Article published In:
Historiographia LinguisticaVol. 44:1 (2017) ► pp.135–163
From Description to Prescription
The exceptive in Arabic grammatical theory
Once the need to learn a language arises, grammatical instructional manuals evolve from descriptive grammars of that language. Language description involves the uncovering of the rules of the language from collected data, and teaching those rules is the reason grammatical manuals exist. The most comprehensive descriptive grammar of Arabic is Sībawayhi’s Kitāb (d. ca.161–94 AH/777–810 A.D.). He includes the rules of Arabic as he deduced them from the language of the Arabs. As time passed and the need to learn Arabic increased, many grammarians started to write grammatical manuals for beginners. Sībawayhi’s monumental work was too speculative and highly theoretical for this task and was never suitable for instruction. The descriptiveness of Sībawayhi’s Kitāb needed to morph into a more approachable grammar. Zağğāğī’s Ğumal (d. ca.337–340/948–951) and Ibn Bābašāḏ’s Muqaddima (d.469/1077) are two instructional manuals that are concise and more suitable for beginners. This study examines how pedagogy in Zağğāğī’s Ğumal and Ibn Bābašāḏ’s Muqaddima evolved from the descriptive rules of Sībawayhi’s Kitāb through a careful analysis of istiṯnā’ “exception” rules presented by each grammarian in this study. Although the rules are essentially the same in all three books, presentation and description or lack thereof are sufficiently different illustrating their distinct objectives.
Article outline
- 1.Introductory observations
- 2.The role of Sībawayhi’s Kitāb
- 3.Zaǧǧāǧī’s Ǧumal
- 4.Ibn Bābašāḏ’s Muqaddima
- 5.Concluding observations
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References (38)
A.
Primary literature
Astarābāḏī, Šarḥ al-Raḍī
= Raḍī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al- Astarābāḏī, Šarḥ al-Raḍī ʿalā Kāfiyat Ibn al-Ḥāǧib. Ed. by ʿAbd al-ʿĀl Sālim Makram. Vol. II1. Cairo: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 2000.
Baġdādī, Ḫizāna
= ʿAbd al-Qādir b. ʿUmar al- Baġdādī, Ḫizānat al-ʾAdab wa-Lubb Lubāb Lisān al-ʿArab. Ed. by ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn.Vol. I1. Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Našr, [1967?].
Baṭalyawsī, Ḥulal
= ʿAbdullāh b. Muḥammad b. al-Sīd al- Baṭalyawsī, Kitāb al-Ḥulal fī ʾIṣlāḥ al-Ḫalal min Kitāb al-Ǧumal. Ed. by Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Karīm Saʿʿūdī. Beirut: Dār al-Ṭalīʿa li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Našr, 1980.
Ibn ʾAbī al-Rabīʿ, Basīṭ
= ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʾAḥmad Ibn ʾAbī al-Rabīʿ, al-Basīṭ fī Šarḥ Ǧumal al-Zaǧǧāǧī. Ed. by ʿAyyād b. ʿĪd al-Ṯabītī. Vol. I1. Beirut: Dār al-Ġarb al-ʾIslāmī, 1986.
Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, ʾInṣāf
= ʾAbū al-Barakāt Ibn al-ʾAnbārī, al-ʾInṣāf fī Masāʾil al-Ḫilāf bayna al-Baṣriyyīn wa-l-Kūfiyyīn. Ed. by Jawda Mabrūk Muḥammad Mabrūk. Cairo: Maktabat al-Ḫānjī, 2002.
Ibn Bābašāḏ, Muḥsiba
= Ṭāhir b. ʾAḥmad Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ al-Muqaddima al-Muḥsiba. Ed. by Ḫālid ʿAbd al-Karīm. 21 vols. Kuwait: (no pub.), 1976–1977.
Ibn Bābašāḏ, Naḥwiyya
= Ṭāhir b. ʾAḥmad Ibn Bābašāḏ, Šarḥ al-Muqaddima al-Naḥwiyya. Ed. by Muḥammad ʾAbū al-Futūḥ Šarīf. 21 vols. (n.p.): Dār al-Zahrāʾ li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Našr, 1978.
Ibn Bābašāḏ, Muqaddima
= Ṭāhir b. ʾAḥmad Ibn Bābašāḏ, Kitāb al-Muqaddima al-Muḥsiba fī al-Naḥw. Copied by ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥabašī. Mss. n. 6427. Riyadh: Ǧāmiʿat al-ʾImām Muḥammad b. Suʿūd al-ʾIslāmiyya. Location: London & Cairo: Muʾassasat ʿIlm (al-Maktabah al-Dawliyya li-l-Maḫṭūṭāt al-ʾIslāmiyya), ca.12th century.
Ibn Ḥamza, Ḥāṣir
= Yaḥya Ibn Ḥamza, al-Ḥāṣir li-Fawāʾid Muqaddimat Ṭāhir fī ʿIlm Ḥaqāʾiq al-ʾIʿrāb. Ed. by Muḥammad Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ḥinṭāya. Sanaa: Markaz ʿUbādī li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Našr, 2007.
Ibn Ḫarūf, Šarḥ
= ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḫarūf, Šarḥ Ǧumal al-Zaǧǧāǧī. Ed. by Salwā Muḥammad ʿUmar ʿArab. Vol. I1. Mecca: Ǧāmiʿat ʾUmm al-Qurā, 1419 AH [1998–1999 A.D.].
Ibn Mālik, Tashīl
= Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAbdullāh Ibn Mālik, Šarḥ al-Tashīl. Ed. by ʿAbdulraḥmān al-Sayyid and Muḥammad Badawī al-Maḫtūn. Vol. II1. Cairo: Haǧr li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Našr wa-l-Tawzīʿ wa-l-ʾIʿlān, 1990.
Ibn Yaʿīš, Mufaṣṣal
= Muwaffaq al-Dīn Yaʿīš b. ʿAlī Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal. Vol. II1. Beirut: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, [1970].
Qifṭī, ʾInbāh
= Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qifṭī, ʾInbāh al-Ruwāt ʿalā ʾAnbāh al-Nuḥat. Ed. by Muḥammad ʾAbū al-Faḍl ʾIbrāhīm. 41 vols. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1952.
Sībawayhi, Kitāb
= ʾAbū Bišr Sībawayhi, al-Kitāb. Ed. by ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn. 51 vols. Cairo: Maktabat al-Ḫānjī, 1988.
Zaǧǧāǧī, Ğumal
= ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b.ʾIsḥāq al-Zaǧǧāǧī, al-Ğumal: Précis de Grammaire Arabe. Ed. by Mohammed Ben Cheneb. 2nd ed. Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1957.
Zamaḫšarī, Kaššāf
= Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar al-Zamaḫšarī, al-Kaššāf ʿan Ḥaqāʾiq Ġawāmiḍ al-Tanzīl wa-ʿUyūn al-ʾAqāwīl fī Wujūh al-Taʾwīl. Ed. by Muṣṭafā Ḥusayn ʾAḥmad. Vol. III1. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-ʾIstiqāma, 1953
B.
Secondary literature
ʿAbd al-Karīm, Ḫālid. 1976–1977. See Ibn Bābašāḏ, Muḥsiba.
Baalbaki, Ramzi. 1995. “Reclassification in Arab Grammatical Theory”. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 54:1.1–13. 
. 2005. “Theoretical Coherency versus Pedagogical Attainability: The conscious bias of Arab grammarians”. Alttagsleben und materielle Kultur in der arabischen Sprache und Literatur: Festschrift für Heinz Grotzfeld zum 70. Geburtstag ed. by Thomas Bauer & Ulrike Stehli-Werbeck, 39–68. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
. 2008. The Legacy of the “Kitāb”: Sībawayhi’s analytical methods within the context of the Arabic grammatical theory. Leiden: Brill.
Carter, Michael G. 1972. “‘Twenty Dirhams’ in the Kitāb of Sībawayhi”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 35:3.485–496.
1975. “A Note on Classical Exceptive Sentences”. Journal of Semitic Studies 201.69–72.
1985. “When Did the Arabic Word Naḥw First Come to Denote Grammar?” Language and Communication 5:4.265–272.
2004. Sībawayhi. London & New York: I. B. Tauris.
2005. “Sībawayhi.” Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume 311: Arabic Literary Culture, 500–925 ed. by Michael Cooperson and Shawkat M. Toorawa, 325–331. Detroit: Thomson Gale.
Dik, Simon C. 1989. “Functional Grammar and its Relevance to Grammar Writing”. Reference Grammars and Modern Linguistic Theory ed. by Gottfried Graustein & Gerhard Leitner, 33–55. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
Dirven, René. 1989. “Cognitive Linguistics and Pedagogic Grammar”. Reference Grammars and Modern Linguistic Theory ed. by Gottfried Graustein & Gerhard Leitner, 56–75. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1968. Anthropological Linguistics: An introduction. New York: Random House.
Hārūn, ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad. 1988. See Sībawayhi, Al-Kitāb.
Ḥasan, ʿAbbās. 1968. Al-Naḥw al-Wāfī. Vol. II1. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif.
Lehmann, Christian. 1989. “Language Description and General Comparative Grammar”. Reference Grammars and Modern Linguistic Theory ed. by Gottfried Graustein & Gerhard Leitner, 133–162. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
Newmeyer, Frederick J. 1978. “Prescriptive Grammar: A reappraisal”. Approaches to Language: Anthropological Issues ed. by William C. McCormack & Stephen A. Wurm, 581–593. The Hague: Mouton.
Owens, Jonathan. 1993. “Arabic Syntactic Theory”. Syntax: An international handbook of contemporary research ed. by Joachim Jacobs, Arnim von Stechow, Wolfgang Sternefeld & Theo Vennemann, Vol. I1, 208–215. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Šarīf, Muḥammad ʾAbū al-Futūḥ. 1978. See Ibn Bābašāḏ, Naḥwiyya.
Tomlin, Russell S. 1994. “Functional Grammars, Pedagogical Grammars, and Communicative Language Teaching”. Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar ed. by Terence Odlin, 140–178. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sezgin, Fuat. 1984. Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. Band IX1: Grammatik. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Widdowson, Henry G. 1991. “The Description and Prescription of Language”. Georgetown University Round Table of Languages and Linguistics 1991 ed. by James E. Alatis, 11–24. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Versteegh, Cornelis H. M. 1977. Greek Elements in Arabic Linguistic Thinking. Leiden: E. J. Brill.