Slow Reading

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds
The Arabic Linguistic Imagination Vol. II
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Re-imagining the Kitb of Sibawayhi

Exercises in the Art
of
Slow Reading
Gregg Reynolds
mailto:editor@sibawayhi.org
Sibawayhi Publishing
Draft: March 17, 2011 05:47
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4
Series: The Arabic Linguistic Imagination
Vol I: The Purloined Letter: Al-Khall and the Foundations of the Arabic Linguistic Imagination
Vol II: Re-imagining the Kitb of Sibawayhi: Exercises in the Art of Slow Reading
Vol III: The Sound Structure of Arabic
Vol IV: Tasrf
Vol V: Parataxis and the Construction of Speech and Meaning
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Vol VI: The Arabic Lexicon
Draft: March 17, 2011 05:47
Contents
Contents
CAVEAT LECTOR
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Introduction
Organization of this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Prologue
In Praise of Amnesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What not to look for in Sibawayhi . . . . . . . .
On Anamnesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Philology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Constructing a Reading: Philological Anamnesis
Anamnesis: rediscovery of the intuitions . . . . .
Philology: reconstruction of the text . . . . . . .
Specific examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What is in Sibawayhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Constructing a Text
ix
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xiii
xiii
xv
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xxi
xxi
xxi
xxii
xxii
xxii
1 Text Criticism: Principles and Practices

1.1
Etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
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2 History of the Text

2.1
Manuscripts and Editions
2.2
Description of the Work .
2.3
Textual Conventions . . .
2.4
Sibawayhis Data . . . . .
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6
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II
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Constructing a Reading
3 Previous Readings
3.1
Previous Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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4 Philology
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5 Hermeneutics
5.1
Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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CONTENTS
5.2
5.3
Assumptions: Axioms of Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Toward an Axiomatic Reading of Sibawayhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6 Linguistics
6.1
Two Views of Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2
Pragmatics: Propositional Attitude, Illocutionary Force, Conversational Implication
6.3
Emergent Grammar: Ethnomethodology, Evolution, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.4
Theory, Evidence, and Argument in Modern Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.5
Linguistic Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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7 Semiotics
7.1
Eco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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8 General Principles and Practices

8.1
Principle of Concept Dependence . . . . .
8.2
Principle of Meaning-as-Use . . . . . . . .
8.3
Principle of Sensationalism . . . . . . . .
8.4
Principle of Lexical Holism . . . . . . . .
8.5
Principle of Syntactic Holism . . . . . . .
8.6
Principle of Semantic Holism . . . . . . .
8.7
Imaginatio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.8
Primacy of the Hermenuetical Arabesque
8.9
Principle of Authorial Individuality . . . .
8.10 Principle of Genre Dependence . . . . . .
8.11 Usage Trumps Etymology . . . . . . . . .
8.12 Injunction against False Assimilation . . .
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9 History
9.1
Sibawayhi the man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.2
The milieu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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10 Language and Literacy

10.1 Current theories . . . . . . . .
10.2 Inflection . . . . . . . . . . .
10.3 Dialects . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.4 Foreign influence . . . . . . .
10.5 Literacy . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.6 Sibawayhis Diction and Style
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12 The Arabic Sciences

12.1 Prosody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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11 Culture and Knowledge

11.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . .
11.2 Cultural knowledge . . . . . . .
11.3 Folk Sciences . . . . . . . . . .
11.4 Transmission: Oral and Written
11.5 Innovation, Speculation, etc. . .
11.6 Islamic Sciences . . . . . . . . .
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CONTENTS
iii
12.2 Lexicology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12.3 Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51
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13 The Quranic Imagination
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14 Foreign Influence
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16 Major Themes
16.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
16.2 Lexico-Semantic Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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III
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15 Resources
15.1 Lexicons . . . . .
15.2 Quran . . . . . .
15.3 The Seven Ahruf
15.4 Qiraat . . . . . .
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Constructing a Translation
17 General Principles and Practices of Translation

17.1 Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17.2 Domesticating v. Alienating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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18 Translating Sibawayhian Arabic

18.1 Translation subtleties and peculiaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18.2 Formatting, typography, metalanguage, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
71
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IV
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Text, Translation, and Commentary
Appendices
79
Sibwayhis Lexicon
81
Bibliography
107
Bibliography
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Draft: March 17, 2011 05:47
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CAVEAT LECTOR
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This is a very rough and incomplete draft; more of a fleshy outline than a draft, in fact. Except for the
translations (posted separately), which are for the most part complete, but some of which are due for
revision. Please ignore typos and the odd grammatical error. The formatting also needs some work.
The rhetorical structure of the first part is neither clear nor convincing at this point, but the following
should convey the basic idea. The basic idea is to use a few simple literary conceits as a kind of intuition
pump to clarify what is involved in thinking about Sibawayhi.
CAVEAT CAVEAT: this is a little out-of-date. See Chapters 8, 17 and 18 for more recent detail.
The first theme is forgetting. The problem addressed is the difficulty of approaching a text like the
Kitb without bias; forgetting is a literary device for discussing the problem avoiding bias. This
turns out to be quite a subtle problem with the Kitb , not only because it was written in a different
time and a different culture, but more especially because of its topic, language, about which we
tend to have many unexamined assumptions. This is true even of professional linguists; there is no
universally accepted modern theory of language. Whatever knowledge we have that allows us to
begin reading his text is heavily conditioned by our particular historical and cultural context. To
include a discussion of some of the subtle ways in which our views are biased. A good example is
the notion of law: anybody educated in the modern Western tradition is highly likely to have a set
of basic and unarticulated notions about law that are heavily influenced by modern science. It is
not clear that Sibawayhi and his contemporaries would have had any similar notions of law.
Theme two is anamnesis, remembering. Obviously it is not possible to approach a text with no preconceptions at all; one must start somewhere. The idea here is that, having discarded our knowledge, we have to start by examining possible sources of knowledge that can reliably be brought to
bear on the text. The only truly reliable knowledge that can be applied retrospectively to such a text
is necessary knowledge, such as found in mathematics and formal logic. This section discusses a
range of modern sources of knowledge of particular relevance to the reading of a premodern book
on language written in a non-Western culture.
The third theme is philology, the art of reading slowly (Jakobsen). The idea here is that a good
philologist, like a good historian, is a skeptic, who prefers to raise more questions rather than
expound theories. Slow reading tests and subverts the kind of theoretical knowledge produced by
anamnesis (i.e. knowledge produced by reflection on necessary truths, etc.), and exposes sources
of error and bias. So the idea here is to discuss the art of reading Sibawayhi slowly and skeptically,
with close attention to text at a very fine level of granularity. This section should also serve as
a guide to students and those not schooled in the language of the Arabic grammatical tradition,
by providing a detailed discussion of specific terms. In particular, it will contain analysis of how
certain constructions support variant interpretations. Ideally, we would exhaust all possibilities
of interpretation, and then select the best one based on philological considerations along with
reliable theoretical knowledge.
Draft: March 17, 2011 05:47
vi
CAVEAT LECTOR
The merits of this approach making assumptions and sources of knowledge explicit can be clearly
shown by considering three major works on Sibawayhi that have appeared in the last few years: Carter [8]
(2004); Baalbaki [3] (2008); and Marogy [59] (2010). All three of these works make fundamental claims
about the nature of the Kitb that rest on specific theoretical assumptions that are highly contestable. The
problem is that these assumptions are not examined explicitly; consequently, all three fail to consider
alternative interpretations.
Carters ethical hypothesis rests on key assumptions about Sibawayhis career, the sources of his
terminology, and the way he conceptualized language. These assumptions are very contestable,
sometimes on very simple grounds; for example, Carter claims (TODO: where?) that Sibawayhi
thought of language as a society of words. But society is a thoroughly twentieth-century concept;
how could Sibawayhi have thought this? This is not to say that Carters argument has no merit, only
that its assumptions and implications must be tested.
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Baalbakkis study on the influence of the Kitb on later generations ([3]) provides a very clear example of (the problem?). Baalbakkis language clearly reveals the influence of Chomskyite theory,
especially in his treatment of qis. He clearly reads Chomsky into the text, and yet he does not
discuss this influence explicitly. My approach challenges this and provides an alternative interpretation of this term.
Marogys recent book ([59]) focusses on the relation of syntax and pragmatics in the Kitb . Like
Baalbakki, she is clearly indebted to Chomsky, as she explicitly acknowledges. In fact, she makes it
clear that one of her primary goals is to illustrate that there is no incompatibility between modern
explanatory theories of language and the Kitb when terms and principles dealing with the same
linguistic phenomena are carefully transplanted to a congenial soil such as the Kitb . (p. xii).
There are several problems with this approach. In the first place, it is impossible to discern exactly
what she means by modern explanatory theories of language; modern linguistics remains highly
fragmented, with literally dozens of theories competing for mindshare; which theories does she
have in mind? The more fundamental problem is that the terms and principles of todays linguists
cannot be simply transplanted to a non-European cultural epoch predating the scientific revolution
by many centuries. None of these terms is neutral; they all bear the stamp of their time and place,
and it is by no means obvious that any modern terms can be reliably used to characterize the mode
of thinking of Sibawayhi and his contemporaries. I argue that such transplantation is exactly what
should be avoided.
These three texts are analyzed in more detail in ?? below.

Another example involves the alleged ambiguity of Sibawayhis technical terminology. Many modern
Western writers have remarked on this ( [3], [111], [79], etc.). Carter [8] says .... Peled [85] puts it
this way: [modern scholars] lament the fact that the Arab grammarians phraseology fails to comply
with modern scientific standards of technical vocabulary. However, the problem is not with Sibawayhi
et al., but with modern scientific standards. Modern writers tend to treat those standards as if they
were incontestable and universal; but in fact they are every bit as culturally grounded as Sib. and friends.
The problem here emerges not from the failure of the grammarians to write like moderns, but from
the inability of moderns to discard their prejudices and discover the meanings of the original texts. The
solution is not to construct an interpretation of the grammarians terminology by forcing it into modern
molds, but to discover why they wrote the way they did. Their language looks ambiguous to moderns; was
it ambiguous to the writers? It seems very doubtful that it was; it is much more likely that the perceived
ambiguity stems from the failure of the moderns to grasp the meaning of the text, and to understand why
the grammarians wrote the way they did. One source of confusion in modern writers is a tendency to
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vii
look for syntactic concepts; but in my view, close reading shows that many if not most of Sibawayhis
terms should be read as primarily semantic. For example, fil ( )means something close to action,
and when Sibawayhi uses it, it is often difficult to tell whether he refers to actions or words. Similarly
for _ism ( )which he often uses to refer to things rather than words.
See ?? below for a detailed examination of the term ism, .
Further evidence that a new approach is needed is the fact that these authors, as expert as anybody
on Sibawayhi, disagree on certain key points:
Carter ([10], p. 10): Sibawyhi would nowadays be classed among the (Bloomfieldian) functional
grammarians, that is, broadly, those who are concerned with the behaviour of words rather than
their meaning
Baalbakki ([3]), p. 62): ...an essential aspect of Sibawayhis grammatical analysis...is the central
role which he assigns to meaning....
DR
AF
T
TODO: example from Marogy
A simple example will serve to illustrate the method. Consider the term ism (). This is almost
always translated as noun, sometimes as name. I begin by discarding what we think we know about
the notion noun. Step two is to try to recover knowledge of noun from first principles; this leads to an
examination of the epistemology and ontology of linguistic categories, semiotics, and a variety of other
disciplines. Finally, an examination of the etymology of shows that it involves notions if raising and
signifying (main source: Lisn al-Arab); this and examination the way Sibawayhi uses the term leads to the
the notion that he used it as a general term meaning something like sign or signifier refering to a (stable)
thing (including nominalized actions) . Hence my translation: mark.
So much for method. Needless to say, I too have a reading of the Kitb . You can hardly come up with
a translation without one. As to form, I have not yet decided how to explain my reading. Up to now it
just shows up here and there as I go; but it should be pretty clear even at this early stage of composition
where my opinions enter. See in particular ??, ??, and ??.
Remark 0.0.1. A brief remark on the genesis of this book may be useful for anybody who tries to slog
through it in its current form. The whole thing got started about five years ago, when for reasons I do
not understand I became highly annoyed by the fact that nobody could explain to me what means.
Not to mention such terms as raf and nab, and virtually every other technical term in traditional Arabic
grammar. I happened to have acquired three of the four volumes of , by abs asan during
my student days in Cairo in the 1980s - dont ask me why. I started trying to read it. It only took me,
lets see, about a nine months to begin to understand the technical terminology. After about two years
I felt like I had a pretty good idea of how the tradition worked, although I was still unable to come
up with satisfactory translations for most terms. At about that time I was lucky enough to spend two
months in Felicitous Yemen, where I picked up a copy of the yaqwb edition of the Kitb . Even after
two plus years of studying the tradition, Sibawayhis text was largely opaque, but I decided to give it
a try anyway. Fortunately, my commute had changed from 60 minutes round trip to three hours. Best
thing ever happened to me; I had at least two uninterrupted hours a day of reading and thinking about
Sibawayhi. After about a year and a half I had still not managed to read all four volumes, but I had much
of it, repeatedly, trying to get at a simple question: why did Sibawayhi use the words that he used? Why
not use nominative, accusative, genitive and be done with it? What continued to annoy me is that, even
where I had a pretty good idea of what the text meant, I could not come up with a good explanation for
the actual form of the text for Sibawayhis choice of specific words. Try it sometime; its verydifficult.
So about a year and a half ago I decided one day, almost on a whim, to translate the whole thing. Or
Draft: March 17, 2011 05:47
viii
CAVEAT LECTOR
rather, to provide a translation with copious notes and commentary, so that the next person to come along
with a compulsion to make sense of the Kitb would not have to suffer throught the same hermeneutical
agaony I had gone through. It soon became very obvious that a simple translation was pointless; the fact
is you really cannot come up with a reading of the text without a more-or-less elaborate elaborate theory
as to not only what Sibawayhi thought, but how he thought. The more you think about it, the deeper it
gets. Hence all the blather of the first part of this book.
DR
AF
T
Finally, practically speaking it will be virtually impossible for anybody except a Sibawayhi specialist
to test the assertions of these authors (and most others writing on Sibawayhi). The reason is simple: most
such assertions require familiarity with the Kitb in toto. Ive been working assiduously on it for over
three years; the likelihood that, say, a linguist with an interest in Sibawayhi - even an Arabic speaking
one - would have the time for this is pretty low. So for all practical purposes the reader has no way to
judge such works.
What is needed is a kind of Readers Guide to Sibawayhi that will make the text more available and
decipherable for the non-specialist. There is no reason Sibawayhis thought should not be well known; the
difficulty lies primarily in deciphering the Arabic of the text, but once that is done most of the concepts
turn out to be relatively simple and straightforward. The major difficulty such a work must address is
of course that you cannot really understand the parts of the Kitb until youve understood the whole,
and vice-versa; only then can one begin to construct a real reading. So it must present some kind of
overview or generalizations about the work first of all, just to orient the reader. But the problem is that
this inevitably involves a healthy dose of theory, generalization, and outright speculation. To counteract
this, specific translations with notes and commentary should reveal some of the complexities of close
reading and alert the reader to alternative readings. The translations should contest and subvert the
generalizations where possible. The real goal is to assist the reader in constructing a personal reading.
At least thats the narrative scheme of this book, for the moment.
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Introduction
Philology is the art of reading slowly
DR
AF
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Roman Jakobsen, quoted by Calvert Watkins in What is

Philology, in On Philology
The Kitab of Sibawayhi is one of the great treasures of human culture. There is nothing else like it. Its
1000-odd pages provide a highly sophisticated and detailed description of the speech of the Arabs. In its
methodology it is a model of scientific rigor, drawing evidence from a survey of dozens of Arabic dialects
and a large corpus of written material. Entirely descriptive in form, its implicit organizing principles
reveal an extraordinarily subtle theoretical imagination sensitivity to linguistic intuition.
Furthermore, it is first book written expressly for publication in the history of Arabic. With no literary
models to draw on, Sibwayhi composed it sometime in the closing decades of the 8th century AD, a scant
150 or so years after the advent of Islam.
Sibawayhi is virtually unknown outside of the Arab world except by reputation. The past few decades
have seen a surge of publications about Sibawyhi and the Kitab, but the text of the Kitab itself probably
remains largely unfamiliar except to a small group of specialists probably numbering no more than a
few dozen. The reason for this is simple: the text is extraordinarily difficult, legendary for its obscurity
even within the Arabic tradition. Indeed, one of the main activities of Arab scholars following Sibawayhi
was the composition of better-organized and simplified versions of the Kitab. Dozens of compendious
grammars were composed in the 1000 years of linguistic activity that followed Sibawayhi, along with innumerable commentaries, commentaries on the commentaries, pedagogical manuals, and other materials.
But with very few exceptions, everything in such works can be traced directly to the Kitab.
I myself have been reading the Kitab for over two years (following two years of reading later, simpler
writers), and I still would not claim to have completely mastered it. It is a true Arabesque; the parts
cannot be understood without an understanding of the whole, and vice-versa. Unfortunately, Sibawayhi
provides virtually no discussion of the technical terms he employs, nor does he wait any space addressing
theoretical issues or methodology. He provides no overviews to orient the reader before plunging into
details; instead he simply offers his explications directly, with the clear expectation that the reader already
understands his terminology and concepts. His prose style is equally maddening, combining relatively
simple syntax and a surprizingly limited vocabulary with a persistent knack for virtually indecipherable
anaphoric cross-reference, leaving the reader wondering just what it or he is supposed to refer to.
This book has three basic goals. First is to provide an overview of the methods, terminology, and
conceptual framework of the Kitab. The goal is simply to save the reader new to Sibawayhi some of the
trouble of constructing the general conceptual framework necessary to begin deciphering the detailed
text. But I remind the reader that what I have to offer is necessarily the product of my own linguistic
imagination; the Kitab is sufficiently complex that other readers may come up with other, better interpretations. In fact my reading of Sibawayhi is radically different than that of other recent writers such
as Carter, Baalbakki, Marogi, and Bohas et al. Thus the reader should take my interpretation as but one
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INTRODUCTION
DR
AF
T
possibility, open to modification, and intended to pave the way for the reader to constructing a personal
interpretation.
The second and more important goal is to provide examples demonstrating the virtue - indeed the
necessity - of the methods of good old fashioned philology: excercises in slow reading, to borrow
Jakobsens bon mot. There is no reason to think that my reading exhausts the interpretive possibilities.
The greater service to the reader is not my particular interpretation (though naturally I hope it will be
convincing), but elucidation of fruitful ways of approaching the text. And equally important: exposure
of how /not/ to approach the text. Simply reading the text of the Kitab is a task of surprising complexity,
requiring the full panoply of tools and resources of traditional philology: knowledge of the language,
access to contemporary resources, lexical expertise, knowledge of the sociology of knowledge production
and transmission, knowledge of social, cultural, and political conventions of the time, and so forth. An
overview of the philological approach is discussed in detail in chapter X.
To some readers, the virtues of the philological approach are too obvious to require such detailed
exposition; or, more likely, they will already be familiar though not grouped under the unfashionable or
even obsolete label philology. But writers on Sibawayhi tend to be linguists at least to some extent;
and one of the more dubious achievements of 20th century linguistics has been to sow confusion and
obscurity about the nature of the linguistic and philological enterprises, right down to the object of
study, language. Writers on Sibawayhi are not immune to this; indeed, the sloppy use of terminology
so characteristic of contemporary writing in linguistics is not unknown in writings on Sibawayhi.
The most obvious example of this centers on the obvious: the nature of language. The views of
Chomskyites and non-Chomskyites on the nature of language are radically incompatible, to the point
of mutual incomprehension, and the differences have major implications for discourse. Yet it is not
uncommon to encounter texts on linguistic topics whose authors do not bother to define their terms.
Grammatical has a very specific meaning in the Chomskyite doctrine, to which any non-Chomskyite
notion of grammatically is diametrically opposed.
Excercises in slow reading serve a negative as well as a positive purpose (i.e. how not to read). As I
mentioned above, recent decades have seen a growth of scholarly interest in traditional Arabic Linguistic
thought in general, and in Sibawayhi in particular. Three major works Sibawayhi have been published
just in the past 10 years: Carter, Baalbaki, and Marogi. But there remains no translation of the Kitab,
except for a 19th century German one, and none of these works addresses the fundamental issue of
simply deciphering the text. Unfortunately, this is a major problem, and in my view it has lead the
writers into major errors. My view is the source of such errors - similar problems crop up in virtually
everything written on Sibawayhi in English - is often if not always traceable to implicit but fundamental
assumptions about the nature of language and linguistics on the one hand, and the nature of the task of
reading Sibawayhi on the other. In particular, writers on Sibawayhi often - consciously or not - adopt the
pernicious theoretical doctrines associated with Noam Chomsky.
This is a fatal error, and the third major goal of this book is to clarify the contrasts between approaches
anchored in Chomskyite doctrine and those grounded in traditional philology. This will involve more slow
reading - but of contemporary texts about Sibawayhi.
In my view one of the most striking aspects of Sibawayhis thought is the extent to which the concepts
he uses to describe Arabic are traceable to fundamental linguistic intuitions available to any speaker. The
difference between Sibawayhi and Euclid is not as great as one might expect.
Organization of this book

The Kitb is an enormously complex and essentially untranslatable book. This book is intended not so
much as a translation as a readers guide. The second major part contains translations of a small number
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ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK
xi
of articles from the Kitb , with extensive notes and commentary. The first major part is intended as a
guide to the issues involved in constructing a reading of the text. At the moment, its wildly ambitious
and a little vague, but I hope the general idea is clear enough. The basic trope is that we approach a text
like the Kitb in two ways, one a philological and the other more theoretical. So what Im trying to do in
the main subdivisions of the first part is to make explicit the sources of knowledge and methods involved
in constructing a reading.
Two aspects:
Philology: empiricism, undermining theory
DR
AF
T
recovery of intuition/theory
Draft: March 17, 2011 05:47
DR
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Prologue
instruments of construct meaning, ideas v. tools of philology construct forms, subvert theories
positive v. negative knowledge; dialectic of theory and philology; readers knowledge of necessary
truths (anamnesis) v. practical knowledge of accidentals (philology, neg knowledge)
DR
AF
T
In Praise of Amnesia
He did not want to compose another Quixote which is easy

but the Quixote itself. Needless to say, he never contemplated a
mechanical transcription of the original; he did not propose to
copy it. His admirable intention was to produce a few pages
which would coincideword for word and line for linewith
those of Miguel de Cervantes.
Borges, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
My obliging predecessor did not refuse the collaboration of

chance: he composed his immortal work somewhat la diable,
carried along by the inertias of language and invention. I have
taken on the mysterious duty of reconstructing literally his
spontaneous work.
He decided to anticipate the vanity awaiting all mans efforts; he

set himself to an undertaking which was exceedingly complex
and, from the very beginning, futile. He dedicated his scruples
and his sleepless nights to repeating an already extant book in an
alien tongue.
Pierre Menard, author of Don Quixote, could not have accomplished his task if he had been incapable
of forgetting his own ideas and opening his mind to Cervantes imagination. He did not simply repeat
Cervantes text; he re-created it.
The task of the reader of Sibawayis Kitb is similar, but not identical. Rather than recreate the text,
we must re-imagine it in a foreign tongue. The first and most important step a reader can take is to forget
everything he thinks he knows about language.
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xiv
PROLOGUE
DR
AF
T
The reader must discard, not just theoretical concepts like grammar, etc. but also such apparently
universal intuitions such as C, V, noun; even the concept of language cannot be taken for granted. There
is virtually nothing in Western linguistic thinking, ancient or modern, that corresponds exactly to what
is in the Kitb .
Failure to forget leads to anachronism and standard orientalism. Peled[85]: [modern scholars]
lament the fact that the Arab grammarians phraseology fails to comply with modern scientific standards of technical vocabulary. He cites in particular a specific kind of ambiguity arising from the lack
of a clear-cut differentiation between various grammatical terms and the related general concepts from
which they originated.
But the problem lies not in the Ancients but in ourselves. Why on earth should the grammarians
terminology comply with modern scientific standards? What entitles the modern reader to privilege
his way of thinking against that of the Arab grammarians? Modern linguistics in particular is hardly a
paragon of scientific stability and consensus; whether it is even a science remains an open issue. Indeed,
confronted by the enormous and ongoing proliferation of new technical terms, principles, models, etc.,
not to mention the frequently sloppy use of such terms, so characteristic of linguistics over the past halfcentury, the outsider can be excused for lamenting the failure of modern writers to comply with modern
scientific standards of technical terminology. So why privilege the modern? Rather than lament the
failure of Arab terminology to comply with modern standards, we should take its lack of compliance as
a sign of the failure of modern readers to understand it, and go back to the drawing board. The first task
is simply to understand the language of the Arab grammarians.
Robson[94], p. 273, quoting Said: The Orient existed for the West, or so it seemed to countless
Orientalists, whose attitude to what they worked on was either paternalistic or candidly condescending
unless of course they were antiquarians, in which case the classical Orient was a credit to them and not to
the lamentable modern Orient. She detects this in her field: Many mid-twentieth-centure Assyriologists
belonged to this mindset too, treating tablets as deracinated primary sources with little or no regard to
their archaeological context, and/or using the modern West as their interpretive model. Unfortunately
this is not unknown in Arabic studies; the bizarre Greek Hypothesis has only been debunked relatively
recently, and pseudo-scholarly attacks on Arabic continue to appear occassionally (Arabic in Chains:
structural problems and artificial barriers, [62], a thoroughly detestable and stupid hatchet job in the
guise of friendly advice.)
Remark 0.0.2. TODO: compose a Why study the Kitb section for the Intro; one of the motives is to
debunk some of the pernicious myths about Arabic.
Fortunately the main problem is less a matter of open bigotry (although blind faith in the inferiority
of Arabic is no unheard of) than the very subtle distortions that arise when ones prejudices are difficult
to detect. This is especially the case in linguistics, where so many of the basic concepts seem to be so
obvious but in fact carry a lot of cultural baggage. The sheer differentness of the way Sibawayhi thinks
about language can be quite difficult to detect.
Robson[94], p. 275: For most of the twentieth century, the primary aim of historical research on
ancient mathematics was to discover what the ancients knew and to analyze it as mathematics pure and
simple. She quotes Karin Tybjerg: [translators] were primarily concerned with mathematical content
and because content was thought to be independent of presentation, the Greek geometrical texts were not
just translated to a modern language, but also rewritten in the modern mathematical idiom of geometrical
algebra. Robson continues: More recently historians have been concerned to recover how the ancients
thought about mathematics. In order to recover ancient mathematical concepts, historians have gone
back to the original sources and retranslated them in a way which tries to stay as faithful as possible to
the texture of the original vocabulary and syntax. To use translators jargon, the mid-twentieth-century
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WHAT NOT TO LOOK FOR IN SIBAWAYHI
xv
translations are domesticating, in that they aim to make ancient mathematics familiar and comfortable.
The newer translations, on the other hand, are alienating, in that they try to maintain the intellectual
distance between the sources and us.
The same considerations apply to linguistics. Modern Western scholars often seem to assume a
presentation-independent linguistic reality e.g. grammaticality, competence, various syntactic concepts and set out to extract it from Sibawayhis text.
Remark 0.0.3. General remarks. Importance of oberving not only what is there, but what is not there.
Not just why did he use this term? but also why not some other term? In particular, where he does
not use terms like ours, which seem so obvious, ask why. For example, he has no term for case or case
ending, even though Arabic obviously has these features; why then did he not have such a concept? Since
almost none of his terms correspond neatly to our modern Western terms, pursuit of such questions is
often very revealing.
DR
AF
T
Remark 0.0.4. Goal is de-centering
What not to look for in Sibawayhi
Remark 0.0.5. Beware the Classical Distortion Field!!
Grammar
Lets get one thing straight: Sibawayhi was no grammarian, and the Kitb is no grammar. Etymologically
this is obvious; grammar (from the Greek ...) is about written language. Throughout Western history
linguistics has largely been grammar, chiefly concerned with written texts, and hence written language.
Only in the past century or so has actual speech become the central focus of linguistics; with this change
came an expansion in the definition of grammar, so that today it can mean just about anything concerning
rules or models of language. In particular, it is often taken to refer to the sense of grammar introduced
by Noam Chomsky, viz. a formal syntax defining language.
But Sibawayhi is not a grammarian in either the traditional nor the contemporary sense of the term.
The Kitb is entirely focussed on speech, and it shows no sign of the sense(s) of grammar common in
contemporary linguistics. It contains no term that can be translate as grammar even on a loose interpretation; the term that is usually translated as grammar, naw (), has not the slightest connection
with grammar, etymologically or semantically. Literally it means something like way, and it refers
to the way Arabs speak.
Nor is this a matter of mere word-play. Sibawayhis notions of language and linguistics (not a term
in his vocabulary) are entirely distinct from ours both in grand conception and in detail.
Grammaticality, Competence, etc.

