The Arabic Language
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‘lesson’. Singular Dual Plural 3m ya-ktub-u ya-ktub-āni ya-ktub-ūna 3f ta-ktub-u ya-ktub-āni ya-ktub-na 2m ta-ktub-u ta-ktub-āni ta-ktub-ūna 2f ta-ktub-īna ta-ktub-āni ta-ktub-na 1 ʾa-ktub-u na-ktub-u Table 6.1 Prefix conjugation of yaktubu/katab a ‘to write’ Singular Dual Plural 3m katab-a katab-ā katab-ū 3f kataba-t kataba-tā katab-na 2m katab-ta katab-tumā katab-tum 2f katab-ti katab-tumā katab-tunna 1 katab-tu katab-nā Table 6.2 Suffix conjugation of yaktubu/kataba ‘to write’ In the suffix conjugation of this verb (traditionally called ‘perfect’), the stem is -katab- (see Table 6.2). The vocalic difference between the two stems -ktub- and -katab- is believed to be the result of apophony. Apophony (also called ablaut) is the alternation of vowels for morphological purposes, a process well known from the Germanic languages, for example, in English sing–sang–sung . The correlation of the vowels of the prefix and the suffix stem may be accounted for by a small number of rules. When the perfect vowel is a , the imperfect has either u or i (e.g., kataba / yaktubu ‘to write’; ḍaraba / yaḍribu ‘to hit’), when the perfect is i , the imperfect vowel is a (e.g., šariba / yašrabu ‘to drink’), and when it is u , it remains u (e.g., baʿuda / yabʿudu ‘to be far’). This means that a high vowel alternates with a low vowel, and a low vowel with a high vowel. Verbs with an a / a alternation may be explained by the phonetic context, because this pattern usually occurs with pharyngal consonants (e.g., faʿala / yafʿalu ‘to do’). When the vowel alternation is accounted for by apophony rules, it does not have to be specified for each verb in the lexicon, which helps to make the description more economical. The Structure of Arabic 91 Whether roots are the ultimate building blocks of Arabic morphology or just a by-product of the stem derivation, both Arabic grammarians and modern linguists use them as a useful tool to describe the Arabic lexicon. In the majority of words, the number of root consonants is three, but there is a small number of biconso - nantal nominal roots, most of them belonging to the basic lexicon, for example, yad ‘hand’, dam ‘blood’, ibn ‘son’, etc. Some verbs exhibit a certain number of variants, which might be interpreted as originating from biconsonantal roots. In some cases, the variants may be derived from an original noun that no longer exists, for example, kāna ‘to be’, sakana ‘to settle’, kanna ‘to shelter’. In other cases, the variation is caused by weak consonants and/or reduplication, for example, ḥamma / ḥamiya / ḥamā ‘to be hot’. This has led some comparative linguists to speculate that originally all words in Semitic were biradical, the third consonant acting as a kind of suffix or prefix, which functions as a ‘root determinative’ (Ehret 1989). This theory is supported by the fact that, both within Arabic and across the Semitic languages, there are triradical words with related meanings that differ only in one (usually weak) consonant, for example, in Arabic f-r-r ‘to flee’, f-r-q ‘to tear apart’, f-r-z ‘to separate’, f-r-d ‘to be alone’, f-r-ṣ ‘to slit, pierce’. Similarly, in Hebrew we have p-r-d ‘to separate’, p-r-m ‘to tear’, p-r-q ‘to pull apart’, p-r-r ‘to dissolve’. On the basis of such word groups, a proto-Semitic root p-r with the general meaning ‘to divide’ might be posited. The added consonants are assumed to have served to specify the semantic range of the derived words. Zaborski (2006b) points out that these phenomena do not prove that the original Semitic lexicon was biconsonantal. In many cases, the existing varia - tion may be explained by phonological processes or dialectal variation. Thus, for instance, the verbal pair ḥabala / ʿabala ‘to bind with a cord’, may have originated as the result of the voicing of the first radical in the imperfect: yaḥbulu > yaʿbulu . Dialectal variation may be another cause, for example, in zalaqa / zalaʾa ‘to slide’ with alternation of /q/ and /ʾ/. There may even be cases of fusion with a preposi- tion bi- , for example, šajā / šajaba ‘to distress, grieve’ (compare this with the verb jāb ‘to bring’ in some of the modern dialects, which is derived from jāʾa bi- ‘to come with’). Recently, Bohas (1993, 1995, 1997) has proposed an even more radical version of the theory of biradicalism and to a certain degree has revindicated the ideas of Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002), who believed that all roots containing the same radicals share in the same semantic content (Chapter 7, p. 123). Bohas starts by referring to roots that differ only in one glide ( w , y ) and that have the same semantic load, either within Arabic (e.g., baḫḫa , bāḫa , baḫā , all meaning ‘to calm down’) or across Semitic languages. A similar phenomenon is observable with other sonants ( n , r , l , m , etc.) and pharyngals, for example, jazza ‘to cut, shear’, jazara ‘to slaughter, cut off’, jazala ‘to cut a stick in two pieces’, jazama ‘to cut off, trim’, jazaʿa ‘to cut, cross a river’. He concludes that all triradical verbal roots ultimately go back to biradical types with a similar semantic load. He then extends this principle to 92 The Arabic Language radicals from the same articulatory class, which may, moreover, be permutated. These constitute matrices, for instance, the matrix consisting of a uvulo-velar and a dental with the general meaning of ‘cutting’, to which, in addition to the roots mentioned above, the following verbs belong: jaḏḏa ‘to cut’, jaḏara ‘to eradi - cate’, jaḏama ‘to cut off a hand’; qadda ‘to cut lengthwise’, qatala ‘to kill’, qaṣara ‘to shorten’, qaṭaʿa ‘to cut’, and so on. Because of the flexibility of the semantic criteria and the even greater tolerance of the phonetic parameters, it is difficult to see in what way Bohas’ theory could be verified, but even in a weaker form it may tell us much about the organisation of the Arabic lexicon and explain a number of phenomena that up until now have had to be regarded as coincidental. Yüklə 2,37 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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