This volume establishes the importance of the large grammatical material found in the earliest Arabic dictionary, a unique contemporary of S bawaihi's Kit b (late 8th century). Aspects of the early Arabic grammatical tradition and the medieval adab literature depicting exemplary heroes of the past are involved in this study of authenticity of the source and its attribution.

This volume deals with the numerous grammatical passages included in the voluminous Kitāb al-‘Ayn, the earliest Arabic dictionary (8th century). This material is isolated and classified according to its various grammatical categories and then analyzed, taking due account of the current knowledge of the state of Arabic grammar in its early stage of development. The much disputed attribution of Kitāb al-‘Ayn to h̬alīl b. Aḥmad is reconsidered from the vantage point of this grammatical material. This reconsideration involves a critical study of the vast medieval literature about ̬alīl's personality and the question of attribution of this early Arabic dictionary. In addition to the author's analysis, the volume includes an appendix with citations of the original grammatical passages of this dictionary with useful indices.

This Liber Amicorum discusses topics on the history of Arabic grammar, Arabic linguistics, and Arabic dialects, domains in which Kees Versteegh plays a leading role.

The majority of these articles dedicated to Michael G. Carter address aspects of Classical Arabic grammar. Ramzi Baalbaki discusses Mu'addib's treatise Daqa-'iq al-Tas.rif. Kees Versteegh considers questions of the government of 'inna in a treatise by the grammarian al-Warraq. Yasir Suleiman considers the fierce extra-linguistic debates which took place in the wake of two recent publications provocatively featuring Sibawayhi's name in the title. Pierre Larcher treats questions of authenticity surrounding a longish quotation from al-Farabi's Kitab al-'alfaz wa-l-huruf. Adrian Gully addresses the relationship between two important treatises on syntax and rhetoric from the eighth and sixth centuries AH respectively. Georges Bohas and Abderrahim Saguer consider the extent to which Arabic roots display a biliteral core which can be assigned a fairly constant semantic value. James Dickins provides an in-depth analysis of the system of verbal diatheses in Central Urban Sudanese Arabic. Werner Diem investigates the euphemistic use of the root lhq in its first and fourth forms to refer to death. Ronak Husni and Janet Watson analyse typical patterns of errors in Arabic essays written by English-speaking learners of Arabic. Finally, in a case study of the medieval translations of Aristotle's Poetics, Lutz Edzard and Adolf Kohnken look at the central status of Arabic for the transmission of Classical knowledge.

Professor Baalbaki deals here with the Arabic grammatical tradition and the analytical methods of the medieval Arab grammarians. The essays included open new perspectives on the most authoritative work on Arabic grammar, Sibawayhi's tome or Kitab, on the relation between grammatical study and other areas of linguistic enquiry such as Qur'anic readings and stylistics, and on the techniques which the grammarians employed to explain and rationalize usage and to incorporate within their system the vast body of dialectal material which the corpus comprises. The author has sought to highlight the central position which Arabic grammar enjoys within the wider Arab culture, and in so doing has examined several aspects of a legacy which has been revered over a millennium and which forms to this very day the backbone of the teaching of grammar in the Arab world.

All contributions deal with the reception of theories in the Arabic grammatical tradition from the time of Sībawayhi (d. end of the 8th century C.E.) to the later grammarians in the 14th century C.E.. After Sībawayhi, considerable changes in the linguistic situation took place. The language of the Arab Bedouin described by him died as a native language. Grammars also changed, even if grammarians used for the most part the data given by Sībawayhi. This volume aims to determine continuities and changes in Arabic grammars, providing a new perspective on the impact of cultural and historical developments and on the founding principles of Sībawayhi's Kitāb.

Arabic grammatical thinking provides one of the richest and most significant contributions of medieval Islamic sciences to the history of human civilization. For the first time, this book traces down its formation during the second century of Islam (eighth century A.D.)

Jacob of Edessa (c.640-708) is considered the most learned Christian of the early days of Islam. In all fifteen contributions to this volume, written by prominent specialists, the interaction between Christianity, Judaism, and the new religion is an important issue. The articles discuss Jacob’s biography as well as his position in early Islamic Edessa, and give a full picture of the various aspects of Jacob of Edessa’s life and work as a scholar and clergyman. Attention is paid to his efforts in the fields of historiography, correspondence, canon law, text and interpretation of the Bible, language and translation, theology, philosophy, and science. The book, which marks the 1300th anniversary of Jacob’s death, also contains a bibliographical clavis.

The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2nd Edition encompasses the full range of the contemporary field of linguistics, including historical, comparative, formal, mathematical, functional, and philosophical linguistics with special attention given to interrelations within branches of linguistics and to relations of linguistics with other disciplines. Areas of intersection with the social and behavioral sciences--ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and behavioral linguistics--receive major coverage, along with interdisciplinary work in language and literature, mathematical linguistics, computational linguistics, and applied linguistics.Longer entries in the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, ranging up to four thousand words, survey the major fields of study--for example, anthropological linguistics, history of linguistics, semantics, and phonetics. Shorter entries treat specific topics within these fields, such as code switching, sound symbolism, and syntactic features. Other short entries define and discuss technical terms used within the various subfields or provide sketches of the careers of important scholars in the history of linguistics, such as Leonard Bloomfield, Roman Jakobson, and Edward Sapir.A major portion of the work is its extensive coverage of languages and language families. From those as familiar as English, Japanese, and the Romance languages to Hittite, Yoruba, and Nahuatl, all corners of the world receive treatment. Languages that are the subject of independent entries are analyzed in terms of their phonology, grammatical features, syntax, and writing systems. Lists attached to each article on a language group or family enumerate all languages, extinct or still spoken, within that group and provide detailed information on the number of known speakers, geographical range, and degree of intelligibility with other languages in the group. In this way, virtually every known language receives coverage.For ease of reference and to aid research, the articles are alphabetically arranged, each signed by the contributor, supported by up-to-date bibliographies, line drawings, maps, tables, and diagrams, and readily accessible via a system of cross-references and a detailed index and synoptic outline. Authoritative, comprehensive, and innovative, the 2nd edition of the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics will be an indispensable addition to personal, public, academic, and research libraries and will introduce a new generation of readers to the complexities and concerns of this field of study.

The book is a collection of ten research papers in which leading scholars approach different aspects of the study of Arabic grammar in medieval times, starting with the venerable figure of Sībawayhi (d. 180/796?) and spanning from al-Andalus to the Islamic East.