I refer here to the Chomskian concepts of grammaticality and speaker competence. Although it is not
unusual for contemporary writers on Sibawayhi to employ these concepts in their analysis of the Kitb ,
it is indisputable that Sibawayhi had nothing even remotely resembling them in mind.
Language
Sibawayhi was all about the way of speech. Its not clear he even had a concept of language as a
distint ontological object. He uses often enough, but a close reading of the way he uses it suggests he
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xvi
PROLOGUE
meant something like locution rather than language. Cf. LaPolla [47] and others, language as habit,
conventionalized behavior, rather than an abstract thing.
Deep structure
Nope. All surface here.
Linguistic levels
Nope. All one thing.
Psychologism
DR
AF
T
The Kitb is about the linguistic code; it is not a theory of psychology. Even less does it construe language
as a psychological faculty a la Chomsky. Sibawayhi simply does not talk about the psychological processes
of speakers and listeners. He does make frequent reference to what participants in discourse know,
understand, expect, etc., but he does not analyze the psychological processes involved. His real topic is
the way meaning works in a linguistic (semiotic) code, not the way the mind works.
CV Phonology
The categories consonant and vowel, like the category syllable, are completely absent from the
Kitb .
Tense, Mood
Perhaps surprisingly, none of these categories is to be found anywhere in Sibawayhi. Western writers in
the field have always turned a blind eye to this rather inconvenient fact; they inevitably take the
marks on the verb as mood markers, and use terminology from the Classical tradition to name them:
indicative, subjunctive, jussive, imperative. And never mind the fact that neither Sibawayhi nor any
of those who followed him make a distinction between nominal and verbal markers; apparently, since
Classical grammar does so distinguish, we are licensed to pretend that Sibawayhi does too.
This is a bit of an embarrassment. Here we have a major and obvious difference between our ideas and
Sibawayhis, a difference which is routinely ignored. Its hard to imagine how any disinterested observer
could see anything but the most tenuous connection between the Classical categories and Sibawayhis
conception. Take jussive, for example. With a straight face, Wright says: The jussive is also used
after the particles not, and not yet... The verb after and has, however, only the form, not the
signification, of the jussive... ([12] II, p. 41 section 18). This being the case, why call it jussive? We
could just as easily turn it around and say that the imperative has only the form, not the signification of
the negative perfect. It is part of the genius of Sibawayhi that he realized this kind of conceptualization
- binding of semantics to desinential inflection - could not adequately describe the language. The use of
Latin terminology is not merely awkward, it introduces gross distortions, and not just to the text. The
Classical Distortion Field is a major impediment to acquiring an understanding of the language and
thought of Sibawayhi.
Voice
No concept of voice in Sibawayhi. Instead of active and passive voice, we have a sophisticated conception
of the structure of action in which all verbal complements, including passive subjects and objects, have
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xvii
an action. The so-called passive participle is construed as an equal participant in action; Sibawayhi
writes explicitly of the action of the co-enactant; in modern terms, the action of the passive. Section X
below, The Structure of Action for my analysis of this theme; Sibawayhi directly addresses it in articles
9, 10, 14, 15, 26. Article 36 is especially important for its interpretation of complements in passive
constructions.
Adverbs
DR
AF
T
There are no adverbs in Arabic. Some expressions seem to be quasi-adverbial, but a close reading reveals
this is not the case. Take for example ; we might render this he struck Zayd vehemently.
But this is incorrect; a properly paratactic reading is he struck Zayd, vehement striking. In other words, the
quasi-adverbial expression is in fact a qualified nominal, presented via inflection with verbal force.
Another example, using a zarf:
he departed in the morning. In ordinary grammatical terminol
ogy,
as
an
adverb
modifies
the
verb
. But in Sibawayhis Arabic,
is a arf , a container
or scope in which the action occurs. In other words, the inflection introduces the sense of morning in a
particular mode, enlisting it as a semantic element establishing the scope for whatever precedes it, not
being limited to the verb. Compare another example,
this is the man, departing, in the
morning. Here there is no verb; is a noun serving as a qualifier. [TODO: better example:
Root/template (a/k/a non-concatenative) morphology
Not a trace of it in Sibawayhi. He never refers to e.g. a triliteral root; in fact he rarely refers to roots,
only to actual words. The language he uses, e.g. daughters of three, etc. make it clear that he thinks of
words as constructions of 3, 4, or 5 radicals; the hypothetical word-level root never enters the picture.
I translate (or rather gloss) his terms as triadic, tetradic, or pentadic words, using the Greek suffix -ad,
denoting collective numerals.
Remark 0.0.6. TODO: check text for occurence of . I have not found any instance where Sibawayhi
uses it in the sense of word root. Contrast Baalbakki, who explicitly claims that he does so use it, but
does not provide a textual reference (I cant be certain of that though, not having scoured his book). E.g.
page 219, ... the postulation of an asl from which certain patterns have evolved... (Legacy of the Kitab
[?]). I maintain that Sibawayhi nowhere makes such a postulation.
Non-concatenative morphology has enjoyed a certain vogue for the past few decades. Nothing wrong
with it, until it stakes a claim to truth. It may work just fine, as one among many possible formalisms for
those who desire such a thing; but it has nothing to do with Arabic speech as imagined by those most qualified to tell us about the language. Im fairly confident Sibawayhi would find it appalling. The key point
is that theories of non-concatentive morphology are not actually theories of the languages they purport
to describe; they are, rather, theories about linguistic theories. That is, their main purpose is to legitimize
linguistic theories; in particular, a strange soup of Chomskian syntaxis and morphemic ideology. But
this has absolutely nothing to do with the language Sibawayhi describes. On the contrary: Sibawayhi
provides a highly sophisticated, subtle, and coherent account of morphology that is utterly independent
of notions like root, template, and the other notions of non-concatenative morphology. (Ironically, Sibawayhis morphology is a near-perfect example of a purely morphemic system, but with strictly sequential
construction.) He simply uses a different set of concepts, closer in spirit to algebra, prototype theory in
cognitive science, etc.
Remark 0.0.7. In section X below I discuss the notions of wazn, qiyas, isomorphism, etc., and show
how his use of prototypes (e.g. forms) reflects a focus on surface form and a notion of quasi-algebraic
relations among families of forms.
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xviii
PROLOGUE
A related point is that the wazn, measure, used by Sibawayhi to capture the abstract structure
of words, is not to be construed as a representation of an abstract formal structure. For Sibawayhi the
forms are rather prototypes, concrete forms, that is actual words, that are used as paradigms for other
words of their classes. The difference is subtle but of great consequence.
In the interest of full disclosure, I may as well state straightway: I think non-concatentive morphology, like the Chomskian dogma from which it takes its cue, is an embarrassment. Ok, thats a little
strong, but Im feeling cantankerous today. Maybe tomorrow Ill moderate this. But I doubt it.
Structuralism
DR
AF
T
Contrary to some assertions (Owens [77]), there is no structuralism in Sibawayhi. True, elements of
structuralism figure prominently in his language (e.g. topos), but that does not make him a structuralist.
Course, depends on what you mean by structuralism. I take it to mean, crudely, that meaning etc.
emerges from structure, and thus from position. But this requires a global notion of position in a structure.
Sibawayhis notion of topos, by contrast, is strictly local, based on sequential ordering. A topos is a
position in a sequence, dependent only on what has preceded it.
Owens [77] argues that Sibawayhis grammar is basically a kind of Firthian structural functional
grammar, where e.g. verb is a position that can be filled, rather than a morphological or lexical category.
This is a misreading of Sibawayhi, who based all of his syntactic and structural analysis on semantics.
Things that take nab, for example, do so because of the verbal force of the utterance, not because of
any structural or functional principles. A structuralist reading of Sibawayhi will miss the fundamental
importance of illocutionary force, which is a question of semantics, not to mention intensional sense,
propositional attitudes, etc., all of which are clearly discernable in Sibawayhis reasoning.
Any half-competent poet will recognize the wisdom of Sibawayhis approach instantly. Language is
infinitely malleable; its shape depends on the intent of the poet. Any word can be enlisted to convey any
sense; it all depends on the skill of the poet. So poetry will always confound even the most sophisticated
formal model.
Syntax
Axiom of Parataxis. Support: construction against; use of overlap

Sibawayhi is resolutely a paratactician; for him, speech construction is not about syntaxis (Greek syn,
together + tassein, arrangement), i.e. the arrangement together of a group of elements, as in hierarchical syntax models, but about parataxis (Greek para, beside + tassein), the strictly serial arrangement
of one element after another.
There is no hint of the notion of phrase structure or any kind of hierarchical syntax in the Kitab. In
fact one of the most fascinating aspects of the Kitab is the way in which it contrives to explicate what we
see as complex hierarchical syntax (hypotaxis, e.g. subordinate clauses) in purely paratactic terms.
Chomsky is the progenitor of the syntactic fetish of linguistics over the past 60 years. He argued that
syntactic complexity means that some kind of generative model of grammar is necessary. His argument
depends on a particular way of modeling syntax, i.e. as hierarchical tree structures. But that is not the
only way to model the structures of speech; Sibawayhi provides an alternative model.
Not only is Sibawayhi a paratactician; he is even more fundamentally a semanticist. Close reading
shows that the motivation for virtually all of his arguments is based on considerations of meaning. (Cf.
Carter [9] p 488 This rare excursion of Sibawayhis into the field of semantics...). The structuralism
many see in Sibawayhi is constructed on the structure of meaning, not syntax.
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Analogy
For Sibawayhi, meant measurement. Definitely not the formal device of later jurisprudence.
Remark 0.0.8. TODO: something about Baalbakkis ([?]) interpretation of qiyas as analogical extension. Its hard to see how one can find the notion of extension in the way Sibawayhi uses this term.
Derivation
For Sibawayhi, its all about measurement and additive construction. An augmented form is no more a
derivation from a root form than an extended line is a derivation of the original line
means bursting, splitting; it does not mean derivation
Moral Instruction and Exhortation
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Carters Ethical Hypothesis notwithstanding. That is constructed on the theory that Sibawayhi borrowed
from legal and ethical models, which implies that the ethical (speech? behavior?) is one of his major
concerns. But this depends on a very contestable reading of much of his terminology. In my reading,
the Kitab is devoid of any notion of ethics or morality or, for that matter, religion. True, he often uses
the Quran as a data source, but only to illustrate characteristics of speech; he never comments on the
meaning beyond minimal explanation of how the language works. And he definitely never endulges in
moral exhortations. Sibawayhi was first and foremost a linguist: he was a scientist asborbed in his subject
matter.
The syntax-semantics distinction
Chomsky famously argued that syntax is independent of semantics. Some linguists apparently still believe
this, but many others argue strenuously against it, and many argue just the opposite, that semantics comes
first and controls or shapes syntax.
Whatever the truth of the matter may be, Sibawayhi was definitely not in the syntax camp; usually he
simply does not draw a clear line between syntax and semantics. In fact a good way to misread Sibawayhi
is to read his remarks as comments on syntax; it is often the case that seemingly obscure passages become
clear when its technical terms are taken to refer to semantics rather than linguistic form.
The language-metalanguage divide
This division is the result of developments in mathematical logic since the mid-19th century.
Sibawayhi was well aware of this distinction. He devotes many articles to discussing a kind of metalanguage, namely nominalization, which involves using speech to talk about or refer to speech. The
basic issue is quotation, how to refer to a word qua word. He also notes explicitly that enunciations may
have mulitple meanings, and that the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary. [TODO: find
citation].
However, in my view Sibawayhiintentionally mixes language and metalanguage. When he says fil
he means both action (the denotatum, as a unit of cultural meaning) and verb (the signifier, as a unit of
linguistic expression.) (Cf. my notes on segment X of Article 2.)
Greek ideas
Nah.
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PROLOGUE
Post-Sibawayhian terminology and concepts

Where Sibawayhi described, later writers named; but it is a mistake to assume that the later labels mean
exactly what Sibawayhi meant. The only way to really get at his text is to focus exclusive on the text.
Society
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Society is a modern concept. For Sibawayhi it was all kinship and nation stuff.
A remark on speech-as-social-activity is in order. Both Marogy and Baalbaki adopt Carters notion
that for Sibawayhispeech is a social activity and speaking imposes certain obligations on the speaker.
In my view this is pure anachronism, with no support in the text. See the section below on Semiotics for
details.
In brief, this approach violates one of the fundamental principles of hermeneutics, namely the injunction against false assimilation of the source text to later concepts and modes of thinking. The notion that
as a social activity speech imposes obligations, on a strict reading, is illogical; we engage in lots of social
activities that do not impose obligations. Its difficult to see how speech-qua-social activity can be viewed
as imposing ethical obligations at all. Presumably this refers to Grices well-known maxims, which express
the idea that successful communication is premised on certain conditions, such as cooperation among
discourse participants and so forth.
It goes without saying that Sibawayhi recognized that speech is spoken by people; it is also clear
that his concern is to describe language as actually used by the Arabs, that is language that succeeds
among them. But to read in his text a kind of prototype of Gricean semantics is clearly a case of false
assimilation. There is no textual evidence in the Kitb , at least not that I can find, to support this. His
text is virtually devoid of moral exhortation, unless we take injunctions like so learn! and speak as the
Arabs speak as moral exhortation, which seems rather a stretch. Furthermore there is nothing in the text
to suggest that he took a Gricean or even proto-Gricean view. Quite the opposite; his focus is relentlessly
empirical, focussed on what people say (or may say), to the exclusion of any analysis of the social and
ethical conventions encoded in Gricean maxims.
On Anamnesis
Remark 0.0.9. Only works for necessary knowledge, like geometry, grounded in intuitional axiomatics.
Philology
Philology is the subversive art par excellence. The job of the philologist is not to construct but to subvert
theories.
Remark 0.0.10. Etymology of read - selection? Thus not restricted to written texts
Hoyrup, [34] p. 5: Like every technical terminology, that of Babylonian mathematics was ultimately
derived from daily language but often technical meanings cannot be guessed from general meanings,
even when these are known. One we have analyzed the term perpendicular, it is easy to see how a
pending plumb line suggests the idea of the vertical and hence via its relation to the horizontal plane
of the right angle. Yet etymology alone could never tell us whether verticality or orthogonality is
the technical significance; worse, the use of phrases like raising the perpendicular support the wrong
hypothesis of verticality. Ultimately, the technical terminology has to be understood from its technical
uses, and the interpretation can at most be suggested and checked by, but never derived from, everyday
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xxi
meanings. Technical uses, however, may be difficult to understand as long as we do not understand the
terminology in which they are expressed.
Remark 0.0.11. The ambiguity Hoyrup observes in the notion of plumb line as a mathematical term
vertical v. perpendicular is clearly observable in the Arabic grammatical term , raf. The ordinary
sense of this term is clearly raising up; but it is also clear that it carried the sense of putting forward. As a
technical term it supports two plausible but entirely distinct interpretations. On a reading of raising up,
we can interpret it semantically as a reference to the notion of raising an issue, or bringing up a topic; this
fits nicely with the use of this term to describe the topic of a nominal sentence. By contrast, on a reading
of moving forward, it supports a phonetic interpretation, since its characteristic sound, /u/, employs the
forward-most resonator, the lips.
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Hoyrup, [34] p. 41: The translation is meant, firstly, to be a possible basis for discussion of the text
without reference to the original; secondly, to serve as support for the reader who wants to be able to
follow what goes on in the original without knowing more than the rudiments of the language. For both
reasons, the translation should be conformal, that is, conserve the structure of the original, rendering
always a given expression by the same English expression, rendering different epressions differently... To
the extent it does not entail exorbitant clumsiness, the translation is de verbo ad verbum, and word order
is conserved... To the extent I have found it possible, terms of different word class but derived from the
same root are rendered by derivations from the same English (actually often Latin) root.
Hoyrup, [34] p. 41: The result undeniably is a betrayal of decent English style... But experience
shows me that it is possible for those who do not know the original languages to work in and with this
artificial code
Was Sibawayhi a linguist? Hoyrup, [34], p. 302: [I]t might be misleading to speak of [the authors
of the mathematical texts] as mathematicians. One may legitimately ask whether it will not by necessity
be just as misleading to speak of mathematics as of mathematicians and, once this dismal question
is asked, to continue and ask whether the very theme of this book Old Babylonian algebra is not
another instance of the proverbial red herring which is drawn across the track of the fox in order to
mislead the hounds and the hunters. He concludes that it is indeed meaningful to delimit a particular
Old Babylonian domain of knowledge which we may conveniently characterize as mathematics. But
we can ask a similar question of Sibawayhi: was he a linguist? and, is it misleading to speak of an early
Arabic linguistics? The fact that linguistics itself is so ill-defined makes such questions especially
pertinent.
Constructing a Reading: Philological Anamnesis
Two complementary approaches, which actually recapitulate the ancient nature/nurture debate, a/k/a
the nativist v. empiricist debate in contemporary linguistics.
Platonic anamnesis: attempt to recover intuitional, necessary knowledge underlying the Kitb
Philological subversion: i.e. empiricism.
Anamnesis: rediscovery of the intuitions

Philology: reconstruction of the text
The task of the philologist is not to construct a theory but to subvert.
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PROLOGUE
On the other hand, a reading is a kind of theory. Buy it is not a system; i.e. not theory-quamathematical object. Rather theory as way of looking. This is reflected in the form of reading:
take it as gerund, an action, not a reified artifact.
Remark 0.0.12. NB parallel with Sibawyhis notion of construction of speech.
Hobgoblin of consistency - no a priori call for a reading to be internally consistent, coherent, etc. ?
See Feyerabend, Against Method.
Specific examples
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alif-lam; ,
Implied presence of Al-Khall
General narrative/rhetorical structuring, with lots of absent or implied interlocutors
Implied polemical context; example: article 2, justification for introducing 8 fluctuations when 4 is
sufficient phonologically
Previous work
Carter
Baalabaki
Bohas, et al.
Versteegh
Owens
Marogi
others
Marogy
Kitab Sibawayhi : syntax and pragmatics [59]
What is in Sibawayhi
Remark 0.0.13. Where does this chapter belong? Avoid overlap with the chapter on Themes. The
purpose of this chaper is to provide a high-level overview of some of the patterns and modes of thinking
in the Kitb , in understandable terms. Also to draw some comparisons with modern modes of thinking
(i.e. results of anamnesis). It stands in contrast to the chapter on what not to look for in Sibawayhi. The
goal of the chapter on Themes is to provide a more detailed analysis of the specific concepts and language
Sibawayhi uses.
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WHAT IS IN SIBAWAYHI
xxiii
Symmetry
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The search for symmetry is so dominant in the Kitb that it implies a kind fundamental principle, akin
to Occams Razor in modern science. Where Occam operated on the assumption that the simplest explanation is preferable, Sibawayhi seems to operate on the principle that the most symmetric construction
is preferable. Occams principle is stated negatively: entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity;
his instrument is the razor, used to slice off the inessential. We can state Sibawayhis principle similarly: asymmetries must not be multiplied beyond necessity; his instrument is the wazn (balance/scale;
gauge, compass, caliper; logometer? astrolabe?) , the instrument of measure used to detect symmetries:
Sibawayhis Compass. (The nod to Euclidean geometry is intentional.)
Evidence supporting elevation of this concept to a principle: his analysis of the verb, which is
dominated by symmetry ([ muraa], homology), to the exclusion of the kinds of concerns that
characterize the verb in the Western tradition, such as voice, mood, etc. This analysis is sure to strike
the uninitiated Western reader as simply bizarre. But it makes perfect sense if the goal is to discovery
symmetries.
Modern versions: Keep it simple, stupid v. Keep it symmetric, stupid.
NB: deep connection between symmetry (sym + metric) and measurement (). Isomorphism, isometry, isotopy - its all symmetry.
Examples: Sibawayhis view that the tanween and the alif-lam are in complementary distrubution;
that the mudaf ilayhi replaces the tanween; justification for treating the imperfect as the homologue of
the participle (a kind of symmetry);
Prototypes v. Abstractions
Critical point: forms are to be construed as concrete but prototypical words, not representations (instantiations, exemplifications) of abstract entities.
Semiotics
A Morphological Calculus
Morphemism
Sibawayhi does not go so far as to attribute meaning to every term of construction (i.e. letter, phoneme)
in a word. He does not seem to view the meaning of e.g. as the combination of discrete meanings
contributed by the constituent terms kaf, ta, ba.
However, for Sibawayhi every word is a term ( ;)furthermore, the augmentive terms ( ) are
distinct from the word to which they are added. So for example, he takes to be a kind of compound
word, constructed from the word-term and three augmentives, each of which makes a distinct and
discrete contribution to the meaning of the whole.
Other examples: the tanween is considered a distinct word; so is the nun of affirmation (energetic
nun); etc.
However, his notion of meaning is quite nuanced (see section below). Not all terms contribute the
same kind of meaning, nor do they contribute in the same way. For example, the tanween is a distinct
word, and in some places he refers almost in passing but explicitly to the sense of the tanween, but he
never says what that meaning is, and in some cases it is not clear that it does contribute meaning.
Clearly illustrated in his treatment of verb classes. He attributes the semantics of the various forms
not to abstract templates (a la non-concatenative morphology), but to the contribution of individual
augmentive terms () . For example, the transitive force of is not due to an abstract formal
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PROLOGUE
template , but to the initial alif, called by later writers the alif of transference () . Similarly, the
force of is due not to a template form but to the alif in the second position.
A nuanced view of meaning

- what comes for a sense - intensional terms

- e.g. the prefixes of imperfect are signs, but not pronouns
- illocutionary sense
- is this a class of sense?
- intention, adduced to explain implicit meanings
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- imagination, used by listener to construe sense of utterance
Meaning, , is used in a variety of ways. See section X below for a detailed analysis. Some examples:
- many places
Article 41 (p.267):
.
Article: 65 (p. 393):
Meaning is fundamental
Parataxis
Construction of utterance; accretion of meaning
Dominance of the noun
Even verbs are construed in terms of nominals; right from the first article Sibawayhi explicates the verb
by reference to the nominal of the action it describes, and the nominalized tense/aspect. This is quite
a subtle point; see Article 9, on the intransitive verb in active and passive constructions, for an explicit
distinction between action, prototype, and designator.
Also revealing is the language used in the titles of articles discussing transitive and intransitive verbs;
Sibawayhi virtually always declares that the topic of such articles is not the verb but the enactive
[fil] whose action is transitive or intransitive.
Aspect
Aspect is neither named nor described as a category, but Sibawayhi does explicitly analyze the aspectual
sense of a variety of constructions.
Art. 32, p. 186
Art. 37, p. 218
Art. 70, pp. 399, 400, 402, 403, 404
Art. 72, p. 409, 413
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xxv
A mathematical cast of mind

Algebra
Isomorphism;
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Computation
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Part I
Constructing a Text
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Chapter 1
Text Criticism: Principles and Practices
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1.1 Etc.
TODO: steal a summary from somebody
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Chapter 2
History of the Text
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2.1 Manuscripts and Editions
Remark 2.1.1. TODO: remarks on transmission from Humbert; the mss. available, etc.
2.2 Description of the Work
Remark 2.2.1. How many articles, etc. but also describe typical structure of articles, possible rhetorical
purposes of form. Basic question is what inferences can we make about his intended meanings based
purely on the macro-form of the text.
Structure of the work
Remark 2.2.2. Generally speaking the organization is governed by considerations of meaning, rather than
grammatical category. This is why most of the articles use and explain multiple grammatical concepts.
Articles 9-15: direct object complement in active and passive constructions
Article 16 introduces the difference between the direct object complement and the circumstantial
complement
Article 17 introduces verbs that take multiple direct complements
18-19: a digression, addressing indefinite subjects (e.g. nobody came) and negation
20 introduces concealment _ [ imr]
24 analyzes variation in word order of simple verbal sentences; this article provides a key illustration
of Sibawayhis paratactic orientation
29-30 address interrogatives, which are taken to have verbal force and/or involve an elided verb
31: discusses the class of verbs involving propositional attitudine (see section X below on Philosoph),
such as think, consider, deem
32 resumes discussion of interrogatives
33 analyzes command and prohibition, which are taken to be similar to interrogatives in that they
have verbal force and/or an elided verb
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CHAPTER 2. HISTORY OF THE TEXT

34: more on terms similar to interrogatives, command, and prohibitions
36: analyzes passive constructions involving oblique complements
2.3 Textual Conventions

Remark 2.3.1. Sibawayhi was for all practical purposes the first prose author in the Arabic tradition. He
had no model texts to imitate. This is clear from the form of the text - no paratext, headers, etc.
Remark 2.3.2. Evidence of multiple hands in composition of text; possibility that at least some of it may
represent lecture notes; possibility of undetectable later emendations.
Punctuation
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No punctuation in the original. However, in our translation we use bits of punctuation (commas and
semicolons, never periods) to clarify the meaning; but the reader should always keep in mind that such
punctuation is an intrusion, and may or may not correspond with Sibawayhis original intent.
Remark 2.3.3. Pause and Effect: an introduction to the history of punctuation in the West[84]
Capitalization
No caps in arabic. So, in our translation we do not use caps.
Quotation
Remark 2.3.4. Quotation deserves special attention. No quote marks in writing system. A very subtle
issue in reading Sib. Refer to unitary quotation mark in e.g. Scheme, relate to Sibawayhis occasional use
of alif-lam as a unitary quote device.
Quotation serves several purposes:
as a device for reporting speech
as the device of self-reference, thus recursion theory; see Smullyan; implication: quotation is very
subtle and powerful
Quotational devices in Arabic:

- what follows qala is quoted (narrated)

- alif-lam serves as a kind of single quote symbol (cf. Smullyan)
Nominalization ( )via inflection: use of e.g. harf names to refer to themselves; inflection/sarf is
the device that allows this - see the articles on sarf and
These devices allow Sibawayhi to use metalanguage.
Recursion via inflection, inflective recursion
Example: law
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2.4. SIBAWAYHIS DATA
( lawwun) denotes the token

denotes itself?
denotes
Remark 2.3.5. TODO: pull in examples of Sibawayhis use of these devices.
Remark 2.3.6. TODO: discuss recursion in modern linguistic thought? Very important for e.g. Chomsky
et al. But for them its about structural recursion, not semantic self-reference (metalang)
2.4 Sibawayhis Data

Dicta: ; Baalbaki calls these
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Witnesses: , verses of poetry cited as evidence either of standard or deviant constructions

