ILḤĀQ AS A MORPHOLOGICAL TOOL
IN
ARABIC GRAMMAR
The
Arab grammarians differentiate between the ziyāda (augment) that
introduces an element of meaning and the ziyāda that appends (yulḥiq)
one morphological form to another. Having realized the potential of the concept
of ilḥāq (appending) as an analytical tool in morphology, the
grammarians divided appended words into several types according to the number
of the radicals in their roots and the type of ziyāda that is
involved, and tried to justify forms and patterns with reference to a set of
detailed rules which they elaborately describe. This paper deals with the
issues the grammarians tackle in their study of ilḥāq, such
as its purpose, the possibility of analogically extending its examples, and the
inapplicability of idġām (gemination) to its patterns. It also
examines how the grammarians use ilḥāq to reduce considerably the number
of morphological patterns that form a closed system, to explain away
anomalous and rare patterns, and thus to limit deviation from the norm (qiyās)
and to test the validity of a host of morphological issues.
1.1. Within
the Arabic root system a consonant may either be a radical (aṣl) or an augment (ziyāda), i.e., part of the
etymological root or some kind of
morphological affix, respectively. In discussing augmented forms,
grammarians usually differentiate between the purely morphological ziyāda,
whose purpose is to introduce an element of meaning, and the ziyāda whose
purpose is to append (yulḥiq) one formal word pattern to another
by interpreting one or more consonants in the word as having the status of
affixes and not radicals. As with many postulates, this distinction goes back
to Sībawayhi (d. 180/796; Kitāb, II, 9), and probably to his
teacher, al-Ḫalīl b. Aḥmad (d. 175/791), whose influence on
him was overwhelmingly in the areas of phonology and morphology (cf. Carter
1973, 154, and 1981, 352). To clarify this distinction, the grammarians had not
only to define the limits between the two types of ziyāda in view
of both form and meaning, but also to justify why certain words could not be considered appended (mulḥaq),
although their forms do suggest such a
possibility.
This painstaking task which the
grammarians shouldered, and which [2] necessitated
close scrutiny of a host of mostly complex and rarely used words whose patterns
are said to be the result of ilḥāq (appending), was motivated
by their general tendency towards limiting the items that constitute a closed
system—particularly, the number of patterns the available corpus of words
should be divided into—and by their interest in using the rules that govern ilḥāq
as testing devices to prove the validity of their more general morphological
premises. This paper sets out to investigate the methods the grammarians used
in their study of ilḥāq and to demonstrate how they tried to
incorporate these rules within their overall system of morphological analysis.
1.2. Much
of the material on ilḥāq is discussed in several scattered
parts of the Kitāb (esp. II, 8–11; 197; 334–41; 401–403), but Sībawayhi
nowhere gives a definition of ilḥāq or formulates and lists
together the rules that pertain to it. Equally scattered are the comments of
Mubarrad (d. 285/898) in his Muqtaḍab (esp. I, 204–205, 244; II,
225ff; III, 88, 385–86; IV, 3–4). Māzinī (d. 248/862), on the other
hand, discusses the different aspects of ilḥāq in one part of
his Taṣrīf (I, 34–53), be it in less detail than
in the Kitāb or the Muqtaḍab. However, Ibn Ǧinnī’s
(d. 392/1002) commentary on the Taṣrīf complements its text to make it more or less comprehensive. Furthermore, as we
shall see later, Ibn Ǧinnī makes several perceptive
observations on ilḥāq as part of his unparalleled approach to
linguistic analysis.
As for the most well-organized and
comprehensive study of ilḥāq in the sources, it is obviously
that of Astarābāḏī (d. 686/1287) in Šarḥ
al-Šāfiya (I, 52–70). It is surprising, however, that some
authors of major works on morphology barely mention a few rules about ilḥāq,
as did Ibn ʿUṣfūr
(d. 669/1271) in his Mumtiʿ (I, 206–208), or sporadically mention
its function without devoting a particular section or chapter to it, as did Ibn
Ǧinnī, who at times mentions, in his alphabetical list of ḥurūf
(here, phonemes) in Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb, that a certain ḥarf can
have the function of ilḥāq (e.g., alif; II, 691–93).[1]
[3] Many
of the later sources also show little interest in ilḥāq, and it
is remarkable that, unlike his commentary on Ibn Ǧinnī’s al-Taṣrīf al-mulūkī (64f.), Ibn Yaʿīš’s (d.
643/1245) most detailed work, Šarḥ al-Mufaṣṣal, does not include a special chapter on ilḥāq
(see sporadic mention of the term in VI, 113, 119, and IX, 146–48; cf. Zamaḫšarī,
Mufaṣṣal, 240, 241, and 358, where the term ilḥāq
appears only in the latter case). Also noteworthy is that Suyūṭī
(d. 911/1505) has an atypically short summary
of the main issues of ilḥāq in his Hamʿ
al-hawāmiʿ (II, 216–17)—most of which relates to whether or not
it is restricted to what the Arabs actually used—and only an incidental mention
of ilḥāq as one of the kinds of ziyāda in Ašbāh
(IV, 137).
Finally it should be mentioned that
works that deal with loan words usually cite ilḥāq as one of
the main factors that affect the Arabicized forms of these loans. For example, Ǧawālīqī
(d. 540/1145) and Ḫafāǧī (d. 1069/1659) mention several
patterns that demonstrate this phenomenon (Muʿarrab, 8, and Šifāʾ,
36–37), and Ibn Kamāl Pasha (d. 940/1533) has a lively discussion of its
role in Arabicization and frequently refers to this role in analyzing
particular examples (Risāla, 47f.; and index, p. 153). This
interest in the relation between ilḥāq and loan words, it may
be noted, owes its origin to Sībawayhi’s chapter on mā uʿriba
min al-aʿǧamiyya (What has been Arabicized from foreign
languages; Kitāb, II, 342).
Since the above-mentioned authors are
largely in agreement concerning the function of ilḥāq and the
material that constitutes its corpus, we shall refer to them collectively
unless we need to specify or indicate different views.
2.1. Although
Sībawayhi does not give a formal definition of ilḥāq,
his discussion of it includes all the elements later grammarians used in formulating
its definition. These elements are the following: (a) that it is a ziyāda;
(b) that it causes triliterals to be appended to quadriliterals and
quinqueliterals, and quadriliterals to be appended to quinqueliterals; (c) that
this ziyāda is different from the one which uniformly introduces an
element of meaning;[2] (d) that the pattern of the appended word
should [4] phonologically conform to the pattern of
the word to which it is appended, i.e., what can be referred to as the target
pattern; (e) that the derivatives of the appended word should be congruent to
the derivatives of the target word; and (f) that the rules of assimilation (idġām),
if applicable, should not be made operational in the appended word because this
would change its pattern and hence its congruence to the word to which it is
appended. Due to the highly complex nature of the subject, sections 2.2–2.4
will deal in more detail with the grammarians’ views on the above elements, and
we shall try later to examine issues of a more general nature that relate to
the grammarians’ use of this tool in their linguistic analysis.
