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هٰذَا بَاْبُ عِلْمِ مَا الْكَلِمُ مِنَ الْعَرَبِيَّةِ

The Nominal Term: الحرفُ الِاسْمُ

What he does not say is often as important as what he says. In this case, what he does not say is that masdars, participles, etc. are nouns. Why not? He only lists the kind of term that can only function as a noun. But masdars and participles can function as verbs.

The Verbal Term: الحرفُ الْفِعْلُ

There is more than meets the eye here. In many contexts, the naive translation “verb” is adequate, but it fails to capture an essential aspect of Sibawayhi’ usage, namely the use of ف, ع, and ل to construct prototype forms. The word فِعْل is a lexical word with a meaning (“action”, “doing”, etc.), but it also functions as the prototype of the class of words having the same morphological form (symbolic morphology), such as مِثْلٌ, ضِعْفٌ, and نِصْفٌ . In fact he cites just this verb in Chapter 432 on the morphology of Form I verbs, where he says of the masdar: وَقَدْ جَاْءَ عَلَى فِعْلٍ نَحْوُ فَعَلَهُ فِعْلًا. Here the masdar of verb فَعَلَ itself has this form; other examples (not cited by Sibawayhi) are عَلِمَ عِلْمًا, ثَقُلَ ثِقْلًا, لَعِبَ لِعْبًا, كَذَبَ كِذْبًا, مَلَكَ مِلْكًا . In other words, the ḥarf فِعْل may function as a noun (meaning a verbal term), a verbal noun ( مَصْدَر ) meaning “action” or “doing”, or as a prototype (abstract form with no meaning). In the latter case his usual idiom is to say that something is على مِثالِ كذا, where كذا is a فعل -derived form such as فَاعِلٌ, مَفْعُولٌ, افْتَعَلَ, مَفَاْعِيْلُ, etc.

This is not a coincidence. Sibawayhi tells us just a few sentences later that the “verb” is “forms ( أَمْثِلَةٌ ) taken from the enunciation of the actions/reports of the nouns”, where “forms” is the same term he uses in his articles on morphology to refer to prototypes like ...

the concept of a مثال is critical to art 289 هذا باب ما ينصرف من الأمثلة وما لا ينصرف e.g. تقول كل أفعلٍ يكون وصفا لا تصرفه في معرفة ولا نكرة in response to “why declinable?” he answers: لأن هذا مثال يمثل به فزعمت أن هذا المثال ما كان عليه من الوصف لم يجز

articles 47, 49: verbs “named” by nouns w/o verbal form. 47: بِأَسْمَاءَ لَمْ تُؤْخَذْ مِنْ أَمْثِلَةِ الْفِعْلِ الْحَادِثِ Article 49 covers mudaf nouns that “name” actions, e.g. عليك زيدًا . These are nouns in construct that express commands or prohibitions, and he notes explicitly that they are not verbal أمثلة . In that article he addresses the notion of أمثلة in some detail.

Article 49 also makes it clear that the semantics of the term فِعْل are not restricted to grammar (syntax and morphology), but also include the pre-linguistic notion of action. The article is about actions ( الفِعْل ) that are “named” by nouns that are expressly not verbal forms. NB: not nouns that name “hidden” verbs.

Also: variants on أُخِذ من الفعل occur in several articles, e.g. art. 71: هٰذَا بَاْبُ مَا يَنْتَصِبُ مِنَ الْأَسْمَاْءِ الَّتِي أُخِذَتْ مِنَ الأفعَاْلِ

See art 205: ...الإضمار الذي في »فَعَلَ« إلخ and art. 208 on implicit verbals including إنّ وأخواتها and أسماء الفعل e.g. رويد، عليك، هلُمّ etc.