Proverbs
Quranic verses
Hadeeth
other?
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Part II
Constructing a Reading
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2.4. SIBAWAYHIS DATA
11
Misunderstanding occurs as a matter or course, and so
understanding must be willed and sought at every point
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Schleiermacher? Quoted in Forster [23]
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Chapter 3
Previous Readings
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3.1 Previous Readings
Three major works on Sibawayhi have appeared in the last decade: Carters Sibawayhi [8]; Baalbakis The
legacy of the Kitab [3]; and Marogys Kitab Sibawayhi : syntax and pragmatics [59]. Humbert, Les voies de la
transmission du Kitab de Si bawayhi [33] is a detailed analysis of the transmission of the Kitb but does not
delve into intepretation of the text. More general works on the history of Arabic linguistics often include
substantial discussion of the Kitb . Of these, Bohas, et al. [6] is noteworthy. A variety of papers on on
Sibawayhi have appeared. Publications directly discussing Sibawayhi and/or the Kitb are marked with
an asterisk in the index.
The purpose of this book is not polemical, but since my reading is radically different from the readings
of the major writers on Sibawayhi Carter, Baalbaki, Marogy, and Bohas et al. it seems appropriate
to say something about how and why it differs by examining some of the major themes in these books.
More generally, contemporary readings of Sibawayhi tend to agree on a few basic related themes (due
largely to Carters papers from the early 70s) which I refer to below as the social hypothesis and the
ethical hypothesis. Since my reading relegates these themes to a minor role it seems appropriate to
discuss them and my reasons for going in a different direction.
The Social Hypothesis (Pragmatics, Communication, etc.)
Sibawayhi [8] p.31: The final contribution of al-Khall may be his greatest...it may be that it took the
genius of Sibawayhi to recognize it: this is the pragmatic notion that speech is a social activity and
speaking imposes certain obligations on the speaker.
Baalbaki [3] p. 31: syntactical study is where Sibawayhis treatment of speech as a social activity and
as interaction between a speaker and a listener is most visible. p. 191: Sibawyhis analysis of language
as social behavior which takes place in a defined context and his attempt to reconstruct the internal
thinking of the speaker in deciding what formal aspects of the utterance can best express his intentions.
But I see nothing about psychology in the Kitb . Instead I see discussions about the semantic/semiotic
conditions governing construction of messages. Thats not an issue of mental states, but of the semiotic
code. Speaker and listener can be in whatever mental state you please; the message is indifferent to that.
True, illocutionary force involves speaker intention, but again that is a matter of intended meaning, not
psychology.
Psychologism: [3] p. 191: One of the most distinctive features of the Kitb is the role which its author
assigns to the mental operations performed by the speaker (mutakallim) in order to best communicate the
intended meaning of his utterance, and to his responsibility toward the listener or addressee (mukhab)
who for his part is expected to analyze speech properly as a condition for successful communication.
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CHAPTER 3. PREVIOUS READINGS
This obviously follows Carters lead. But for the life of me I cannot see it in the text. I see preciously little
evidence to support the idea that Sibawayhi was specifically interested in communication as an object of
study. I see no reason at all to introduce concepts like mental operations. Again, you cannot infer, from
a reference in Sibawayhi to e.g. the addressees knowledge, that Sibawayhis topic or special concern
was psychology, or mental operations, or anything other than exactly what he says, which is a matter of
meaning. And meaning (as opposed to use of meaningful signs) is not psychological. This is a critical but
subtle point, discussed more fully in Chapter 7 Semiotics.
Remark 3.1.1. Where Carter, Baalbaki, Marogy, etc. see social interaction, mental operations, etc., I
see a simple matter of literary devices used to convey ideas about the construction and interpretation of
meaning. Sibawayhi uses speaker, listener, you, etc. conventionally as a means to get his point across.
He didnt have the range of literary devices we have today, e.g. sentence, proposition, etc. So instead
of abstract formulations like the meaning of sentences like x, he wrote concretely, if you say x, if the
listener knows y and so forth.
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Remark 3.1.2. Furthermore, consider his use of the second person, e.g. that is your saying, so you
say, etc. Also his use of a phantom third person, as in his frequent use of he said and the like, with
no evident antecedent for the pronoun. Surely nobody will argue that this reflects a consciousness of
the social nature of speech. It seems much more likely that such practice reflects the origins of the Kitb
and the circumstances of its composition in the context of teaching, lecturing, debate, etc. Much of the
Kitb reads rather like lecture notes; and it does not seem altogether implausible that Sibawayhi saw its
composition primarily as a matter of transcribing his own speech to his students and colleagues. If the
form of his text reflects conventionality then we should be very cautious about reading too much into it,
viz. a conscious concern for the social nature of speech used for communication.
Remark 3.1.3. See Forsters essay on Genre
See Chapter 7 Semiotics on page 35.
Remark 3.1.4. Another possibility is suggested by Hoyrups analysis of ancient mathematical text. That
is that in the construction of his text Sibawayhi using reference to you, speaker, etc. he was following
ancient pedagogical patterns.
Remark 3.1.5. Yet another interpretive possibility is suggested by modern Information Science. This
discipline examines transmission (=communication?) of information in purely formal terms, without regard to social relations, psychology, etc. E.g. when Sibawayhi refers to the knowledge of the addressee
in explaining the meaning of an expression, we can interpret this in information-theoretic terms, as a reference to the distribution of information in a system. Etc. Something like this seems truer to Sibawayhis
intentions, in my view. (See the paper Mathematical Philology...)
Remark 3.1.6. To sum up, the great emphasis that our writers put on the social nature of speech strikes
me as far too strong. Of course speech is social; it goes without saying, literally. Clearly Sibawayhi
was aware of the way language is used in speech; that is his topic, after all. He was acutely aware
of illocutionary force. But its a long way from this to a social notion of language; to take the social as
something real, and to take speech in terms of this new thing. It would imply a major shift in metaphysics,
for one thing. I just dont see it in the text.
The Ethical Hypothesis

Sibawayhi [8], p. 32: [T]he biographies give no weight at all to his possible connections with legal
thinking. Yet, as will be seen, the structure of his grammatical theory is identical with the ethico-legal
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3.1. PREVIOUS READINGS
15
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style of thinking that was just emerging during his lifetime. This wholesale transfer of a juridical model
to a linguistic system is probably Sibawayhis greatest and most important achievement. Personally, I
dont see it.
p. 51: The methodological terminology of the Kitb is overwhelmingly legalistic... It is enough to
point out here that the notions of speech as behavior, the concepts of place and status as metaphors
for the behaviour of words, the ethically inspired criteria of correctness and the omnipresent force of
analogy are all prominent in legl reasoning. Im afraid I could not disagree more, especially with regard
to the metaphors for the behaviour of words; I see nothing in the text to support this reading, and
a better interpretation is available, based on the hypothesis that Sibawayhis primary concern was the
semiotic/semantic code of the language.
p. 56: The subject of the Kitb is therefore speech, kalm, which Sibawayhi regarded as a social
activity carried out in a context of speaker and listener and guided by the same ethical principles as all
other human behaviour.... On of the most striking features of Sibawayhis analysis is that it concerns
itself almost exclusively with language as behaviour: speech is a set of actions, each named according to
its intention...
p. 57: ...as a form of social interaction, speech inevitably has an ethical dimension, and this is
reflected in Sibawayhis linguistic criteria But I find no hint of ethical concerns in Sibawayhi; in fact,
one could argue that what really counts for him is precisely that aspect of speech that is not ethico-social,
namely its semiotic code. Today, we would say that such codes are at the least socially constructed, but
it is not clear whether he would have traced it back to divine influence or to human creativity.
Regarding syntax: p.59: Speech can only occur in real time, and is therefore by nature linear. The
consequences of this for Sibawayhi were threefold: (a) he chose to treat language as a form of behaviour,
(b) this meant that he had to start by analyzing the complete spoken string before he could deal with its
parts, that is, syntax had to precede morphology and phonology, and (c) given that language is a type
of behaviour, the criteria for evaluating it, both descriptively and prescriptively, had to be of an ethical
rather than a logical nature. I dont follow the logic here; why does the real-time linear character of
speech require analysis of the whole prior to the parts? My reading is the diametrical opposite of this:
the whole meaning emerges from the sequential accumulation of the individual parts.
For an alternative to Carters section on The Ethical Criteria (pp 61-65), see my translation of ??
below.
Baalbaki, The Legacy of the Kitb
Ramzi Baalbakkis book ([3]), in spite of its great value, is severely compromised by errors of fact and
extravagances of interpretation. His reading is explicitly premised on an assimilationalist posture with
respect to key concepts, and thus plainly violates the Injunction against False Assimilation.
Remark 3.1.7. A major problem with Baalbakki is his frequent imputation to Sibawayhi of ideas and
theories which are in fact Baalbakkis. He has a habit of claiming directly that Sibawayhiuses or postulates this or that concept, even when, as he himself frankly admits, Sibawayhi did no such thing in the
text.
As an example, consider his discussion of on pages 57-58. Baalbaki lists this as the fourth of
Sibawayhis fundamental analytical tools; yet Sibawayhi rarely uses this word. Baalbaki claims, without
supporting evidence, that [t]he concept of ila ... is far more frequent in the Kitb than the occurrence
of the term itself.... Well, that may be, or it may not be. How would we know? After all, if Sibawayhi
had intended the concept if ila he certainly had the linguistic resources to say so. But he did not. It
is not even clear exactly what he had in mind when he did use the term; it is by no means obvious that
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he meant what we mean by terms like cause, reason and the like. So on what grounds can anyone claim
to see the concept in the absence of the language?
Errors of fact: p. 58, Baalbaki claims that Sibawayhi attributed the similarity (Baalbakis term) of
the imperfect verbs (again Baalbakis term) to nouns to two counts, the fact that both take the prefixed
, and that they both take another prefixed particle, sa and sawfa in the case of the verb, and the alif-lam
in the case of the noun. But Sibawayhi is very clear in his second article, that the primary motivation for
a judgment of homology (my term) is common meaning. Baalbaki misses this aspect altogether, since one
of his basic assumptions is the modernist notion that Sibawayhis main concern was syntax. It was not;
the driving force behind virtually all of Sibawayhis judgements is meaning, and it seems highly doubtful
that he even had a notion of autonomous syntax.
Hermeneutic extravagance: p. 58, he claims that [w]ithout using the term [i.e. ila] itself, he
justifies some of the major phenomena of case-endings and of indeclinability... But if he did not use the
term, then it is simply wrong to attribute to him the thought.
Even if we accept Baalbakis imputation of ila to Sibawayhi; is justification really the right word?
I do not believe so; certainly not if is to be taken in the sense of reason, cause. I start from a radically
different set of assumptions, and my reading of Sibawayhis use of such phrases as [ liana ], because,
since, is quite different from Baalbakis. In my reading (as will become clear in what follows), Sibawayhi
frequently uses such language to highlight isomorphism, isotopy (etc.); this does not entail cause and
effect. Perception of a regularity in speech does not entail a postulation of cause and effect. In particular,
the similarity (homology, in my translation) that Sibawayhi observes between certain verbal and nominal
forms is exactly that, a similarity, isomorphism, parallel call it what you will, but in no way does it
imply a cause and effect relation. Indeed it is a major part of Sibawayhis genius that he did not make
that leap, and instead restricted himself to observable fact.
Remark 3.1.8. NB: literal sense of [ liana ] : for or to that
On the other hand, Sibawayhi also relatively frequently does discuss at least reasons if not causes of
speech practice; but when he does so his reference is almost always to intentionality, based on semantics,
to the exclusion of any notion of grammatical or linguistic causes. People form speech the way they
do because they want to convey certain meanings, not in obedience to abstract linguistic rules.
This leads Baalbaki into manifest error. For example, on p. 58 he refers to [m]ost of the ilal (pl. of
ila) which Sibawayhi proposes; on p. 59 he refers to Sibawayhis discussion of ilal. but Sibawayhi
never discusses ilal; he virtually never uses the word to refer to his own reasoning. This is Baalbaki
talking, not Sibawayhi.
To a large extent Baalbakis error can be attributed to a superficial notion of cause/reason. It is
one thing to observe a regularity in speech; it is another thing to take such regularity as evidence of a
grammatical or linguistic cause. And there is a third option, which is to use the observed regularity as a
justification of judgment. One can use an observed regularity to justify a judgement e.g. this is like that
without also making the judgment that there is some cause-effect relation in the things observed.
Remark 3.1.9. Folk physics is relevant here - see Povinellis ([88]) remarks on the attempt to understand the observable macroscopic world of objects in terms of unobserved states and processes. (p.
5). The point being that we simply do not know if Sibawayhi was trying to do this. But we definitely
do know that he did not use a language of unobserved states and processes. Yes, he often refers to
intended meanings, what the speaker and listener know, and the like; but this is a long way indeed from
the assumption that unobserved states and processes (i.e. hidden laws) are at work in speech.
In my reading, where Sibawayhi discusses reasons he is usually talking about his judgments. In fact
it strikes me as remarkable, the extent to which he avoided taking a position on linguistic rules etc.
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Remark 3.1.10. Intuitionistic mathematics is relevant here, with its focus on epistemology and justification of judgments. Martin-Lf [61] in particular.
The major problem here is probably just that the notion cause and effect is extremely subtle and
complex. There is absolutely no justification for us we modern Westerners, schooled in modern science
to think that Sibawayhis notions about cause and effect are like ours.
Remark 3.1.11. Bring in Hume - not cause and effect, but constant conjunction. In fact this issue is
one of the thorniest in reading Sibawayhi; the problem with Baalbakis reading is that he simply assumes
that Sibawayhi had certain conceptions; but that is exactly what we cannot assume. Our task is just to
try to discover what Sibawayhi did mean in using such terms and making arguments the way he did.
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Remark 3.1.12. A comparison of Aristotelean and Newtonian mechanics is also relevant here. Newtonian mechanics is clearly an explanation of the observable world in terms of a hidden world of laws.
Aristotelean mechanics (by which I mean the impetus theory of motion) depends much less heavily on
the notion of unobserved states and processes.. (See also the papers on the persistence of the impetus
theory of motion even among the educated. Which we can take as an argument against the notion that
Sibawayhi was looking for underlying laws.)
Remark 3.1.13. Where Baalbaki sees ilal, causes/reasons, I see awhid, pieces of evidence. Not reasons
that cause linguistic phenomena, but pieces of evidence that justify linguistic judgments. He makes
various statements which seem reasonable, such as that meaning is one of Sibawayhis major ilal; it
is obviously true that meaning is at the heart of Sibawayhis thinking. He frequently uses semantic
considerations in a way that one might construe as arguments that meaning is the cause of the phenomena.
But it depends on what you mean by ilal. In my view meaning provides evidence and does not serve as
a reason or cause. Replace ilal in Baalbakis text by awhid and you get a more reasonable argument,
except where it depends on the meaning of ila as cause/reason.
Remark 3.1.14. Baalbaki claims (p. 61) that one of Sibawayhis more essential axioms is that grammatical rules should be based mainly on what is more frequent. But this is backwards. It implies that
Sibawayhi was engaged in a search for rules (invisible laws?), and formed some kind of principle that
rules are most likely to be found in the most frequent forms. I think his approach was just the opposite:
search for regularities, not rules; and regularity is just another word for frequency. Rules are not based
on what is more frequent; rather, what is more frequent provides the evidence for linguistic judgments
about speech behavior.
qiys
Baalbakis treatment of qiyas is even more problematic. His language clearly betrays the influence of
Chomsky. He describes it as a psychological process that occurs in the mind of the speaker, etc. This
is just Chomskyite competence chompetence in different words. In fact, Baalbaki seems to be
something of a crypto-Chomskyite; he makes no mention of the Great Man in his text, but his arguments
are often easily read as orthodox Chomskyite dogma.
TODO: examine Baalbakis language, esp. where he relates qiyas to psychological processes of the
speaker.
Some examples: p. 52: After all, ... qiys according to Sibawayhi is primarily a process achieved
by the speaker, and the gramarian should emulate that process in trying to discover the reasons behind
certain linguistic phenomena.
p. 53: What is meant by this type of qiys is the competence of the speaker in emulating the speech
of the Arabs and uttering forms of constructions which he never heard before... It is thus clear that
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Sibawayhi was fully aware of the generative potential which is characteristic of speech since a finite
number of linguistic elements are sufficient to produce an infinite number of utterances. This is obviously
orthodox yet somewhat cryptic Chomskyism. The problem is of course that this particular bit of orthodoxy
- the infinite use of finite means argument on behalf of an innate psychological language device has
been thoroughly debunked. [TODO: references] Aside from that, there is absolutely no evidence in the
Kitb that Sibawayhi ever even considered the issue. Its one thing to observe that speakers invent new
utterances; it is another thing altogether to interpret this fact as evidence of a Chomskyite langauge
faculty.
Remark 3.1.15. Note that chompetence implies grammaticality. You cant have one without the
other. Thus Baalbakis discussion of qiyas makes it look very much like a Chomskyite grammatical
device.
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I see no evidence whatsoever for a psychologistic reading of Sibawayhi. He never discusses psychological processes. For him, the object of study is the semiotic code of speech, which is speaker-independent.
Skilled (not competent) speakers are capable of constructing utterances in which various formal and
semantic regularities are observable. Qiyas is simply the art of measuring of such utterances in order
to discover regularities. There is no hint of an accompanying theory as to speaker competence in the
Chomskyite sense, nor of any other psychologistic theory. How skilled speakers manage to construct
utterances that fit patterns is simply not Sibawayhis concern; his focus is entirely on discovering the
patterns. An analogy: it is in principle possible for the physicist to observe regularities in the motions of
bodies without also constructing Newtons laws. The fact that Sibawayhi observed many regularities in
the speech of the Arabs does not license us to infer that he had a theory in the modern sense, especially
not a Chomskyite theory. Baalbakis account of qiyas in Sibawayhi is a classic example of interpretive
bias.
p. 191: ...the absence from the Kitb of a clear description of the semantic dimension of the analysis of
structure.... In my reading virtually everything in the Kitb is description of the semantic dimension of
structure.
Remark 3.1.16. The Kitb usually supports two diametrically opposed readings. The one that most
writers favor is a kind of syntactic reading, where e.g. is taken to refer to a part of speech. But the
alternative reading is to take it as a reference to real action, of which speech constructs a representation.
Ive found that it is possible to read most of the text either way. Its easy to see this by trying it with the
first article. Take to refer to things, and to refer to actions.
Marogy, Kitab Sibawayhi : syntax and pragmatics [59]
Marogy, p. 47: ...modern linguistic language is borrowed to serve as a medium to illustrate Sibawayhis
approach to Arabic... Modern linguists will be referred to only when certain aspects of their linguistic
model or insights efficiently and accurately convey fundamental insights found in the Kitb and translate them into modern language. In short, my aim is to pinpoint where Sibawayhis linguistic thinking
intersects with modern linguistics.
But the problem is that there is no intersection there! Modern linguists simply do not speak the language
of Sibawayhi, and their concepts and terminology cannot convey Sibawayhis text without introducing
grievous distortion. [See Eco on translation]
Marogy continues (p. 48): To illustrate this point I might refer for instance to the fact that Sibawayhis
reliance on native speaker knowledge is comparable to the Chomskyan approach to language which states
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that the borderline between grammatical and ungrammatical structures can only be drawn by native
speakers.
The problem here is simply that Chomskys concept of grammaticality is utterly alien to Sibawayhis
way of thinking; there is no question of judging speech as to grammaticality (which is synonymous with
correctness). Furthermore, I see no evidence in the Kitb to support the proposition that Sibawayhi
thought that only native speakers could offer reliable judgements about language. True, only the speech
of native speakers (the Arabs) can be taken as evidence of, well, native Arabic; but producing speech
and judging speech are two different things. After all, there is a good chance that Sibawayhi himself was
not a native speaker, and he almost certainly was not an Arab, but that did not stop him from offering
linguistic judgments.
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Chapter 4
Philology
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Take text to refer to the entire body of info, not just the text of the book. I.e. the work, the manuscripts,
the man, the mileu, and so forth its all one big complex text, that we must read.
Philology as kind of archeology of text
Sheldon Pollock, Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World [87]
Compare: emergent grammar; ethnomethodology; semiotics (infinite semiosis); etc. Also Searle v.
Derrida on the question of word meaning; Searle: words have meanings independent of use, in the mind
of speakers, etc. But contrary is no, meanings essentially unstable and no essentially connect of word
form to meaning. Cf Giuseppe Longos writing on maximal invariance.
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Chapter 5
Hermeneutics
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Sources: Forster [23]; Herder, Schleiermacher, et at. Skinner [106]

Remark 5.0.17. The following notes are quite outdated and will be substantially revised.
5.1 Hermeneutics
5.2 Assumptions: Axioms of Reading
We have no choice but to make assumptions about the text, the circumstances of its composition, its
intended audience, etc. We must make such assumptions explicit, and continually test them against the
text. Assume, but not blindly: remain open-minded, and dont be a slave to logical consistency.
Types of assumption: 1) based on nature of mind/thought/language; 2) based on history
The elements out of which a term is built usually, and probably
always, linger somehow in subsequent meanings, perhaps
obscurely but often powerfully and even irreducibly.
Ong [76] p. 12
Sibawayhi was not that far removed from the Jahiliyya; we can assume that he and his colleagues
were still quite sensitive (consciously or not) of both root etymology and morphology.
Semantic Archaeology
Assume that for Sibawayhi, etymology is always close to the surface; text means what it says.
Remark 5.2.1. But not etymology in a narrow sense. TODO: introduce semiotic notion of meaning,
where the meaning of a word is a cultural unit (Eco). Use as example, which clearly shows both a
clear correspondance with English limit, etc., but also a clear difference as cultural unit, where limit
also means sanction, e.g. is amputation, which serves as a limit, read barrier, to recidivism.
Use notion of cultural unit, along with referential and extensional fallacies, to clarify the notion
of semantic field, and stress the fundamental importance of the semantic archaeology necessary to
excavate the semantic fields available to Sibawayhi.
Examples (treated in more detail below, in Chapter ?):
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CHAPTER 5. HERMENEUTICS
is usually translated as meaning. But this is too crude; etymologically this term is based on
the root triad , meaning something like concern; in some places, a more accurate translation
would be locus of concern or the like. This is a subtle but critical point, because, as we shall see
in reading Articles 1 and ?, Sibawayhi used a variety of words to convey the sense of meaning; we
assume that he therefore had a range of particular ideas in mind. Compare the modern distinction
between denotation and sense (extension and intension, Sinn und Bedeutung, etc.)
is routinely translated as analogy. However, although this may be an acceptable translation
in the legal tradition, there is no evidence in the text of the Kitab that this is what Sibawayhi had in
mind. The original sense of this term is simply measurement, and Sibawayhis use of it is entirely
consistent with this reading. [TODO: reasons to reject reading as analogy.]
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, , . The radical triad appears in a variety of forms in the Kitb . This is a member of
the well-known class of Arabic roots that may mean both a thing and its opposite. In this case,
is usually translated as state, status or the like; but etymologically, the kernel sense is change, just
the opposite of stasis. Sibawayhi would have been keenly aware of this; thus should be read
as something like transient state, and and as simply change of state, rather than the
standard translation absurd, impossible, etc.
, , - see below, section on Major Themes, The Structure of Action
Morphology
Assume that Sibawayhi was acutely sensitive to the semantic contribution of morphology.
Examples:
As noted above, the etymological base of is concern, interest or the like. Morphologically,
it may be construed as either a masdar (verbal noun) or a noun of place, e.g. locus of concern or
interest. The Kitab itself offers detailed explication of the semantic contributions of morphological
forms, so the reader should assume that Sibawayhi was aware of and exploited such contributions.
Rhetoric
Aesthetics
Intuition and Theory
As discussed above, we inevitably make assumptions about Sibawayhis intuitions conceptual framework.
We therefore should make our assumptions explicit.
The fundamental assumption here is that Sibawayhi did not have an explicit theoretical framework,
but that he did carefully examine his intuitions and sought to ground his reasoning in minimal intuitions.
In other words, he used Occams Razor.
Better: he did not have a concept of theory, nor of demonstrative logic (cf. Euclid). So although he
might have had what we might view as a theoretical framework, he did not think of it in such terms; thus
we cannot reliably speak of Sibwayhis theory of this or that without introducing distortion.
Remark 5.2.2. This is obviously a bit shaky and needs to be sharpened. But that, in part, is the point of
making our assumptions explicit. The fact that we have trouble deciding on specific principals, methods,
theories, etc. to impute to Sibawayhi is an indicator that this needs closer consideration. On the other
hand, we clearly cannot do this until after we have mastered the work. But we should be able to articulate
a few basic assumptions about his thinking that will guide us as we read.
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5.3. TOWARD AN AXIOMATIC READING OF SIBAWAYHI
25
Caveats
5.3 Toward an Axiomatic Reading of Sibawayhi

Axiom of continuity: speech is a continuum.
Contour corollary: speech has a contour (shape). Since a consonant with no preceding nor succeeding
vowel has no contour, being a point, it cannot be a harf.
Axiom: speech begins and ends in silence. Intuition of speech as sound beginning and ending in
silence gives us a structural intuition: speech begins and ends with a term/edge.
Corollary: a single-term utterance is impossible; speech always involves two edges, beginning and
end
Thus minimal data for introspection is a two-term utterance, e.g. qad, hal, etc. But this leads to the
notion of the harf as the fundamental element.
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Remark 5.3.1. Number; as enumeration

Transition from leading to trailing edge cannot be instantaneous. Intuitive distinction between speech
and discrete counting. The latter: transition from e.g. 1 to 2 is instantaneous, so to speak. Or rather,
there is no transition, only order. Speech involves order, because it is temporal, but perception of the
physical reality of speech involves a (continous) transition. So right off the bat we have the continuum/discrete distinction so critical to mathematics.
Thus the transition from edge to edge exists, and is perceived by the senses; but, like the concept of
set, is perceived as a structural element (see Godels comment on the intuitive nature of the objects of
set theory.) This gives us an intuitive notion of the structure of speech as edge-transition-edge.
Contrast with CV model, which is difficult to model on direct perception or intuition. It might be
possible, but that is not the choice the culture made. Instead, C and V are theoretical concepts. [NB:
Expand this. Is it accurate?]
In spite of this intuition of a tripartite structure, Sibawayhis view is that two-edge words like qad
and hal have a bipartite structure: kinetic term followed by static term. The question then is whether
this corresponds to direct intuition.
Introspection on the leading and trailing edges of actual two-edge words leads to the judgment that
no edge can be uttered without a transition. Can this fairly be called a direct intuition? I think so; it is a
physical perception, not a theoretical judgment. It can easily be noticed by any speaker; we could, if we
wished, construct a Meno-like Socratic dialog in which the slave boy is lead, not to an acknowledgement
of a necessary geometric truth, but to an acknowledgement of a logometric truth, that one cannot
pronounce an edge (i.e. consonant) in isolation. In CV terms, either a leading or trailing vowel is a
necessary condition of the articulation of a consonantal sound.
Given the basic intuitive perception of the edge-to-edge transition of article 5 above, we need a term
for it. Transition would work, but it is our own arbitrary choice; but we could have used any other
word to describe getting from one edge to another. Sibawayhi et al. chose the term haraka, i.e. motion,
movement. Now the question is: why? First off, note that a transition implicates movement - etymologically, going across from trans, across, and ire, to go. In fact Sibawayhi uses the Arabic analog of
transition for verbs that take direct objects, just as we use transitive, from the same roots as transition.
But motion in fact corresponds closely to the physical intuition that - to put it crudely - edges are static,
and transitions from edge to edge are necessarily dynamic. More specifically, Sibawayhis terminology
reflects (or at least fits) intuition about the dynamic temporal nature of speech.
Furthermore, edge/motion works on multiple levels of intuition. So far weve only (implicitly) considered the structure of speech sound; but if we change our focus to the means of sound production, we
find a clear intuitive basis for the terminology. Speech production involves a kind of staccato motion of
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CHAPTER 5. HERMENEUTICS
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the articulatory apparatus: edges correspond to stasis, however brief, and vowel production /following
an edge/ requires movement of the lips, jaw, and/or tongue. This is most obvious in the terminology
of the /a/ sound in e.g. qad: the Arabic tradition calls this fath, opening, which is exactly what the
lips/jaw must do to produce the sound.
Etc. What we end up with is a HH (Harf and Haraka) model: an axiomatic theory of speech
production, derived directly from acoustic and/or articulatory perception of speech. It contrasts sharply
with the CV tradition in the west.
The HH model stands in stark contrast to the CV model, both in its concepts and its intuitional basis.
The HH model accounts for production/perception of word-level utterance: each speech-token (i.e.
word) is constructed from a sequence of kinetic and static terms. But it extends seamlessly to account
for meaningful speech (i.e. sentences), simply by taking harf abstractly. Just as individual words are
constructed from a sequence of terms of construction (kinetic and static), so are word combinations
constructed of a sequence of terms, if we consider each word to be a harf (term). The minimal meaningful construction is the two-word sentence (see Article 3 of the Kitab), just as the minimal speech
construction is the two-edge word. The inflection of the final term of construction (i.e. the final C of
the word) is transitional on two levels: as a movement from word-final harf to word-initial harf, and as
movement from word (complex harf) to word (complex harf).
Word-as-harf is thus analogous to the objects of set theory per Godel: we cannot directly perceive
the word components of speech, since speech is a sound continuum and words are discrete constructions.
Yet we do intuit them via some kind of perception, in the same way we intuit the objects of set theory.
Godel argues that this is so because the /axioms/ of set theory compel our assent; in the same vein, we
can trace our perception of words in continuous speech to the basic axioms outlined above.
Etc.
Axiom of Parataxis. Support: construction against; use of overlap
The upshot is that we can indeed construct an axiomatic theory, based directly on perception/intuition,
that is the exact analog of axiomatic mathematical theories, and that fits Sibawayhis language perfectly.
This does not mean, naturally, that Sibawayhi had anything like axiomatic theorizing in mind; but it does
strongly suggest that his judgments rested on intuitions of his own that correspond to the axioms we have
outlined here.
This will be part of our method in reading the text: at every step, search for a minimal, irreducible
intuition that accounts for Sibawayhis judgments. Failing that, search for a theory that can be constructed out of such intuitions.
TODO: the above account depends entirely on our own intuitions, and adduces no evidence from the
text. But there are many clues in the text that support construction of something like this axiomatic
theory. E.g. his discussion of how to pronounce a single harf; his use of harf as an abstraction applying
to different levels of combination; his extensive discussion of two-harf words; the chapters on phonology
and phonetics; etc.
To be noted: nowhere does Sibawayhi explicitly (or even implicitly) address concepts like intuition,
perception, theory, etc. But he surely had intuitions, perceptions, and ideas, and all three must have been
related in some way; our task is to imagine plausible ways of using these ideas to account for his text.
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Chapter 6
Linguistics
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Remark 6.0.2. Does modern linguistics provide any useful tools? Historical/comparitive, yes, but use
with caution. Chomskyian linguistics: not at all, in fact harmful
Because we know that Sibawayhis topic was speech, a key question involves linguistic universals: does
modern linguistics define univeral linguistic properties/objects that will help us decipher Sibawayhis
text?
Remark 6.0.3. cf. Hoyer. Compare the task of the translator of an ancient mathematical text. The
modern reader will presumably have ideas about mathematics formed by an education in modern concepts; the risk then is that he will see such modern concepts in the ancient text; i.e. that he will falsely
assimilate what he finds in the text to his own necessarily modern concepts.
Similarly, a reader whose concepts of language reflect modern linguistic theories runs the risk of
reading those concepts into Sibawayhis text, violating the injunction against false assimilation. This is
not an uncommon occurance. If property P is a linguistic universal, then it must be a property of (all
varieties of) Arabic; it does not follow that Sibawayhi had a concept of P , or that his language must
describe P . On the other hand, on the assumption that P is a universal, we can ask how he did describe
it. For example, if verb transitivity is a universal, we can examine his text for clues about how he
conceptualized the features of transitivity that we know must have characterized his Arabic. We find that
he describes what looks very much like transitivity using the term [ taadiy], which etymologically
bears a strong resemblance to transitive, mean something like pass beyond. However, it does not
follow that his concept of [ taadiy] matches our concept of transitivity; to interpret and translate it
so would be a case of false assimilation.
The Principle of Concept Dependence [i.e. thought is dependent on and inseparable from language
-Ed] serves as a bulwark against this. We make it a goal to find just those points on which his concept
differs from ours. There must be such points, simply by virtue of the fact that the words are different,
and come from different languages. By the Principle of Concept Dependence, we take it as axiomatic that
the meanings of such terms cannot be identical.
Proliferation of linguistic theories in 20th century:
Generative Grammar
Structuralism
Categorial Grammar
Montague Grammar
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CHAPTER 6. LINGUISTICS
Cognitive Grammar
Question: does Cognitive Grammar think of itself as a science (i.e. a kind of autonomous linguistics)
or a hermeneutics?
TODO: Katz list of theories
6.1 Two Views of Linguistics

Autonomous/A priori Linguistics: from de Saussure to Chomsky and Beyond
Nature: language as innate; grammaticality as computation
Language as discrete mathematical object; determinism, innateness, etc.
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Langue v. Parole
Competence v. Performance
I-Language v. E-language
etc.
Nurture: language as learned; grammar as habit

Language as skill; stability, not determinism
Remark 6.1.1. Itkonen [36] is especially good on notion of langue as a social construct.
Historical/Comparative linguistics and reconstruction of language
Bloom, Jakobsen, Whorf, Sapir, etc.
Firthian Linguistics
Hockett
Is Linguistics a Science?
This is the key question, and it is far from settled.

