Meaning and Captivity in Classical Arabic Philology

This article takes a close look at the word maʿnā as analyzed by Abbasid-era authorities on the Arabic language, chiefly Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004). The word’s context-sensitivity and polysemy are well known; less well appreciated are the lexical and morphological preconditions for maʿnā’s diversity of...

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Опубликовано в: :Journal of Abbasid Studies
Главный автор: Larsen, David 1970- (Автор)
Формат: Электронный ресурс Статья
Язык:Английский
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Опубликовано: Brill 2018
В: Journal of Abbasid Studies
Год: 2018, Том: 5, Выпуск: 1/2, Страницы: 177-228
Другие ключевые слова:B Abū Naṣr al-Bāhilī affect theory Arabic lexicography Ibn Fāris maʿnā semiotic theory
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Итог:This article takes a close look at the word maʿnā as analyzed by Abbasid-era authorities on the Arabic language, chiefly Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004). The word’s context-sensitivity and polysemy are well known; less well appreciated are the lexical and morphological preconditions for maʿnā’s diversity of meanings across the disciplines. Even less well studied (though widely quoted in lexicographical literature) is the anonymous basīṭ-meter couplet that Ibn Fāris cites in al-Ṣāḥibī fī fiqh al-lugha as a locus probans for the word. The speaker in these verses boasts of ransoming a bound captive (ʿānī), using maʿnā to refer to the captive’s abject state. There is evidence to suggest that the verses once featured in a lost work of the philologist Abū Naṣr al-Bāhilī (d. 231/855) called Kitāb Abyāt al-maʿānī. This was an anthology of verses framed like riddles whose interpretation hinged on double meanings and rare metaphors, and its form and content may be judged by numerous outtakes preserved in later anthologies and lexica. The affiliation of Ibn Fāris’s verses to Kitāb Abyāt al-maʿānī would confirm that the derivation of maʿnā truly is a puzzle with multiple answers. To contemplate its parameters is to uncover a paradigm for meaning in which noetic intention and phenomenological exposure are figurative correlates of bodily captivity and duress.
ISSN:2214-2371
Второстепенные работы:In: Journal of Abbasid Studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/22142371-12340039