(g) The Arabic Lexicographer Ibn Sīdah and the Notion of Semantic Field
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/jais.6128Abstract
Etymological investigation may resort to the semantic field in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the cultural aspects that underlie the origin and historical development of a given word. Modern scholars tend to regard the semantic field as a notion developed in Western linguistic thought around the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, Arabists tend to assume that this notion was already known in the Arabic lexicographical tradition. The present paper empirically grounds this idea in three conceptual steps. First, it clarifies the modern Western notion of semantic field by investigating the theoretical contexts in which such a notion evolved, morphing into different manifestations. Second, it focuses on the dictionaries al-Muḥkam and al-Mukhaṣṣaṣ authored by the Andalusian lexicographer Ibn Sīdah (d. 458/1066) and offers a close reading of some of the passages in which Ibn Sīdah reflects on the notion of bāb. Finally, it draws a narrow parallel between bāb and a mid-nineteenth-century manifestation of the Western notion of semantic field.
Key words: bāb, Ibn Sīdah, lexicography, semantic field
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