Linguistics as a science necessarily views language as a mathematical object, and/or linguistics as
mathematical knowledge. Chomsky is only the most famous representative of this school of thought;
there are many variations (e.g. categorial grammar, Montague grammar, etc.)
The alternative claim is that Linguistics cannot be a science, at least not on the model of either logicomathematical or physical sciences. (I personally think this is the correct view, since, among other reasons,
apprehension or observation of the object of study inevitably and inescapably involves interpretation.)
This is the traditional view, in which linguistics is viewed as a kind of sub-discipline of anthropology,
whose goal is to understand the various languages, as opposed to discovery of universal laws of language. A hermeneutics, rather than a mathematical science. Needless to say, Sibawayhi would be in this
camp.
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6.2. PRAGMATICS: PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDE, ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE, CONVERSATIONAL

IMPLICATION
29
Nature of Language
Does language even exist? The answer is not as obvious as one might think. The question is not whether
or not we speak, but whether the notion of language as a static structure, a thing, is meaningful. It is
not at all clear that Sibawayhi thought so, or even considered the question. His use of the term luga,
does not clearly support the usual translation as language; on the contrary, it usually means something
closer to locution, in the sense of way of speaking, which is a long way from a Platonic notion of
language qua object.
Probably the single most important issue and the one mostly likely to go unnoticed. Sib in no
way a Chomskyite. Outline the two basic approachs: language as mathematical entity v. language a
skill/habit/practice; also innate v. learned. This debate has major implications for interpreting Sibawayhi
- absolutely no Chomskyite language allowed, including grammaticality, acceptability, speaker competence, etc. All such terms are tainted by the Chomsky dogma and are thus fundamentally misleading as
representations of Sibs thought.
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Remark 6.1.2. TODO: outline basic approaches: language and math, skill/behavior; psychology; social
dimension (pragmatics);
Remark 6.1.3. New developments: see ?? and ??
6.2 Pragmatics: Propositional Attitude, Illocutionary Force,

Conversational Implication
Propositional Attitude
This goes back to Russell. Sibawayhi heavily relies on the idea, although he does not name it or consider
it in the abstract.
What sort of name shall we give to verbs like believe and wish and so forth? I should be
inclined to call them propositional verbs. This is merely a suggested name for convenience,
because they are verbs which have the form of relating an object to a proposition. As I have
been explaining, that is not what they really do, but it is convenient to call them propositional
verbs. Of course you might call them attitudes, but I should not like that because it is a
psychological term, and although all the instances in our experience are psychological, there
is no reason to suppose that all the verbs I am talking of are psychological. There is never any
reason to suppose that sort of thing. (Russell [97], 227).
Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics
Searle, Grice, etc.

Speech act theory is especially important since it introduces the notion of illocutionary force, which is
very useful, even essential in reading Sibawayhi. Not that Sibawayhi had any clear concept of speech
act, but he did make distinctions that clearly correspond to the difference between propositional force
and illocutionary force. This is one of the rare cases where contemporary technical language may safely
be applied to Sibawayhi, probably because these terms are not particularly technical. Rather they are
convenience terms for what is clearly at work across languages (e.g. expressions of command or wishing)
but would otherwise have to be named by cumbersome circumlocution.
Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place.
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30
Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance, where saying equals
doing, as in betting, plighting ones troth, welcoming and warning.
Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the bet or pledge of
marriage, is welcomed or warned.
Classifications of illocutionary acts, e.g:
Representatives: here the speaker asserts a proposition to be true, using such verbs as: affirm,
believe, conclude, deny, report.
Directives: here the speaker tries to make the hearer do something, with such words as: ask, beg,
challenge, command, dare, invite, insist, request.
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Commissives: here the speaker commits himself (or herself) to a (future) course of action, with
verbs such as: guarantee, pledge, promise, swear, vow, undertake, warrant.
Expressives: the speaker expresses an attitude to or about a state of affairs, using such verbs as:
apologize, appreciate, congratulate, deplore, detest, regret, thank, welcome.
Declarations the speaker alters the external status or condition of an object or situation, solely by
making the utterance: I now pronounce you man and wife, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck
until you be dead, I name this ship...
Keeping this in mind can help with deciphering Sibawayhi.

Another item: conversational implicature (Grice), which is about (I think) the way listeners work out
or infer the (entire) message.
Mathematical linguistics
6.3 Emergent Grammar: Ethnomethodology, Evolution, etc.

Resources:
Hopper, Emergent Grammar and the A Priori Grammar Postulate [32]
Weber, The emergence of linguistic structure: Paul Hoppers Emergent Grammar Hypothesis revisited
[115]
Fox, Contextualization, indexicality, and the distributed nature of grammar [26]
LaPolla, The Language Habit: the Conventionalization of Constraints on Inference [47]
I have not yet acquired a copy of Hoppers paper, but Webers paper [115] provides a clear analysis
of Hoppers arguments.
Clifford [] characterizes culture as temporal, emergent, and disputed, and Hopper follows,
saying that the same is true of grammar, which like speech itself must be viewed as a realtime, social phenomenon, and therefore is temporal; its structure is always deferred, always
in a process but never arriving, and therefore emergent; and since I can only choose a tiny
fraction of data to describe, any decision I make about limiting my field of inquiry [...] is
very likely to be a political decision, to be against somebone elses interests, and therefore
disputedq (Hopper [] 1987 p. 141-142, quoted in Weber [115])
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6.3. EMERGENT GRAMMAR: ETHNOMETHODOLOGY, EVOLUTION, ETC.
31
[F]or Hopper, syntactic structure only exists as the result of constructions/interpretations by

individuals, at a certain discourse stage [] Grammar is a social phenomenon, and therefore is
temporal. One may add, as the grammar of a language, it is only the ideal elos of a continuous
process of development towards grammar, a telos that cannot be realized because of the very
sociality and temporality of the process. (Weber, ibid p. 180) Cf. Sibawayhis use of the
[ adu _l-kalm]: the [ lisn _l-arab] glosses one of its
term [ ad], as in
senses as [ muntaha], limit, ultimum; suggesting a possible reading of Sibawayhis use
as telos of speech?
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Hopper takes for granted that the study of grammar of a language has to be empirical and
based on data It is obvious that the database for the purpose of a grammatical description
of a language has to be limited. There is, however, no statistical method available that could
guarantee a representative sample There are no scientific criteria to settle the dispute in
favor of one side or the other. (Hopper, ibid p. 181)
Hoppers view would seem to be compatible with speech act theory; in fact, it poses a radical challenge
to it insofar as speech act theory postulates a literal meaning (Webers term), i.e. words have (stable)
meanings independent of speakers.
Weber contrasts Hoppers view with what he calls The Competence Hypothesis: In short, the competence theorist assumes independence from language use and intersubjectivity to be necessary properties
of grammar and grammatical knowledge there cannot be an empirical argument to prove the above
strong version of the Competence Hypothesis, because it is a claim in terms of necessity. Chomsky is the
most famous advocate of the CT; another is John Searle, whose views Weber discusses in some detail.
The crucial issue is whether language use has an effect on linguistic knowledge and, if so, what that
effect is. Competence theorists claim linguistic competence to be unaltered by linguistic performance and,
therefor, can assume competence to be identical in all members of a linguistic community and present
at all times in the mind of the speaker (Hopper, 1998, p. 120). Proponents of the Emergent Grammar
Hypothesis, in contrast, claim discourse experience to feed back into the linguistic knowledge of the
speaker. Insofar as all members of a linguistic community have individual experiences, they differ in
their linguistic knowledge. (Weber, ibid p. 185)
The Searle-Derrida debate centers on whether linguistic expressions possess a meaning that is unique,
univocal, rigorously controllable, and transmittable (Derrida, 1977a, p. 172), whether words, sentences,
and utterances expres (or even express by necessity) a literal meaning (Searle, 1977 p. 202, 1979a)
Weber compares Hoppers view with Derrida in the Searle-Derrida debate about meaning. The starting point of that debate was whether expressions have literal meanings. [B]oth authors agree that if
expressions had literal meanings then they would have to be communicable meanings. (Weber ibid p.
186). Searle says this is the case; Derrida says that meaning is not communicable and that, therefore, it
cannot be a literal meaning (Weber ibid 186). The key point here is the idea that meaning is a kind of
freight that is conveyed by the expression. Derridas argument is simply that it is not true that words stand
in some kind of fixed or essential relation to their meanings; thus whatever it is that they communicate,
it is not their meaning, not a package of meaning that is essentially tied to the word. Rather, whatever it
is that gets communicated involves the entire context of communication, and the sense of the words used
is contingent both on the context and on the experiences of the discourse participants. This is very much
consonant with the way Sibawayhi talks about meanings. Weber glosses Derridas stance as follows:
The meanings of linguistic expressions are not communicable, and therefore linguistic expressions do not possess literal meanings. A semantic theory that rests on the concpet of literal
meanings is doomed to fail because its foundation is corrupt. To put that in positive terms,
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32
the meaning of an utterance is the result of the interaction between a varity of factors. In this
process, intentions, assessments and knowledge of speakers and hearers are just some of the
components. It is not possible in principle to determine exactly which factos contribute to
the determination of meaning and what the xact contribution of a particular factor may be.
It follows that it is impossible to determine the literal meaning of linguistic expressions. If
their meaning is not determinable in that sense, it is not communicable and hence they lack
a literal meaning altogether. (Weber ibid p. 187)
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Note in particular that the semantic theory of literal meaning implies a rejection of aspects of pragmatics: If the two premises [i.e. meaning is literal, and linguistic expressions communicate speaker
intention] are correct, literal meanings of (types of) linguistic expressions cannot be derived from individual context-specific intentions. That amounts to a rejection of the Gricean program (cf. Grice, 1957,
1989) (Weber, ibid 190)
Note the fascinating parallels between this debate and the foundational debates in 20th century mathematics. Weber observes that Searle represents the classic Cartesian program, which is based on the
strong belief that the truth of a matter is independent of its discoverer (ibid 187). This reflects a very
Platonistic notion that truth is out there, and finding it means discovering what is already there (cf.
Platonic anamnesis.) This is exactly the point of contention between classical mathematics and intuitionistic (nowadays called constructivist) mathematics. The intuitionists, starting with Brouwer in
the early 20th century, mounted a radical attack on classical mathematics, going so far as to call it incoherent and meaningless. They argued that real knowledge is constructed, not discovered. See ?? for a
discussion of this fascinating and very relevant debate. And see especially Sibawayhis very heavy reliance
on the concept of construction ([ bin]).
See also Semiotics. Eco [18] puts forward a semiotic notion of sign (sign-function in his terms) that
is very similar to Derridas and Hoppers. For him the sign-function (Derridas mark) is a relation between
to functives, an expression and a (socially constructed) meaning, that is contingent, dynamic, socially
constructed, and requires interpretation.
A key observation about Emergent Grammar is that it is closely related to other disciplines. (I.e. it is
??) Weber mentions:
Historiography (Hayden White)
Anthropology (James Clifford)
Literary Criticism (Jonathan Culler)
and comments that all of these scholars in some form share Hoppers argument against the traditional
notions of mental structure, competence, and intersubjectivity. (ibid p. 178) Cf. ??
6.4 Theory, Evidence, and Argument in Modern Linguistics

Linguitics and Intuition
Problem is use of speaker intuition as evidence.
Speaker must interpret utterance
Linguist obtains and interprets speakers intuition (judgment) as to grammaticality

This is completely different from Gallilean experimentation, which excludes interpretation
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6.4. THEORY, EVIDENCE, AND ARGUMENT IN MODERN LINGUISTICS
33
Gallileo used measurement, not interpretation

The object of study is not objectively observable, as it was for Gallileo
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It might be argued that the object of study is the mathematical object language, just as Gallileos true
object of study was the mathematical language of nature, which is also unobservable. The answer to this
is that this postulates language as mathematical object, whereas Gallileo did only hypothesized that math
describes physics. In other words, he postulated some mathematical relations or equations that describe
(fit) observed data. He did not posit a new mathematical object. Again, this can be answered by claiming
that grammar is also just a mathematical structure; but in that case, it is observed speech (performance)
that must be described. Chomsky interposes a third object, grammar. In other words, his argument is not
that we can construct a mathematical model of speech that fits the observed data (performance), which
would be a truly Gallilean approach, but that we can construct such a model whose fit is restricted to a
subset of the observed data. Compare concept of force, necessarily to explain Gallilean equations, and
concept of productivity, characteristic of the grammar.
Alternatively: Chomskys argument seems to be just like Gallileos: not only can we construct a mathematical model of the phenomena, but in some sense the phenomena are governed by the math, or the
math is immanent or essential or the like in the observable behavior of the phenomena. The difference is
that Gallileo did not posit a grammar. So what is a grammar? A particular mathematical structure. But
isnt this equivalent to hypothesizing a set of equations to describe motion? We could call those equations
a grammar of motion, after all.
The difference is that a set of equations and a grammar are different kinds of mathematical things.
The latter is more like an algebra. Gallilea did not hypothesis that motion is a mathematical structure, but
that mathematical functions describe motion. Thats quite a different notion. Or is it? Does this boil down
to the difference between analysis and algebra? The continuous v. the discrete? It would seem so, but
Im not sure. Both involve infinity, but in different ways; continuity involves limits, discrete structures
dont?
On the other hand, modern physics no doubt makes use of algebras.
Necessity and Contigency. The hypotheses (grammars) of Gallilean science make predictions; the
relation of observed data to these predictions is contingent. They may or may not fit, but if they do fit,
it is not because they necessarily follow from the model. But the predictions of a Chomskyan grammar
are necessary. By definition, the grammar generates all possible grammatical sentences; thus it can never
really be tested if we exclude actual speech.
But then again, the Gallilean model also makes necessary predictions; that is, the predictions themselves follow necessarily from the model. But the data do not, so they may not match. With Chomsky,
however data that do not match the grammar are discarded as irrelevant or the like. In other words,
Chomsky grammars dont just predict what the data should look like, they stipulate what the data must
look like. What does not fit the model is not counted as data. Did Gallileo do this? He might have; but
then he presumably would have blamed his measurements or his experiment design, rather than blame
the data; or he would have taken the data as good and refined his equations.
Measurement v. Categorization. A key difference between Gallileo and Chomsky is that the former,
rather than categorizing his data as grammatical or not (i.e. fits the prediction or doesnt), measured
the difference between the observed and the predicted. Chomsky cannot do this, because its all discrete
stuff - an utterance is either grammatical or not; the concept of measuring degree of fit between observed
and predicted data is completely absent. Thats because the underlying mathematical model is a discrete
structure. Aha, maybe that is the key difference: discrete models do not admit of measurement, or degree
of fit; they are all or nothing.
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34
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Note again the connection with computation. Turing computes finite approximations to real numbers. Each computation is discrete - results are not measured. But that is computing numbers; Chomsky
grammars dont do this, instead they generate strings. However, a Turing-computed number is represented as a string of symbols; but there is no syntax beyond concatenation (or rather the string syntax
is a notational convention). Hmm, seems to be a key difference between computation of a number and
parsing/generation of strings. Both involve computation, but? Is there a useful distinction here?
Speaker intuition is just as likely to be speaker judgment - i.e. the speaker has to think about it,
form alternative propositions and pick one, or otherwise construct a chain of inferences. This is likely to
be the case for any complicated/ambiguous test utterance: for many such utterances the native speaker
will have no immediate intuition, and must analyze and construct some kind of a theory.
No objective way to adjudicate between conflicting speaker intuitions
Reliance on competence/performance distinction, a/k/a grammaticality v. acceptability, is petitio
principii - it posits the conclusion, namely that there is a grammar. By definition, no speaker intuition
can be adduced as evidence, since only the grammar - i.e. the conclusion - must be adduced in order to
distinguish between the grammatical and the merely acceptable.
6.5 Linguistic Universals
Remark 6.5.1. TODO: list some of the (alleged) linguistic universals the reader is likely to think of in
reading Sibawayhi
Transitivity
Hypotaxis
etc.
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Chapter 7
Semiotics
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Remark 7.0.2. CAVEAT: this is just a set of notes at this point. In the end I expect to discuss some
concepts of Semiotics, and demonstrate that they clearly arise in the Kitb . The purpose is not to go deep
into the arcana of semiotics, but to demonstrate the possibility that Sibawayhis intuitions correspond in
certain revealing ways to some of the ideas of this modern discipline. The logic is that a semiotic reading
provides the best fit for Sibawayhis text, and provides a foundation for his judgments.
Remark 7.0.3. Secondly, this chapter will clarify the basis of my objections to the speech/language
as social activity hypothesis adopted by Carter, Baalbaki, and Marogy. It is simply not true that, as
Baalbaki [?] puts it, Sibawayhi [treats] speech as a social activity and as interaction between a speaker
and a listener (emphasis added). For one thing, social activity is an anachronism; for another, just
because he describes the semantic transactions between speaker and listener does not mean he thinks of
speech as social activity. I find nothing in the Kitb that even suggests the proposition speech is a social
activity. This is actually harmful, insofar as it draws attention away from his clear treatment of speech
in terms of a semiotic code.
Every time there is a possibility of lying, there is a sign-function:
which is to signify (and then to communicate) something to
which no real state of things corresponds
Eco [18], p. 58
[Semiotics] is also the science of everything subject to comic or

tragic distortion
Eco [18], p. 64
Semiotics is mainly concerned with signs as social factors

Eco [18], p. 65
One of the benefits of familiarity with a little semiotic is that it prevents us from falling into the trap
of overemphasizing the importance of a correspondence between speech and states of the real world. The
semiotic codes of language may be created socially, but once established they operate independently of
the state of the world.
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CHAPTER 7. SEMIOTICS
7.1 Eco
Umberto Ecos A Theory of Semiotics ([18]) argues against the reduction of semiosis to communication:
A design for a general semiotics should consider: (a) a theory of codes and (b) a theory of sign
production (ibid p. 3) the latter refering to the use of signs to communicate.
semiotics studies all cultural processes as processes of communication. Therefore each of these processes would seem to be permitted by an underlying system of signification (ibid p. 8)
[E]very act of communication to or between human beings or any other intelligent biological or
mechanical apparatus presupposes a signification system as its necessary condition. (ibid p. 9)
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This discussion will allow me to posit a distinction between signification and communication: in
principle, a semiotics of signification entails a theory of codes, while a semiotics of communication
entails a theory of sign production (Ibid p. 4)
there is a signification system (and therefore a code) when there is the socially conventionalized
possibility of generating sign-functions...Ther is on the contrary a communication process when
the possibilities provided by a signification system are exploited in order to physically procude
expressions for many practical purposes Thus the difference concerns the difference between
rules and processes (or, in Aristotelian terms, metaphorically, power and act). (ibid p. 4)
Furthermore, Eco replaces the naive and non-relational notion of sign (ibid p. 4) with a correlational concept, which he calls sign-function relating and expression to a meaning (both of which he calls
functives of the sign-function:
Properly speaking there are not signs, but only sign-functions... A sign-function is realized when two
functives (expression and content) enter into a mutual correlation... Thus signs are the provisional
result of coding rules which establish transitory correlations of elements, each of these elements
being entitled to enter under given coded circumstances into another correlation and thus form
a new sign. p. 49
The relevance of this is that Sibawayhi, in my view, was primarily concerned with the code of signification, and only peripherally with communication. He was pragmatic, but he was not a Pragmaticist. When
he uses speaker and listener to explain an expression his chief interest is in how meaning is produced and
consumed, not with the social nature of speech.
Every time there is a lie there is signification. Every time there is signification there is the possibility
of using it in order to lie. If this is true (and it is methodologically necesssary to maintain that it is true)
then semiotics has found a new threshold: between conditions of signification and conditions of truth, in
other words the threshold between an intensional and an extensional semantics. [18] p. 59
the expression /give me it/ gives rise to an impressive number of signs (except that in this case
the correlation between expresson and content is not established by the code alone but by a complex
interpretive contextual reading. [18] p. 49. This describes Sibawayhis approach almost perfectly.
Witness the many places where he discusses a construction by starting with a kind of extensional sense
e.g. the verb denotes action and time - and then discusses the contextual readings of the expression.
One can then maintain that it is not true that a code organizes signs; it is more correct to say that codes
provide the rules which generate signs as concrete occurences in communicative intercourse. Therefore
the classical notion of sign dissolves itself into a highly complex network of changing relationships.. p.
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7.1. ECO
37
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49 The flexibility and fluidity of sense is very important for Sibawayhi, where a noun can serve as a verb,
verbs can name, etc. - semantic flexibility is one of the hallmarks of Sibawayhis thinking.
denotation v. connotation: e.g. the expression AB denotes danger level, and connotes evacuation.
(p. 55) In other words, connotation is when one semiotic code piggy-backs on another. The door-buzzer
denotes somebody at the door, and connotes answer the door. Easy to come up with examples: whistle
of tea-kettle denotes boiling water, connotes hot tea on the way. etc.
The extensional fallacy: a theory of codes does not consider extension as one of its categories (p. 63);
i.e. its not about truth but about meaning. (See epigraphs above). To explain the comic effect means
to elaborate a complete intensional semantics, or a theory of content. To explain the semiotic import
of the lie means to means to understand why and how a lie (a false statement) is semiotically relevant
irrespective of the truth or the falsity of that statement. (p. 65) Cf. Art. 6, where mendacity is one of the
five properties of utterance Sibawayhi explicitly remarks.
Thus is is not about pragmatics, but about the operation of the code, which is indifferent to that actual
facts of the world. Which leads to the question of whether Marogy and Carter are on the right track by
emphasizing pragmatics. Of course one can take a pragmatic perspective on language, and therefore on
Sibawayhis topic; but that does not mean that Sibawayhi saw things that way. Semiotics provides an
alternative reading of Sibawayhi, by which his primary interest is the semantic code, and his secondary
interest is the communication system that uses the code.
P. 167-8: /Is/ as a metalinguistic device. So the copula /is/ is a metalinguistic sign meaning possesses
some of the semantic properties of. In some circumstances the metalanguage might not be a verbal one:
as when /is/ is replaced by a pointing finger meaning both this and is. It may also be elided, as
in parataxis. For the Arabic speaker, the fact of juxtaposition, concatenation, serves this metalinguistic
function.
Meaning as cultural unit
Every attempt to establish what the referent of a sign is forces us to define the referent in terms of
an abstract entity which moreover is only a cultural convention. (Eco [18] p. 66)
But, from the point of view of of the functioning of a code (or many codes), the referent
must be excluded as an intrusive and jeopardizing presence which compromises the theorys
theoretical purity an expression does not, in principle, designate any object, but on the
contrary conveys a cultural content. (Eco [18] p. 61)
To say that a sign-vehicle necessarily corresponds to an actual object is a distinctly naive
attitude and one that even a theory of t-values is none to eager to accept. The objection to it is
well known: there exist sign-vehicles which refer to non-existent entities such as unicorn or
mermaid. In these cases, a theory of t-values prefers to speak of terms with null-extenstion
(Goodman 1949) or of possible worlds (Lewis, 1969) (Eco [18] p. 61)
Within the framework of a theory of codes it is unnecessary to resort to the notion of extension, nor to that of possible worlds: the codes, insofar as they are accepted by a society, set
up a cultural world which is neither actual nor possible in the ontological sense; its existence
is linked to a cultural order, which is the way in which a society thinks, speaks and, while
speaking, explains the purport of its thought through other thoughts. (Eco [18] p. 61)
The semiotic object of a semantics is the content, not the referent, and the content has to be
defined as a cultural unit (or as a cluster or a system of interconnected cultural units). (Eco
[18] p. 62)
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CHAPTER 7. SEMIOTICS
The referential fallacy consists in assuming that the meaning of a sign-vehicle has something
to do with its corresponding object. [18], p. 62
Remark 7.1.1. See section X for remarks on t-value, i.e. truth-value theories.
Remark 7.1.2. Relevance: when searching for meanings in Sibawayhis text, we should be looking for
cultural units. A prototypical example is the word ad . A reasonable translation of this term is limit,
boundary, or the like. But the cultural unit indicated by such English terms is quite different from that of
, which extends not only to notions of confinement but also prevention, sanctioning, and punishment. In
other words ad may mean not only boundary, but also the consequences of transgression: the expression
, ad of the thief, refers to amputation of the hand, which prevents (limits) further transgression.
(Source: Lisaan.)
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Remark 7.1.3. The importance of thinking in terms of cultural units instead of meanings. When we
speak of the meaning of an expression, the implication, at least, is that meaning is somehow above the
fray, that we can deracinate the expression from its social context and decipher its ideal meaning.
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Chapter 8
General Principles and Practices
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8.1 Principle of Concept Dependence
Thought is essentially dependent on and bounded by language.

