Evaluation of Ibn Maḍāʼ's Criticism of the Arab Grammarians

This study compares and contrasts the theories and practices of the traditional Arab grammarians as adopted by the first two major schools of Basra and Kufa on one hand, and the methods and notions of Ibn Mada? al-Qurtub(')i as applied in his book, Response to the Grammarians, on the other hand. The study consists of six chapters: Chapter One illustrates the problem, the goals and methodology of the research, Ibn Mada?'s life and works, and review of the literature. Chapter Two discusses the development of Arabic grammatical theory from the foundation phase to the establishment of the two major schools of Arabic grammar. Chapter Three presents and analyzes the adoption of the theory of the ('c)amil 'regent' and taqd(')ir 'suppletive insertions' by the major schools. Chapter Four analyzes and evaluates Ibn Mada?'s methods as well as the grammarians' in the light of some modern western linguistic approaches. Chapter Five evaluates the grammar- ians' opinions as well as those of Ibn Mada? of the notion of ta('c)l(')il 'the seeking of motives' and made-up examples in the light of prescriptive and descriptive grammar. Chapter Six expresses the most important findings of the study and some problems for further study. The evaluative method applied in this study is based on the assumption that the difference between the grammarians and Ibn Mada? parallels the difference between the western dependency theories and the tagmemicists.