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Sibawayhi’s Principles

by Michael G. Carter

 

Michael G. Carter's Sībawyhi's Principles: Arabic Grammar and Law in Early Islamic Thought is a corrected version, with considerable Addenda, of his 1968 Oxford doctoral thesis, "Sībawayhi's Principles of Grammatical Analysis." It systematically argues that the science of Arabic grammar owes its origins to a special application of a set of methods and criteria developed independently to form the Islamic legal system, not to Greek or other foreign influence. These methods and criteria were then adapted to create a grammatical system brought to perfection by Sibawayhi in the late second/eighth century. It describes the intimate contacts between early jurists and scholars of language out of which the new science of grammar evolved, and makes detailed comparisons between the technical terms of law and grammar to show how the vocabulary of the law was applied to the speech of the Arabs. It also sheds light on Sibawayhi's method in producing his magisterial Kitāb.

Sibawayhi’s Principles

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    RAIS vol. 5

    296 pages

    7 x 10 inches

    ISBN 978-1-937040-58-1 (paperback)

    ISBN 978-1-937040-59-8 (PDF)

    November 2016

  • Table of Contents

    Series Editors' Preface
    Preface
    Preface to This Edition
    Chapter 1: The Background of the Kitab
    Chapter 2: The State of Kitab Criticism
    Chapter 3: Grammar and Law
    Chapter 4: "Grammar" and "nahw"
    Chapter 5:The Principles and Criteria of the Kitab
    Chapter 6: Twenty Dirhams
    Chapter 7: In Conclusion
    Bibliography
    Index of Arabic Terms and Proper Names
    Index of Qur'anic Citations
    Index of Poetic Citations

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