Thought cannot be split off from language. What you mean is what you say. TODO: notes on Language Of Thought (LOT) and other models that postulate thought as independent of language.
[A] persons use of language is bound to be a reliable indicator of the nature of his thought
... the nature of this thought cannot radically transcend, or be discrepant with, his use of
language. Forster [24] p. 56
Practice: Avoid false assimilation. Focus relentlessly on the specifics of the text.
Example: Sibawayhis examination of [ taadiy] strongly suggests that this term, and the concepts he uses it to describe, corresponds to concept of verb transitivity. But as a matter of principle,
namely that his thought is inseparable from the form in which it is expressed, it must be that the meanings he conveys using this term cannot be the same as those we express using transitivity. This principle
motivates a closer examination of the ways he actually uses the term, which clearly show subtle but nonvacuous differences from the way transitivity is conceived in modern linguistics. (See articles 9-17.)
Remark 8.1.1. Corollary: Dont look for a one-to-one correspondance between his concepts and ours.
This is a rather subtle point; the pull to assimilate his ideas to ours is often subtle and nearly irresistable.
To discover his meaning requires imagination; see principle x below.
Source: Forster [25], section I.
8.2 Principle of Meaning-as-Use

The meaning of a word is its use.
Practice: The interpretation and translation of a given term must emerge from an examination of the
way it is used in the text, as well as the way it is used in contemporary texts. Etymology is imporant, but
secondary to usage.
Example:
Source: Forster [25], section II.
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CHAPTER 8. GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
8.3 Principle of Sensationalism

Meaning is grounded in sensation.
Practice: Prefer the sensational reading. In practice this means searching the etymology for a sensationbased kernel sense.
Example: for [ qiys], read measurement rather than analogy. Its what tailors do.
Sources: Forster [25]
8.4 Principle of Lexical Holism

Different uses and thus meanings of the same word are interdependent
Different morphological forms of the same root or stem are semantically related
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Practice:
Always render the same source word using the same target word
Strive to render morphological variants using the same target root or stem
Sources: Forster, Hermeneutics
8.5 Principle of Syntactic Holism
The idea is that syntax contributes to meaning; the same idea expressed in different syntax is not really
the same. Related: meaning is compositional; the whole is more than just the sum of its parts, in that the
way the parts are assembled (i.e. their organization) contributes to the overall meaning.
Example: show how meaning can explicitly be tied to syntactic structure in formal languages; e.g.
nesting in XML encodes a parent-child meaning.
Practice:
8.6 Principle of Semantic Holism
What an author does not say may be as important or even more imporant than what he does say. Lacunae
reveal.
TODO: find a better label for this one.
Example: Sibawayhi does not have a term for, nor does he ever directly discuss, the concept of mood.
He clearly does rely on notions of speaker intention, etc. - what amounts to illocutionary force. He also
discusses certainty and doubt with respect to certain verbs. But he also clearly has no distinct category
that corresponds to mood or modality. What does that tell us about the way he conceives of language
(and reality)?
Practice:
Sources: Deutscher on Gladstone on Homer; Hoyrup?
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8.7. IMAGINATIO
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8.7 Imaginatio
See Herders notion of divination, and feeling ones way in. The readers imagination plays a fundamental role in the discovery/construction of meaning.
Practice:
Sources: Forster
8.8 Primacy of the Hermenuetical Arabesque

A/k/a Principle of Text Holism. The parts of a text cannot be understood in the absence of an understanding of the text as a whole, and vice-versa. Hermeneutical Arabesque is a play on hermeneutical
circle.
Practice:
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8.9 Principle of Authorial Individuality
The author is a creature of his time, place, and language; but he is also a unique individual. His use of
language may be idiosyncratic, reflecting personal ideas that differ from those of his historical context.
Practice: Be open to the possibility that Sibawayhis concepts and language may clash with those of
his contemporaries. In other words, just because a particular term e.g. [ qays] seems to have a
well-established usage among his contemporaries does not automatically mean that we must read it in
that way. The task then is to search for ways in which his usage and meanings may be idiosyncratic.
Another way to put it: some aspects of the meaning of the text may be found in the psychology of the
author.
Yet another way of looking at it: take the perpective of Pragmatics. Search for the illocutionary force
behind the text, the pragmatic presumptions implicated by the text, etc.
8.10
Principle of Genre Dependence
Genre contributes essentially to meaning.

Forster: genre as reflective of authorial intent, plus rules of composition; with the caveat that genre
should not be treated naively, as a rigid set of rules etc.
Example: Sibawayhi had no literary predecessors, so there is no literary genre for him to follow.
However, the notion of genre is not limited to literary production. Speech is also characterized by genre:
the political stump speech, the sermon, the lightbulb joke, the classroom lecture, etc. all may be viewed
as genres. Sibawayhis text was clearly the product of a culture in which the dominant mode of knowledge
production and transmission was verbal. His text must be read with the verbal genres of his time in mind;
they provide clues to its meaning.
Sources: Forster [24], chapter 5, Herder on Genre.
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CHAPTER 8. GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
8.11
Usage Trumps Etymology
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Example: democracy comes from the Greek, but the etymology would not be much help in interpreting
a speech by Hilary Clinton on democracy in the ME.
Example: suppose we could prove, on rock-solid evidence, that [ qiys] came from Syriac - or
Hebrew, or some other language - the language doesnt matter. The critical question is how to use that
knowledge. How much weight should it be given in trying to determine what it means in Sibawayhis
text? Its entirely possible that the meaning for him was substantially different from its etymological
kernel.
Principle: in order to establish a particular meaning, we must also eliminate other possibilities. So if
we want to argue that the meaning of qiyas in Sibawayhis text reflects its foreign etymological origin, we
must also show that that is the only, or at least the most likely, meaning. If we can show that his usage is
consistent with some other reading, especially one based on sensation (e.g. a tailors measurement), then
we have less reason to refer to the etymology.
A key question: to what extent do any words reflect their etymologies? We should be able to develop a
very specific image of how meanings change as word forms change - comparative philology has probably
done this. It seems likely that very many if not all words retain the ghost of their origins, but on the
other hand it is clear that the vast majority of speakers will be unaware of etymologies. How many native
English speakers know that the kernel etymological sense of both correct and right is straight? My
guess is only those with a smattering of Latin.
Example: Article 6. Sibawayhis terms [ mustaqm] and [ mul] as right and wrong.
Etymologically that works, but the problem is that these English terms carry lots of cultural baggage and
for most speakers their etymologies are irrelevant. Even highly educated people are unlikely (I venture
to say) to know that etymologically wrong is traceable to late Old English where it meant crooked.
(Compare depraved, from L. pravus, crooked.)
To put it another way: the sensate basis of the term is lost. The problem here, pace Carter, is that
we have no way of knowing if Sibawayhis two terms had lost their connection to sensation and thus
carried the sort of abstract moral dimension the English words have. It seems unlikely to me; in any
case, the principle of vividness would suggest we go with straight and crooked. But this should be
complemented by an inventory of the ways these terms are used in his text. And not just these terms; all
terms based on the same triads - qama, hal, hala bayna, etc. - should be examined, since by the Principle
of Lexical Holism morphologically related words are semantically interdependent. This would imply that,
if e.g. muhal meant wrong, we should see echoes of this meaning in related terms. I dont believe that
is the case.
And finally, by the Principle of Parsimony (Occams Razor), the sensation-based reading is the simplest, requiring the least amount of presupposition.
8.12
Injunction against False Assimilation
false assimilation of the authors ideas to ones own...

[I]nterpreters face every-present temptations to falsely assimilate an encountered genre to
one that is already familiar. Forster [23]
Practice: Thou shalt not confuse thine ideas with the authors ideas.
Sources: Forster; Skinner
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Chapter 9
History
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9.1 Sibawayhi the man

9.2 The milieu
Donner
Schoeler
Cosmopolitanism
Relation of Arabs to subject peoples and traditions

politics and power and literary practice
debate, soirees
poetry and status of linguistic mastery
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Chapter 10
Language and Literacy
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...writing is largely responsible for bringing language into

consciousness.
Olson [74] p xviii
...the text provides a model for speech; we introspect our language in terms of the categories laid
down by our script, to paraphrase Benjamin Whorf (Olson [74], p. xviii)
...how the very structure of knowledge was altered by attempts to represent the world on paper (Olson
[74] p. xvii)
Remark 10.0.1. Sibawayhi as the inventor of the Arabic language. First, the Kitb was written, on
paper. Second, it provides a highly literate picture of speech. Nothing in it depends on writing on
paper. In other words, Arabic was a literary langauge before it was a written language; the culture of
speech was informed by a highly self-aware and literary conception of language (based on the arf,
even before writing ascended as the dominant mode of discourse.
Remark 10.0.2. What do we (think we) know about the language spoken by Sibawayhi et al.? Answer:
not much. Sketch some of the interpretive difficulties to be addressed in detail in the excercises; e.g.
vowel variation;
10.1
Current theories
Pre-classical, Classical, Middle, etc.

Owens [81]
Classical, Post-classical, Middle, etc.
10.2
Inflection
Remark 10.2.1. Remarks on the debate over whether or not the inflected form was actually spoken
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CHAPTER 10. LANGUAGE AND LITERACY
10.3
Dialects
10.4
Foreign influence
10.5
Literacy
Towards a Psychology of Literacy: on the Relations Between Speech and Writing. [73]
The World on Paper[74]
Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word[76]
10.6
Sibawayhis Diction and Style
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Remark 10.6.1. relatively simple syntax and limited vocab

Remark 10.6.2. Use of to mean
Remark 10.6.3. frequent argument-from-authority (I heard an Arab say...) - why exactly does he do
this so often? Was it an innovation? More to it than meets the eye. Does it indicate that the forms
so attested were in fact not used ordinarily, so he felt the need to justify? If so then we cannot take
such forms as characteristic of the language. Also, there were no standards of survey methodology, so
it seems unlikely that he was adhering to standard methodological practices sanctioned by scholarly or
social tradition.
Remark 10.6.4. On the other hand, there was the isnad tradition
Remark 10.6.5. Rhetorical forms; cf. Hoyrup on structure of ancient mathematical texts; if you want
X, I say do Y etc. NB resemblance between Sibs rhetorical devices and those texts
Common patterns, e.g.
favorite idioms e.g.

common metaphors
What can we infer from his diction (habits of expression and stylistic preferences), re: his thought, the
man himself, his milieu?
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Chapter 11
Culture and Knowledge

Overview
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11.1
Remark 11.1.1. The point of this chapter is that many diverse sources of knowledge were available to
Sibawayhi. Most writers restrict their considerations to well-known sources, e.g. the Quran, poetry,
lore, etc. But we need to go beyond that and consider all sources of knowledge: private intuition, cultural
concepts of physics, etc.
11.2
Cultural knowledge
Poetry
Genealogy
Ayyam - Days of the Arabs

Magic
Cultic practice
Prophecy as a kind of knowledge
11.3
Folk Sciences
Remark 11.3.1. Folk sciences are especially important in interpreting Sibawayhis text. The idea being
that e.g. pre-scientific physics, chemistry, biology, etc. provide clues as to notions such as cause and
effect, natural law, concepts of work, energy, etc. Obvious relation to the concept of
Povinelli [88]: Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzees Theory of How the World Works. Note that
Povinellis definition introduces a complication. He takes folk physics to be the kind of understanding of
the physical world that develops naturally and spontaneously during the development of human infants
and children, and later permeates our adult, common-sense conception of why the world works the way
it does. But to this we can add the professional physics of a given (pre-scientific) culture. For Classical
and Medieval culture, this was obviously Aristotelean physics. But it seems likely that any culture of some
complexity will have professional scientists; the Babylonians and Chinese had their astronomers, and
presumably there were people who thought about physics: force, motion, elasticity, the way things break
and why, and so forth. The question with respect to Sibawayhi is whether we can reconstruct the folk
and professional science of his day, and if so, whether that helps us to interpret his text. For example,
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CHAPTER 11. CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE
the concepts of action, function/work (), and breakage ( )are fundamental; can a study of
contemporary folk/professional science shed light on what he meant when he used such terms?
Remark 11.3.2. Thus a goal is to expand the scope of Carters Ethical Hypothesis. Carter sees the influence of legal and ethical thinking, but why stop there? In some cases he sees as obvious such influences,
but it is not at all obvious that any term Sibawayhi uses should be traced back to law. First we must exclude other possibilities, and it looks to me much more likely that he drew on ordinary language and
ordinary knowledge rather than specialized resource. After all, if he had merely adopted ethico-legal
concepts and language to describe language, would we not expect to see much more in the way of reference to specifically legal modes of reasoning and patterns of language? To me it looks like his language
is not so specialized.
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Povinelli, p. 4: In particular, people tend to believe that objects remain in motion once they are
released because they acquire an internal force (called impetus), which gradually diminishes over time.
Newtonian physics explicitly denies such a thing as impetus. However, McCloskey and his colleagues
discovered that even after passing a course in Newtonian physics, students still tended to appeal to the
(mistaken) idea of impetus in explaining common physical events. One interpretation of such findings
is that humans are born into the world prepared to construct certain ideas about the physical world
theories that may be at odds with the underlying reality of the world.
Is such a theory of impetus is at work in Sibawayhis account of ?The verb has the most power
( ;) it can function in any number of complements. Other verb-like terms, such as inna () , have less
power, so their influence can only extend to their immediately adjacent neighbor. Etc.
One of the questions we will ask is how Sibawayhi thought about thinks like cause and effect, force,
etc. Especially notions affecting his idea of the structure of action in the world. For two reasons. One,
how one thinks about such things might have an influence on how one thinks about language, at least
metaphorically. Two, we search for clues in his language, so we want to know what kinds of knowledge
the language of his times encoded. There is a theoretical assumption here that the forms of language at
a given time and place encode its users received wisdom about the way the world works. See Lakoff
and Johnsons metaphors we live by.
Levi-Straus, The Savage Mind
11.4
Transmission: Oral and Written
Remark 11.4.1. Discussion of specific mechanisms of teaching, learning, and knowledge transmission in
general. Refer to Schoeler, Ong, etc.
11.5
Innovation, Speculation, etc.
Production, praxis; how was new knowledge produced and received?
11.6
Islamic Sciences
Remark 11.6.1. Islamic knowledge not comprehensive - vast areas of ordinary knowledge are outside
its scope, e.g. folk physics, biology, medicine, etc.
Remark 11.6.2. NB: note Donners hypothesis that Islam was not yet stabilized
Remark 11.6.3. Relation of Sib. to other writers and thinkers especially important; also impossible to
ascertain
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11.6. ISLAMIC SCIENCES
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Remark 11.6.4. Carters Ethical Hypothesis - no need to go into details, but must examine the kind of
evidence and reasoning he uses and expose weaknesses.
Quran
Sunna
Hadeeth
Fiqh
Cosmology
etc.
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Refer to Versteegh [111]
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Chapter 12
The Arabic Sciences
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Remark 12.0.5. Remarks on the historical development of and as autonomous disciplines, only
post-Sibawayhi.
12.1
Prosody
Remark 12.1.1. Best resource: Paoli, De la thorie lusage. Essai de reconstitution du systme de la
mtrique arabe ancienne ( [83])
The Science of al-Khall probably developed before Sibawayhi, or at least before the Kitb . Unfortunately, all evidence to that effect post-dates the Kitb . Nonetheless, the concensus seems to be that
al-Khall actually did invent a science of prosody, although it is impossible to tell how much of what is
found in later manuals was present in al-Khalls formulation.
Nonetheless, one point is critical, and that is the notion of construction (), based on the concept of
. This issue is discussed in detail below in Chapter ?
12.2
Lexicology
Remark 12.2.1. Note on al-Khall
Remark 12.2.2. Note on the conceptualization of lexicology/lexicography. Not the science of words,
but of utterances, meanings, or the like. Cf. organization of Kitab al-Ayn by radicals, not words. Conclusion: we can take this as evidence of Sibawayhis conceptual scheme; he didnt think of word the way
we think of it. More semiotic.
12.3
Rhetoric
Not much here, but it is worth pointing out that some of Sibawayhis grammatical thinking can be construed as essentially rhetorical.
Remark 12.3.1. Note relation of modern punctuation to Classical rhetoric, e.g. period referred to an
aspect of delivery.
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Chapter 13
The Quranic Imagination
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Introduced new intuitions

importance of ;everything is a sign
Cosmos is meaningful; also compositional, a hierarchy of parts, each part also meaningful.
In the Quranic imagination everything is a sign - or , etc. Mountains, oceans, everything is a
sign. But this is not an algebra or a calculus. Signs dont point to something else, as in modern algebra,
which is divided into syntax and assigned semantics. Theyre more like emanations or symptom signs. A
mountain is a sign but does not necessarily denote something else. In other words we want to complicate
the relation of sign and intuition and knowledge.
Once the imagination has been shaped by the Quranic vision, the status of mountains and seas etc. as
signs becomes intuitional - immediate and obvious.
v.
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Chapter 14
Foreign Influence
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Greek
Persian
Indian
Syriac
Ancient Babylonia - Arabic preserves ancient linguistic features; does the Kitab preserve ancient
modes of linguistic thought?
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Chapter 15
Resources
Lexicons
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15.1
Remark 15.1.1. TODO: remarks on the use of lexicons; reliability, chronology, etc. Even though they
post-date Sibawayhi (with the exception of the Kitab al-Ayn), they still provide valuable information. If
nothing else, they suggest possible readings that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Kitab al-Ayn
Lisaan al-Arab
15.2
Quran
Remark 15.2.1. TODO: remarks on mashaf
15.3
The Seven Ahruf
15.4
Qiraat
Remark 15.4.1. Versteegh [111] is especially valuable here.
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Chapter 16
Major Themes
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16.1
Silence and Sound
Speech and Poetry

Harf
Semiotics, not Parts-of-Speech
Ism as a term of epistemological judgment rather than ontological categorization. For Sibawayhi at least,
ism only applies to words in meaningful speech; it is not a category into which words are slotted independently of the way they are used. Thus there is no contradiction in saying that a word may serve as either
an ism or a sifa; it depends on the context and the illocutionary force of the utterance.
The difference between ism and sifa (and masdar, zarf, etc.) may be characterized in terms of mode
of designation. It is true, as many modern writers have observed, that ism is a general category that
subsumes sifa, masdar, and zarf; but it is not an ontological category. Rather, it refers to a semantic
category that characterizes certain uses of words. It does not refer to syntactic category, contrary to the
assertions of some writers ([38]). What characterizes all words used as isms is that they refer to things
(a category that includes actions, events, etc.). The subclasses of ism also refer to things, but in different
ways (modes).
A sifa, for example, refers to a thing by signifying a quality that characterizes a thing. A critical element
of the notion of sifa is transience, which it shares with verbs. A sifa that refers to a persistent or inherent
quality is a sifa mushabbaha, a sifa rendered similar /to the enactant designator (active participle). Now
the participle, when it carries verbal force, is a transient qualifier; like the verb, its designatum is a
transient quality of the thing it characterizes. The sifa mushabbaha, by contrast, is only /similar/ to this,
since it designates a persistent quality. Thus it is unlike the verb, and like the true ism.
Russels notion of definite description may be helpful here. Sib.s distinction between ism and sifa
seems very like Russels distinction between names and descriptions that identify. An ism is a name, in
Russels terms; a sifa is a definite or indefinite description; it serves to identify (name) a thing, but it does
so in the mode of describing, rather than naming.
Kasher [38], p 465, translates: I passed by a man who was a lion in strength and boldness. This
provides an excellent example of the subtlety with which modern notions can distort our understanding.
This translation uses hypotaxis (who was a lion) where the original is purely paratactic; a conformant
translation is I passed by a man, a lion, strengthening, and bolding. There is no who was a in the
original. This is critical to understanding Sibs mode of thinking; meanings are constructed seriatum, by
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CHAPTER 16. MAJOR THEMES
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accumulation of senses. The sentence at issue here is weak and disfigured because it comes perilously
close to being muHal: since lion asad is a true ism, with no reference to a descriptive quality, it represents a break in the semantic trajectory of the utterance. I passed by a man is semantically complete;
whatever follows it must either initiate a new utterance, or its meaning must integrate seamlessly with
what precedes it, which means that it must qualify a man. Kasher finds this troublesome on grounds
that elsewhere Sib licenses the use of true isms to paratactically qualify pronouns; he clearly states that
some things may be qualified by isms. From this Kasher infers [i]n other words, these definite isms, i.e.
nouns, are classified by Sibawayhi as sifas.
But there is no inconsistency here; the problem is that Kasher misreads Sibawayhi. He is not classifying
words, but the way words carry meaning in speech. There is no contradiction in allowing the use of the
ism as a sifa in one context and prohibiting it (or denigrating it) in another, since the governing principle is
not what kind of a thing is it but how it conveys meaning in speech. To put it another way, classifying
a word as an ism does not condemn it to a particular syntactic or lexical category. It only means that it
designates something, when used in meaningful speech.
This explains Sibs frequent use of expressions like has the disposition of (bi-manzilah) and in the
topos of (bi-wad@). Speech tokens may take on any number of dispositions, and appear in any number
of topoi; this is not governed by ontological part-of-speech categorization, but by the propositional and
illocutionary force of the utterance. The ism/sifa/etc. categorization is a matter of local epistemology
(interpretation), not global ontology.
p. 466: he translates as it was travelled on it [= the way] vehemently. But Im not sure
should be interpreted in this way; I think it may refer to the mount; i.e. upon it [= the mount]
was traveled [traveling] severe; the elided traveling is why Sib condemns this (as qabeeh?), since
a qualifier by definition must qualify something and is too weak to stand on its own as an ism. Kasher
misinterprets the modification of this that Sib considers better: , when he takes min alsayr as a prepositional phrase functioning as [its] attribute. But Sibawayhis point is just the opposite:
min al-sayr contains the masdar sayr that serves as the ism that qualifies. In other words, this
construction is better because what follows provides the missing thing that it qualifies.
Sib does sometimes use ism in the limited sense of true ism, to the exclusion of the ism that is a
sifa. Kasher observes this and sees a problem. But it is not a problem, since ism refers not to a part of
speech, but to a (contingent) semantic function.
sifa: Kasher [38] makes a major error on p. 471, where he says although words classified as zarfs
convey a spatial or temporal meaning, that is, they refer to objects as other isms do... But the zarf never
refers to (denotes) objects as other isms do. Thats the point of the notion; it translates literally as
container or scope, and that is exactly what Sib means by it. This is obvious in the simple example
of Zaydun khalfaka v. *Zaydun khalfuka. The reason the latter sentence is muHal is that khalfuka,
being in the nominative, denotes a thing, namely the region behind you. But Zayd is not a region, so
this construction suffers semantic discontinuity. The former sentence, by contrast, constructs khalfaka
in nasb, as a zarf; it refers to the region behind you, but it does not denote it. It introduces it in order
to establish the semantic scope of the semantic trajectory: Zayd is /in/ the region behind you. It is of
critical importance in interpreting the concept of zarf to understand that it /always/ implicates a verbal
sense; in this case, this can be made explicit as something like Zayd remained [in] the
region behind you.
masdar:
Parataxis: Construction and Flow

A key to understanding parataxis is to understand the twin concepts of construction and flow. Most of
his analysis involves deciding what is consructed-against or flowed-against (or supported-against). The
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early chapter about constructing the verb against the noun and vice-versa is critical. Direct and indirect
object complements may be constructed against x or y, etc. Descriptors and other qualifiers are made to
flow against their antecedents. And so forth.
In summary, these ideas clearly reflect a notion of sequential construction, the antecedent being
constructed-upon, for the purpose of encoding meaning.
Do not interpolate the copula. does not mean Zayd is your brother. The copula is a verb, and
it makes its subject the performing subject. This sense is completely absent in the Arabic. Learn to read
paratactically: Zayd, your brother. We do this all the time in English: Hot day. Nice tie. This your
book? That movie any good? Etc.
Do not discard the alif-lam. does not mean the big house; it means the big, the house.
Parataxis, step-by-step accumulation of meaning.
The Axiom of Parataxis is clearly at work in Article 59, covering dicta like and
. Sibawayhi carefully explicates the semantics of such dicta in terms of sequential accumulation of
meaning, where the term is treated as something the introduces overlap , etc.
Semiosis and Poesis: Signs and the Construction of Meaning
Cf. Eco, significance v. communication systems

For Sibawayhi, meaning is product of significance and force. Significance: extension and intension,
meanings of words. Force: propositional and illocutionary, meaning of utterances.
Kalam v. LafZ: does Sibawayhi use these terms to refer to different kinds of meaning? I.e. kalam as
form with significance, lafZ as utterance with force.
Measurement: homology, substition, etc.

