, 190, 197,
201, 245, 256–258, 260, 461–462, 467–
468, 515, 519, 525
partitive article 208
partitive 198, 200, 202–203, 207–210
parts of speech 10, 188, 519
passive 59, 101, 133, 331, 441, 446–447, 451,
454, 521, 523, 526
patient 187, 189, 390, 394, 520
pause 4, 91, 127, 133, 141, 153, 385, 440
pentaliterals 272
Peripatetic logic 244, 260
permutations 2, 15
petticoat 363–364, 367
phonological conspiracy 98
229, 231, 235, 238
phrase xxxi, 32, 42–43, 63, 66, 105, 119, 122,
141, 163, 165, 172–173, 176–178, 182, 192,
197, 213, 215, 220, 222, 224–235, 238, 249,
271–272, 274, 279, 320, 370, 380, 396, 417,
419, 424, 427, 429, 522, 525–526, 528–
530
pidgin Arabic 453, 472
point of departure 198, 201, 204–205, 207,
209–210
polysémie 9, 238, 407, 410–411, 413, 415, 417,
419, 421, 423, 425–427, 429, 431
polysemy 7, 9, 197–198
236–237, 239, 378, 396, 412, 415
possible xiii, xv, xix, 2, 5–6, 8, 15–16, 22, 26–
27, 30, 33, 59, 61, 68, 97, 105, 119, 121, 124,
126, 129, 136–138, 140–143, 146, 155, 158,
178, 181–182, 190–191, 203, 206, 213–217,
219, 221–223, 225–227, 229–235, 237–
239, 241, 245, 251, 253–254, 290, 292,
330–331, 333, 373, 375, 380, 383, 385, 393,
399, 402, 415, 427, 442, 451, 477–478, 517,
521, 523, 525
potentiel 229
predicate 3, 5, 104–105, 108, 110, 112, 114–115,
150, 152, 154, 157–160, 162–164, 167–168,
251–252, 454, 464, 519, 525–529
556
predication 10, 154, 167, 253–254, 257–258,
525, 527
prédication 226, 304
predicative core 5, 187–188, 191
predicative 5, 35, 111–112, 187–188, 191, 246, sawāʾ 216–218, 231
254–256, 258, 529
prepositional phrase 165, 176
présent de vérité générale 223–224
présent énergique 215
présent immédiat 223
progressive 31, 451, 453
pronominal suffix 105–106
pronoun 24, 45, 66–67, 105–106, 113, 116, 133,
149, 151–153, 155–156, 160, 165, 519–520,
522, 525–531
propositional logic 244–246, 254–256, 259
propositional 244–246, 254–256, 258–260
protasis 155, 161, 257, 463–464
pseudo-verb 107
punctuality 9, 464
qad 6, 123–125, 158, 178, 218, 221, 226–229,
231–234, 237, 239, 260, 283, 294, 296,
305, 320, 380, 397, 415, 419, 518
qalb 227, 281, 378, 388, 438
qāma maqāma 153, 155–157, 162, 169, 172
qeltu dialects 482
Qere 16, 20–27
qiyās 103, 136, 161, 247, 255, 264
quantification 196, 201, 210–211
quantifiers 198, 203, 252, 256
rafʿ 103–104, 130, 136, 138, 154, 186, 410
relative sentences 10, 525, 528
representations 3, 31, 129
restriction 126, 222, 245, 249, 257–258, 385
rhetoric xxxii, 3, 6–7, 57, 242–243, 247, 255, silm 2, 15–16
262–263, 535
Risālat al-Ġufrān 268, 277, 279, 282–283,
285
Risālat al-Malāʾika 268–271, 283, 285
Roman garment 367
Romance 3, 113, 362, 366, 449
root-pattern pair 267
rubbamā 6, 220, 227, 229, 231–232, 234, 239
s-sawra l-ləġġawiyye l-muzdawiže 500
sadda masadda 5, 152–153, 155–164, 166, 168–
169
index of subjects
salām 15–16, 127, 169–171, 322–323, 338, 386–
387, 485
Samaritan 78–79, 87, 92
sariqa 377
scope 5, 10, 81, 135, 189, 191, 253–254, 265,
478, 487, 516, 520
scriptio defectiva 130, 415
Semantic Changes 445
semantic 1, 3, 5, 8, 67, 105, 129–132, 137, 141–
142, 150, 152, 155–157, 160, 164, 173–175,
178–179, 184, 187–188, 191, 205, 253, 268,
278, 281, 327, 331–332, 334, 336, 363, 367,
435, 442, 445–446, 521, 527
semantics xliv, 6–7, 102, 199, 242, 249–250,
257–258, 265
Semitic xxvii, xxx–xxxii, xxxiv, xxxvi, xxxix–
xliii, xlv–xlvii, 1–3, 8–9, 11, 13, 15–16,
29–30, 39–41, 43, 45, 48–49, 51–53, 55,
67, 71–72, 75, 78–79, 98–102, 105, 114–116,
145–146, 192–193, 207, 265, 287, 324, 333,
340–341, 362–363, 365–367, 369, 433,
449, 472, 519, 521, 533
sens actif 396
sens figuré 394–396
sens général 395–396
sens particulier 214, 395
sens passif 395
sens privatif 390
sens propre 384, 394–396, 406
sentence structure 10, 527
shalom 2, 15–19, 21, 27
shalwa 2, 15–19, 27
ṣifa 121–123, 130, 137–138, 377, 521–522, 525,
527–530
Siirti group 436
socio-cultural basis of Arabic-Aramaic contact
94–95
sonority 83, 91
space-qualifier 109
specifying element 109
spirantization 81, 86–87
state 31, 42, 45, 94, 112, 129, 177–178, 180, 182–
183, 186, 188–190, 206, 257, 269–270, 273,
275, 279, 361–362, 388–389, 443–444,
454, 457–458, 465, 468, 478–479, 481,
483, 488, 524, 533
stem integrity 90
index of subjects 557