2.2. The phonemes used for appending are mostly wāw,
and yāʾ (e.g., kawṯar
and ḍayġam, both appended to ǧaʿfar; and ḫirwaʿ, and ʿiṯyar, both appended to dirham), but they also
include, among others,[3]
nūn (e.g., raʿšan, appended to ǧaʿfar),
mīm (e.g., dilqim appended to zibriǧ), and alif
(e.g., ḥabanṭā—from the root ḤBṬ, with
the addition of nūn and alif—which is appended to ḥabarkā,
itself with a final alif that is not part of the root). Such instances
of augmentation with no recurring phonemes are often attributed to their basic
roots by a semantic comparison between their apparent root and an assumed root
with less radicals. A good example is that of dulāmiṣ (shining), whose apparent root DLMṣ
is further reduced to a triliteral root semantically related to it, DLṣ
(cf. dalīṣ, daliṣ, dilāṣ, and dalāṣ, all of which mean “shining”; see Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān,
DLṣ, and Zubaydī, Amṯila, 62). Thus, the mīm,
according to the grammarians, appends dulāmiṣ to ǧuḫādib, an
authentic quadriliteral.
In addition to this, theoretically any
phoneme can be used for appending if it
recurs within the appended word.[4] Examples include mahdad, ḫidabb, ʿaṯawṯal,
ḥalakūk, qurṭāṭ, ʿafanǧaǧ, and qušaʿrīra
appended to ǧaʿfar, qimaṭr, farazdaq, qarabūs, qurṭās,
ʿabanqas, and ḫuzaʿbīla, respectively
(Suyūṭī, Muzhir, II, 35–36). The difference between
[5] the first seven representative examples and
their respective counterparts is that all members of the first group may be
attributed to roots whose radicals are supposedly reducible to a number less
than the number of radicals in the root of
their counterparts to which they are appended. For example, ʿaṯawṯal
(stout, fleshy, and flabby) is apparently quinqueliteral like farazdaq,
but since it is semantically related to the root ʿṮL (which
indicates abundance, stoutness, flabbiness, etc., and which was augmented by
the addition of wāw and ṯāʾ, according to
the pattern faʿallal), it is considered triliteral in origin,
unlike the loan word farazdaq, none of whose radicals may be reducible
with reference to a triliteral or quadriliteral root to which it may be
assigned. Similarly, ḥalakūk (intensely black) is derived
from a triliteral root ḤLK which indicates blackness, whereas its
counterpart, qarabūs (part of a horse’s saddle), also a loan word,
is thought to have four radicals (q, r, b, and s) that must be
considered part of its supposed root.[5]
Based on the above, the vast majority of
the corpus of appended words may be divided into five types:[6]
[6]
i. Triliterals appended to quadriliterals: e.g., ǧadwal
(ǦDL) and raʿšan (RʿŠ), compared
with ǧaʿfar (ǦʿFR); and duḫlul
(DḪL) and ḥulkum (ḤLK), compared with burṯun
(BRṮN).
ii. Triliterals appended to augmented[7]
quadriliterals: e.g., dulāmiṣ (DLṣ), compared with ǧuḫādib
(ǦḪDB); ʾiḥlīl (ḤLL), compared
with birṭīl (BRṬL); and ḥabawnan (ḤBN),
compared with ḥabawkar (ḤBKR).
iii. Triliterals appended to quinqueliterals: e.g., ʾinqaḥl (QḤL),
compared with qirṭaʿb (QRṬʿB); and ḥabarbar (ḤBR), compared with farazdaq
(FRZDQ).
iv. Quadriliterals
appended to quinqueliterals: e.g., qiršabb (QRŠB),
compared with qirṭaʿb (QRṬʿB); and ǧaḥanfal
(ǦḤFL), compared with safarǧal (SFRǦL).
v. Quadriliterals
appended to augmented quinqueliterals: e.g., qušaʿrīra (QŠʿR), compared
with ḫuzaʿbīla (ḪZʿBL); and ḫaysafūǧ
(ḪSFǦ), compared with ʿaḍrafūṭ
(ʿḌRFṬ).
Since words cannot have more than five
radicals, ilḥāq does not affect quinqueliterals (li-anna
banāt al-ḫamsa laysa warāʾahā šayʾ min al-aṣl
fa-yulḥaq bi-hi; Ibn Ǧinnī, Munṣif, I, 51). In
other words, because there is no target pattern which the quinqueliterals can
be appended to, ilḥāq was not applied to them, and they had
to be placed outside the closed system which ilḥāq represents
(see 3.3 below).
2.3. At the level of meaning, the grammarians draw a
sharp distinction between ilḥāq and augmentation
through which patterns that indicate certain meanings are formed. Of course,
this latter type is much more widespread than ilḥāq and may
be viewed as derivation (ištiqāq) par excellence,[8]
whereas ilḥāq is a special type of derivation whose relative
frequency of use is quite limited. This not withstanding, the grammarians
consider the two types to be on an equal footing in the process of deriving
words since they consider each of them to be representative of a distinct
purpose of ziyāda. As noted in 1.1 above, Sībawayhi (Kitāb,
II, 9) [7] alluded to the distinction between two
kinds of ziyāda, one of which appends one form to another (tulḥiq
bināʾan bi-bināʾ), while the other introduces an
element of meaning (tadḫul li-maʿnā).
Māzinī also makes this distinction (Taṣrīf, I,
13, and Ibn Ǧinnī, Munṣif, I, 13–17), but in a less direct way. Based on the purpose
of ziyāda, he classifies it into four types: (a) the ziyāda
of ilḥāq, which appends one form to another; (b) the ziyāda
for vowel prolongation, such as ʿaǧūz and ǧarīb;
(c) the ziyāda that indicates a meaning (maʿnā),
such as nūnation (tanwīn) and
the prefixes of the imperfect (ḥurūf al-muḍāraʿa);
and (d) the ziyāda that is inseparable from the word because the
very meaning (maʿnā) of the word is dependent on the augmented
pattern, e.g., the alif and tāʾ of iftaqara,
which have been part of the pattern iftaʿala since it was first
coined (wuḍiʿa) and used instead of *faqura.
A closer look at this apparently more elaborate classification, however,
readily reveals that it is essentially consistent with Sībawayhi’s, since it contrasts ilḥāq
with the ziyāda that indicates meaning. Of the latter type are (c) and (d) above,
where the word “meaning” is used in Māzinī’s text, as well as (b),
since vowel prolongation is part of the structure of several patterns that are
indicative of meaning, as in Māzinī’s own example, ʿaǧūz,
of the pattern faʿūl, which indicates a common adjective for
both masculine and feminine, and which has a plural, ʿaǧāʾiz,
that is exclusively indicative of the feminine (Sībawayhi, Kitāb,
II, 208; cf. II, 131, where the wāw in ʿaǧūz is
contrasted with the ziyāda of ilḥāq).
Ibn ʿUṣfūr’s classification of the types
of ziyāda (Mumtiʿ, I, 204–6) is even more elaborate
than Māzinī’s, since it includes types that are either purely
phonological, such as the hāʾ of quiescence (hāʾ
al-sakt), or that do not strictly qualify for inclusion under separate
headings, such as the feminine ending of zanādiqa—called tāʾ
(or hāʾ) of compensation (tāʾ al-ʿiwaḍ)
on the assumption that it compensates for the elided yāʾ[9]
in zanādīq—which actually belongs to a pattern that indicates
the plural, and hence meaning. Taking this into consideration, the core of Ibn ʿUṣfūr’s classification is basically in
agreement with that of Sībawayhi and Māzinī.
