Arabic Grammar in its Formative Age.

• Author: BERNARDS, MONIQUE
• Position: Review

Arabic Grammar in its Formative Age: Kitab al-[CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]Ayn and its Attribution to Halil b. Ahmad. By RAFAEL TALMON. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, vol. 25. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1997. Pp. x + 437.

As an early lexicographer and grammarian of Arabic, al-Khalil b. Ahmad (d. ca. 175 A.H./791-92 C.E.) is said to have a twofold renown in the annals of Arabic linguistics: he was the first to furnish us with an Arabic dictionary, the Kitab al-[CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]ayn, and we are in debt for his contribution to the first systematic grammar of Arabic, Sibawayh's Kitab, Al-Khalil's role in the genesis of these two major linguistic developments has, however, been contested ever since tradition asserted his association with these works.

The author of the book under review has defined as his task a critical scrutiny of this contention. As a point of departure Talmon employs a hypothesis that he formulated in earlier studies on the grammarians mentioned in the Kitab Sibawayh and the formation of the "grammatical schools" of Basra and Kufa. This hypothesis focuses on the existence of what Talmon calls "the Old Iraqi School" of grammar to which, amongst others, Sibawayh's nahwiyyun belonged and from which the alleged schools of Basra and Kufa ultimately emerged.

Throughout the book the author canvasses biographical and grammatical sources exhaustively. Data on the life and personality of al-Khalil are gathered and weighed in order to examine the material set forth by the earliest biographers in favor of al-Khalil's authorship of Kitab al-[CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]ayn. He collected and analyzed in depth the grammatical evidence to see if al-Khalil and Sibawayh do indeed share common grounds in grammatical theory. Finally, the author makes comparisons between materials from the Kitab al-[CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]ayn and other treatises attributed to al-Khalil, as well as the early works of other linguists. The focus on detail--sometimes minutiae many pages long--renders the book cumbersome to read. It should be pointed out, however, that very little is known about the beginnings of the study of Arabic grammar and that the genesis of the surprisingly elaborate theoretical framework presented in the Kitab is still shrouded in mystery. Consequently, a detailed study of the foremost teacher and source for Sibawayh is i ndeed essential for our understanding of this phase in the development of this field, and Talmon should be commended for undertaking this venture.

The book comprises four chapters. Chapter one deals with the biographical data on al-Khalil extracted from seventy-nine biographical, grammatical, and literary sources from the eighth up through the seventeenth century C.E. Critically scrutinizing the details about his name leads to the conclusion that Abu [CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]Abd al-Rahman al-Khalil b. Ahmad was an Arab from...