The Arabic grammatical tradition is remarkable for having organized a large amount of descriptive material within a sophisticated formal framework. The present study seeks to elucidate the early development of this system from a theory-internal perspective; it is mainly concerned with the development of the syntactic theory as a formal object, as system of rules. This endeavor is constituted of four sub-goals: a description of early developments, their periodization, their relation to the traditional account in terms of the Basran and Kufan schools, and their relation to modern linguistic theory.

This volume offers in-depth introductions into major aspects of the Foundations of Arabic Linguistics, early Syriac and medieval Hebrew linguistic traditions. It presents S?bawayhi in the context of his grammatical legacy and reviews his work in the light of modern theories.

This volume is intended as the first in a series of studies on traditional Arab linguistic theories concentrating on Sībawayhi and his grammatical legacy. Here, the reader is introduced to the major issues and themes that have determined the development of Arabic grammar and presents Sībawayhi in the context of his intellectual and social environment. The papers make significant contributions to and offer in-depth introductions into major aspects of the foundations of Arab Linguistics, early Syriac and medieval Hebrew linguistic traditions. This is a unique reference on the three main Semitic linguistic traditions, accompanied by a detailed analysis of some grammatical and pragmatic aspects of Kitāb Sībawayhi in the light of modern theories and scholarship. Contributors include: M. G. Carter, Hanadi Dayyeh, Manuela E.B. Giolfo, Mohamed Hnid, Almog Kasher, Geoffrey Khan, Daniel King, Amal Marogy, Avigail S. Noy, Arik Sadan, Haruko Sakaedani.

The Arabic grammatical tradition is one of the great traditions in the history of linguistics, yet it is also one that is comparatively unknown to modern western linguistics. The purpose of the present book is to provide an introduction to this grammatical tradition not merely by summarizing it, but by putting it into a perspective that will make it accessible to any linguist trained in the western tradition. The reader should not by put off by the word ‘medieval’: Arabic grammatical theory shares a number of fundamental similarities with modern linguistic theory. Indeed, one might argue that one reason Arabic theory has gone unappreciated for so long is that nothing like it existed in the West at the time of its ‘discovery’ by Europeans in the 19th century, when the European orientalist tradition was formed, and that it it only with the development of a Saussurean and Bloomfieldian structural tradition that a better perspective has become possible.

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.

The Foundations of Arabic Linguistics, IV, contains sixteen studies on grammatical theories from the earliest period of Arabic grammar (end 8th century C.E.) and the evolution of theory by later grammarians.

Each volume is a selection of the papers presented at the the Foundations of Arabic Linguistics Conference, held in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.

This book is a comprehensive study of the Kitāb of Sībawayhi (d. 180/796), undoubtedly the most authoritative work in the long history of Arabic grammar. It carefully examines the methodological concepts and methods that underline Sībawayhi’s analysis of Arabic and the way in which these methods evolved at the hands of later grammarians. Placing the Kitāb within the context of early Arabic philological activity, this book analyzes a wide range of its passages and demonstrates the coherency of its author’s system of grammatical analysis and the interrelatedness of his analytical tools and notions. In particular, Sībawayhi’s huge influence on the overall Arabic grammatical tradition is highlighted throughout the book. This notwithstanding, it is argued that most later grammarians largely neglect the semantic dimension which vividly features in Sībawayhi’s approach to language as a social behavior and his reconstruction of the internal thinking of the speaker and the listener.

A Linguistic History of Arabic presents a reconstruction of proto-Arabic by the methods of historical-comparative linguistics. It challenges the traditional conceptualization of an old, Classical language evolving into the contemporary Neo-Arabic dialects. Professor Owens combines established comparative linguistic methodology with a careful reading of the classical Arabic sources, such as the grammatical and exegetical traditions. He arrives at a richer and more complexpicture of early Arabic language history than is current today and in doing so establishes the basis for a comprehensive, linguistically-based understanding of the history of Arabic. The arguments are set out in a concise, case by case basis, making it accessible to students and scholars of Arabic and Islamicculture, as well as to those studying Arabic and historical linguists.