Arabic-L:LING:Verb Form Numbers Origin Responses

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 15 Sep 2000
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1) Subject: Verb Form Numbers Origin Response
2) Subject: Verb Form Numbers Origin Response

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1)
Date: 15 Sep 2000
From: devin stewart <dstewar at emory.edu>
Subject: Verb Form Numbers Origin Response

Dear Jamal,

Like many American and European students of Arabic, I was surprised to
find that the teachers and friends i met on my first trip to Egypt were
completely unfamiliar with the numbered form system.  I
collected material to publish a short article on the topic, perhaps in
al-'Arabiyya.  Until then, I can tell you that it is quite old, going back
not to the very earliest European Arabic grammars such as that of
Guillaume Postel, Paris, ca. 1538 or
Pedro de Alcala`, ca. 1600, but to the famous Latin grammar of Arabic by
Thomas Erpenius, who was Professor of  Arabic at Leiden from 1613 until
his death in
1624 and published his grammar in
1613. The order of numbering is the same as that with which we are
familiar.  Another grammar was published in Rome ca. 1622 which uses the
numbering system but has forms II and IV switched.  Erpenius' grammar was
only superceded in 1810 by the grammar of De
Sacy, who used the same system, which has been in vogue ever since.
Incidentally, the numbering system was also used in older grammars of
Hebrew, but seems to have fallen out of usage.
	The system, an extremely useful mnemonic device,
is not entirely unrelated to traditional Arabic presentations of
morphology in the classical works of Sarf, for it follows the order of
mujarrad (fa3ala) , mazid bi-harf
(fa33ala, faa3ala, 'af3ala), mazid
bi-harfayn (tafa33ala, etc.), mazid bi-thalatha (istaf3ala).  The use of
numbering, however, is the Latin, European innovation, which I suspect
to have been a calque on some aspect of the study of Latin grammar (this
is the part of the research which I have not completed yet).  At thevery
least, it is well known that Latin grammar traditionally numbers the
diferrent classes of verb conjugations (1: = are; 2. = e-re, 3. = -ere,
4. = -ire).  De Sacy is
careful to make clear in his presentation of the verb forms that they
fall into the groups of mazid be-harf, mazid bi-harfayn, etc., though
most modern textbooks have dropped such explanations.  To my mind, this is
unfortunate,
because it would help students learn and remember the order.
I hope that answers your question.

al-MukhliS,

Devin Stewart

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2)
Date: 15 Sep 2000
From: Muhammad Deeb <mdeeb at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject: Verb Form Numbers Origin Response


	Although he, like almost all his contemporaries, was uncharitable
to Islam to the extent of dismissing it as an imposter religion, the Dutch
scholar Erpenius (1584 - 1624) may well be credited with having laid the
foundation of Arabic grammar and philology.  Thus, the assignment of Roman
numerals (I - XV) to the triliteral and derived verbal forms was most
likely introduced by him.  The numeric distinction is often a challenge to
the memories of Arab and Western scholars in the field, but it is a
space-saver.  With verbal Arabic names, Hans Wehr and Lane, for instance,
would have quadrupled their present sizes!
						M. Deeb

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End of Arabic-L: 15 Sep 2000