Sibawayh on Iimalah (Inclination): Sibawayh on ?imalah (Inclination): Text, Translation, Notes and Analysis

An 8th-century scholar and linguist born in Persia, Sibawayh is to Arabic linguistics what Panini is to Indian linguistics. He departed from the traditional methods of doing analysis to launch a more objective, descriptive and formal paradigm of linguistic analysis.

Sibawayh wrote only one book called Al-Kitab 'the book', considered to be the most thorough grammar of Classical Arabic ever written. His grammar established the foundations of Arabic linguistics as it became a statement of the new paradigm, and the book has become the model for all subsequent grammarians of Arabic.

The treatise on ?imalah 'inclination' is part of this grammar. It brings together the disparate mechanisms of 'inclination' by stating the conditions for its occurrence. This is not a purely an abstract treatise, but a study that looks over the various dialects of Arabic and formulates the conditions under which 'inclination' takes place. Though the triggers for 'inclination' are the presence of an [i] or a [y], either expressed or implied, in contexts where an [a] changes to an [e], the consonantal constraints to prevent these changes are also carefully detailed. As a characteristic of Sibawayh's work, he also accounts for all the exceptional cases in a comprehensive manner.

The treatise shows the systematic nature of 'inclination', with a rich display of data from actual occurrences in the language. It also displays the optional nature of 'inclination' as different dialects make use of some triggers but not of others. The six chapters take up the topic of inclination from its most basic contexts like the occurrence of the [i] trigger, and the occurrence of the [y] trigger, to the exceptional cases, the consonantal segments that prevent inclination, the influence of [r] on inclination, and the effect of inclination on the harakat 'motions/short vowel'.

Key features: The treatise is the first statement on 'inclination' in classical Arabic. This is the first bilingual text, Arabic-English, of the treatise with notes and comments.