Based on intuitions of harf, bina, and jaryan
Meaning
Sibawayhi regularly uses several terms to convey something like meaning:

- sometimes seems to mean intensional sense
, - usually seems to mean denotation or extensional sense

- sign or mark; e.g. mark of femininity
- want/desire; what the speaker wants to convey
- intention; sometimes adduced to account for illocutionary force
- imagining; Sibawayhi occassionally uses this term to refer to the way a listener places a semantic
construction on what he hears (e.g. art. 73 p. 423, art 77 p. 433; art. 90, p 453, 454
It is striking that he never (to my knowledge, at least) attributes meaning to the so-called case endings. He doesnt even refer to the actual marks (fath, etc.) very often, preferring to refer to the abstract
name (e.g. nasb).
His concept of linguistic (i.e. specifically lexical, morphological or syntactic) meaning seems to exclude illocutionary force. Or more specifically, the meanings he ascribes to terms, words, sentences,
always seem to be purely propositional or denotational, shorn of illocutionary force. Thus a command is
an illocutionary act; but Sibawayhi does not refer to an imperative mood, or imperative form. Instead
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he simply declares that the form that we call the imperative is constructed for what will be but is not
(yet), i.e. it denotes a future act. It is only a command when used with imperative force, not by virtue
of its form or category. There are other forms that can be imbued with imperative force, including even
some nouns.
Meaning perspectives. See below on structure of action. Interpretation of an utterance depends on
illocutionary force, listener imagination (wahm), etc. Plus intuitions about meaning involve various
perspectives or facets or takes on the same observable. So we can abstract aspects or perspectives
or the like as a kind of general semantic principle or mode of thinking. This dovetails with his usage of
( waji, lit. face, direction, aspect).
The path metaphor is also integral to his sense of meaning.
Aspects and Structure of Action
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on fil, fail, mafuwl etc. - initial puzzle: why does he not refer to transitive verb and instead refer to
the enactant whose action passes to the enactee?
This theme provides an excellent test for our method. Our task is to discover (via anamnesis) intuitions
or concepts about action that compel our assent independent of language. Then we show how Sibawayhis
language may or may not reflect such intuitions or concepts. Well, its more accurate to say that we start
with some understanding of the text, and we seek to discover what prelinguistic intuitions might have
motivated the text.
We end up with two themes. One is that we can view action from multiple perspectives - not only
spatio-temporally, but also from either a nominal or a verbal perspective. Articles 9, 10, etc. reflect this.
The other is that action has a characteristic structure involving enactants and co-enactants (subjects and
complements). Sibawayhis text reflects these pre-linguistic intuitions.
Whats the difference between action ( )and act ( ?)Only perspective; theyre the same
thing, viewed differently; the former as dynamic, verbal action in time and space, the latter as reified,
nominal.
How is action related to act? Since these are two perspectives on the same thing, it is not correct to
think of the act as produced by the action (like a number is produced by a computation). Nonetheless
since these are two distinct perspectives we can ask how they are related and how this is expressed in
language.
The key is to understand that transitivity is an abstract relation; it does not imply any particular
relation such as influencing, producing, or the like.
Some simple English examples make this clear: we strike Zayd, think thoughts, tell jokes, fear death,
love justice, lament our mistakes, and regret our pasts. All ordinary transitive verbs, but the transitivity is
of a different kind in different verbs. To tell a joke is to produce it; to think a thought is either to produce
it or reproduce it; to fear, love, etc. something is to stand in a certain emotional relation to it. What is
common among transitive actions is a certain abstract relation between subject and object of the action.
Arabic simply allows us to do with any verb what we can only do with certain verbs in English. Not
only do we think thoughts, etc., we also strike strikings, sit sittings, run runnings, and so forth. Every
action comes with its parallel act, in which it functions; Arabic just allows us to articulate this.
Note that the literal translation of a phrase like
is he sat, sitting; the Arabic is every bit as
redundant as the English. But unlike English, Arabic shapes the masdar (gerund) in order to expressly
indicate the relation between it and its related action. In other words, the morphosyntax is interpreted
semantically, at least by Sibawayhi.
On the other hand, the action functions in the act seems to make sense.
The second oddity, made more clear in Article 10, is the symmetry between action ( )and function (). The latter term is virtually always taken by Western writers to be a grammatical term that
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16.1.
63
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refers to syntactic function or the like. However, an alternative interpretation is plausible, namely that it
simply provides another perspective on the semantics of action, so to speak. In some passages Sibawayhi
clearly uses to refer to the semantics of action rather than grammatical function, in much the same
way he usually employs . See Articles 70, 73, etc.
In Article 73, on lh wt, Sibawayhi clearly uses to refer to action: when you say
, it is
known that there has been functioning () , i.e. he sounds. Note also his syntax: there has been
functioning/action; i.e. the l reflects action, albeit prior action.
If we take to be about words and syntax then it must be theoretical. But if we take it to be motivated
by semantics, it becomes more directly traceable to intuitions. cf. the dance makes the dancer: the action
makes the enactant. Not the substance or thing itself, but its character as performer of the action (an
intensional sense).
It is the action that constructs the intensional sense of enactment. E.g.
Zayd, qua ism,
has a denotation; but the utterance augments the denotation, by introducing the action, so that the action
of striking constructs Zayd as a striker, i.e. enriches the meaning of Zayd with the intensional sense of
maker/enactant of striking, just as it modulates the phonological construction of the word by producing
the appropriate desinential fluctuation.
Parallel structure of meaning and form; meaning is basic and drives the analysis.
He generally attributes some kind of meaning to each term (arf). But such meanings are not all of
the same class. For example, suffixed subject pronouns (e.g. -tu in katab-tu) are considered covert
designators (pronounish). But the prefixes of the imperfect (e.g. ya- in ya-ktubu) are not so considered;
instead he calls them signs. Presumably this is because they dont have unequivocal denotation;
ta-ktubu may mean you (m) write or she writes, etc.
He also does not explicitly assign meaning to the inflections. With only one exception that I know
of, he does not even refer to the meanings of the cases (the exception is when he refers to , the
sense of the mansub).
Hypothesis: he had a kind of modal sense of meaning. The different cases of a noun are something
like different modes of meaning or presenting or the like. The particles introduce a kind of modulation
or alteration in the sense of the words to which they attach; hence I translate as intensional
term.
A simple example will illustrate. Consider the noun , xalf, behind, or posterior region or the
like. Used as a true noun, it denotes a region: , xalfka zyd un , lit. the posterior region of you,
Zayd. That is, your xalf and Zayd correspond. Strictly speaking, this is a somewhat odd thing to say.
More common is the use of xalf as a arf, a container, which serves to delimit the semantic scope of its
antecedent. Thus , zyd un xalfaka , Zayd [is] behind you. Sibawayhi explicates this by saying
that the arf here has the sense of in: Zayd is in your xalf.
So the difference seems to be between using a word to denote in the former case, and using it to refer
in the latter case. The arf does not simply denote; rather, it uses the denotation of the base term in order
to construct a related but different meaning. A semantic inflection, so to speak.
This hypothesis needs a bit more work, obviously.
Clear that the desinential fluctuations are closely related to illocutionary force, the way things are
said rather than merely what is said.
Flow, Function, Impetus: the Theory of , and

Remark 16.1.1. This section needs to be redone. I now believe that is essentially a semantic term,
or at least is motivated by semantic intuitions, so that , action, and , function, represent different
perspectives on the structure of (semantic, real) action.
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See chapter X on the lexicon:
- function, read etymologically (Latin fungi, functus): perform, execute, discharge
- dynamics, etymologically power, from Gk dynamis
- very difficult to translate; etymologically involves change of course; by serendipity the English
serif works pretty well - a serif is a turn of the pen; see lexicon chapter. Greek strophe, lit. turning
might also work.
and - strength and weakness, often used by Sibawayhi to characterize constructions
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The theory of function(ing) ( )- is it really theory? Or just a descriptive device, metaphor?

Compare gravity in Newtonian mechanics: the theory is an equation, but the concept of gravity
(which is something different from the math) is equally necessary?
The theory of cannot be separated from the metaphor of flow
thus pathway
it also cannot be separated from the notion of power
There is no without ( dynamics, Greek for power, ability).
the power of the factor is limited; some take no objects, some 1, 2, or three, plus others
relation of power to heaviness/lightness - it takes strength to raise something
So what we seem to have is a kind of folk physics. There are several ways to look at power. One is
on the theory of impetus other: motion dwindles as impetus is used up. Better is a theory of energy and
work: strength dwindles as it is used up in work. A third way of looking at it is that the work of each
factor is specific, not an example of a more general notion of work.
Based on Sibawayhis usage, it seems likely that he did have a general idea of function, work, power,
etc. in mind, so that he thought of these principles operating in the same way everywhere. More generally,
in terms of folk physics, he seemed to have a clear idea of what Povinelli ([88] p. 5) calls the attempt to
understand the observable macroscopic world of objects in terms of unobservable states and processes,
which is characteristic of both folk and scientific physics.
Nab (setting-Up )
The rule of thumb is that nab always has verbal force.
For example, in the articles on the masdar in nab the l clause is referred using language that
strongly suggests that Sibawayhi thought of it as a transient state implicating action. E.g., paraphrasing,
the masdar is manb since it is a l, transient state, which the antecedent (i.e. subject) has gone/entered
into () .
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16.2. LEXICO-SEMANTIC CLUSTERS
65
Heaviness and Lightness (specific gravity)

Stasis and Change
Asl and ?
Paths
Remark 16.1.2. TODO: explication way/path metaphors; their centrality

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Places
for
: topos, associated with case; NB: article 133 states that e.g. in is a
: this seems to refer to semantics, what actually occurs, rather than to a grammatical function;
see Article 1, among many others, for use of this term to mean what has occurred
: disposition
etc.
16.2
Lexico-Semantic Clusters

Speech and Utterance:
Meaning:
Measurement and Symmetry:

Cognition:
Judgment:
Path:
Place:

Construction:
Action and Event:
Syntagma:

Stability and Variance:
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Part III
Constructing a Translation
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Chapter 17
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General Principles and Practices of

Translation
17.1
Principles
A text is a machine conceived for eliciting interpretations

Eco [20] p. 6
We decide how to translate, not on the basis of the dictionary,

but on the basis of the whole history of two literatures
Eco [20] p. 13
Translations do not concern a comparison between two

languages but the interpretation of two texts in two different
languages.
Eco [20] p. 14
Eco: modernizing v. keeping it archaic; foreignizing v. domesticating. Robson: domesticating v.

alienating.
Jakobson, On Linguistic Aspects of Translation
Principle of Exegetical Neutrality: if at any point in a text there is a passage that raises for the native
speaker legitimate questions of exegesis, then if at all possible, a translator should strive to confront the
reader of his version with the same questions of exegesis and not produce a version which in his mind
resolves those questions. Peter Long and Roger White, quoted in [5] p. 37.
Principle of Interpretive Integrity: if at any point in a text there is a term or passage that raises legitimate questions of exegesis, then, whilst using their [sic] interpretive skills to offer the best translation
they can, a translator should, if at all possible, note the original word(s) used and justify the translation
offered, to enable the reader to make up their [sic] own mind about the issues involved. Michael Beaney,
Introduction to [5] p. 39.
Principle of Etymological Transparency: strive to find words in the target language whose etymology
matches that of source words.
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CHAPTER 17. GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF TRANSLATION
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Principle of Morphological Fidelity: always use the same root for root; never use the same root for
different roots. For Arabic, which cannot easily form binary opposites like definite/indefinite and transitive/intransitive since it lacks morphemes like un- and in-, this means we need to find different
lexemes for contrasting pairs in the source. For example, if we translate [ mar in fa] as familiar,
[ nakira].
we cannot use unfamiliar to translate
Presumption of Lexical Simplicity: assume that for Sibawayhi the kernel or etymological senses of words
were close to the surface. TODO: refine this based on distinction between etymology and use. There are at
least three sources of knowlege of meaning: etymology, sensation, and usage. Compare Herders emphasis
on sensation; look for a concrete, sensation-based interpretation. E.g. in in man in the house is
concrete and direct, but in constructions like man in distress or man in relation to beast etc. the sense
of in is extended, abstracted. Another way of articulating this presumption might be something like
presumption of literal usage or the like.
Principle of Paratactic (Fidelity? Integrity?): translation syntax should follow source syntax where possible; where not possible, the smallest possible paratactic units should be identified and the translation
syntax should not spill over the boundaries of such units; the target syntax should parallel the paratactic
organization of the source at finest possible level of granularity (but no finer).
My translations below are intended more as guides for the reader attempting to decipher the original
that as a translated edition of the Kitb . Cf. notes on Hoyrups conformant translation on page ??.
Obviously construction of a translation depends on construction of a reading. A translation is a kind
of representation of a reading; many are possible for a given reading.
The reader has the luxury of entertaining many possibilities; the translator is condemned to choose
just one.
Various approaches:
Surface translation - localized, just focus on surface reading
Deep translation - master the text, develop a global sense or theory, a unified view of its parts,
and translate accordingly
Conformant translation - notes on Hoyrups [34] approach
Menardian translation
Stylistic issues: literal, idiomatic, conformant, mixed
17.2
Domesticating v. Alienating
etc.
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Chapter 18
Translating Sibawayhian Arabic

Translation subtleties and peculiaries
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18.1
alif-lam: definite article, relative article
definite/indefinite article: Arabic and English patterns diverge; you cant just map from article to
article without distorting the semantics. Arabic alif-lam does not necessarily mean the in all cases;
e.g. generic nouns with alif-lam may often be translated without an article.
: usually treated as a relative pronoun which or that; for Sibawayhi its more like the definite
article; read it as plus : the possessor of
semantic overlap of masdar and co-actant
He said, I asked him - reference to an anonymous authority

use of to refer to both ordinary speech and poetry
anaphora - often very difficult to determine antecedents of e.g. huwa, implied verb subjects, etc.
and - often difficult to identify antecedents
Case endings and quotation: example: 2:377
meaning - see 5:1 for an example
Sibawayhis use of and as devices to bring out pronunciation of desinential fluctuations

(e.g. Art. 316)
idiom:
tense: usual present, but when e.g. Al-Khall is quoted, switch to past
Saying: Sibawayhi uses variants of very frequently. For example, you say, that is your saying,
etc. Usually the sense is merely say, but ( e.g. , )followed by a quoted bit of speech often refers
to an exemplary sample; thus I nominalize it to dictum, on grounds that Sibawayhis intention is to point
out not just a saying, but a way of speaking. Thus diction which conveys this idea from an etymological
sense of say.
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CHAPTER 18. TRANSLATING SIBAWAYHIAN ARABIC
Orthography
E.g. Art. 316:
where is spelled with kasra instead of sukn. Call it prosodic

spelling? TODO: remarks on prosodic spelling to prevent confusion among beginning students.
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, etc.
Masdar as direct object: many examples in Sibawayhi. , , ,
English examples: he slept the sleep of the just; walked the walk of a condemned man, talked the talk
of an honest man, ran the run of a lifetime. Note that in English we can only do this with a limited number
of verbs; he cooked the cooking of Julia Child, or he took the take of a hoodlum sound decidedly odd.
Arabic lets us do it with any verb. To make a hi-fi translation we often need to use a general English
verb like to do or to make, coupled with the appropriate verbal noun or infinitive etc.
So for , lit. it flowed the flow of sth, we translate: it follows the flow of sth. Basic
sense is follow in sense of behave like; but there is no like in the original. However, Sibawayhi
tells us exactly what this construction means: the masdar is there to enable specification of a of the
action. I.e. do something in the way characteristic of x, or of xs way of doing same. So
means to follow the flowing of the action, i.e. flow in the manner/mode of the action, or do the flowing
[characteristic] of the action. That is, refers to a , a type of , flowing.
18.2
Formatting, typography, metalanguage, etc.
Formatting conventions
TODO: describe:
segmentation - paragraphs, sentences, minimal paratactic segments

punctuation - none
quotation devices
used of grayed text for implicit elements, eg. the copula

delimiters, e.g. [...] for editorial interpolations
colors
copula - use of em-dash
negation - use of Unicode NOT SIGN U+00AC
elision - use of strike-through to indicate presence of elided source word, e.g. that
suspended topic: sometimes a sentence starts by announcing a topic noun, then refers back to
it via pronoun, as in Zayd, his brother is tall. We use a colon (rather than the comma) for this:
Zayd : his brother tall. See 3:2 for a tricky example of this.
delayed subject: in order to preserve parataxis we sometimes use an empty interpolation [ ]
coupled with a colon to indicate the implied subject of a verb (marked by [ ]), whose explicit
subject(s) (marked by : ) follow(s) the verb. This allows us to approximate normal English SVO
order while also indicating the Arabic VSO order. For an example see 3:22
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18.2. FORMATTING, TYPOGRAPHY, METALANGUAGE, ETC.
73
parentheticals: I sometimes use parenthesis to alert the reader to the presence of a clause structure
that might otherwise be puzzling. The reader should bear in mind that this is a blatant editorial
intrusion; there are no such devices as parentheses in Arabic.
Remark 18.2.1. In some cases, in order to optimize the typography, Ive violated my principles where
the cognitive cost is low. For example, in Article 1, segment 17, I use comma instead of and to translate
, so that the entire translated segment will fit on one line.
Remark 18.2.2. Tense: Ive opted for the present tense, even though Sibawayhi mostly uses the perfect.
But the perfect in Arabic does not necessarily imply past, so I dont feel so bad.
Remark 18.2.3. Definite article: it is often difficult to decide how to translate the alif-lam. It often does
not always have the force of the English definite article, and even when it does, Arabic often uses the
alif-lam for generic nouns where English may dispense with the definite article; e.g. man, justice, etc.
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Remark 18.2.4. Punctuation: In a few places punctuation is reasonable, for example a comma after an
clause and before its
response. I sometimes use a comma in verbal sentences in order to retain word
order; e.g. [he] goes, Zayd instead of Zayd goes.
Remark 18.2.5. The copula. I prefer to omit it and remain faithful to the Arabic syntax, but that would
leave the English unintelligble in many cases. So as a rule I use greyed text to indicate such editorial
interpolations. For example: is rendered Zayd is your brother. One exception: I sometimes use
an em dash to indicate where the reader/listener is to perform semantic suturing.
Remark 18.2.6. In order to preserve parataxis, I also sometimes use an em dash to indicate a transition
in sentence structure (e.g. subordinate clauses). For example, a sentence starting with a noun phrase,
which is followed by a sentence that comments on it. For example, Article 3:21: Know that the noun the
first of its states is... I sometimes insert an emdash to make this clear, e.g. know that the designator the
first of its states
Remark 18.2.7. Idiosyncrasies. I.e. the amma-fa construction. The amma part is easy enough, usually
as for or something similar. But the fa is more difficult to interpret, let alone render. I often leave it
at well, which seems to be use in colloquial American English, at least, in a manner very similar to fa.
See below for a more detailed discussion.
No capitalization.
No paragraph segmentation. I havent seen any MSS but my presumption is that the original was
not segmented. At most This is the topic of might have started a new line. In any case, paragraph
segmentation is often rather tricky with this text, so I prefer to let the reader decide.
In fact, it is even difficult to decide on a sentence-level segmentation. It is sometimes possible to
construct different readings on the same run of text; thats one of the difficulties of interpreting Sibawayhi.
The original text and presumably the MSS are continuous text, with no word or sentence spacing and
no punctuation. For fascinating discussion of the function of continuous text in the Classical World, see
Space Between Words: the Origins of Silent Reading [100]. See also Pause and effect: an introduction to the
history of punctuation in the West [84].
To expose paratactic structure for those whose Arabic is weak, the text is segmented to a fine granularity. TODO: some examples. For example, always starts a new segment.
Quotation. I take major liberties here, just because explicit quotation marking makes the text vastly
more reader-friendly. Needless to say, placement of quotation marks is the editors choice; usually the
choice is obvious (for the experienced reader), but not always. The reader is advised to remain on the
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CHAPTER 18. TRANSLATING SIBAWAYHIAN ARABIC
alert; it is sometimes difficult to decide if Sibawayhi intends a quotation or not. See the discussion of
quotation in section X above. In any case, there can be no confusing of such editorial interpolations with
the original text; all quotational metatext devices (brackets, etc.) are absent in the original.
Headings. In some places, however, I have segmented the text into larger units and inserted headings
intended to help the reader keep track of the logic. It is often the case that the structure of the argument is
not immediately evident. Sibawayhi usually does not use the usual narrative/rhetorical devices to expose
his logic and smooth out the transitions [TODO: theres a word for this, durn it; find it]. Instead he just
states the facts, so that his narrative sometimes has the appearance of a disjointed or at least clunky series
of vaguely related factoids. But in most cases, closer examination will show that he is indeed working
through variations on a theme. So in some places I add some roadsigns, in the hope that the benefit will
justify the impertinence.
Translation, commentary conventions
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Translation of fa- fa : Ive decided to go with well. In some cases, fa- should clearly be read thus, hence
or the like ([ex.?]); in others, and then () . But Sibawayhi uses it very frequently, almost as
a verbal tic, with the well, well now sense (... , Art. 1:1). It is often difficult to decide on
an exact sense for it, so I use well everywhere and leave it to the reader to interpret. So the reader is
forewarned: when you see well, you know the original reads
, so assuming youve acquired some idea
of how fa- works, you should be just as qualified to interpret it as me.
Concocted example: as for the noun, well, words like man or horse. This doesnt always work,
since sometimes fa clearly has the sense of so or and then; in such cases I violate the general rule
of uniform translation - same term always translates to same term.
Isomorphism, structural parallelism or equivalence, is one of Sibawayhis most fundamental analytic
devices, although, true to form, he does not have a technical term for it. Or rather, he uses a variety of
terms and circumlocutions to point out isomorphisms; in particular and . Note that he seems to
have a more or less precise notion of formal isomorphism, which is used in contrast to similar but more
vague notions like similarity.
His usage of this technique is often rather elliptic; a typical example might involve explication of
a certain construction, which he motivates by referring to an isomorphic construction explicated in a
different article. But as often as not he uses a single word or fragment of the referent construction, which
the reader is expected to understand. For an example, see Article 33:40-41: you erect, as you erect Zayd.
Since only a reader with a thorough understanding of the entire Kitb can be expected to understand such
explanations, I gloss it as an example of isotopy, with reference the specific dictum referred to.
homology - ;most prominent use is in describing the so-called imperfect verb, but also used
in to describe a variety of other isomorphisms.
isometry: [ qiys] - becomes a major term of art in a variety of Islamic intellectual traditions, usually rendered analogy. But Sibawayhi pretty clearly uses it in the more restricted and
etymologically faithful sense of measure. Hence I read it as rule or canon when used with
nominal force, and measurement when used with verbal force.
isotopy - Sibwayhi frequently adduces parallel syntactic structure to elucidate his points. In comments I use variants on the term isotope (Greek isos, equal, + topos place) to gloss such arguments,
mainly for the sake of brevity.
Notation: angle brackets delimit terms of art; I hesitate to call these technical terms, since Sibawayhi
for the most part sticks to ordinary language, carefully used. Where he has a technical sense in mind,
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18.2. FORMATTING, TYPOGRAPHY, METALANGUAGE, ETC.
75
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it is virtually always directly derived from the ordinary sense of the words he uses. [TODO: discussion
of assumptions, e.g. that etymologies were nearer to the surface, metaphors were live, not dead, etc.]
I differ with Baalbaki, who observes that Sibawayhi often uses terms in a general sense as well as in a
purely technical sense and seems to argue that these should be considered distinct and separate terms.
(The Legacy of the Kitab, p. 33). He gives the example of , saying it would of course be totally
absurd to suggest that ( being a technical usage) could be replaced be e.g. ; but
I argue the opposite, that it is absurd to suggest otherwise (my reasoning will be made clear later). In my
view Baalbakis reading is heavily laden with interpretive bias; for example, he claims that denotes
both circumstance and adverb; I claim that it denotes something like container or scope, and that
when Sibawayhi uses it he means exactly that and neither circumstance nor adverb, both of which
represent interpretive bias.
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Part IV
Text, Translation, and Commentary
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Appendices
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Sibwayhis Lexicon
[W]ho intends to study the history of terminology by means of a
translation, he is anyway beyond salvation.
O. Neugebauer, quoted by [34], p. 15
CAVEAT: this is all very messy at the moment, but contains raw materials that may be useful. The
plan is to include an article on each term examining etymology, Sibawayhis usage, and motivating my
translation.
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Remark 18.2.8. (TODO: move this to the section on Translation Principles and Practices) Principle of
Etymological Fidelity: The general principle is that in the absence of compelling evidence that a word
was used in something other than its ordinary, etymologically sense, we make our translation as faithful
as possible to the original etymological sense (insofar as that can be determined). Well, thats not quite
precise enough; it is possible to use a word to mean something different than its core sense; but such uses
depend on that core sense; they use it. So even when we can infer that a word is used in some extended or
deviant sense, we are still compelled to remain faithful to the original sense, while choosing a translation
that (we hope) also conveys the extended sense. In practice this will often not be possible; in such cases we
stick to the original sense and provide a gloss in a footnote to alert the reader to the hidden complexities
of the original text.
Remark 18.2.9. TODO: remarks on morphological semantics. List the verbal forms and derivatives and
discuss their semantics. Critical point: for Sibawayhi the semantics are not a matter of form tout court;
rather the meaning of a secondary verbal form (e.g. ) is not formal but compositional, the composition
of the meanings of the component morphemes (e.g. the initial alif of ) and they way they are combined
(e.g. the alif of carries a different meaning by virtue of its position.) Contrast with the contemporary
Western root-and-template theory.
Remark 18.2.10. TODO: each entry should have 1) list of forms attested in Sibawayhis text; 2) list
of previous translations; 3) detailed etymological analysis; 4) detailed analysis of usage of the term in
Sibs text; 4) ideally, details on how it is used in other texts; 5) finally, each entry should explain what
motivates my translation.
Remark 18.2.11. NB: etymological analysis requires imagination and creativity; it cannot be simply a
matter of parroting what the old dictionaries say. We cannot recover the original etymon (Greek, true
sense) associated with a given word; the best we can do is construct a hypothesis about it based on
attested usage on the one hand and linguistic intuition on the other.
Remark 18.2.12. Traditional Arabic lexicology is thoroughly evidence-based; very little etymological
analysis, lots of citations. Ostensive definitions dominate.
05:47 Draft:
Reynolds Gregg 2011 2010,
82
SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
86 .9 86 .8 86 .7 84 .6 84 .5 84 .4 83 .3 82 .2 82 .1
92 .16 92 .15 91 .14 91 .13 90 .12 89 .11 87 .10
.24 93 .23 93 .22 93 .21 92 .20 92 .19 92 .18 92 .17
98 .31 98 .30 95 .29 95 .28 94 .27 94 .26 94 .25 94
100 .39 100 .38 100 .37 100 .36 100 .35 100 .34 99 .33 98 .32
.47 102 .46 101 .45 101 .44 101 .43 101 .42 101 .41 100 .40
105 .54 105 .53 105 .52 102 .51 102 .50 102 .49 102 .48 102
106 .60 106 .59 106 .58 106 .57 106 .56 106 .55
DR
AF
T
Retard
afterwards; etc. move back; delay; defer; demote?
Base
origin; radical; root; foundation, basis

Used in a variety of ways.
it the concept of a triliteral root is a modern Western importation that severely distorts Sibawyhis
thought. There is no such notion in Sibawayhi; he uses expressions like to refer to it constructed
from three radicals; the idea of single root composed of three elements is an entirely even radically
different idea. Sibawayhi uses to describe the radical terms ( )of which words are constructed, but
makes no hint of the concept a lexical root (which is what the triliteral root really is); on the contrary
he is careful to restrict the scope of this sense of to the individual .
On the other hand, he also uses in various contexts with the sense of basis or foundation. Thus
the it may be considered the of derived forms; but this means that it literally provides the basis from
which other forms are constructed. It does it mean root; that is, the metaphor involved is not organic.k
Since daughters of three etc. does not work very well in English, I use the terms triad, tetrad,
pentad where Sibawayhi refers to words with 3, 4, or 5 radicals.
base (n.) c.1325, from O.Fr. bas, from L. basis foundation, from Gk. basis step, pedestal, from
bainein to step (see come). The military sense is from 1860. The chemical sense (1810) was introduced
in Fr. 1754 by Fr. chemist Guillaume-Franois Rouelle (1703-70). The verb meaning to place on a
foundation is from 1841.
foundation c.1385, action of founding, from L. fundationem (nom. fundatio) a founding, from
fundatus, pp. of fundare (see found (1)).
found (1) establish, c.1290, from O.Fr. founder, from L. fundare to lay the bottom or foundation
of something, from fundus bottom, foundation (see fund (n.)).
original (adj.) 1315, from L. originalis, from originem (nom. origo) beginning, source, birth, from
oriri to rise (see orchestra). The first ref. is in original sin innate depravity of mans nature, supposed
to be inherited from Adam in consequence of the Fall. The noun, in sense of original text, is attested
from c.1385, from M.L. originale. Of photographs, films, sound recordings, etc., from 1918. Origin first
recorded 1563. Originality is first attested 1742, probably after Fr. originalit.
matrix 1373, from O.Fr. matrice, from L. matrix (gen. matricis) pregnant animal, in L.L. womb,
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also source, origin, from mater (gen. matris) mother. Sense of place or medium where something is
developed is first recorded 1555; sense of embedding or enclosing mass first recorded 1641. Logical
sense of array of possible combinations of truth-values is attested from 1914.
Proposition
DR
AF
T
Literally, positioning pro (forward)

commencement; priming, beginning, initiating
the prime; commencd; the begun; lit. that which is made to be first
cf. investiture; inauguration, launch, inception, onset, prelude (before play), prologue, protasis
proem: Gk. prooimion prelude, from pro- before (seepro-) + oimos way or oime song. Given
oimos = way, maybe proem is best. But it doesnt have a verbal form.
Why should Zayd be considered the proem/inaugurant (primary term) even when it does not come
first in a sentence? Alternatively, why should a clause like in the house not be considered an inaugurant
when it occurs first?
My hypothesis is that the concept of commencement (inauguration) reflects a basic pre-linguistic
intuition about the nature of the world. Things are prior to their characteristics; a property must be a
property /of/ something; actions logically precede their modes and contexts.
This structure is reflected linguistically in sequential composition. Zayd is in the house is structurally isomorphic to the knowledge it conveys: in the house is an inessential, accidental characteristic
attributed to Zayd, so the information is encoded in the corresponding sequence; epistemology reflects
ontology. First Zayd, then information /about/ Zayd; the sentence is a proposition that provides information about its first element.
Reversing the order of the sentence distorts the epistemological ordering, but we correct for it by
remapping. In the house is Zayd is the same proposition abstractly - i.e. discounting the form of the
message - but it is different linguistically, in that it does not convey information about its first element.
Is Zayd is not a characteristic attributed to in the house. Thus commencement for Sibawayhi is
about logical or epistemological ordering, which is pre-linguistic.
A key point is that in the house is not a noun; that is, it is not construed as a thing about which we
are conveying information. It does not mean the interior of the house or what is in the house. By
its very structure - it uses in, which constructs an adverbial from its noun argument - it must instead
encode information that must be about something else.
A more obvious illustration of this point is provided by an ordinary English adverb, e.g. quickly.
The mouse ran quickly conveys information about the mouse; quickly ran the mouse does not convey
information about quickly.
Zayd is old - here old is the sign of a property of a thing, but is not itself a thing.
Zayd ran quickly - here quickly is a property of the action.
Zayd is in the house - is in the house a property of Zayd? Not really; its more like a circumstance
or context for Zayd (and his properties); a mode of his being rather than a property of his essence.
In the house is Zayd - for Sibawayhi, in the house is more like quickly than old; a property of
action (or state of being) rather than of a thing. Thus he infers the presence of a covert verb. Since that
verb also has a covert enactant, Zayd remains an inaugurant, but one that follows a complete sentence:
(he is) in the house, Zayd (is).
For Sibawayhi, language always and only moves forward, just like speech in time. Thus In the house
is Zayd is incoherent unless we postulate a covert verb, e.g. exists, is, etc., that precedes in the
house, so that the sentence makes logical sense as e sequentially constructed meaning. This licenses us
to construe in the house as an adverbial to the covert verb: (he is) in the house, Zayd. This works,
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
because it makes (intuitive, pre-linguistic) sense to mention a verb first and then convey information
narrowing its meaning.
But what about Sibawayhis assertion that the noun may be constructed on the verb, as in dhahaba
Zaydun? In this case we do not have a originated ; instead, we have a topos of the originated .
Thus Sibawayhis notion of commencement, whatever its origins, corresponds directly to simple and
direct intuition about the structure of the world and how language encodes such structural knowledge.
This is reflected in Sibawayhis language.
Construction
One of the two fundamental concepts involved in the composition of speech (both morphological and
syntactic), the other being flow.
DR
AF
T
constraint
distend, detend, distort - NB relation to kasr qua flexion, bending; tendere = stretch. Relation between
pulling and flexion - to ksr a branch or bow one pulls on it?
Constraint: (early 14c., constreyen, from stem of O.Fr. constreindre (Mod.Fr. contraindre) restrain,
control, from L. constringere to bind together, tie tightly, fetter, shackle, chain, from com- together
(see com-) + stringere to draw tight )
Traction; contracting; constraint; duction (ducere: lead)
Art 2. p. 42:

Art. 141, vol 2. p. 166: .

