Word Study
klei...@astound.net
the Qur'an. The "Vocabulary of the Holy Qur'an" of Abdullah Abbas Nadwi
is a great help, but its analyses are often superficial. The following
is the kind of thing I mean. I chose to study the root DhEB because
its meaning is non-controversial and it does not occur too often. In
fact there are two roots DhEB. One, the one I will study, is a verb
meaning "to go away". The other is a noun meaning "gold" (occurs 8
times [3.13 3.90 9.34 18.30 22.23 35.30 43.53 43.71]).
I am interested in what adjuncts are used with DhEB and how they are
used. DhEB occurs mostly with B- (15 times), ON (5 times) and ALY (6
times). There are overt subjects 15 times and objects 10 times. In
20.42 an imperative is followed by an overt "vocative" that names the
persons addressed. In addition there is one locative FY adjunct
[46.20] and one adjunct OLY [35.8] that means something like "because
of".
I summarize the data by the following formulas:
#: <subj> go [5.24 8.48 13.17 21.87 33.19 35.8 60.11 12.17
12.87 17.63 20.97 24.62 33.20 - 13 times]
#4: take away <obj> [4.133 9.15 11.114 14.19 22.15 35.16
46.20 - 7 times]
ON: <subj> go from <ON> [11.10 11.74 - 2 times]
ON4: take away <obj> from <ON> [8.11 33.33 35.34 - 3 times]
ALY: go to <ALY> (see below) [20.24 20.43 25.36 37.97 75.33
79.17 - 6 times]
B: take away <B> [2.17 2.20 4.19 12.13 12.15 12.93 17.86
20.42 20.63 23.18 23.91 24.43 26.15 27.28 43.41 - 15 times]
leaving 81.26 unclassified because it is a question headed by AYN and
the meaning corresponds to ALY, but there is not enough data to
determine exactly what the relationship is.
<subj> in the translations means that the Arabic includes an overt
subject and similarly for <obj>. <ON> means there is "prepositional"
phrase headed by ON and similarly for <ALY> and <B>. In the cases
marked 4 the verb is in form IV. Overt subjects are optional where not
required.
When vowels are not marked, form IV is identical to form I in the
imperfect. I have used the traditional vowels. There is one perfect
form IV for #4 and one for ON4. In 23.18 DhEB is in the form of a
verbal noun and in 37.97 it is an active participle. Hence there are no
true nouns from this root DhEB.
The construction in 23.18 with the verbal noun DhEAB is interesting:
we are indeed able to carry it away An:NA OLY:[DhEAB B:E]
L QDR.WN
This is an ordinary equative nominal expression of "have power over"
with QDR+OLY. I observe that "we" takes QDR with a plural. OLY here
takes its nominal as a verbal noun and that noun carries its own verbal
adjunct.
The somewhat similar construction in 37.97
I will flee to my Lord AN:Y DhAEB ALY:RB"Y
also has a noun derived from a verb, here an active participle, also
with its own verbal adjunct.
If I ignore the B case, DhEB is a strict intransitive verb requiring an
overt subject and made transitive by changing to the causitive form IV
where an overt object is required. ON has the sense of "from" and ALY
has the sense of "to". This observation is noteworthy because Arabic is
not generally recognized to have strict intransitive verbs.
With a B adjunct DhEB behaves like a normal Arabic verb. An overt
subject is optional. There is every reason to believe that DhEB+B
"take away" has been lexicalized away from DhEB "go". DhEB+B occurs in
surats 2, 4, 12, 17, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27 and 43. DhEB4 occurs in surats
4, 8, 9, 11, 14, 22, 33, 35 and 46. Note that both appear in surat 4 in
4.19 and 4.133. The clause in 4.133 is a stereotyped statement and can
be assumed to be picked up from an earlier use (perhaps 14.19 or
35.16).
Dividing the surats on the basis of whether they use DhEB4 or DhEB+B
does not parallel any of the other surat divisions I know of. The very
late surats 9 and 33 have DhEB4, but DhEB+B occurs in relatively late
surats 2 and 4. If there is any evolution are work here I believe that
DhEB+B must be an older construction that DhEB4 was replacing. That
suggests that awareness of DhEB as strictly intransitive was growing.
I wonder if the neo-Arabic languages tell us anything useful about this
situation.