The distinction of the grammarians
between the ziyāda of ilḥāq and the ziyāda
of maʿnā raises the problem of those appended words which [8] apparently
do carry an element of meaning due to their augment. An example of such words
is ḥawqala (said of a man who ages and becomes weak), which is
appended to fawʿala (Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Mumtiʿ, I, 167), and whose meaning is
not identical to the original verb, ḥaqila (said of a camel that
suffers indigestion after drinking water mixed with sand). To resolve this
discrepancy, Astarābāḏī uses this example, among others (Šarḥ,
I, 52–53), to introduce a vital component to the definition of ilḥāq,
and hence to the distinction between ilḥāq as a ziyāda
that is described as not having to do with meaning and the ziyāda
that indicates meaning. In his terms, the ziyāda of ilḥāq
is ġayr muṭṭarida fī ifādat maʿnā, that
is, it does not systematically add a well-defined element of meaning. It is
this unsystematic characteristic of ilḥāq that truly
distinguishes it from the ziyāda that systematically introduces a
discernible element of meaning and is therefore outside the sphere of ilḥāq,
as is the case in the hamza of ʾakbar and ʾafḍal,
which, he says, consistently expresses the comparative (tafḍīl),
and the mīm of the pattern mifʿal, which consistently
indicates the instrument (Šarḥ, I, 53; II, 332).
2.4. At the purely formal (lafẓī)
level, the grammarians identify several rules associated with ilḥāq.
These rules, scattered as they are in the earlier sources, were assembled by
some later authors either to formulate an accurate definition of ilḥāq,
as did Astarābāḏī (Šarḥ, I, 52), or to
list each criterion (ḍābiṭ) that reveals the use of ilḥāq,
as did Suyūṭī (Hamʿ, II, 216). In this respect too,
the grammarians seem to be most interested in the distinction between ziyāda
of ilḥāq and ziyāda of maʿnā.
Indeed, their discussion centers on two main aspects which endorse their
distinction of the two types. The first aspect is the congruence between the
appended word and the word to which it is appended with regard to the number of
radicals and the metric measure (wazn), i.e., the pattern of ḥarakāt
and sakanāt (occurrence or non-occurrence of vowels after
consonants). This congruence, the grammarians stress, should also apply to the
derivatives of both words, that is, in the case of verbs (usually cited in the
perfect), it should manifest itself in the imperfect, the imperative, the
verbal noun, the active participle, and the passive participle, and in the case
of nouns, it should appear in the diminutive and broken plural forms. Without
going into details and exceptions to this general guideline of congruence,
suffice it here to say that it was used to show the underlying difference
between what is mulḥaq and what is not.
For example,
Astarābāḏī (Šarḥ, I, 55; cf. Ibn Ǧinnī,
Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, I, 222, 232) argues that the inclusion
of the verbal noun in the above list of derivatives [9] that
manifest congruence between the words that are appended and the words they are
appended to should disqualify patterns such as afʿala, faʿʿala,
and fāʿala from being appended to the verb daḥraǧa,
with which they rhyme, since their verbal
nouns, ifʿāl, tafʿīl and mufāʿala, are not
congruent with the verbal noun of daḥraǧa, which is daḥraǧa(tun),
of the pattern faʿlala(tun). Similarly, in nouns, the insistence
that congruence should apply in broken plurals,[10]
according to Astarābāḏī (ibid., I, 56), readily shows that
ḥimār, in spite of being metrically equivalent to qimaṭr,
cannot be considered appended to it, since its broken plurals, ḥumur
and aḥmira, are not of the same pattern as qamāṭir.
Obviously, the inclusion of such peculiarities of ilḥāq in
its definition in Astarābāḏī’s Šarḥ (I,
52) is the reason why this definition, whose aim is to exclude other phenomena,
is unusually long and detailed.
The second aspect which the grammarians
focus on in the distinction between the ziyāda of ilḥāq
and the ziyāda of maʿnā at the formal level is
that idġām (gemination) applies to the latter but not to the
former.[11]
Sībawayhi notes the difference between these two types of ziyāda
as to the applicability of idġām, and devotes a chapter to
those appended words whose final radicals are reduplicated but not geminated (Kitāb,
II, 401–402; cf. II, 408). Thus, he contrasts qardad, which is appended
to ǧaʿfar and salhab, with maradd, originally *mardad,
and attributes the lack of idġām to ilḥāq itself.
The aim of the contrast between qardad and *mardad is to show
that idġām, for which both words qualify according to their
phonological structure, becomes inoperable in the presence of ilḥāq.
In fact, Sībawayhi argues that idġām does not take place in
such appended words because the speaker intentionally keeps the last two
radicals separate in order to achieve ilḥāq through the
augment (lam tudġim li-annaka innamā aradta an tuḍāʿif
li-tulḥiqahu bi-mā zidta bi-daḥraǧtu wa-ǧaḥdaltu).
This is why in ǧalbaba, he says, the two bāʾs are
not geminated, hence the use of the forms ǧalbabtuhu, muǧalbab,
ǧulbiba, taǧalbaba, yataǧalbabu, and the like, which are appended to their counterparts derived from
daḥraǧa, such as tadaḥraǧa,
yatadaḥraǧu, and daḥraǧtu (Kitāb,
II, 401; cf. Fārisī, Taʿlīqa, V, 156–57; Mubarrad, Muqtaḍab,
I, 204–205, 244). Ibn ʿUṣfūr
(Mumtiʿ, I, 207) [10] lends
further support to this line of thinking by arguing that speakers tolerated the
heaviness of two separate radicals (iḥtamalū ṯiqal iǧtimāʿ
al-miṯlayn) in such examples in order for their patterns to remain
congruent to the words to which they were appended.
This structural identity, so to speak,
of appended words was viewed by Ibn Ǧinnī—whose unremitting quest for
exploring the underlying principles of linguistic phenomena is largely
unrivalled in the Arabic tradition—as part of a more general tendency which he
detects in a host of examples (Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, III, 232–40; esp. 232–33) and which he
discusses under the title al-imtināʿ min naqḍ al-ġaraḍ
(refusal to contradict the objective). The essence of his argument, in the case
of ilḥāq, is that its objective of achieving congruence
between appended words and what they are appended to would have been annulled
if normal idġām been applied, and thus the Arabs refrained
from applying the rules of idġām to appended words because it
was necessary to protect (ḥirāsa) and preserve (ḥifẓ)
the original purpose. Apart from the fact that this explanation presupposes a
conscious effort on the part of the speaker, its inclusion with allegedly
comparable phenomena is an attempt to show that ilḥāq, which
represents an anomalous case with regard to the rules of idġām,
is not necessarily anomalous in other respects. In connection with this, we shall
try to show later (see 4.2 below) how the grammarians incorporated the
phenomenon of ilḥāq within the general grammatical system, as
they saw it, by applying to it the same criteria of analysis that they use in
other cases.
3.1. Based
on the elements that they included in defining ilḥāq (see 2.1
above), and on their distinction between the
ziyāda of ilḥāq
and the ziyāda of maʿnā
both at the level of meaning and form (2.3 and 2.4 respectively), the later
grammarians were well-disposed toward assigning to ilḥāq an
ultimate purpose that would justify its existence as an independent phenomenon.
