Al-Farraʔ’s Multiple Concepts of ‘Al-Badal’ (Apposition): A Semiotic Analysis.

Résumé

In general, al-Farraʔ and Sibawaih agree on many of the grammatical concepts and terms. In some cases, however, their terminologies are distinctly non-overlapping; one and the same constructions are conceptualized in different ways. One such term is that which Sibawaih refers to as the badal or “apposition”, a term, which in the Sibawaihian sense, has become the accepted term in the Arabic linguistic tradition. This term is not used by al-Farraʔ. Instead, in his book, Maʕaaniy al-Qurʔaan, al-Farraʔ explains this phenomenon using four concepts: al-tarjama (translation), al-tafsir (interpretation), al-takrir (repetition), and al-radda (return) or al-marduwd (returned). The paper examines al-Farraʔ’s concepts and attempts to interpret them using the semiotics approach that aims to achieve communication by connecting the sign, the signified, and the referent. Thus, it is not only the semiology of meaning that connects the sign with the lexical meaning, which reveals reasons as to why al-Farraʔ developed multiple concepts for the badal. It is also revealed that the disagreements between grammarians in the past is a result of their individual and critical viewpoints in their treatment of grammar through various approaches.