Kitab Sibawayhi: Syntax and Pragmatics.

• Author: Bernards, Monique
• Position: Book review

Kitab Sibawayhi: Syntax and Pragmatics. By AMAL E. MAROGY. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, vol. 56. Leiden: BRILL, 2010. Pp. xviii + 238. $160.

In the preface of the book under review the author asks why yet another book on Kitab Sibawayhi. Her answer is that the Kitab's "contribution to the development of Arabic as well as to general linguistics as a whole should not be underestimated" (p. xi). And she is right. Indeed, Sibawayhi's main achievement is that the Kitab is not only one of the earliest books in the Islamic period, but also, affirming the marvel that it was within that context, happens to remain more or less unchallenged in its authority within the Arabic linguistic tradition until today. It is by no means an easy book and even the long extant tradition of commentary upon commentary has not succeeded in fully grasping the unique and creative insights put forward by Sibawayhi.

Sibawayhi shares with Aristotle the genius of establishing an explicit conceptual framework to study the phenomenon each was interested in. Though Aristotle was not the first to write on ethics, his Nicotnachean Ethics was the first systematic analysis of ethics; and Sibawayhi was one of the very first to attempt to lay down foundational work for what was to become Arabic grammar. Hence, committing one's research to a study of the Kitab implies a lifetime pursuit; in the meantime, and as a consequence of this magnitude. we still await a definitive scholarly work on Sibawayhi's "Qur'an of Grammar"--if one single work could ever achieve such a feat.

Sibawayhi (ca. 135-ca. 180 A.H.) was of Persian descent, a mawla (client) of the Banu Harith b. Ka'b. He spent his active scholarly life in Basra during the first decades of Islam's golden age; he died during the reign of Harlin al-Rashid. The discrimination he may have suffered as a mawla is perhaps reflected in the biographical anecdotes that underscore his alleged speech impediment and his presumed faulty command of the Arabic language (cf. M. G. Carter, Sibawayhi, OUP, 2004). It is no wonder, then, that the originality of his ideas was challenged--how could a non-Arab write such a brilliant grammar of the Arabic language without being part of an existing and flourishing linguistic tradition? Sibawayhi himself never had the opportunity to defend himself against whatever allegations were leveled at him, since he died very young, too young even to have a circle of students who could have properly transmitted his work as was common practice then. Nevertheless, within a century after his death, the Kitab was firmly established as the grammar of Arabic par excellence and a source of inspiration for linguistic scholars in the East and West alike.

Amal Marogy joins her...