In this respect, it seems that they wanted to surpass the earlier grammarians,
who merely stated that the ziyāda of ilḥāq
appends one word to another (tulḥiq bināʾan bi-bināʾ;
see Sībawayhi, Kitāb, II, 9, and Māzinī, Taṣrīf, I, 13) and did not go beyond this
self-explanatory level to determine a more specific purpose for ilḥāq.[12]
The usual view among the later grammarians is that the ultimate purpose of [11] this
ziyāda is to accommodate the use of the language, particularly in
rhymed prose (saǧʿ) and poetry, with ittisāʿ or
tawassuʿ (lit., latitude of speech). This view, which is attributed
by Ibn Ǧinnī to his teacher Abū ʿAlī
al-Fārisī (d. 377/987) seems to have been generally, but not
universally, adopted in the sources (cf. Ibn Ǧinnī, Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, I, 358; II, 25, and Munṣif, I, 34, 38, 43; Ibn Yaʿīš, Šarḥ
al-Mulūkī, 65; Astarābāḏī, Šarḥ,
I, 66–67; Suyūṭī, Hamʿ, II, 217). The problem with
this interpretation, however, is twofold. Firstly, the proposed ittisāʿ
could only be achieved if the writer or poet were free to apply analogy and
come up with words that may never have been heard before. Fārisī was
aware of this prerequisite and tried to circumvent it by asserting that one may
invent such words, on the analogy of attested examples, and thus use, in
poetry, constructions like ḍarbaba Zaydun ʿAmran, marartu bi-raǧulin
ḍarbabin, and ḍarbabun afḍalu min ḫarǧaǧin,
where ḍarbab is used as a verb, an adjective, and a noun,
respectively (Ibn Ǧinnī, Munṣif, I, 43–44; cf. Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, I, 358–59).
The inadequacy of this argument is
nonetheless evident to Ibn Ǧinnī, who alludes to his teacher’s view,
both in Ḫaṣāʾiṣ and
Munṣif, as part of his discussion of Māzinī’s
distinction between those appended forms that are qiyāsī
(regular, analogically extended) and those that are samāʿī
(unproductive, restricted to attested material). In fact, Ibn Ǧinnī
seems to alert the reader to the limited applicability of Fārisī’s
view. He does this not only by giving an account of their discussion, during
which Ibn Ǧinnī asks whether it would not be tantamount to inventing
speech (a-fatartaǧil al-luġa irtiǧālan; Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, I, 359; cf. Munṣif, I, 44), but also by supporting Māzinī’s view
that analogical extension does not apply to any of the appended forms other
than those of the pattern faʿlal, such as mahdad and ǧalbab,
where the third radical is duplicated (Munṣif, I, 42), and thus forms like ǧawhar, bayṭar, ǧadwal,
ḥiḏyam, rahwak, arṭā, miʿzā, salqā, and
ǧaʿbā (Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, I, 358) are restricted to samāʿ.
Moreover, the issue of the qiyāsī versus the samāʿī
nature of ilḥāq is presented by Suyūṭī (Hamʿ,
II, 217; cf. Ibn Mālik, Tashīl, 299) as a subject of controversy
among three parties. The first of these restricts ilḥāq to samāʿ,
unless the grammarians need to create words with which to train students, whereas the second party—to which
Fārisī belongs—puts no
restraints on analogically extending its attested examples. The third party is
more selective since it resorts to the criterion of frequency of usage to
determine the permissibility, or otherwise, of allowing analogical extension.
The other problem related to
Fārisī’s view that ittisāʿ is the ultimate [12] purpose
of ilḥāq is that, as we learn from some grammarians, the same
notion of ittisāʿ can explain other types of ziyāda
and, conversely, that some specimens of ilḥāq are explicable
by alternative notions used to explain other types of ziyāda. The
first part of this problem is most clearly visible in Ibn al-Ḥāǧib’s
(d. 646/1249) text (in Astarābāḏī’s Šarḥ,
I, 65–66), where he assigns different purposes for the existence of patterns,
including augmented ones, and cites tawassuʿ as the reason for
using the maqṣūr
(abbreviated) and mamdūd
(prolonged) forms (i.e., in certain doublets),[13]
as well as what he calls ḏū l-ziyāda (augmented [word]).
The other part of the problem is evident in Astarābāḏī’s
explanation of Ibn al-Ḥāǧib’s text, since he asserts that the
notion of ḥāǧa (need), rather than tawassuʿ,
is the real purpose of using the ziyāda of ilḥāq
as well as other kinds of ziyāda, such as that of the active
participle, the passive participle, and the verbal noun. Astarābāḏī
then hastens to say that it is also possible to explain the ziyāda
of ilḥāq by tawassuʿ.
It is evident from the above that the
grammarians, starting with Fārisī, were trying to justify the
existence of ilḥāq by assigning a purpose to it, just like
other morphological phenomena which they associated with distinctive purposes.
By insisting, however, on determining this purpose more specifically than did
earlier grammarians such as Sībawayhi and Māzinī, who merely
stated that ilḥāq appends certain words to others, these
grammarians actually failed to appreciate why their forerunners acknowledged ilḥāq
as a distinct phenomenon, and consequently why they contented themselves, in
determining its purpose, with explaining what it does, and stopped short of seeking
a more specific purpose to ascribe to it.
3.2. In
order to understand the significance of ilḥāq for the earlier
grammarians, and particularly with regard to
the difference we have just mentioned between them and their successors,
it is more appropriate to speak of the role that they assigned to ilḥāq
in their analysis than of the purpose that it serves from the angle of
the speaker. In other words, the early grammarians, most notably Sībawayhi
and Māzinī, treated ilḥāq as a phenomenon in its
own right and did not consider it to be part of any larger phenomenon because
they realized its huge potential as a tool of morphological analysis.
Theoretically speaking, they could have considered it to be a kind of ištiqāq
whose examples are characterized by the [13] use
of certain phonemes and/or the repetition of others, and so on (e.g., say that ḥalakūk
is derived from the root ḤLK with the introduction of the long
vowel ū and the repetition of k). Alternatively, they could
have said, as some lexicographers did (see n. 6), that these examples are of
the same patterns as those words to which they are appended and could thus
effectively have avoided the need to speak of ilḥāq (e.g., ḥalakūk
would be—regardless of the number of its radicals as explained in 2.2 above—on
an equal footing with qarabūs, both of the pattern faʿalūl,
and not appended to it). The fact that they chose to think of it as a distinct
phenomenon, therefore, was not dictated by
the nature of the corpus of words that were considered to be examples of
it—unlike, for example, the three other kinds of ziyāda that
Māzinī mentions (see 2.3 above) and that are linguistic realities
that naturally represent undeniable and self-explanatory distinct phenomena. In
effect the early grammarians were responding to their own interest in what they
perceived as a major analytical tool. This explains why they were not concerned
with what its purpose is from the point of view of the speaker. As for the
later grammarians’ search for a purpose for ilḥāq grounded in
pragmatics rather than pure analysis, it is now evident that it went against
the very reason why the earlier grammarians recognized ilḥāq
as a distinct phenomenon.
The most obvious advantage that ilḥāq
represented for the earlier grammarians is that it enabled them to reduce
considerably the number of what we can describe as major morphological
patterns that they had to acknowledge within a closed system. A quick look at
the list of words that are said, in any grammatical work that includes them, to
be appended to the word that represents such a pattern readily reveals the
extent of this reduction. In the case of the major pattern faʿlal,
for example, Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (Uṣūl, III, 182) gives ǧaʿfar
and salhab as the noun and adjective that represent it and to which
other words are appended. These words, the supposed radicals of whose roots are
considered to be reducible to less than the four radicals of ǧaʿfar
and salhab (see 2.2 above), are: ḥawqal (fawʿal), zaynab
(fayʿal), ǧadwal (faʿwal), mahdad (faʿlal), ʿalqā
(faʿlā), raʿšan (faʿlan), sanbata (faʿlat or
fanʿal),[14]
and [14] ʿansal (fanʿal). The eight
different patterns which these eight words represent were thus grouped together
under one major phonological pattern, faʿlal, since all of them
conform to its wazn (metric measure), that is, its pattern of ḥarakāt
and sakanāt (see 2.4 above). Similarly, hundreds of words are then
cited by Ibn al-Sarrāǧ and grouped in such major patterns (ibid.,
III, 181–222).[15] Further
reduction in the number of patterns is achieved by the grammarians’
acknowledgement of the possibility of appending triliterals to quadriliterals
that are, themselves, appended to quinqueliterals (Kitāb, II, 341)—such
as ʿafanǧaǧ (root ʿFǦ) which is appended
to ǧaḥanfal (root ǦḤFL), itself appended to
safarǧal (root SFRǦL)—and of deriving appended words
from other appended words (Astarābāḏī, Šārḥ,
I, 55)—as tašayṭana, which is appended to tadaḥraǧa
and is derived from šayṭana, itself appended to daḥraǧa.
