Arabic-L;LING:Lexical Resources Query

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 03 Jan 2000
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Lexical Resources Query

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1)
Date: 03 Jan 2000
From: moderator
Subject: Lexical Resources Query

[I received this query from our colleague at the UofChicago, and not
knowing the answer decided to post it on Arabic-L.  I think list
subscribers would be interested in the responses, if you could post them to
the list, as well as to John Perry <j-perry at uchicago.edu>]

I'm trying to tease out some historical
and logical threads in the process of Persian's borrowing of Arabic
vocabulary -- not just isolated loanwords, but whole morpholexical classes
and patterns. I think that, apart from spot translation, Persophone writers
of the 9th-12th centuries were importing bundles of the more useful masdars
and other nom. forms (mufaa'ala, ifti'aal, maf'al(a), etc.) in
disproportionately large numbers, by analogy with (and/or to replace)
existing terms in Middle Persian, for rhyme and assonance in verse, etc.
I've been able to get some interesting statistics from early Arabic-Persian
and Persian dictionaries (esp. since the latter are in word-alphabetical
order, and conveniently group formative-initial classes together). I need
to be able to compare similar corpuses in Arabic; so I'd like to be able to
check for occurrence of lexical paradigms and the like without wading
through root-alphabetical indexes. It seems to me there must by now be a
bunch of Arabic lexical databases programmed as dictionaries & concordances
(classical and modern) that are computer-searchable for lexical
form-to-root or other back-to-front needs. Preferably readily available on
CD rom or internet-accessible. Can you point me to any, and have you had
much experience using these (to give me tips, comparative evaluations,
etc.)?

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End of Arabic-L: 03 Jan 2000