Foundations of grammar : an introduction to medieval Arabic grammatical theory, The

THE FOUNDATIONS OF GRAMMAR AN INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL ARABIC GRAMMATICAL THEORY; Editorial page; Title page; Copyright page; Dedication; Table of contents; Symbols and conventions; PREFACE; 1. INTRODUCTION; 2. STRUCTURE, FUNCTION, CLASS and DEPENDENCY; 3. MORPHOLOGY; 4. WORD CLASSES; 5. THE NOUN PHRASE; 6. TRANSITIVITY; 7. ELLIPSIS; 8. MARKEDNESS IN ARABIC THEORY; 9. SYNTAX, SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS; NOTES; APPENDIX I. LIST OF MEDIEVAL ARABIC LINGUISTICS WHOSE WORKS ARE CITED; APPENDIX II. BRIEF SUMMARY OF GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTIONS; APPENDIX III. ORIGINAL ARABIC QUOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The Arabic grammatical tradition is one of the great traditions in the history of linguistics, yet it is also one that is comparatively unknown to modern western linguistics. The purpose of the present book is to provide an introduction to this grammatical tradition not merely by summarizing it, but by putting it into a perspective that will make it accessible to any linguist trained in the western tradition. The reader should not by put off by the word 'medieval': Arabic grammatical theory shares a number of fundamental similarities with modern linguistic theory. Indeed, one might argue that.