Understandably, the grammarians halted the process of reduction with words that
are augmented quinqueliterals, such as qabaʿṯarā, simply
because they did not find a six-radical pattern to which they could append
them, and so there was no possibility of grouping words under major patterns
(cf. Sībawayhi, Kitāb, II, 9; Fārisī, Baġdādiyyāt,
122, 434; Ibn Ǧinnī, Munṣif, I, 51, and Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, I, 319–20; Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Mumtiʿ, I, 206).
The grouping of appended words into major
patterns gave the grammarians another considerable analytical advantage,
namely, that they were able to draw up rules that are applicable not only to
the words that represent the pattern and are not themselves appended to other
words—e.g., ǧaʿfar and salhab of the major pattern faʿlal
mentioned in the previous paragraph—but also to all the words whose
patterns are appended to faʿlal—e.g., ḥawqal, ʿawsaǧ,
zawraq, hawdaǧ, etc., which are of the pattern fawʿal, and
zaynab, ġaylam, ṣayraf,
ḍayġam, etc., which are of the pattern fayʿal,
and so on. Such rules are abundant in the sources, as [15] early
as Sībawayhi’s Kitāb. For example, Sībawayhi formulates a
universal rule to the effect that all triliterals that were augmented to become
quadriliterals and were appended to genuine quadriliterals have, like these
quadriliterals, broken plurals of the pattern mafāʿil, such as
ǧadwal, ʿiṯyar, kawkab, tawlab, sullam, dummal, ǧundab,
and qardad, whose plurals are ǧadāwil, ʿaṯāyir,
kawākib, tawālib, salālim, damāmil, ǧanādib,
and qarādid, respectively (II, 197, and Fārisī, Taʿlīqa,
IV, 95; see other examples in ʿUḍayma’s Fahāris, 364–72).
The ultimate application of such rules may be seen in the pattern lists that
some sources have (e.g., Ibn al-Sarrāǧ, Uṣūl, III, 181f., and Suyūṭī,
Muzhir, II, 6f.). In such lists, the grammarians group together appended
words with the words that they are appended to and present each group as a
homogenous category that shares several morphological traits applicable to all
its constituents, irrespective of whether they are appended words or not.
3.3. The
grammarians’ use of ilḥāq as an analytical tool shows that
they also employed it to achieve one of their
principal goals—to limit deviations
from the norm (qiyās) and maximize
the applicability of grammatical rules.[16] The necessary condition for this purpose to be
achieved, in the case of ilḥāq,
is the existence of a closed and well-defined
system that would unmistakably identify appended words and patterns and
describe the rules to which they are subject. Once this is accomplished, words
that do not conform to these rules can be easily disqualified from inclusion in
the closed system.
The mere fact that ilḥāq
involves the condensation of several patterns into one major pattern (see 3.2
above) goes a long way towards reducing the examples to a more manageable
number. Moreover, a sizeable portion of the corpus of appended words represents
extremely rare usages which, after being appended to major patterns, become
effectively part of the norm of their own class and, consequently, cease to
stand out as extremely rare or solitary examples, as they indeed were prior to
the classification process of ilḥāq. One such example is hammariš
(adjective for a very old and wrinkled woman; e.g., ʿaǧūz
hammariš), which represents [16] a
pattern faʿʿalil[17]
described by Sībawayhi as qalīl (Kitāb, II, 339)
and which may be the only quadriliteral example of this pattern (Ibn Manẓūr,
Lisān, HMRŠ). Once this pattern is appended to a
quinqueliteral word, such as qahbalis, ǧaḥmariš, and ṣahṣaliq (Kitāb, II, 341, 354; Suyūṭī, Muzhir,
II, 35), it becomes part of a larger entity and is no more regarded as
anomalous. The same can be said of other examples usually cited as appended
words, such as naḫwariš, bulahniya, firindād, ḫayzalā,
ʿilwadd, and others.
Other techniques the grammarians
employed in matters related to ilḥāq should also be seen in
the light of their effort to limit deviation from the norm. Sībawayhi’s
treatment of qīqāʾ and zīzāʾ
involves one such technique. Now these two words belong to the category of ism
(noun), as opposed to maṣdar
(verbal noun), and so the word to which they are to be appended should also be
an ism, in line with the regular distinction Sībawayhi—and the later
grammarians—drew between ism and maṣdar in their study of ilḥāq. The anomaly in
the case of zīzāʾ and qīqāʾ,
however, is that the pattern to which they should be appended—the reduplicated
biliteral of fiʿlāl, i.e., *fiʿfāʿ, such
as qilqāl—is used exclusively with maṣdars (Sībawayhi, Kitāb, II, 386;
Māzinī, Taṣrīf,
II, 180; Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Mumtiʿ, I, 151). To avoid this
anomaly, which would affect the applicability
of the distinction between ism and maṣdar, Sībawayhi appends these two words to the nearest hamzated
and unduplicated fiʿlāl pattern (i.e., fiʿlāʾ)
that does occur with isms, and chooses ʿilbāʾ to
illustrate it. Another technique that ensures the widest possible application
of qiyās is the analogical extension of the rule (ṭard al-ḥukm;
see Astarābāḏī, Šārḥ, II, 63) as
applied to words whose derivation is not known. Thus, the yāʾ
of the appended word ǧayʾal, according to Ibn Ǧinnī
(Munṣif, I, 35), can only be an augment in spite of the fact that
the derivation of the word is unknown, because it can be demonstrated by
examining other words that yāʾ or wāw can be one
of the radicals (i.e., as opposed to
augments) of quadriliterals only in reduplicated forms.[18]
Similarly, Astarābāḏī extends the rule through which the
recurring consonant [17] is known to be an augment in a large
number (kaṯīr) of words whose derivation is known—such as the
appended words ḏuraḥriḥ, ḥiliblāb, and marmarīs,
which he relates to their cognate triliteral
roots—to those words whose derivation is not known—such as ṣamaḥmaḥ and barahraha—and clearly says
that he does so by way of analogy so that the rule might be applicable to all
attested examples (fa-ṭaradnā l-ḥukm fī l-kull;
see Šārḥ, I, 63). As a result, the rule’s applicability
is made to be universal rather than partial, and deviant examples become
subject to the same rule that applies to the majority of the words of this
type.
Turning to the identification of those
words that do not qualify for inclusion in the closed system of appended
material, it is clear that the grammarians not only strove to specify the
characteristics of appended words so as to establish decisive criteria for the
inclusion of material, but also dwelt on providing reasons for not including
words that do not fit these criteria. As we saw earlier, particularly in 2.1–2.4,
the grammarians specified the phonemes that may be used for ilḥāq
and their positions within appended words, the number of radicals in these
words as well as in the words to which they are appended, the major patterns
into which they may be grouped, the nature of the relationship between the ziyāda
of ilḥāq and that of meaning, the formal (lafẓī)
rules that apply to the derivations of these words, and the suspension of the
rule of idġām, where otherwise required, to them. Consequently,
it may be said that any word that is at variance with any of these criteria
cannot be part of the ilḥāq corpus.
