The Semantics of Form in Arabic
In the mirror of European languages
Author
Paperback – Other edition available
ISBN 9789027230218
Justice's first aim in this volume is to demystify the Arabic language, which is widely perceived as difficult to learn, and has been characterised as ambiguous and confusingly polysemous. The central concern of this three-dimensional portrait of Classical Arabic is a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language is a determinant of other aspects of culture. But rather than focusing on the possible influences of language on thought, Justice is intersted in connections between language and language use or langue and parole. Among the topics treated are: the difficulty of Arabic; morphosyntax and Whorfian semantics; the role of duality in Arabic; iconicity; a population profile of vocabulary; the syntactic cut' of Arabic; and the relation between causatives and verbs that ascribe qualities to an object. This erudite and thought-provoking volume will be of interest not only to Arabists but to linguistic anthropologists in general.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 15] 1987. iv, 417 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Introduction | p. 7
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Part One: An overview of the language
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Chapter 0: Definition of the language of study | p. 11
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Chapter 1: The difficulty of Arabic | p. 17
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Chapter 2: Thumbnail sketches of Arabic | p. 33
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Part Two: Theoretical questions: Aesthetics and form
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Chapter 3: The form-use connection | p. 53
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Chapter 4: The grammar of duality and the duality of grammar | p. 97
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Part Three: Form of the lexicon
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Chapter 5: L'Arbitraire du signe | p. 153
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Chapter 6: Accumulation | p. 175
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Chapter 7: Enantiosemantics | p. 195
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Chapter 8: Nouns of manner | p. 217
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Part Four: Form in syntax
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Chapter 9: The shape of syntax | p. 235
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Chapter 10: Pleonasm | p. 277
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Chapter 11: Specification | p. 289
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Chapter 12: Causatives and ascriptives | p. 363
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Indices | p. 419
“This volume makes important points about Arabic and about how languages acquire their textures.”
Barbara Johnstone, Texas A&M University, in Language 64:4 (1988)
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Cited by 6 other publications
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Gitner, Adam
2023.
Lucus a non lucendo: Enantiosemy in Ancient Latin Lexicography
. Trends in Classics 15:1 ► pp. 79 ff.
Hassanein, Hamada
2022. Double or half reading, double or full meaning: Amphibological and anacoluthic syntax through the lens of Qur’an translators. Russian Journal of Linguistics 26:3 ► pp. 668 ff.
Joseph, John E.
1996. The immediate sources of the ‘Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis’. Historiographia Linguistica 23:3 ► pp. 365 ff.
Koerner, E. F. Konrad
1992. The Sapir‐Whorf Hypothesis: A Preliminary History and a Bibliographical Essay. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2:2 ► pp. 173 ff.
Lauzon, Matthew J.
2011.
Linguistic Relativities: Language diversity and modern thought. By John Leavitt. Historiographia Linguistica 38:3 ► pp. 408 ff.
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CF: Linguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General