Division
For classical Arabic grammarians, the grammatical sciences are divided into five branches:
- al-luġah اللغة (language/lexicon) concerned with collecting and explaining vocabulary
- at-taṣrīf التصريف (morphology) determining the form of the individual words
- an-naḥw النحو (syntax) primarily concerned with inflection (ʾiʿrāb) which had already been lost in dialects.
- al-ištiqāq الاشتقاق (derivation) examining the origin of the words
- al-balāġah البلاغة (rhetoric) which elucidates construct quality
The grammar or grammars of contemporary varieties of Arabic are a different question. Said M. Badawi, an expert on Arabic grammar, divided Arabic grammar into five different types based on the speaker's level of literacy and the degree to which the speaker deviated from Classical Arabic. Badawi's five types of grammar from the most colloquial to the most formal are Illiterate Spoken Arabic (عامية الأميين ʿāmmiyyat al-ʾummiyyīn), Semi-literate Spoken Arabic (عامية المتنورين ʿāmmiyat al-mutanawwirīn), Educated Spoken Arabic (عامية المثقفين ʿāmmiyyat al-muṯaqqafīn), Modern Standard Arabic (فصحى العصر fuṣḥā l-ʿaṣr), and Classical Arabic (فصحى التراث fuṣḥā t-turāṯ). This article is concerned with the grammar of Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic exclusively.
Read more about this topic: Arabic Grammar
Famous quotes containing the word division:
“O, if you raise this house against this house
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Don’t order any black things. Rejoice in his memory; and be radiant: leave grief to the children. Wear violet and purple.... Be patient with the poor people who will snivel: they don’t know; and they think they will live for ever, which makes death a division instead of a bond.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The division between the useful arts and the fine arts must not be understood in too absolute a manner. In the humblest work of the craftsmen, if art is there, there is a concern for beauty, through a kind of indirect repercussion that the requirements of the creativity of the spirit exercise upon the production of an object to serve human needs.”
—Jacques Maritain (1882–1973)