The following examples will demonstrate how non-appended words are
identified by the application of these criteria and shed further light on the
grammarians’ use of ilḥāq as a morphological testing device.
a. The position of the augment. Several rules are mentioned under this
criterion (Astarābāḏī, Šarḥ, I, 56–57
and Suyūṭī, Hamʿ, II, 216–17). The hamza,
for example, may be used for ilḥāq in medial and final
positions, but in an initial position it cannot be an appending (mulḥiqa)
augment unless it occurs together with another augment, referred to as musāʿid
(aid).[19]
Thus, whereas ʾalandad and ʾidrawn are considered to be
appended to safarǧal and ǧirdaḥl, respectively,
because their initial hamza is accompanied by a nūn or a wāw,
ʾafkal, ʾublum, and ʾiṯmid, whose initial hamza
is the only augment, do not qualify as examples of ilḥāq [18].
b. The number of radicals. As was pointed out in 2.2 and 3.2
above, words were excluded from ilḥāq on the basis of the
number of their radicals. The most obvious case here is that of augmented
five-radical words, such as ʿaḍrafūṭ, ʿandalīb,
qabaʿṯarā, and ḍabaġṭarā.[20]
Since there are no target words, i.e., six-radical words excluding any augment,
to which these examples may be appended, the grammarians had to exclude them
from the ilḥāq corpus and look elsewhere for possible
interpretations. Hence, their explanation of the final alif in qabaʿṯarā—which
they were also unable to explain as a feminine ending, since the word accepts
nūnation and since the variant form qabaʿṯarāt does
include the feminine ending (Sībawayhi, Kitāb, II, 9, 78, 342)—as
an augment of enlargement (takṯīr al-kalima) may be viewed as
one way out of a difficult problem that arose because of the limitations of ilḥāq
(cf. Māzinī, Taṣrīf,
I, 51, and Ibn ʿUṣfūr,
Mumtiʿ, I, 206).
c. The “target” pattern. In addition to the lack of a target
pattern to which augmented quinqueliterals may be appended (see “b” above),
several other words, and even whole patterns, were not considered to be
appended because of the lack of a target word or pattern to which they can be
appended. For instance, Sībawayhi (Kitāb, I, 401–402) says
that iḥmarartu and išhābabtu, both of triliteral
roots, are not examples of ilḥāq because there is no quadriliteral of the type *iḥraǧamtu
or *iḥrāǧamtu, respectively, to which they can be appended.
Māzinī (Taṣrīf,
II, 269) passes a similar judgment on iġdawdana for lack of the
type *iḥrawǧama, as does Mubarrad (Muqtaḍab, IV,
3) with words like ʿaǧūz, raġīf, and risāla,
which have no quadriliteral counterparts to which they can be appended. At
times a whole pattern is said not to be intended for ilḥāq,
as in the case of faʿlāʾ, for which there is no
corresponding unhamzated pattern—i.e., a quadriliteral such as *sardāḥ
or *sarbāl—to which it can be appended, and hence its two final alifs
(i.e., ā and ʾ) are, according to Sībawayhi (Kitāb,
II, 10) and Fārisī (Taʿlīqa, III, 38), used exclusively
as a feminine ending.
d. The structure of the pattern. Contrary to “c” above, the target
pattern may be available, but the structure of the words that can theoretically
be appended to it prevent the process of ilḥāq. This may be
illustrated by the pattern faʿlāl, which theoretically is a
target pattern to which triliterals may be appended, but no triliteral was
appended to it [19] because its examples are restricted to
reduplicated biliterals (hence *faʿfāʿ), be they nouns (asmāʾ),
such as zalzāl and ǧaṯǧāṯ, or
adjectives (ṣifāt), such as ḥaṯḥāṯ
and ḥaqḥāq (Sībawayhi, Kitāb, II,
338). The reason for this is that the structure of triliterals prevents the
formation of reduplicated words, since this would theoretically require a nonexistent
six-radical pattern. In comparison, the two sister patterns fiʿlāl
and fuʿlāl were actually used as target patterns because
their examples have four radicals that are not duplicated, such as qinṭār
and qurṭās, and therefore words of triliteral origin like ǧilwāḫ
and qurṭāṭ, respectively, lent themselves to be
appended to them.
e. Meaning, derivatives and idġām. The discussion
of these three criteria in 2.3 and 2.4 above
included several examples of words and patterns that were considered, in
each case, to be outside the sphere of ilḥāq because they do
not conform to the criterion at hand.
4.1. As several
examples cited above have shown, the various rules and details related
to ilḥāq were used by the grammarians as a testing device for a host of morphological issues. So
widespread was the practice that one may conclude that it represented
for them a major objective, in addition to the principal objective of reducing
the patterns within the closed system of appended words. Three of the most
essential morphological premises they used ilḥāq as a testing
device to check the validity of will be briefly discussed below.
a. The distinction between radicals
according to aṣl and ziyāda. Appended words
are used to confirm this distinction through the process of derivation and the
realization of a common meaning they share with the roots. Sībawayhi (Kitāb,
II, 116), for example, argues that ʿafarnā (strong lion),
because of its affinity to ʿifr and ʿifrāt (both
also mean “strong lion”), is an appended word because of the ziyāda of
its n and ā, and he shows how this ziyāda—as
well as that in ʿufāriya, which likewise means “strong lion”—is
reflected in various aspects of their morphology.
This is further tested by the four diminutive forms ʿufayrin, ʿufayrina,
ʿufayr, and ʿufayriya, the first two of which prove that
the ā of ʿafarnā is zāʾida,
whereas the other two prove that its nūn is zāʾida.
In this particular case, appended words are used to check the validity of the
morphological rules that govern the diminutive and that are largely based on
the distinction between what is aṣl and what is ziyāda in the words from which
diminutives are formed.
b. The assignment of the position
of the ziyāda.
Since appended words mirror the phonological construction of the words that
they are appended [20] to, including the positions of what is aṣl and what is ziyāda, they were used by the
grammarians to check the correctness of the roots that they assign for
augmented words. An example of this are the two words iḥranǧama
and iḫranṭama, said by the grammarians to be quadriliterals
(banāt al-arbaʿa) because they interpret the nūn
as an augment (cf. Māzinī, Taṣrīf, I, 86). This interpretation is
supported by the comparison some grammarians make (ibid., I, 86–89, and Ibn Ǧinnī’s
commentary) between these words and appended words such as iqʿansasa
and islanqā, the mawḍiʿ (position) of whose
augmented nūn is determined to be between the ʿayn and
the lām, i.e., the second and third original radicals of the roots QʿS
and SLQ, respectively. It may thus be said that the two types of words
reciprocally support the grammarians’ interpretation of each of them.
c. The identification of
inadmissible patterns.
The problem of identifying what is permissible and what is not seems to have
occupied the earlier grammarians and lexicographers, probably as part of their
effort to uncover the rules that determine the structure of Arabic words and
consequently to be able to recognize as Arabicized or invented any word that is
inconsistent with these rules.[21]
In this respect, the grammarians proposed several unattested patterns of ilḥāq
which violate accepted structures in order to show that their impermissibility
is due to the impermissibility of their counterparts to which they would have
theoretically been appended. Ibn Ǧinnī’s (Munṣif, I, 88–89) masterly discussion of why patterns of the types *ifʿanwaltu, *ifʿanlaytu,
*infanʿaltu, *īfanʿaltu do not
occur reveals that these were proposed to demonstrate their incompatibility with the attested pattern ifʿanlaltu,
as in iḥranǧamtu, to which augmented quadriliterals
are usually appended (Suyūṭī, Muzhir, II, 41).