style xxix, 1, 21, 24, 47–48, 54, 58–59, 63, 69, tanẓīmāt siyāsiyya 403–404
229, 246, 324–325, 363, 375, 430, 538 taqdīm wa-taʾḫīr 161
stylistique 215, 236, 377, 427, 429 taqdīm 161, 164, 176
subject-predicate proposition 251 taqdīr 43, 103–105, 140, 147
subject 7, 20, 57, 59, 77, 80, 105–108, 110, 112– taqyīd 249
113, 115, 130, 137, 140, 150–152, 154, 158, tarāduf 372, 377, 389
160, 163–166, 168, 174–175, 190, 195, 242, tarḫīm 271, 281
248, 251–252, 263, 269, 272, 280, 327– taṣrīf xxxix, 7, 46, 54, 280–281
328, 477–478, 481, 485–486, 489, 519, tawkīd 106, 530
522, 527–529 taxonomic 173–174, 185, 512
subjonctif 235, 415–416 taʾḫīr 161, 164, 176
subjunctive 131, 133, 145 taʿaddin 179, 183–184, 193
Šukriyya Arabic 465–466, 469 temporal modalities 245–246
Swahili 77 temporal restrictions 245
syllogism 243–244, 246–247, 263–264 temporal 5–6, 66, 68–69, 172–177, 179, 183,
synchronie 391, 393, 401, 412 187, 189, 197–198, 206–207, 209, 245–
synonymie 8, 231, 372, 375–378, 386, 390–391, 246, 251–252, 256, 283, 452, 470, 473
393, 397, 403, 406–407 temporary non-necessary 251
synonymous 69, 154, 496 temporary non-permanent 251
synonymy 7–9, 175, 391, 406 temporary permanent 251
syntactical 3, 5, 58, 66, 68, 152, 154–160, 162, thème xviii, xxxi, 119, 122, 178, 231, 375, 414
164–169, 179, 474, 482, 521, 525, 530 thérapie 394–396, 406
syntagme prépositionnel 396 time-qualifier 109
syntax 6, 11, 102, 109, 115–116, 128, 147, 149, 172, traitement médical 395
211, 242–243, 245, 250, 253, 257, 268, 430, traitement xxv, 8, 127, 315, 390–391, 393–397,
448, 473, 519, 521, 523, 527, 529, 533 399, 401, 403, 405–407, 409, 412
Syriac xxxii, xliii, 40, 47–48, 59, 74, 78, 81–83, transitivity 179, 181, 183–185
87, 92, 95, 99–100, 273, 275, 281, 285, 511, translations into Arabic 477, 484
535 transliteration xx, 10, 41, 47, 478, 517–518
Syrian Arabic 84, 97, 467 truth-condition 251

tabula ansata 3, 58 underlying verb 177, 184, 188

taḫwīf 67 usages maghrébins 406
tamyīz 109, 165, 520, 529 usages orientaux 406
tanāzuʿ 165 usual sense 251
tanwīn 10, 123, 127, 173, 192, 276, 439–440, 518,
523–524, 529 valency 181, 183–184, 187
tanẓīm al-Dawla 406 valeur factitive 397
tanẓīm al-Qāʿida bi-bilād al-Maġrib al-ʾislāmī valeur intensive 397
401 verb phrase 172, 528–529
tanẓīm al-Qāʿida fī bilād al-Rāfidayn 401 verb xxxi, 10, 44–45, 64, 77, 84–86, 97, 104–
tanẓīm al-Qāʿida 399, 401 105, 107–108, 110, 113, 116, 129, 131, 138,
tanẓīm al-ʾIḫwān al-muslimīn al-miṣrī 402 140–142, 149–150, 153, 156, 162–166, 172,
tanẓīm al-ʿUmmāl 403–404 174, 176–177, 179, 181–189, 191–192, 197,
tanẓīm Ḥizb al-Baʿṯ 399, 404 240, 257–261, 272, 274, 281, 332–333, 408,
tanẓīm min al-balṭagiyya 402 438, 441–442, 446–448, 454, 464–471,
tanẓīm ʾAnṣār al-Sunna 398, 400, 404 473, 518–523, 526–529
tanẓīm ʾiǧrāmī 401, 404 verbal noun 108, 150–151, 153, 156, 162, 164,
tanẓīm 9, 390–391, 397–404, 406–407, 425 166, 438, 441–442, 530