[OTOH: masdars of this form فِعْلٌ are rare, but nouns are not uncommon: سِلْكٌ, رِزْقٌ, مِلْحٌ

See art 289: concrete forms are "on" على the prototype: قَاْلَ لِأَنَّ هٰذَا مِثَاْلٌ يُمَثَّلُ بِهِ فَزَعَمْتَ أَنَّ هٰذَا الْمِثَاْلَ مَا كَاْنَ عَلَيْهِ مِنَ الْوَصْفِ لَمْ يَجْرِ فَإِنْ كَاْنَ اسْمًا وَلَيْسَ بِوَصْفِ جَرَى

art 298: again, concrete forms are "on the prototype" هذا باب ما كان على مثال مفاعل ومفاعيل e.g. حتى يصير على مثال مفاعيل

art. 49: وَهٰذَا بَابٌ مِنَ الْفِعْلِ سُمِّيَ الْفِعْلُ فِيْهِ بِأَسْمَاءٍ مُضَافَةٍ لَيْسَتْ مِنْ أَمْثِلَةِ الْفِعْلِ الْحَادِثِ

e.g. عليكَ زيدًا : sib seems to be saying that عليكَ (or more precisely the على part of that) names a فِعْل (always imperative, cmd/prohibition)

Conclusion: the significance of the term فِعْل in Sibawayhi’s usage cannot be merely “action word”; he tells us explicitly that this is not the case when he says it is أَمْثِلَة, and it is implicit in the correspondence between the spelling of فعل and the فعل -based forms used for morphological analysis.

possible reading: calling this category فعل is his way of stressing the morphology of verbal forms. those forms are all related semantically, but critically they are related morphologically. that is, they're all permutations in the فِعْل game. So which came first, chicken or egg?

art 511: وَلَا يَكُونُ إِلَّا فِي الْفِعْلِ وَلَيْسَ فِي الْكَلَاَمِ فِعُلٌ that is, the form فِعُلٌ does not occur in speech, which means it must not be a verb form; but he says right there it only occurs في الفِعْل . Seems he must mean its only a permutation in the فِعْل game.

triadic verb morphology: articles 515-516; the verbal forms of فِعْل (i.e. فَعَلَ يَفْعَلُ etc.) are the قياس or مثال for morphological construction. art. 538 makes this very clear using example طويل, which is not على الفِعْل ; this can only mean that it is not according to the morphology of the (model) word فِعْل, not the verb طال . (But then how to translate فِعْل ?)

so to say e.g. that darab is a fi9l is to say it is one of the forms derived from the masdar darb. And the derivation process -- tasrîf -- is driven by f-9-l abstraction. Nouns can be classified by f-9-l morphological prototypes, but the are not derived from a masdar the way verbs are. This is in part what Sibawayhi’s terminology fi9l tells us. Because (singular) isms are not derived, they are not properly considered “fi9l-based” terms. (Except plurals are indeed derived. But the singular is “primitive”.)

one might say for example that daraba is مُشْتَقٌّ من الضَّرْبِ على مثال فَعَلَ, and that's what makes it a فِعْل .

Here's an inline transclusion from article 10: أَلَا تَرَى أَنَّ قَوْلَكَ قَدْ ذَهَبَ بِمَنْزِلَةِ قَوْلِكَ قَدْ كَاْنَ مِنْهُ ذَهَاْبٌ qad ðahabaHe has gone qad kāna min-hu ðahābᵘⁿThere was from him a going followed by inline literals: أَلَا تَرَى أَنَّ قَوْلَكَ قَدْ ذَهَبَ بِمَنْزِلَةِ قَوْلِكَ قَدْ كَانَ مِنْهُ ذَهَابٌ

On أَمْثِلَة : from the Lisân : والمِثالُ المقدارُ وهو من الشِّبْه، والمثل: ما جُعل مِثالاً أَي مقداراً لغيره يُحْذَى عليه، والجمع المُثُل وثلاثة أَمْثِلةٍ، ومنه أَمْثِلةُ الأَفعال والأَسماء في باب التصريف والمِثال القالَِبُ الذي يقدَّر على مِثْله ; The key notions being measurement (comparison) and representation. Some possible translations: Token, from O.E. tacen “sign, symbol, evidence” (related to tæcan “show, explain, teach”) captures the notion of representation, but doesn't really capture to base sense of measurement; nor is it etymologically parallel. Alternatives: paradigm, from the Greek paradeigma “pattern, model”, from paradeiknynai “exhibit, represent,” lit. “show side by side,” from para- “beside” + deiknynai “to show”. Other possibilities: model; pattern; schema; etc. Probably “model” is closest etymologically, “from V.L. *modellus, dim. of L. modulus ‘measure, standard,’ dim. of modus ‘manner, measure’”. Exemplar; template; stencil.