Furthermore, the grammarians’ discussion of the criteria that disqualify words
from being considered as examples of ilḥāq (see 3.3 above) shows
how they repeatedly use them to check the validity of the rules that determine
the permissibility or otherwise of target words and patterns to which other
words and patterns may be appended.
The use of ilḥāq as a
testing device nowhere finds it ultimate application [21] better
than in what is known as masāʾil al-tamrīn (drill
problems or exercises). Such drills are not only intended as pedagogical
devices to train students and examine their grasp of the concepts involved. More
essentially they test the applicability of these concepts through increasingly
difficult questions, the answers to which should be in compliance with the
theoretically permissible structures of Arabic words and patterns.[22]
Indeed, Ibn Ǧinnī, in his justification of Māzinī’s lengthy
chapter dealing primarily with ilḥāq material and entitled “Analogically
formed unsound words the only patterns of which are used in sound words” (hāḏā
bāb mā qīsa min al-muʿtall wa-lam yaǧiʾ miṯāluhu
illā min al-ṣaḥīḥ; Taṣrīf, II, 242–323), says that the reason for
the invention of this “science” (ʿilm) is to use attested material
as the basis for analogically constructing unattested material. By so doing,
the grammarians could confirm the soundness of the morphological postulates
that they used to explain
attested usage. In Māzinī’s chapter, for example, the rules governing
the use of wāw and yāʾ, known as iʿlāl,
are thoroughly checked by arbitrary formulations such as *ibyayyaʿa, *uqwūwila,
*iwʾawʾā, *īwīwāʾ, and ġazwawūt
(II, 243, 245, 247, 251, 257, respectively). The fact that each of the
questions which usually begin with the stereotype expression “Construe (ibni)
x from y” should have one correct answer shows how the sum of rules that the
grammarians deduced from usage worked together to yield attested words as well
as theoretically usable words. Among the rules these drills seem to test in
relation to wāw and yāʾ are the effect of vowels
on them, the shift from one of them to the other, their compatibility and
incompatibility, and principles related to gemination, omission, and their
relation with hamza.
4.2. On
a wider scale, the grammarians were keen to incorporate ilḥāq
into their overall system of grammatical analysis and to demonstrate its
pertinence to it beyond the morphological level. It is for this purpose that
they try to show how some of their assumptions and general principles of
analysis are harmonious with their approach to ilḥāq. An
example of this is the principle that if a word is characterized by ṯiqal
(heaviness), the [22] Arabs avoid the addition to it of
another element that aggravates its ṯiqal, or introduce into it an
element of ḫiffa (lightness) to counterbalance its ṯiqal.
This very principle, which is especially familiar in naḥw—e.g., as
in its application to justify the lack of tanwīn in diptotes (cf.
Sībawayhi, Kitāb, I, 7), and the use ḍamma, due
to its ṯiqal (heaviness), with the agent and the fatḥa,
due to its ḫiffa (lightness), with the direct object, since a verb
can have only one agent but may have more than one direct object (cf. Ibn
al-Anbārī, Asrār, 78, and Baalbaki 1995, 87–88)—is
carried over to the domain of ilḥāq. Thus, Ibn Ǧinnī
(Munṣif, I, 51) argues that quinqueliterals were only augmented
with one element (here, a long vowel) and not two elements since this would
bring together two kinds of ṯiqal, that of the word’s structure
and that of two augments. He then proceeds to show how this fact has direct
bearing on ilḥāq because it limits the number of radicals
that a target word can have. Astarābāḏī (Šārḥ,
I, 64), on the other hand, invokes the principle of counterbalancing ṯiqal
with ḫiffa to show that since it was not applied to the likes of mahdad
and alandad—i.e., the ṯiqal of the augmented structures was
not counterbalanced with the ḫiffa
that gemination would
have brought about—such words must have been intentionally deprived of
gemination because they were meant to be appended words. Although this case is
about the inapplicability of a particular principle to one kind of ilḥāq
because of a compelling reason, the mere fact that it warranted such a
justification is extremely important, since it demonstrates the expectation
that ilḥāq not be at odds with other constituents of the
grammatical system.
This expectation most probably owes its
origin to the awareness of the grammarians that since they chose to treat ilḥāq
as a distinct phenomenon to facilitate morphological analysis, although this
was not dictated by the nature of the linguistic data (see 3.2 above), they had
to defend its use and thus justify their choice. Obviously the most efficient
way to do this was to demonstrate that ilḥāq is well
accommodated to the general system and harmonious with some of it major
principles, such as ḫiffa and ṯiqal, samāʿ,
and qiyās (cf. Māzinī, Taṣrīf, I, 41; Ibn Ǧinnī, Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, I, 114), rejection of anomalous (šāḏḏ)
data (cf. Astarābāḏī, Šārḥ, I, 69),
resemblance to unattested material[23]
(Ibn Ǧinnī, Ḫaṣāʾiṣ, II, 343), and [23] the
like, and that it operates according to well-defined rules that exhibit a
logical relation among appended patterns (cf. Kitāb, II, 401, where
Sībawayhi establishes the following correspondence: faʿall: faʿlal
= fuʿull: fuʿlul = fiʿill: fiʿlil; and Ibn Ǧinnī,
Munṣif, I, 47, where the relation between quinqueliterals and
quadriliterals is said to be the same as that between quadriliterals and
triliterals). Ultimately, perhaps, the grammarians
wanted to demonstrate that ilḥāq is yet another proof of the underlying logic
of language and to stress that it is the grammarian’s task is to discover the
various ways in which this logic expresses itself.
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[1] It should be noted that Ibn Ǧinnī,
in his Sirr, generally avoids the use of the term ilḥāq,
and uses the more general term ziyāda instead. For instance, he
mentions a large number of the examples of ilḥāq of tāʾ,
nūn (I, 167–69 for both) and wāw (II, 594) without
referring to ilḥāq. He might have preferred ziyāda
because it contrasts more directly with aṣl (i.e., what is part of
the word’s root), since he tries to establish the contrast between what is
augmented and what is a part of the root. Another possible reason is that since
he investigates in his Sirr not only the morphological characteristics
of the ḥurūf, but also their syntactic traits, and refers to
the introduction of particles by using the root LḤQ (e.g., laḥāq,
laḥiqat, talḥaq; Sirr, II, 325, 332, 384, 396, etc.), he
consciously tried to avoid the term ilḥāq for the sense of
appending, so as not to cause confusion between the two types.
[2] The meanings of the cited examples
will be indicated only in cases where the
semantic aspect is discussed, and the examples will be given mostly as
nouns because the sources use them much more than verbs to illustrate ilḥāq.
[3] The phonemes of augment, including
those used for ilḥāq, i.e., s,ʾ, l, t, m, w, n, y, h,
ā, are generally referred to by mnemonic devices such as saʾaltumūnīhā,
al-yawma tansāhu, hawītu l-simāna, wa-atāhu Sulaymān,
amānun wa-tashīlun, taslīmun wa-hanāʾun, etc. See
Ibn Ǧinnī, Munṣif, I, 98; Astarābāḏī
Šārḥ, II, 331; Suyuṭī, Hamʿ, II,
214.
[4] See Bohas and Guilluame (1984,
109f.) for a discussion of ilḥāq by the addition of one of
the letters of augment or by the recurrence of one of the roots, and the
difference between the two types.