Art 143, p 174:
Fluctuation
- pathway, conduct, cadenza, course, channel, scheme

contour?
The literal sense associated with the triad is flow. For translation, the problem with flow
is that it has a limited morphological range in English compared to fluctuate, and Sibawayhi uses a
variety of words rooted in . We use fluctuation for its etymological fidelity to , in spite of the
fact that in English it carries a strong suggestion of variation that is not necessarily present in the Arabic.
However, since variability is arguably implicit in any notion of flow, and since Sibawayhi uses flow
expressly to provide an account of variance in word endings, this seems a reasonable choice; in any case,
no better alternative is apparent.
(Im still debating this and may end up going with flow.)
is one of the two key concepts of morphosytactic composition, the other being construction. Composition (i.e. syntactic construction) thus always involves a tension between the static (word
structure) and the dynamic (desinential fluctuation). This incidentially illustrates the importance of a
literal translation of words, since inflection does not necessarily imply dynamism; an inflection
(case ending) can be viewed simply as a static shape, rather than a dynamic shaping, but is always
dynamic. Translate it as inflection and you lose the binary opposition between static and dynamic,
which is essential to Sibawayhis conception of composition.
Furthermore, the scope of is not limited to syntactically motivated fluctuation (i.e. case inflections); it also covers the tanwn of sarf.
: this flows the flowing of that. Sibawayhi frequently uses this to declare that one
word has the same desinential fluctuation as another. I render this as this is confluent with that, reading
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DR
AF
T
confluent literally as flows with. This does a certain violence to the syntax of the source text, but
I find no way to avoid this without doing even worse to English syntax; this is my best effort to find a
balance between syntactic and semantic fidelity.
( pl. ) : literally, either locus of flow (read as a noun of location) or flowing (read as a
it ). It is not always clear if the intended spelling is ( form I) or ( form IV). I translate this as
fluctuation. Some other options: course, cadenza, pathway, conduct, channel, scheme.
: they make it flow. Sibawayhi uses this expression specifically to indicate that they (i.e. the
Arabs) nnate a word. The text is very clear that encompasses both case endings and tanwn. Havent
yet decided how to translate this particular phrase; Im leaning toward they fluctuate it in spite of its
clunkiness.
[TODO: add note to Principles of Translation motivating minor violations of English syntax, e.g.
using fluctuate as a transitive verb. Roughly, a) its a minor infraction; b) sometimes syntactic fidelity
reveals something that is lost otherwise (i.e. its worth the cost of distorted English; c) there is something
to be said for retaining at least a slight foreignness to the text, as a reminder that the terms and concepts
of English culture do not transfer. Etc.]
Fluctuation: mid-15c., from L. it (nom. it ), from it to undulate, from it wave, from pp. of it to
flow (see fluent).
Fluent: 1580s, from L. fluentem (nom. fluens), prp. of fluere to flow, from PIE *bhleugw-, extended
form of from PIE *bhleu- to swell, well up, overflow (cf. L. flumen river; Gk. phluein to boil over,
bubble up, phlein to abound), an extension of base *bhel- (2); see bole. The basic task is to explain the
terminology. The binaa terms are relatively simple: fatha is opening the lips, etc. The problem is how to
explain the terminology for the case vowels.
Because we know that vowels can be characterized in various ways, we can start on the hypothesis that
their terminology must refer to one or more of these. So we have the phonetic perspective of acoustics and
articulation; but we also should consider a logical/functional interpretation, in case they chose their terms
to reflect an interpretation of how the vowels function morphologically, syntactically, or semantically.
Furthermore, the phonetic perspective may involve a number of aspects: shape of mouth, location of
tongue, etc. In particular, the three vowels have different resonances.
The more general hypothesis is that they perceived the three vowels to be equivalent with respect to
phonation - the sound originates in the vocal cords - and that they distinguished between the three by
identifying a resonator characteristic of the sound.
[NB: why then haraka? Speculate that the original terminology referred to articulatory movements,
e.g. opening lips. When Sibawayhi needed terms for vowels produced by an elaborator, that is that signify
a meaning, he came up with terms that refer to both semantics and acoustics/articulation.]
The key is the resonator. is associated with the lips; they happen to be the resonator for the /u/
vowel, and they are in the front of the mouth, so we can read as both raise to the utmost portion and
as advance to the front. For , the Lisaan attests : the ranked word, its
sound is lifted to the upper [hard] palate. The inference is that they identified the hard palate as the
resonator involved in the production of the /a/ sound.
As for /i/, we can take to refer to the tensing/flexing of the tongue, which is most prominent for
this vowel (or so they presumably perceived it). For , the inference could be that the term refers to
pulling back the corners of the lips, or pulling down the back of the tongue, or the like. It isnt clear how
this could be a reference to a resonator, though.
Keep in mind also that the primary division is between and ;these are the two fundamental
cases. In fact, Sibawayhi clearly groups and as a binary pair, one for verbs and one for nouns; so
this pair stands in contrast to the pair and .
From this perspective it makes sense that one pair is characterized in terms of resonators, and the
other in terms of - what? Jarr and jazm; pull and truncate - can they be viewed as a pair of variants of
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
some unitary idea? Suppose we take both of them as variants of constraining or limiting? That depends
on a logical, as opposed to phonetic or acoustic interpretation of these terms.
You can experience these formants if you thump the side of your larynx with your finger while you
mouth the [i, e, a, o, u] vowels. You will hear the lowest resonance of the vocal tract for the [i] and [u]
vowels and the highest resonance for the [a] vowel. These are the F1 resonances for these vowels for
your voice. If you modify these vowels you will hear other F1 resonances for the modified vowel. For
example, if you mouth [i], [I], [e], [E] [ae] [a] you will hear a more gradual rising of the F1 resonance
to the highest [a] resonance.
Truncation
Cutting off.
DR
AF
T
Aggregation
The kernel sense is gathering, coalescence, grouping, or otherwise integrating scattered things.
: aggregation (usually mistranslated as plural)
: gathering; grouping; coalescing
Integration; coalescence.
Pass
: it passed
: it did not pass

: passing
: surpass, pass beyond
: surpass, pass beyond
Previous translation: permitted; sanctioned

Usually we take e.g. as something like not permitted, but etymologically the verb seems to
be merely pass, go, travel, proceed or the like, not directly encoding licensure, permission, etc. That is
it to say that it had no such meaning to Sibawayhi; but words matter. In keeping with the Principle of
Etymological Fidelity, and with the Presummption of Etymological Sensitivity (ugh), we assume that
Sibawayhi was quite aware of this sense, so we render it as it .
Usage: Sibawayhi frequently uses words of this triad in ways that lead modern readers to a reading of
permission; its a small jump from there to a Chomsky-style notion of grammatical (i.e. conformant to
a grammar, legal syntax, etc.) But close analysis of the way Sibawayhi uses the language shows clearly
that such notions are alien to Sibawayhis way of thinking. Thus we prefer a reading of pass, on grounds
that when Sibawayhi says something like
[ l yajzu alika ] he means it literally, that does
not pass, i.e. that wont fly, doesnt work, is not said, is not observed among the Arabs. Which is quite
different than saying that it is impermissable or non-grammatical.
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pass: late 13c. (trans.) to go by (something), also to cross over, from O.Fr. passer, from V.L.
*passare to step, walk, pass, from L. passus step, pace (see pace (1))
cede: 1630s, from L. cedere to yield; to give up some right or property, originally to go, proceed,
leave, from PIE base *ked- to go, yield (cf. Skt. a-sad- to go, approach; Avestan apa-had- turn aside,
step aside; Gk. hodos way, hodites wanderer, wayfarer; O.C.S. chodu a walking, going, choditi
to go). Related: Ceded; ceding. it : late 15c., from M.Fr. permetre, from L. permittere give up, allow,
allow to pass through, from per- through + mittere let go, send (see mission). it : 1590s, originally
of Jesuits sending members abroad, from L. missionem (nom. missio) act of sending, from mittere to
send, oldest form probably *smittere, of unknown origin.
Contour
DR
AF
T
Sibawayhi frequently uses [ ad], but rarely (if ever) [ adad] or other forms from this triad.
He uses ad in several distinct ways::
speech: [ adu _lklm] is one of his favorite ways of indicating that a particular construction
is standard; the sense seems to be that such constructions have a characteristic shape or contour.
[ kna adu
Often this comes up in discussion of word order; for example,
i
a
i
an
_llaf an yakn fyh muqadam ], the contour of enunciation is that [it] be forepositioned
in it. (10:33) It may be that Sibawayhi had the concept or ordering in mind when using this word,
but the evidence of the text is not clear-cut on this; he also uses it, for example, to refer to inflection,
as in
[ wain waaftahu ala ha _ladi kna nab an ] and if you
describe it along this contour (= in this way?) it is allocution (nasb) (45:84)). Similar examples:
_ [ ladu fyhi n yakna _libtidu fyhi muqadam an ] (132:52)

[ ] [ wakna _ladu n yakna muqadam an wayakna
[zayd in ] maaxar an ] (132:56)
[ adu _llaf]
[ adu _lrb]
[ l adi qwlik]
(35:87) ... [ l adi majrh fy _lraf ... (35:87)]
[ fajaaltahu mafl an ala adi m
jaalta m qablahu ]:
roughly, well you construe (or render) it co-actant along the contour of what you did to its
predecessor.
more generally:

[ whw _lad]
...
[ kn _lad n ...]
...
[ _ladu fyh n ...]
_ [ lwajhu wladu k]
word construction: [ l adi _ltany], which I render as along the contour of

duplication, is Sibawayhis way of indicating that the construction of the aggregate (sound plural)
follows the general pattern observable in the construction of the duplicate (dual forms).
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
DR
AF
T
Combines notions of delimitation, edge, contour, etc. Always has semantic force. The concept of limit
requires two elements, each of which serves to delimit the other. If your dar abuts mine, each serves to
delimit the other. So it is in speech; the direct object coming after the verb serves to delimit its functioning
(energy/action/etc.) See article 24. The dysteme that qualifies the episteme similarly serves to delimit
semantically; see article 17.
Sibawayhi often uses this term to refer to word order; in these contexts [ d _lklm] might
be translated loosely as Order of Speech rather than contour of speech, even though order and
[ad] are not related etymologically.
See also harf
The term hadd can be read as either a true ism or as a masdar; i.e. with either nominal or verbal force.
Thus hadd al-kalam: delimitation of speech, what delimits the sense. For , read on the model
of the type of delimitation that characterizes duplication; the reference is to the word-final augments
that serve to delimit the sense of the noun; in this case they add the sense of duplication or aggregation.
Note the symmetry: hadd works both morphosyntactically (Sibawayhi sometimes characterizes it
as hasan) and semantically. That is, the semantic ordering is reflected in the form of speech. See the
discussion of episteme and dysteme in article 17, where the issue is the semantics of starting with the
known and then bringing in new information to delimit its sense.
Note also that delimitation need not itself be limited to the notion of limiting or bounding; it also
seems to mean shaping or giving definite contour. This seems to be the sense in phrases like
and in the notion that the dysteme introduces information that provides definite shape to the originized
episteme (as in and ) . Also the direct object does this for the verb, as in
see
article 24), where Sibawayhi explicitly refers to the direct object as the hadd.
bound; delimitation; limit; edge, rim
demarcation; delineation; survey, stake out

adjacency
scope
threshold; limen
frontier; march
barrier; bulwark
prevention; averting; shunting
hindrince, impediment, restraint, inhibiting

penalty; sanction
sequestration; quarantine; detention

sharpness; harshness
So how do we get from here to ? Speech moves along a path; does the [ ad] refer to the
best path, the two edges of the path (as if it were a channel), or something else? Definition of speech
seems unlikely, since he doesnt actually define anything; he only uses this and similar expressions in
reference to exemplary dicta, or sometimes to a rule. The sense rather seems to be this it of speaking
is the [ ad]. But in what sense can a it be construed as a [ ad]?
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DR
AF
T
Furthermore, this term is often contrasted, explicitly or implicitly, with [ wajh], face, facet,
direction, etc. Which fits better with the path metaphor. Does he mean to contrast the stable with the
variable? The received, standard (cf. [ qiys]) way with mere tendencies? Maybe he thought of
[ad] as standard it .
bulwark. : the bulwark of speech, the limit or boundary, also what prevents trespass (strength)
see also and
Sibawayhi uses this to mean something like normal usage, in phrases like the hadd in speech is to
say x. Its difficult to infer his precise intended sense from the etymologies. Neither barrier in language
nor limit in language makes intuitive sense; perhaps he intended the attested sense of /
region, sector. Maybe scope? rule makes sense semantically but not etymologically.
Why not simply definition? Or a variant: delineation; demarcation, determination. So: that which
is determinate in speech is to say x. The sense being that the lines (boundaries) of usage for a particular
construction are set in speech. Intuitively he seems to be going for usage, habit, etc. But NB the Arabic
is closely related to notion of constraint or restraint. So maybe the constraint in speech is to say x or
speech is limited to X.
NB: Sib almost never uses form II haddad.
According the the Lisaan, several key senses: 1) barrier, sth between two things that separates them;
2) limit, extremity of a thing. Note link to
(src: Lisn)
: . :
.
:
: :
. : . :

: :
: :
. : . : . :
. :
. :
. :
. :

.
:
:
Incarcerate: 1530s, from O.Fr. incarceration, from M.L. incarcerationem (nom. incarceratio), from
incarceratus, pp. of incarcerare to imprison, from in- in + carcer prison, an enclosed space, of
uncertain origin.
Term
arf: edge, border, limit; threshold; TERM

Contour. it works in a discrete model; its counterpart in a continuous model is it . Consider a sine
wave. Partition it into a series of curves and you have huruuf, contours, and huruuf, discrete elements in
a sequence.
A arf cannot be pronounced in isolation, with no preceding nor succeeding vowel, because such an
element has no contour. Geometrically it is a point, not a curve; thus it cannot be a arf.
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
DR
AF
T
Seems likely that the original intuition behind the term arf is the Axiom of continuity: speech is a
continuum. Hence the flow metaphor. But it is not a featureless mush; speech has a shape. Hence the
contour metaphor. So arf refers to the contour of speech, and applies to all speech at any level of granularity. The famous seven ahruf are different ways of enunciating the Quran; seven contours. Sentences
and words are also contours; this is easy to intuit, but first you have to discard preconceptions about
consonants and vowels and the like. The notion of speech contour is logically prior to any conceptual
partitioning of speech. The constituent segments of speech - not phonemes, mind you, since phoneme
has a particular technical definition - are also contours. Segment a word intuitively, based on its flow,
and you get a sequence of contours. This is the key difference between the Arabic view and the Classical
view. A word like kataba is partitioned into contours, not consonants and vowels. What counts is the
shape of the continuous flow. A arf shorn of any vocalization has no shape, so it is not in fact a arf
(contour) but a point.
In other words they arrived at a working segmentation strategy, based on intuition, before arriving
at fine phonetic analysis. You dont have to have a concept of C or V in order to intuit that speech is a
contour that can be partitioned into parts, each of which is a contour.
Notice that the notion of a contour chopped into segments, each of which is again a contour, integrates seamlessly with the notion of a sequence of discrete elements; thus the notion of edge, boundary
(essential to the sense of arf), and thus term qua discrete element arf emerges naturally from the
perception of speech as a contoured continuum.
So there is no essential difference between the notions of term and contour. We use it to translate
arf, but we could just as easily choose it . Theyre just different perspecitives (discrete v. continuous)
on the same thing, speech. arf works in both perspectives.
Article; Limit; Term
Cf. wikipedia on march: The Frankish word marka and the Old English word mearc both come
from Proto-Germanic *marko (Old Norse merki boundary, sign[1] and mrk borderland, forest)[2],
denoting a border land between two centers of power. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia took its name
from West Saxon mearc marches, which in this instance referred explicitly to the territorys position
on the Anglo-Saxon frontier with the Romano-British to the west. It seems in Old English mark meant
boundary, or sign of a boundary, and the meaning later evolved into sign in general, impression
or trace forming a sign.
The Germanic word ultimately derives from a Proto-Indo-European root *mereg-, meaning edge,
boundary. The root *mereg- gave Armenian marz[citation needed] (border, land), Latin margo (margin), Old Irish mruig (borderland), Persian marz (border, land).
Turning: Art. 17, vol I, p. 91-92: ; this is in reference to the dictum

. The sense of here seems to be it , as in turn of phrase. The notion of arf/edge as
turning or contour is consistent with the seven ahruf tradition, where it does not seem to mean term
as is usually does in Sibawayhi when used to refer to particles or words. Etymologically turning is
clearly within its semantic field.
Support
Literally, he carried sth upon sth.

Example: article 138: ... ; example: , comment: is marfu
because it is
Why choose this diction? Why the metaphor of 1) carrying, and 2) upon? The sense seems to be
clearly something like constructed according to, based on, etc; basically, dependendent on. Also, the
idea seems to be to pick out some element of the utterance that precedes the carried element. Could
the idea be stacked on? We dont have a problem saying dependent on because the metaphor of
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DR
AF
T
suspension is so frozen as to be invisible; our use actually conflicts with the etymology (it should be
dependent from, no?) It may be that they used this metaphor in exactly the way we use depend on.
However, Sibawayhi uses this in various parts of speech, e.g. ; they depended it on doesnt
really work.
If we keep in mind the basic principles of sequential construction and oriented work, then the metaphor
is simple. For every term we construct, there must be a preceding elaborative to do the work of shaping
the desinence. Where there may be more than one possible elaborative, they speaker gets to choose which
to use, i.e. gets to carry the new term on the selected preceding elaborative. [The question remains:
why this particular metaphor?]
The particular metaphor is also transparent: anything loaded onto a pack animal must go where the
animal goes. The metaphor is central; Sibawyhi only uses where the issue is inflection.
We cannot of course prove that he had a specific animal metaphor in mind, but then again that level
of specificity is not necessary. We have the notion of flowing/running; we also have the notion of ,
construction/structure, so we have always a contrast between the static (word structure) and the dynamic
(desinential fluctuation). The metaphor of bridges the two: the carried (supported) element is
imposed/loaded on the antecedent element, so it must flow whereever the carrier flows.
Support works well, since in addition to its literal etymological sense of conveying or carrying up,
it implications a notion, however vague, of dependency.
Impose would probably work just as well etymologically, but it doesnt carry the same sense of
dependency. The idea is that the carried element depends on its carrier, but impose would bring in a
notion of burdening the carrier that is not in the original.
In the example above, we can translate as supported on the priming.
support: late 14c., from O.Fr. supporter, from L. supportare convey, carry, bring up, from sub up
from under + portare to carry
Etym: ferre, latus; gerere;
lots of English words derived from it , carrry, perform: congest, gestation, belligerent, exaggerate,
ingest, suggest
suggest is probably the closest fit for , etymologically at least.
suggest: mid-14c., a prompting to evil, from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. suggestioun, from L. suggestionem
(nom. suggestio) an addition, intimation, suggestion, from suggestus, pp. of suggestere suggest, supply, bring up, from sub up + gerere bring, carry. Sense evolution in Latin is from heap up, build
to bring forward an idea.
digest: collection of writing, late 14c., from L. digestus, pp. of digerere to separate, divide, arrange, from dis- apart + gerere to carry.
gerund: 1513, from L.L. gerundium, from Old Latin gerundum to be carried out, gerundive of gerere
to bear, carry. In L., a verbal noun used for all cases of the infinitive but the nominative; applied in
Eng. to verbal nouns in -ing.
See also: Port; Register; latus; -fer; etc.
Shift
Kinesis
1904, from Gk. kinesis movement, motion; Gk. kinein to move

See also: Dynamic
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
Integration
Also: introduction, insertion, etc. Integrate is not really a faithful rendition of the etymology of the
term, but it seems to capture an important sense in which Sibawayhi uses the term.
Usage with terms from the [ jrr] triad is a little puzzling.

integrate: 1630s, to render (something) whole, from L. integratus, pp. of integrare make whole,
from integer whole (see integer). Meaning to put together parts or elements and combine them into a
whole is from 1802.
Homology
Alternative: affinity in the mathematical sense: = affine verbs.
DR
AF
T
Promotion
Promotion: forward motion. Senses noted in the Lisaan: 1) elevation, raising; 2) advancing, presenting; 3) proximating
:
:
: :
.
:
:
: :
: :
:

:
:
:
:
Correlation
line of relation; tether
Plug?
- stand in its stead?
Mark
A very complex word root.

Etymologically: sign, token. Raised up, prominent. Insigne/insignia.
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93
Designate: 1540s, from L. designare mark out, devise, from de- out + signare to mark, from
signum a mark, sign.
Label is not a good etymological match but might be the best option for idomatic English
Label: Early 14c., narrow band or strip of cloth, from O.Fr. label, lambel ribbon, fringe (Fr.
lambeau strip, rag, shred, tatter), possibly from Frankish *labba (cf. O.H.G. lappa flap), from P.Gmc.
*lapp- (see lap (n.)).
Silence
Caveat: not to be confused with
Immobility
Stillness
DR
AF
T
: term at rest
See also:
buttress
- buttress and abutment. musnad ila = buttressed by/against
Key question is which part supports which - does the musnad support the musnad ilayhi, or does the
latter serve as a buttress for the former (cf. flying buttress) The former seems more likely; the musnad is
the stable, firm part, and the musnad ilayhi relies (not depends) on it. In which case musnad would be
buttress, musnad ilayhi abutment. Different etymologies, but the phonological similarity makes up for
that.
Alt: protasis and epitasis
Lisaan says everything against which you lean sth is a musnad - cf. pt of purchase; pitch; repose;
lever; musnad = fulcrum?
buttress, stay, bolster, brace
:
: . :
seems pretty clear that the sense here is to present, advance: the isnad of a hadeeth is its unbroken
connected presentation, back to the prophet.
:
:
here in the sense of tracing /back/? wheres the up or presentation metaphor? no; its the
other metaphor, moving forward, advancing. Note the use of forward to trace sth back in time. That
cannot be by chance.
protasis: 1) the first part of an ancient drama, in which the characters are introduced and the subject
is proposed. 2) (in Aristotelian logic) a proposition, esp. one used as apremise in a syllogism.
epitasis: the part of an ancient drama, following the protasis, in which the main action is developed.
epi- a prefix occurring in loanwords from Greek, where it meant upon,on, over, near, at,
before, after ( epicedium; epidermis;epigene; epitome ); Sounds like rather than
catastasis: the part of a drama, preceding the catastrophe, in which theaction is at its height; the
climax of a play.
catastrophe: (in a drama) the point at which the circumstances over come the central motive, introducing the close or conclusion;dnouement.
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
ana- a prefix in loanwords from Greek, where it means up, against,back, re-: anabasis;
Busying
- engaged sth with sth; used sth to engage sth; alt: occupy; keep busy; absorb; engage; engross
Abruption
DR
AF
T
riven = split; burst; ishtiqaq: fission, cleavage; rive, rift; split, burst; fission
Traditional Arabic grammar is not transformational generative grammar; far from it. Relations discovered by the grammarians are not to be taken as transformations, but purely as relations.
Take ishtiqaq as an example. Usually translated as derivation, it actually means something along the
lines of bursting or splitting off. It has a strictly surface interpretation: the base word is broken up and
reassembled (with additions and ommisions) to form a new word. It is only used, however, to describe the
formal relation between semantically related words. But it does /not/ imply an ontological committment
to a deep structure from which surface forms are derived. The base of derivation is (for the Basrans)
always the masdar, which is a surface form. So ishtiqaq should be taken not as derivation from a base
but as structural relation among semantically related surface forms.
Fissure: c.1400, from O.Fr. fissure, from L. fissura a cleft, from root of findere to split, cleave,
from PIE *bhi-n-d-, from base *bheid- to split (cf. Skt. bhinadmi I cleave, O.H.G. bizzan to bite,
O.E. bita a piece bitten off, morsel, O.N. beita to hunt with dogs, beita pasture, food).
1481, from L. ruptura the breaking (of an arm or leg), fracture, from pp. stem of rumpere to break,
cognate with O.E. reafian to seize, rob, plunder, reofan to tear, break; O.N. rjufa to break; see reft).
cleave (1) to split, O.E. cleofan to split, separate (class II strong verb, past tense cleaf, past participle clofen), from P.Gmc. *kleubanan, from PIE base *gleubh- to cut, slice. Past tense form clave
is recorded in Northern writers from 14c. and was used with both verbs (see cleave (2)), apparently by
analogy with other ME strong verbs. Common to c.1600 and still alive at the time of the King James
Bible; weak p.t. cleaved also emerged in 14c. for this verb; cleft is still later. The p.p. cloven survives,
though mostly in compounds. Cleavage in geology is from 1816. The sense of cleft between a womans
breasts in low-cut clothing is first recorded 1946, when it was defined in a Time magazine article as
the Johnston Office trade term for the shadowed depression dividing an actress bosom into two distinct
sections [Aug. 5].
1847, pp. of reave, from O.E. reafian to rob something from someone, from P.Gmc. *rauthojan (cf.
O.Fris. raf, M.Du. roof, Ger. Raub). The ground sense seems to be that of breaking.
riven split, cloven, rent, 1307, past participle of rive to tear, rend (c.1275), from O.N. rifa to tear
apart, from P.Gmc. *rifanan (see riparian)
riparian of or pertaining to river banks, 1849, from L. riparius of a river bank, from riparia shore,
later used in ref. to the stream flowing between the banks, from ripa (steep) bank of a river, shore,
probably lit. break (and indicating the drop off from ground level to the stream bed), or else that
which is cut out by the river, from PIE base *rei- to scratch, tear, cut (cf. Gk. ereipia ruins, eripne
slope, precipice; O.N. rifa break, to tear apart; Dan. rift breach, M.H.G. rif riverbank, seashore;
cf. riven, rift, rifle).
Serif
literal translation is sth like divert; meaning is change, hence (per)mutation
Internment
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95
imr
intern, v., 866, to confine within set limits, from Fr. interner send to the interior, confine, from
M.Fr. interne inner, internal, from L. internus within, internal (see internal).
implication? from involvement, interweaving, c.1430, from L. implicationem (nom. implicatio)
interweaving, entanglement, from implicatus, pp. of implicare involve, entangle, connect closely,
from in- in + plicare to fold (see ply). - implicit, implied element, implicand(?)
hermetic; covert
etymological sense, plus concealment; caching; masking
Closure
closing; bunching; reference seems to be to bunching of lips in forming /u/ sounds.
DR
AF
T
Affiliation
muf ila - affiliation (adflected to)

Not addition: addition is accumlation, combination. To add one thing to another is to produce a third
thing greater than its parts: a combination or sum. This is emphaticallly not what Sibawayhi had in mind
when he used the term idafa. He tells us explicitly what the term means: nisba, relation or affiliation.
(Art 318).
Thus an idafa construction encodes a kind of proposition whose force is to declare a relation between
the two parts, not their sum.
, Zayd [is] a man of
Arabic can express idafa in two ways: nisba and construct. Compare:
Thaqf, and , Zayd [is] Thaqafy. Sibawayhi uses the term idafa for both; see Articles 318 and
100.
[ ifa]: affiliation; [ muf]: affiliandum; [ muf ilayhi ]: co-affiliandum
Article 97 is mostly about idafa. The task is to show how this term pulling corresponds
naturally to simple, direct intuition.
- attribute /of/. The tall man - tall is an attribute /of/ the man. Tallness is attributed /to/ the
man. Adjectives are attributes /of/ things; nouns are attributed /to/ things.
- attribution /to/. Book of Zayd - the book is attributed /to/ Zayd; it is not an attribute /of/
Zayd.
Now the term attribution captures this notion (really a kind of theory about the world) simply,
succinctly, and intuitively. There are many other English words which would serve just as well, such as
assignation, affiliation, and so forth. Arabic also has many words that could be used to characterize this
semantic situation. But the tradition settled on one, [ ifa], which turns out to be very difficult
to translate into idiomatic English.
The English terms discussed do not serve well as translations of , although they capture the underlying idea well enough. Attribute comes from the Latin tribuere, to give; to attribute one thing to
another is to bestow the former on the latter. Affiliation comes from the Latin filius, son; it uses a
kinship relation metaphorically. Assignation (or assignment) comes from signum, mark or token,
giving something like to identify out by mark or sign. The Arabic does not involve any of these
meanings. It a verbal noun based on the radicals , whose basic sense is guest. In contemporary
Arabic it may be used to mean to host someone as a guest, but it has also come to mean something like
addition or annexation. Most scholars writing about Arabic grammar in English use this sense to translate
the technical term , rendering it as annexation or the like; but this concept of addtion is clearly
not what Sibawayhi and his colleagues had in mind. The evidence for this is simply the semantic model:
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
attribution of a book to Zayd clearly does not involve adding or annexing it to Zayd.
The Lisaan uses three notions to discuss the meaning of . First, the core sense of guest/hospitality.
It means somethingn like to lodge someone at/with someone else. It also makes clear that another core
sense of the word is [ imla]: inclination, tending, leaning toward. In this sense, means inclining someone or thing toward another. Finally, it says relates it to the notion of proximity; it means
something like to draw someone or thing near to another.
: he presented him as a guest ([ anzalahu ayf an ]) to someone.
: he found him a guest ([ wajadahu ayf an ]). Or deemed?
So
: he presented the book as a guest to Zayd. (?)
DR
AF
T
NB: the form [ afalahu ] has at least 10 different senses (per Hamlawy). The relevant sense here
is . E.g.
I found Zayd to be characterized by ( laudable?) (= .
Another possibility: . So I offered it for wagering or sale. Accordingly
for
may be read:
He found the book as guest to Zayd He offered the book to Zayd as a guest.
But more likely is simple transitivity? We go from Zayd sat to
I seated Zayd; or, in
more traditional form, I seated him, so he sat. So He landed at Zayds as a guest,
I made him a guest at Zayds (or the other way around?) Introducing removes the ambiguity.
So: would mean that which is made a guest, and would mean that to whom/which
something was made a guest. This is on the assumption that the fundamantal semantic of this verb
strongly include the root notion of guest.

interpreted as a book made a guest to Zayd.
NB: a guest lodged at Zayds household is not essential to Zayd, any more than a book attributed to
Zayd is essential to Zayd. By the same token, the role of guest is not essential to the guest. So this kind
of attribution involves contingency, which is captured by the root . Etymology: guest, from: guest,
enemy, stranger. host, from lord of strangers
So a core sense of qua guesting is that it describes a situation involving a stranger. Attribution
does not capture this but it is a part of the core semantis; a thing attributed to another that is not of its
essence is a stranger to it.
NB: this is a social metaphor, so we should expect its sense to include notions of social practice and
obligation.
Key points:
1. The combination of two words in the construction is construed as a single ( token). This is
also the case for the combination of a noun and adjective; is construed as a single token:
. :
Note the second passage states this is one token, not this is like one token.
The same thing applies to e.g.
[ TODO: find the passage where this is explicitly claimed.]
This is entirely intuitive and obvious in both cases. For the N+Adj phrase, Sibawayhi explicitly lays
you do not
out the semantics: when you say I passed by a charming man previously
mean a single one of the men each of whom is a man, but you mean a single one of the men each of
whom is a charming-man; for it is unknown (anonym) and is so because it is of a population ( ) each
of whose elements is the like of its token. That is because each one of the men is a man, and each of the
charming men is a charming-man. Thus its token mixes it with its population so that it is not known
among them. (Art. 101)

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97
DR
AF
T
The key point here is that the combination of N+Adj is construed as a single token ( )on strictly
semantic grounds; the (indefinite) combination denotes a class of individuals each of whom is characterized by both components of the combination.
NB: the N+Adj combination has compositional semantics; the whole is equivalent to the sum of its
parts. The operation of combining does not introduce any specific semantics beyond combination. This
is not the case for the idafa.
In the case of the idafa construction (assignation, attribution, affiliation, etc. but not annexation),
the semantics are more complex but the combination is construed as a single token.
Such combinations are akin to lexical coinages; they add a (temporary) term to the lexicon; but since
such terms are compositional and thus can be decomposed into more basic components, they are not
considered part of the lexicon.
Now the Tractional disposition ( ) is associated solely with the idafa. So we must explain both
terms and show how they are both intuitive and how they are related.
The core idea is that idafa associates the first term to the second, producing a single combined concept
(just as N+Adj does), and pulling is the metaphor that describes how the first term affects the second
term morphosyntactically: it comes first and must attract a second component in order to form the
combination. So idafa is a semantic term, and jarr is a term of morphosyntax.
iafah: the Lisaan says something like place someone as a guest, incline it toward (the host), draw
it near (to the host). To see why this metaphor is intuitive, consider the examples of
the book
of Zayd, which supports at least the following possible interpretations:

possession (the book that Zayd owns) authorship (the book that Zayd wrote) topic (the book that is
about Zayd)
Note first of all that we have here a single term (idafa) that covers multiple possible meanings. But
idafa is not the name of a syntactic case; it is rather a semantic term that covers the meanings associated
with combinations in which the second term is in the jarr case. Thus it abstracts from the specific meanings
like possession, authorship, etc. The idea seems to be that the meaning of the first term is modified by
inclining it toward the meaning of the second term. Also, being a semantic concept, idafa refers to
things, not words. We can express this abstractly in English with terms like assignment, affiliation, even
attribution, and similar terms. To declare
is to relate/assign/affiliate/etc. one thing (a book)
to another (a man named Zayd), without regard to the specific nature of the relationship. But the
root of idafa ( ) provides a kind of minimal metaphor to capture the common semantics of all such
combinations: the first element (thing, not word) is inclined toward, lodged at, hosted by, etc. the second
element. [NB: it is not annexed to the second term (etymology: annexe: c.1386, from O.Fr. annexer to
join, from M.L. annexare, freq. of L. annecetere to bind to, from ad- to + nectere to tie, bind; but
idafa in no way conveys the sense of joining, binding or tying. Relation, yes, but not binding or annexing.
Related things remain distinct, unlike annexed things.]
IOW, were talking about the semantic structure of relation, not just syntax. Just as the terminology
of verbs starts from analysis of the abstract structure of events. This is an essential point: we start from
a kind of theory about the world, and then explain how language describes that structure. (Or: how
linguistic expressions correspond to it.)
So the basic idea, that the first thing is assigned to the second in combination, is simple and intuitive.
We see a book, and we know Zayd owns it, or authored it, or the like. The thingness of the book is
inflected by our knowledge of its relation to Zayd; it isnt just any old book, but the one characterized
by that relation. A caution is in order: this is not philosophy; were not talking about the ultimate true
nature of the book or of Zayd. Rather this is a kind of pragmatic phenomenology(?); were constructing
a mental model of the way the world works with just enough sophistication and formality to provide an
explanation for the way language works in and with the world. Things in the world are a) characterized
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
DR
AF
T
by a huge variety of attributes like color and size, and b) enmeshed in a complex network of mutual
relations like possession, etc.; c) located in time and space; d) what else? N+Adj combinations address
a), and idafa combinations address b.
Consider any object in the experienced world, and you can construct an infinite number of linguistic
combinations to highlight the object from various perspectives: big book, red book, etc using adjectival
combination, and similarly for relational combinations (Zayds book, the book of swimming, etc.)
Its not by accident that Sibawayhis arrangement puts articles about in close proximity to articles
about .
[NB: time/space location for nouns (excluding verbals). Compare big book, Zayds book, and a book
behind Zayd (
): here again idafa, but this one relates a location to Zayd, not the book; the book
is then related to the location that is related to Zayd.
In constrast to N+Adj combination, the idafa combination does not have compositional semantics;
the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, since it will always have some specific semantics (e.g.
possession) that is not made explicit linguistically, but rather is captured abstractly by the term idafa. It
is a specific kind of combination of things.
NB: Terminology and concepts are always based on canonical forms; the canonical idafa combines
things, but the terms may also be adjectives or even verbal clauses. The abstract notion of assignation is
common to all such combinations, however.
Another point: since these are construed as single tokens, they cannot be split without breaking the
semantics. This also explains why does not extend past its argument. An adjective is inflected by
matching its object, not by the elaboration of the element that works on its object. e.g. - the
noun rajul is elaborated by the verb, but the adjective is not; rather it follows the inflection of its noun.
The combination N+Adj forms a single token because of the semantics, not the syntax.
In the case of idafa, the work of the first term only extends to the second term; if you interject a third
element between the two, the idafa is broken since the work of attractation cannot span the interjected
element to reach the assignee. The valence of attractation only extends to the neighboring word.
Familiar
Cognition, recognition
[ marif] - episteme; cognym; recognition
Recognize: early 15c., resume possession of land, from M.Fr. reconiss-, stem of reconoistre to
know again, identify, recognize, from O.Fr., from L. recognoscere acknowledge, recall to mind, know
again, examine, certify, from re- again + cognoscere know (from co- with + gnoscere become
acquainted; see notice).
Epistemology: theory of knowledge, 1856, coined by Scot. philosopher James F. Ferrier (180864) from Gk. episteme knowledge, from Ionic Gk. epistasthai know how to do, understand, lit.
overstand, from epi- over, near + histasthai to stand.
Deviation
etymology: what comes after, secondary, subsequent thus deviational (not deviant, to avoid negative connotations) = qla deviates/is a deviation from qawala
Semiology
This is one of the most important triads in the Arabic/Islamic intellectual tradition; it is also one of
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99
the most complex. The critical point to keep in mind is that it is closely associated with both knowledge
(e.g. [ ilm]) and signification (e.g. [ alma]); hence my translation of as semiology (science
of signification).
Below is a list of the forms Sibawayhi uses with glosses drawn from Wehr:
: science; scholarship
: scientist; scholar
: sign; indication
: he knew; he came to know
: known
: he taught
DR
AF
T
: he cause (s.o.) to come to know
: he learned; he was engaged in coming-to-know
Function
: function; : functor; : functand?
Intuition says word shape depends (relies) on previous term - problem is how to explain?
Compare Newton - gravity as hidden law accounting for action at a distance - a true theory, but
gravity is a name for a mathematical system (unless we can separate gravity from its model). Cf. also
concept of force in classical mechanics.
does not involve a hidden law of this type
Larger point: Sibawayhi is pre-Gallilean; no concept that mathematics is the language of nature. We
also have to be careful about concepts like law.
Function: 1530s, from M.Fr. fonction, from O.Fr. function, from L. functio (gen. functionis) performance, execution, from functus, pp. of fungi perform, execute, discharge. Use in mathematics probably
begun by Leibnitz (1692).
Etymology: key question is whether the etymology is closer to work/labor or execute/perform/function.
- enact; elaborate; operates; does - acts in; works in; operates in
- [it]
enacts designation in the token; it makes/does/elaborates erection in the token; it serves to raise up the
token
- elaborator/elaborative; operant/operator? - elaborated;elaborand? - activation
- deemed active
Levin [50], I p. 218: The form [ amal], which is the verbal noun of the verb [ amila ], literally
means effect. This is very wrong. I see no support for it based on etymology or lexical semantics; it is
Levins interpretation of the term, not a translation. It violates the Principle of Etymological Fidelity.
The goal is to minimize interpretation; hence our choice of function to render the
[ madar]
(verbal noun) , relying on the etymology of the English word - perform, execute, discharge. So
function in is a good literal translation of the Arabic which has the added virtue of being a good
idiomatic way of expressing the same general idea.
For , we use factor, even though it has a different etymology (from facere, to do). But the two
differnt roots functus and facere convey the same basic idea of doing, performing, working. An alternative
with better etymolological consistency is functor.
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100
SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
The passive participle, , is a little trickier. Functee? Functand? Factand?

Originally I was working with elaboration for this term, since it clearly carries the notion of labor; but
aside from being a little more awkward than function, it is also a shade too strong, implying as it does
that the factor shapes or fashions its object in some way. The original does not necessarily imply this;
it just declares a kind of minimal functioning in its object.
Sense
DR
AF
T
Sibwayhis use of this term is close to the modern sense of intension?

In his first article, he distinguishes between nouns and verbs, both of which have a denotation, and
those words (terms) that come for a meaning that is neither nominal nor verbal. Thus this term seems
to cover a catch-all category of meanings that are neither things nor actions.
In his second article he uses this phrase in clear contrast to denotation, and he specifically
emphasizes a group of words that come only for a meaning. In other words, the so-called particles are
semantically distinct in that they do not denote; rather they modulate the meaning. So must
have a specific sense for Sibawayhi, much more specific that the very broad meaning. So the particles
dont merely come for a meaning (which taken in its broad sense describes all words), but rather they
come for a specific kind of concern, namely that which conveys intension, sense, etc.
Note its etymology: concern, interest, or the like.
Compensation
Replacement. Substitution is for .
Sufficiency
Compensate/suffice with one thing for (without) another? Use one thing to dispense with another?
Do-with one thing and without another
Opening
reference seems to be to opening of lips in forming /a/ sounds.
Action
- action; performance/performing; - enactant; performer/performative - enactand; performed, performd; the action performed
Advance
fronting;
Rule
Rule in the sense of instrument of measure rather than law

Metric; measurement; comparison; ratio; etc.
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101
it analogy; that comes later, after the primitive meaning.
: the it in speech.
Related: ,
[straight; stable]
Flexion
DR
AF
T
kasr: flex to the point of fracture. From : :( p 161,

.) Infer that it refers to the flexing of the tongue and lips in production of /i/ sound.
takseer: not break but fragment, break into many pieces. Thus broken plural is a mistranslation of
plural of fragmentation. I think the point is that you start with a form, e.g. rajul, and to make
the plural you have to fragment and then reconstruct. By contrast, with a sound plural, you start with a
form e.g. mursil and then construct by appending with no need to fragment first.
Speech
Speech; word
Speech: .E. spc act of speaking, manner of speaking, formal utterance, variant of sprc, related to
sprecan, specan to speak (see speak), from P.Gmc. *sprkijo (cf. Ger. Sprache speech).
Word: O.E. word speech, talk, utterance, word, from P.Gmc. *wurdan (cf. O.S., O.Fris. word, Du.
woord, O.H.G., Ger. wort, O.N. or, Goth. waurd), from PIE *were- speak, say (see verb).
clothe
ambiguity
- (in)vested by, taken literally. alt: entrammeled by. Investment/investiture is probably closer
etymologically, but entrammeling more vivid.
: . I.e.
Also: involvement. Cf. Lisaan,
knowledge can only be attained after practice and long involvement; then it becomes instinctive.
evidence: art. 32, midway through; 28/p.154; esp. art. 106
Adfixation
Used for two situations: 1) literally attaching a harf to a word; 2) affiliated one form to another
(tasreef). Affiliation is reserved for the idafa.
Annexation?
Kernel senses:
to overtake, catch up with
hence befall, afflict
attach, stick to
follow
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SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
[NB: if Darbaba is a purely formal variant on Daraba, with no change of meaning, then is it a different
word? IOW, does ilhaq change our notion of what a word is? In the case of e.g. Sayraf, the formal
variation is associated with a distinct meaning, so it can clearly be considered a different word than e.g.
Sarafa.]
Binding
Locution
- inert element
- render inert, deactivate
- locution, diction; not language
DR
AF
T
Dynamics
:
1817, as a term in philosophy; 1827 in the sense force producing motion, from Fr. dynamique
(1762), from Ger. dynamisch, introduced by Leibnitz 1691 from Gk. dynamikos powerful, from dynamis power, from dynasthai be able to have power, of unknown origin. The figurative sense of
active, potent, energetic is from 1856.
Manner
Way, manner.
Descend
has the disposition of; posture; station; rank
Setting-up
Allocution. A nice pun: allocution -> locution of /a/. cf. Allocation - reflects sense of nasb as ,
share or portion, which fits nicely with intuition that complements are allocated according to their share
in the construction of meaning.
Phonological reading: the idea seems to be that sound rises up to the upper palate. Taking to
refer specifically to sound produced by the constriction of the voicebox or by consonant constrictions.
Usually it means voiced sound, i.e. vocalic sound. So this sense of nasb is clear and intuitive, since it does
indeed emerge from the voice box and rises up to resonate against the hard palate. Just as the fronted
( )sound moves forward to resonate against the frontmost resonator, the lips.
Enlistment: it semantic contributors.
Marshall, muster. The latter from monstrare, show/demonstrate
Distinct possibility: original sense is purely phonetic, refering to the upward resonator (hard palate),
just as may be taken to refer to the forward resonator (the lips).
Erect: late 14c., from L. erectus upright, pp. of erigere raise or set up, from e- up + regere to
direct, keep straight, guide (see regal).
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103
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List: catalogue consisting of names in a row or series, c.1600, from M.E. liste border, edging,
stripe (late 13c.), from O.Fr. liste border, band, row, group, also strip of paper, or from O.It. lista
border, strip of paper, list, both from a Gmc. source (cf. O.H.G. lista strip, border, list, O.N. lista
border, selvage, O.E. liste border), from P.Gmc. *liston, from PIE *leizd- border, band. The sense
of enumeration is from strips of paper used as a sort of catalogue. The O.E. word survives in archaic
lists place of combat, at the boundary of fields.
Catalog: early 15c., from O.Fr. catalogue, from L.L. catalogus, from Gk. katalogos a list, register, enrollment (e.g. the katalogos neon, the catalogue of ships in the Iliad), from kata down, completely
+ legein to say, count (see lecture).
Declaration; deployment, arrangement; postulation; deposition; installation. It means more than
merely erect; erect with communcative purpose. E.g. .
Promulgation; stake; stack; erection; assignation? assignment? appoint, designate etc.
Establishment? NB: vowel /a/ is low, more stable than /i/, /u/ Stable from stet, from stare, stand.
Declaration; deployment, arrangement; postulation; deposition; installation. It means more than
merely erect; erect with communcative purpose. E.g. .
Arrangment might work, insofar as nasb includes the notion of straight, erect encoded in rank. From
there we can motivate deployment for more idiomatic English.
Commissioned?
Rank: O.E. ranc proud, overbearing, showy, from P.Gmc. *rankaz (cf. Dan. rank right, upright,
Ger. rank slender, O.N. rakkr straight, erect), perhaps from PIE *reg- to stretch, straighten
If we rely on a minimal interpretation of the structure of action we can see how this term makes great
sense. First off, the ism precedes the action, insofar as actions must be initiated and enacted by actors.
But the actor does not become so until the action is performed; its the dance that makes the dancer.
Hence the action produces the enactant as well as the actand. From this perspective the theory of @amal
makes perfect intuitive sense - the verb works in the complement, shaping it to convey its message, in
the same way that an action produces the enactant and all the other contextual information - time, place,
etc. - that have importance solely as concommitants of the action.
Now every action also occurs in a context. The promulgated terms in a sentence serve to select those
elements of the context the speaker considers important (note connection with in sense of intension);
all of them are construed in relation to the action, as actands bearing relation to the action -
, etc. So they act as signs. The metaphor is clear: they are like signposts erected to guide the traveler
to his goal. Linguistically, they guide the listener to the intended meaning.
Considered minimally an action is contextualized by an infinite number of possible related signs time, place, attitude, participants, etc. These are all mansub - erected as signs, indicators, etc.
Sibawayhis usage is an important clue. Each mansub is a maf@ul, and the maf@ul is itself the action
- that which is done. So these terms are the context in/on/by/for/etc. which the action is completed.
They are all named with explicit reference to the action, unlike our object terms (e.g. direct and oblique
objects, etc. - our terminology abstracts away from the action.)
A second metaphor is possible. One of the senses of nasb relates to the erection of stone markers
around a religious site. Thus they circumscribe it. Again there is a clear metaphor: the promulgated
words serve to circumscribe the sense of an utterance. Each one narrows the meaning.
Carter (20 Dirhams) claims that Sibawayhi does not claim that the mansub always implies an elided
verb. This is true, but it misses the point: you dont have to have an elided verb in order to have verbal
force. As far as I can see nasb it implicates verbal force, if not always an elided verb.
herders song?
.
: .

05:47 Draft:
Reynolds Gregg 2011 2010,
SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
104
: . :
:

: .
:
:
: .

. .
.
: . :
?allocation or allotment of portion
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T
:
:
. :

:

.

.
.
.

: .

?anticipation
.

. :
:
.
: .

: .

:
.
: .
)(trivet
:
:

.
:

;) - designation (understood: as a goal, target

The Arabic combines: set/raise up; goal; sign/token; we cant fit that all into one English word. Option
1: pick the notion of sign/token, with the implied setting up as: designation Option 2: use raise, with
implied notion of designating/tokenizing
Option 2 is more vivid.
Tokenization even more vivid, but risks confusion if we use token for
. :

: :
. :
. : . :
. :

:
:
:
. : .
lit: set up as a sign/marker, hence institute
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105
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Institute: c.1325, to establish in office, appoint, from L. institutus, pp. of instituere to set up, from
in- in + statuere establish, to cause to stand (see statute). General sense of set up, found, introduce
first attested 1483.
But the problem with a word like institute is that it doesnt convey the notion that something is being
done, like the word elevated does. Institute is too abstract; conveys a fairly vivid image of setting
something up. So maybe we should just go with raise up? As long as we follow a rule: elevation for
and raising for we should be ok.
Establish: late 14c., from O.Fr. establiss-, stem of establir, from L. stabilire make stable, from stabilis
stable (see stable (2)).
Stable: building where horses or cows are kept, mid-13c., building for domestic animals, from
O.Fr. estable a stable, stall (also applied to cowsheds and pigsties), from L. stabulum a stall, fold,
aviary, etc. lit. a standing place, from stem of stare to stand (see stet).
justification; justify from c.1300, to administer justice, also to show (something) to be just or
right, from O.Fr. justifer, from L. justificare act justly toward, make just, from justificus dealing
justly, righteous, from justus just (see just (adj.)) + root of facere to do (see factitious). Meaning
to make exact (now largely restricted to typesetting) is from 1551.
Most of vol. I is about verb complements in nasb. In vol. II a bunch of Articles discuss the use of nasb
in qualifiers and allocution ( )
Examples: Article 128 on ;
20 dirhams: Art. 141 on ;Art 143 on the nasb of quantities (tamyeez) etc. (Articles on kam
discuss tanween/idafa pairing)
Rule of thumb: nasb always has verbal force.
Long sequence of articles in vol I. on the masdar in nasb. Note that the masdar always carries a verbal
sense, although it may be used as a strict ism; e.g. darb as either striking or a blow.
Organization of vol I on nasb: start with direct objects, noting right at the beginning that all verbs
function in the masdar and space/time words as nasb.
After covering the direct objects (peer co-enactants), explain constructions whose mansub (coerectant?) involve an elided, covert, or implied verb, and constructions that have verbal force. Including
specifically the interrrogatories ) etc.) which always have verbal force or an elided verb.
Then, the masdars in nasb. This topic also involves a lot of elided verbs, or verbs in niyya, or tawahhum imagining of verbal force.
In particular, nominal sentences often take a nasb complement, especially those starting with a preposition. la-hu deserves special attention since it contains an enactant (huwa?); e.g. la-hu darbun darb is a masdar, so the -hu of la-hu is taken as the enactant of the verbal force of the masdar. In contrast
with e.g. la-hu yadun; yad is a strict ism with no verbal force, so the -hu of la-hu cannot be construed as
an enactant, since it does not function in yad the way it functions in darb.
Adjective
Not to be confused with
Alien
Ignorance, lack of knowledge/cognizance; Dysteme? Opposite of , familiar.
anonym; incognition
Enumeration
Draft: March 17, 2011 05:47
106
SIBWAYHIS LEXICON
Enumeration; articulation; cataloging; listing; computation

Lecture; list; catalogue; . See entry for .
Direction
the [usual] way (of speaking); trend, tendency. see etym scheme
example: ( art. 127; v2p114): and this is ugly, run against its normal usage or
runs against its scheme (type)
Weigh
Forms used:
[ zina un ]: form; synon. with . Art. 307.
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measure by weight?
The wazn is all surface. Measuring a word against its wazn entails no ontological committment to the
existence of an abstract underlying deep structure. It just establishes an isomorphism between two word
forms.
In other words, the mizan itself is not to be taken as representing something other than itself. The
wazn system is about discovering structural isomorphisms at the surface, not at some deep level.
Another way of looking at it: traditional Arabic grammar was not interested in building a model of the
language faculty. There is no attempt to describe the mental processes involved in production of speech.
It was not a theory of Language, but a theory of Arabic.
See also: Caliber; ;
Qualification
descriptor, description
Legato
- continuity
Topos
mawi - lit. locus of placement; situation (posture, in a posture of; )

Topos; for , isotopic (same place)
For Sibawayhi the refers both to physical location of an element of speech and the semantic
function it has, e.g. . When he refer to e.g. he (usually?) means a place in speech
where semantics calls for a thing.
Compare topics of invention (Aristotle): places where arguments are discovered. Invention: mid14c., from L. inventionem (nom. inventio) a finding, discovery, from inventus, pp. of invenire devise,
discover, find, from in- in, on + venire to come (see venue). (etymonline)
Befall

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

The Arabic Linguistic Imagination Vol. II

Re-imagining the Kitb of Sibawayhi

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

Vol VI: The Arabic Lexicon

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

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1 Text Criticism: Principles and Practices

2 History of the Text

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

Assumptions: Axioms of Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8 General Principles and Practices

10 Language and Literacy

12 The Arabic Sciences

11 Culture and Knowledge

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

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13 The Quranic Imagination

17 General Principles and Practices of Translation

18 Translating Sibawayhian Arabic

Text, Translation, and Commentary

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

These three texts are analyzed in more detail in ?? below.

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TODO: example from Marogy

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

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Roman Jakobsen, quoted by Calvert Watkins in What is

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

Organization of this book

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ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK

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2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

He did not want to compose another Quixote which is easy

My obliging predecessor did not refuse the collaboration of

He decided to anticipate the vanity awaiting all mans efforts; he

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

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WHAT NOT TO LOOK FOR IN SIBAWAYHI

Remark 0.0.4. Goal is de-centering

What not to look for in Sibawayhi

Remark 0.0.5. Beware the Classical Distortion Field!!

Grammaticality, Competence, etc.

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

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WHAT NOT TO LOOK FOR IN SIBAWAYHI

Root/template (a/k/a non-concatenative) morphology

2010, 2011 Gregg Reynolds

Axiom of Parataxis. Support: construction against; use of overlap

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WHAT NOT TO LOOK FOR IN SIBAWAYHI

Moral Instruction and Exhortation