TODO: find where Sibawayhiequates اِضْرِبْ and لتَضْرِبْ

“Contributing term ” حَرْفٌ جَاْءَ لِمَعْنًى

The dawn of literacy: from sounds to forms

One of the most pregnant passages in the book:

وَأَمَّا الْفِعْلُ فَأَمْثِلَةٌ أُخِذَتْ مِنْ لَفْظِ أَحْدَاثِ الْأَسْمَاءِ وَبُنِيَتْ لِ‍مَا مَضَى وَلِ‍مَا يَكُونُ وَلَمْ يَقَعْ وَمَا هُوَ كَائِنٌ لَمْ يَنْقَطِعْ ... فَهٰذِهِ الْأَمْثِلَةُ الَّتِي أُخِذَتْ مِنْ لَفْظِ أَحْدَاثِ الْأَسْمَاءِ وَلَهَا أَبْنِيَةٌ كَثِيرَةٌ

In article 9 he reinforces the point: فَالْأَسْمَاءُ الْمُحَدَّثُ عَنْهَا وَالْأَمْثِلَةُ دَلِيلَةٌ عَلَى ما مَضَى ومَا لَمْ يَمْضِ مِنَ المُحَدَّثِ بِهِ عَنِ الْأَسْمَاءِ وَهْوَ الذَّهَابُ وَالْجُلُوسُ وَالضَّرْبُ وَلَيْسَتْ الْأَمْثِلَةُ بِالْأَحْدَاثِ وَلَامَا يَكونُ مِنْهُ الْأَحْدَاثُ وَهِيَ الْأَسْمَاءُ

IMPORTANT: مثال and مقدار are synonyms, or near synonyms meaning pattern “by which a thing is measured, proportioned, or cut out.” (lane, مقدار )

Here we can see not only the beginnings of grammar but of Arabic literary culture. “Grammar” (from the Greek ...) is usually taken (in the West) to refer to the rules that describe or govern linguistic form; but this notion of grammar presupposes literacy . Before rules can be laid down it must be possible to articulate the primitive forms of speech, which is the job of the writing system. The “letters” of such systems are always conceptual, not perceptual. We do not perceive the letter ‘t’ in speech, for example; what we perceive is some sound, and if we are able to recognize it as an instance of ‘t’, it is only because we have undergone an elaborate and lengthy period of training in the arts of literacy.

And one of the most remarkable things about the Kitab is that its notion of literacy is verbal. The primitive units of speech are the spoken ḥurūf ; their role in writing is secondary, derived from their role in speech. The spoken forms of verbs ( أَمْثِلَة ) are derived from the sound produced when (verbally) recounting ( لَفْظ ) the “doings (or: reports) of things” ( أَحْدَاْث الْأَسْمَاء ), which, Sibawayhi stipulates, are the “verbal nouns” (masdars). The “grammar” Sibawayhi describes is fundamentally a matter of speech, not writing.

On other hand, the \textit{Kitâb} was clearly intended as a written document, and in a few places Sibawayhidoes explicitly refer to writing. But ...

This kind of “verbal literacy” was possible because of the structure of the Arabic language. It would not be plausible or even possible in English and many other languages

In English the problem is mostly due to the relatively large number of vowels. So we have spellings like “beet” and “beat”, “bite”, “bight”, etc. But consonants too would be a problem: compare “laughter” and “after”. People have occassionally attempted to construct a spelling system for English that devotes one written sign to each sound of the language; all such attempts have failed.

In any case, the point is that the phonology and morphology of Arabic make it relatively easy even for illiterates to partition speech into primitive units. Morphology is largely a matter of permutation of the primitive ḥurūf, and its an easy matter for native speakers play games with word forms in a way that highlights their structure. For example, form all the permutations of ضَرَبَ : ضَبَرَ, رَبَضَ, رَضَبَ بَرَضَ and بَضَرَ . This is the sort of thing that a fluent speaker can do with relative ease. Add to this all the other morphological derivations such as ضارب, مضروب, ضَرَّاب and so on, and it becomes relatively easy to grasp that such terms are composed of three “radical” terms, ض, ر, and ب, plus in some cases a few additional ḥurūf, like م, و, and ا . No familiarity with writing is needed for this; it's entirely a matter of practical mastery of Arabic speech.

“Les parties du discours sont le nom, le verbe et la particule, laquelle a une valeur sémantique, sans être un nom ni un verbe.” (Larcher2005)

Transclusion example

On معنى: