In the 4h/10th century al-Fārābī in his book Kitāb al-Ḥurūf gave a highly original account of how a language is introduced and extended within a community. The account seems at first to be very different from anything in Sībawayhi, and one modern writer has described al-Fārābī as ‘in direct confrontation to the Arab grammarians’. But on closer inspection there are themes common to al-Fārābī and Sībawayhi, for example the role played by similarity (šibh) between expressions. Also the background structure of meanings, which al-Fārābī stresses, can certainly be seen at work in some of Sībawayhi’s descriptions. The impression that al-Fārābī seeks to give, that unlike the grammarians of Arabic he has a range of languages under scrutiny in parallel, is probably fake. Perhaps the most significant differences between the two authors’ accounts are al-Fārābī’s broader intellectual perspective and Sībawayhi’s greater scientific rigour. The two authors of the present paper contributed to FAL3 and FAL4 part of their work on a joint project to compare the views of al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā on language, and in particular on the role of meaning and its interaction with syntax. For FAL5 Amal Marogy invited the contributors to ‘focus on the challenges to the Kitāb’s status during the formative and medieval periods of Arabic grammatical activities’. Since neither al-Sīrāfī nor Ibn Sīnā can be regarded as posing a challenge to the status of the Kitāb, we decided to break away from our joint project and look elsewhere. Since one of us has recently been closely involved with the linguistic and logical views of al-Fārābī, we wondered if he could be regarded as posing a challenge to Sībawayhi. There are hints that it might be. For example Cornelia Schoeck describes al-Fārābī’s theory of language as ‘in direct confrontation to the Arab grammarians’. Also Kees Versteegh comments that ‘[Al-Fārābī’s] open admission of a lacuna in Arabic compared to all other languages is quite unusual in Arabic writings; it would certainly be unthinkable in a grammatical treatise’. Could al-Fārābī be considered as a kind of accidental radd author? We will argue No. Although al-Fārābī’s description of language is at first sight very different from that of the linguists, we believe he never intended to disagree with the linguists (Sībawayhi or any other—his linguistics is not really sophisticated enough to distinguish between one linguist and another). Rather he set out to explain the procedures of Arabic linguists from a philosophical point of view. We will describe some key features of his account, and say what we take them to be explaining.
Fārābī against the Grammarians??, 2022.
Fārābī against the Grammarians??
Giolfo, Manuela
2022-01-01
Abstract
In the 4h/10th century al-Fārābī in his book Kitāb al-Ḥurūf gave a highly original account of how a language is introduced and extended within a community. The account seems at first to be very different from anything in Sībawayhi, and one modern writer has described al-Fārābī as ‘in direct confrontation to the Arab grammarians’. But on closer inspection there are themes common to al-Fārābī and Sībawayhi, for example the role played by similarity (šibh) between expressions. Also the background structure of meanings, which al-Fārābī stresses, can certainly be seen at work in some of Sībawayhi’s descriptions. The impression that al-Fārābī seeks to give, that unlike the grammarians of Arabic he has a range of languages under scrutiny in parallel, is probably fake. Perhaps the most significant differences between the two authors’ accounts are al-Fārābī’s broader intellectual perspective and Sībawayhi’s greater scientific rigour. The two authors of the present paper contributed to FAL3 and FAL4 part of their work on a joint project to compare the views of al-Sīrāfī and Ibn Sīnā on language, and in particular on the role of meaning and its interaction with syntax. For FAL5 Amal Marogy invited the contributors to ‘focus on the challenges to the Kitāb’s status during the formative and medieval periods of Arabic grammatical activities’. Since neither al-Sīrāfī nor Ibn Sīnā can be regarded as posing a challenge to the status of the Kitāb, we decided to break away from our joint project and look elsewhere. Since one of us has recently been closely involved with the linguistic and logical views of al-Fārābī, we wondered if he could be regarded as posing a challenge to Sībawayhi. There are hints that it might be. For example Cornelia Schoeck describes al-Fārābī’s theory of language as ‘in direct confrontation to the Arab grammarians’. Also Kees Versteegh comments that ‘[Al-Fārābī’s] open admission of a lacuna in Arabic compared to all other languages is quite unusual in Arabic writings; it would certainly be unthinkable in a grammatical treatise’. Could al-Fārābī be considered as a kind of accidental radd author? We will argue No. Although al-Fārābī’s description of language is at first sight very different from that of the linguists, we believe he never intended to disagree with the linguists (Sībawayhi or any other—his linguistics is not really sophisticated enough to distinguish between one linguist and another). Rather he set out to explain the procedures of Arabic linguists from a philosophical point of view. We will describe some key features of his account, and say what we take them to be explaining.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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