[5] We chose our two examples from loan
words because they clearly have irreducible roots, but it must be noted that Arabic
quadriliterals and quinqueliterals may also have irreducible roots, as in ǧaʿfar
and ḫuzaʿbīla, both of which are mentioned as examples
above. For other examples where the semantic aspect indicates the existence of ilḥāq,
see Astarābāḏī, Šārḥ, II, 333 f. In
certain cases, both the rules of augmentation and the semantic resemblance
between the appended word and other derivatives from the same root point to the
existence of ilḥāq. One example is kawṯar
(abounding in good), whose wāw, according to Ibn Ǧinnī (Taṣrīf,
16), is an augment for two reasons, namely, that the word has three radicals
other than the wāw, and that the meaning of abundance is present in
the word kaṯīr, which is derived from the same root as kawṯar.
[6] The use of ilḥāq
in the classification of words according to the number of their radicals should
be distinguished from its use by some lexicographers for a similar
classification into triliterals, quadriliterals and quinqueliterals. What a
lexicographer like Ibn Durayd means by saying that certain words are “annexed”
to the quinqueliterals (ulḥiqa bi-l-ḫumāsī) is
that it is easier to classify them with the quinqueliterals as a distinct
group, and not that they were made to conform to one of the patterns of the
quinqueliterals as the more common use of the term ilḥāq implies.
This explains why in the pattern fuʿālil, for example, dulāmiṣ
and ǧuḫādib, considered by the grammarians to be
triliterals appended to an augmented quadriliteral (see the second type
mentioned in the text above), both appear in Ibn Durayd’s Ǧamhara
(II, 1210, 1212) as examples of words that are “annexed” to quinqueliterals. In
other words, Ibn Durayd is interested here in ilḥāq as a tool
for classifying words in exhaustive lists, and not in the theoretical aspect of
ilḥāq as discussed by the grammarians.
[7] Augmentation here mostly means the
addition of a diphthong or a long vowel (ā, ū, or ī),
probably since these, unlike short vowels, appear in writing.
[8] It is noteworthy that some
grammarians use ilḥāq to distinguish between taṣrīf
(morphology) and ištiqāq (derivation). Their argument is
that the former is more general than the latter specifically because ilḥāq
may be included under taṣrīf but not under ištiqāq
(Suyūṭī, Muzhir, I, 351).
[9] This yāʾ refers to the
written form of the word, and should be understood as a reference to the long
vowel ī which was shortened to i (cf. zanādīq and
zanādiqa).
[10] See Sībawayhi’s Kitāb,
II, 197 and 211, for examples of the broken plurals of appended words.
[11] See the phonological reasons Bohas
and Guillaume (1984, 39–41, 110–113) cite for this phenomenon.
[12] The same may be said of Mubarrad and
Ibn al-Sarrāǧ (d. 316/929), who cite a large number of appended words
(Muqtaḍab, see 1.2 above; and Uṣūl, esp. the
chapter on abniya, III, 179–222) but do not cite any particular purpose
for the phenomenon itself.
[13] This refers to words that can be
either maqṣūr or mamdūd, such as fidā and
fidāʾ, zinā and zināʾ, hayǧā,
and hayǧāʾ (Farrāʾ, Maqṣūr,
38, 42, and 43, respectively).
[14] The final tāʾ of
the word sanbata(tun), of course, should not count in the proposed
pattern, otherwise its inclusion under faʿlal by Ibn al-Sarrāǧ
would be inexplicable. He most probably included it under faʿlal because
sanbat is its variant
(Sībawayhi, Kitāb, II, 348;
cf. 327; Ibn al-Dahhān, Šarḥ, 101; Astarābāḏī,
Šarḥ, II, 340). Faʿlat is more likely to be intended
by Ibn al-Sarrāǧ than faʿlan (see Suyūṭī,
Muzhir, II, 15, for both possibilities) because the word after it, ʿansal,
represents fanʿal, and Ibn al-Sarrāǧ systematically gives
one example for each pattern.
[15] This grouping process which
drastically reduces the number of “major” patterns is paralleled by the mostly
Basran method of expressing augmented patterns, in most cases, by using only
the letters f, ʿ, and l, in contrast with one Kufan method
which allows the repetition of the same augments in the proposed pattern. Thus,
safarǧal and šamardal are both represented as faʿallal
according to the first method, but as faʿalǧal and faʿaldal,
respectively, according to the second. Obviously, the first method avoids
generating an exceedingly large number of patterns and readily reveals the
words that belong to the same pattern. See Suyūṭī, Hamʿ,
II, 213, for the differences among grammarians in expressing patterns; cf. Fārisī, Baġdādiyyāt,
529–31, and Astarābāḏī, Šārḥ,
I, 10–21.
[16] For a study of this principle and
its effect on the pedagogical attainability of grammatical rules, see Baalbaki
(forthcoming). It should be mentioned here that since our primary sources on ilḥāq
are almost exclusively Basran, we cannot say for certain whether there was a
partisan divide on the issue or not, but the methods which the Basrans use in
this case largely reflect their general interest in interpreting data in a way
that would restrict the existence of deviations.
[17] In addition to this pattern,
Sībawayhi refers to hammariš in two other places as being of
the pattern faʿlalil (II, 341) and fanʿalil (II, 354).
Cf. Lisān, HMRŠ, where Ibn Manẓūr attributes
to Sībawayhi the proposal of two of these three patterns on two different
occasions. See also Ibn ʿUṣfūr, Mumtiʿ, I, 269, and
Suyūṭī, Muzhir, II, 29.
[18] As in the nouns wazwaza and waḥwaḥa
(Taṣrīf, II, 216; III, 86), and yaʿyaʿa and yahyaha
(Ibn Durayd, Ǧamhara, I, 216, 225).
[19] Astarābāḏī (II,
56), however, states that he finds no good reason why an initial hamza
may not by itself, without a musāʿid, be considered mulḥiqa.
[20] Cf. n. 7 above. The word ḥandaqūq
is usually mentioned with this group as well, but we did not include it because
it is, as Ibn Ǧinnī rightly notes (Munṣif, I, 53), of a
quadriliteral origin, since its qāf occurs twice.
[21] The earliest attempt of this kind is
probably Ḥalīl’s introduction to Kitāb al-ʿAyn,
written in the second half of the second century A.H. In it, he discusses some
of the phonetic characteristics and phonotactics of Arabic words (I, 52–55) and
specifically cites examples whose phonetic structure betray their foreign
origin (e.g., duʿšūqa and ǧulāhiq) or
their invention by skillful scholars (naḥārīr; e.g., kašaʿṯaǧ
and ḫaḍaʿṯaǧ). See also Baalbaki 1998,
52–53, Sara 1991, 36–38, and Talmon 1997, 137–38.
[22] These drills are comparable to the
grammarians’ practice of converting complex sentences into relative structures.
The aim of this process, known as iḫbār (predication), as
Carter (1981, 353) correctly argues, “may well have been to transform all
utterances into propositions in order to test their truthfulness,” but it
“finished up as a mere pedagogical device.” Likewise in the case of our drills,
their pedagogical purpose has eventually gained supremacy over their use as a
device for testing morphological rules.
[23] Surdad and sūdad, according to Ibn Ǧinnī, are
appended to words that do not feature in actual usage but have the force of
what is uttered (fī ḥukm al-malfūẓ). This is
similar to the claim of the grammarians that some nouns, such as the
interrogative particle mā, resemble supposed, non-existent
particles that could be expected to have been coined but were not. Cf. Ibn ʿAqīl,
Šārḥ, 32–33; Ibn Hišām, Awḍaḥ,
I, 31; Baalbaki 1995, 87.