Grammatical Analysis of Nominative Cases in Al-Asmacīyāt

Abstract

The thesis investigated the nature of nominative cases in al-asmacīyāt, a legend Arabic anthology compiled by the renowned Islamic scholar cAbū Sacīd cAbd al-Malik bin Qurayb mostly referred to as al-Asmacīyī (d. 828 AD). The collection is considered as one of the fundamental sources of Arabic language and is extensively cited by Arabic linguists, philologists, and literary critics. The main objective of the study was to establish the centrality of nominative cases in Arabic language and to divulge its types and characteristics in al-asmacīyāt. The study adopted a descriptive linguistic approach, which entails compilation and organization of linguistic data, and analyzing them appropriately in order to arrive at the findings that may shed some light on the grammatical rules in relation to nominative cases. The researcher also relied on classical and modern sources of Arabic books which discussed nominative cases in detail. The study among others made the following findings: The most reoccurring nominative case was the agent (fācīl) found in verbal sentence. This seems to be in order, considering that every verb, be it transitive or intransitive, comes with the agent (fācīl). As well, the subject (al-mubtada’) of nominal sentences featured substantively in the collection. This is equally understandable, as nominal sentence is the only substitute to construction of sentences in Arabic. Worthy of attention is the variations associated with the occurrence of the subject of nominal sentences; in some cases it precedes the predicate, and sometimes it succeeds the predicate. In both instances among others, the necessary conditions were met. The predicate of the nominal cases also featured substantively as nominative cases as well. This was expected, because predicate completes the sense conveyed by the subject. Here again, the predicate are either situated after or before the subject, and the conditions pertaining to each have also been fulfilled.