S?bawayh On Im?lah (inclination)

An eighth-century scholar and linguist born in Persia, S Bawayh is to Arabic linguistics what Panini is to Indian linguistics. He departed from the traditional methods of doing analysis to launch a more objective, descriptive and formal paradigm of linguistic analysis. S Bawayh wrote only one book called "al-Kit b" 'the book'. This is considered the most thorough grammar of Classical Arabic ever written. His grammar established the foundations of Arabic linguistics as it became a statement of the new paradigm, and the book has become the model for all subsequent grammarians of Arabic. The treatise on im lah 'inclination' is part of this grammar. It brings together the disparate mechanisms of 'inclination' by stating the conditions for its occurrence. This is not a purely an abstract treatise, but a study that looks over the various dialects of Arabic and formulates the conditions under which 'inclination' takes place. Though the triggers for 'inclination' are the presence of an [i] or a [y], either expressed or implied, in contexts where an [ ] changes to an [ ], the consonantal constraints to prevent these changes are also carefully detailed.As a characteristic of S Bawayh's work, he also accounts for all the exceptional cases in a comprehensive manner. This book is a complete account of im lah 'inclination'. The treatise shows the systematic nature of 'inclination', with a rich display of data from actual occurrences in the language. It also displays the optional nature of 'inclination' as different dialects make use of some triggers but not of others. The six chapters take up the topic of inclination from its most basic contexts like the occurrence of the [i] trigger, and the occurrence of the [y] trigger, to the exceptional cases, the consonantal segments that prevent inclination, the influence of [r] on inclination, and the effect of inclination on the arak t 'motions/short vowel'. The treatise is the first statement on 'inclination' in classical Arabic. This is the first bilingual text, Arabic-English, of the treatise with notes and comments. This book will be of interest to linguists, Arab linguists, phonologists and phoneticians, classical Arabic dialecticians, development of Arabic and those with no serious contact with the Arab tradition of doing linguistics from the pen of its founder.