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    Sibawayhi's Apple Smell
    Sibawayhi's Apple Smell
    Sibawayhi's Apple Smell
    Ebook68 pages35 minutes

    Sibawayhi's Apple Smell

    By El Mouatamid Ben Rochd

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    About this ebook

    This book is a glimpse on the encyclopedic work done on arabic grammar by persian notorious scholar sibawayhi. To put it in mazini's words: "whoever wants to write about arabic nahw after sibawayhi, let him feel deeply humble." it is simply a masterpiece.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBoD - Books on Demand
    Release dateJun 5, 2024
    ISBN9782322531639
    Sibawayhi's Apple Smell
    Author

    El Mouatamid Ben Rochd

    El Mouatamid is a scholar of languages and religions. He has lectured at different international universities and has published several books about language and culture including Hayya Arabica people and language.

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      Book preview

      Sibawayhi's Apple Smell - El Mouatamid Ben Rochd

      To 'Ash Cat' with God's Peace

      CONTENTS

      FIRST A STORY

      INTRODUCTION

      THE STATUS OF ARABIC

      SIBAWAIHI'S LIFE & AL-KITAB

      THE SOUND SYSTEM OF ARABIC

      PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES

      NON-CONCATENATIVE MORPHOLOGY

      TRANSFORMATIONAL SYNTAX

      GOVERNMENT

      SEMANTICS & DIALECTOLOGY

      CONCLUSION

      SMALL POTATOES

      NOTES

      GLOSSARY

      BIBLIOGRAPHY

      FIRST A STORY

      My speciality is Chomsky's syntax. I once met a bitter confrontation from some colleagues from the Arabic Department, who are studying Arabic nahw. They criticised, even 'insulted,' Chomsky grammatical theory, to tease me! Giving them the credit of the doubt, I asked: 'What is the alternative!' They boastfully answered: 'The Ocean!' I asked: 'What is the ocean?' They answered Kitabu Sibawayh!' I went to the nearest bookshop and bought the 5 Volumes and spent much time reading it and finally debated it with them. They didn't have much to say after that. I did learn much from this incident. I wish I could thank them! Now I know Chomsky's theory and have crossed the 'Ocean'!

      With a little Help from My Friends (Joe Coker)

      INTRODUCTION

      The title 'Sibawaihi's TG grammar' may sound as an anachronism since it is well known that the notion 'transformation' was promoted by Noam Chomsky ever since he published his first book Syntactic Structures in 1957. Chomsky's contribution was dubbed 'major break' (Robins 1967), even 'revolution in modern linguistics' (Smith & Wilson 1980). Still, the reader of Sibawaihi's Al-Kitab finds that the notion 'Transformation’ is present and indeed cuts through the three levels of linguistic analyses viz. phonetics, morphology and syntax.

      Islamic Culture

      The Islamic culture was a mixture of Arabic, Greek, Persian, Moorish, Indian and even Chinese cultures! The Umayyad dynasty promoted medicine and astronomy, whereas the Abbasids focused on the Arabic language that had become the instrument and container of all sciences. Iraq in particular became the focal center of learning as Europe and the U.S.A. are nowadays! Sibawaihi came as the culmination of that enormous linguistic endeavor with his notorious book Al-Kitab, that was labeled the Ocean and a 'King's Gift.'

      THE STATUS OF ARABIC

      There are more than 3.000 languages in the world (Summer Institute of Linguistics). The linguists have grouped them into families viz. Germanic, Celtic, Romance, Indic, Finno-Ugric, Sino-Tibetan, Polynesian, Mayan, etc. While linguists assert absolute equality among languages, Gleason states, The Semitic branch is the best known (…) Hebrew (…) is of importance chiefly as the vehicle of the large part of the Old Testament… (Gleason 1969: 464).

      French Diderot stated: « Le bon sens choisirait la langue française ; mais…l'imagination et les passions donneront la préférence aux langues anciennes et à celle de nos voisins…Notre langue sera celle de la vérité, si jamais elle revient sur la terre ; et…la grecque, la latine et les autres seront les langues de la fable et du mensonge. » (Diderot 1751).

      Others have suggested other languages as having priority viz. Sanskrit, Berber the mother of languages! Concerning Arabic, American

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