Al-Jurjānī

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-371
Author(s):  
Raji M. Rammuny

Summary Most of the early Arab grammarians were chiefly concerned with the description of language structure and particularly the problem of explaining the inflectional marks. Al-Jurjānī, in the fifth century AH/eleventh century AD, was the first among Arab grammarians to depart from earlier trend of linguistic analysis and to put forward a demonstrable theory for the study of language and grammar in terms of the interrelationships that bind the constituents of speech together. According to al-Jurjānī, there are three types of relationships: syntactic relationships, semantic relationships, and the relationship between syntax and semantics. This paper contains a systematic account of these syntactic-semantic interrelationships in particular, and al-Jurjānī’s approach and methodology to language and grammar in general. Our investigation is based on an intensive study of the concepts of naẓm (discourse arrangement) and taclīq (interrelationship) which al-Jurjānī discussed with ample evidence and cogent reasoning in his major work Dalā’il al-Icjāz (Illustrations of the Inimitability [of the Qur’ān]). A distinctive feature of this research is the effort made to show the connection between al-Jurjānī’s linguistic concepts and equivalent notions used in modern linguistics. The study concludes with an important fact; namely, that al-Jurjānī was one of the frontier scholars to call for the study of language on the basis of syntactic-semantic functions and as a discipline independent of grammatical regents.

Author(s):  
Daniele Miano

This chapter considers the relationship between Fortuna and Tyche as one of translatability. The first half of the chapter focuses on Tyche, with the aim of determining semantic and structural elements common with Fortuna. The second part of the chapter looks at instances in which Fortuna is translated in Greek. The appearance of bronze strigils bearing the epithet soteira from Praeneste in the fourth century BC seems to presuppose this translation, and also points to the salvific meanings of Fortuna as a base for the process of translation. This process of translation had probably occurred through early contacts between Latium, Sicily, and Magna Graecia, where Tyche seems to be associated with salvation already from the fifth century BC. Other instances of translations of Fortuna and Tyche are studied across the Aegean.


Author(s):  
Muriel Debié ◽  
David Taylor

This chapter analyzes how Syriac historiography is a rare example of non-etatist, non-imperial, history writing. It was produced, copied, and preserved entirely within Christian church structures. The Syriac-using Christians, however, were divided into numerous rival denominations and communities as a consequence both of the fifth-century theological controversies and of geopolitical boundaries. And since both of these factors strongly influenced both the motivations which underpinned the production of history writing and the forms it took, historians need to have some knowledge of these rival Syriac denominations. Because of internal Christian debates about the relationship of the divinity and humanity within Christ during the fifth century, the Syriac-using churches fragmented. All accepted that Christ was perfect God and perfect man, but differed fiercely about how to articulate this.


2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian M. Billing

In this article Christian M. Billing considers the relationship between female lament and acts of vengeance in fifth-century Athenian society and its theatre, with particular emphasis on the Hekabe of Euripides. He uses historical evidence to argue that female mourning was held to be a powerfully transgressive force in the classical period; that considerable social tensions existed as a result of the suppression of female roles in traditional funerary practices (social control arising from the move towards democracy and the development of forensic processes as a means of social redress); and that as a piece of transvestite theatre, authored and performed by men to an audience made up largely, if not entirely, of that sex, Euripides' Hekabe demonstrates significant gender-related anxiety regarding the supposedly horrific consequences of allowing women to speak at burials, or to engage in lament as part of uncontrolled funerary ritual. Christian M. Billing is an academic and theatre practitioner working in the fields of ancient Athenian and early modern English and European drama. He has worked extensively as a director and actor and has also taught at a number of universities in the United Kingdom and the USA. He is currently Lecturer in Drama at the University of Hull.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 537-548
Author(s):  
Sebbane Habib ◽  
Omar Boukhri

After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, the Andalusian Islamic state witnessed a political rupture as a result of chaos, rivalries and sectarian conflicts throughout the fifth century AH corresponding to the eleventh century AD. These dangerous security breakdowns led to the disintegration and division of the Islamic Caliphate in Andalusia into a group of independent kingdoms and small emirates which ultimately found themselves on one hand in permanent wars between them, and on the other in skirmishes with the neighbouring Christian forces. This fact contributed to lack of stability and peace of these lands and the establishment of weak governing systems for a long time. This political situation stressed the worsening of their social conditions and their scientific life. Nevertheless, this situation generated a motivating nostalgia and rage in some scholars and jurists such as Imam Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī who is considered one of the key-figures and scholars of Andalusia. He had a prominent role in pushing forward and reviving scientific life by setting various new foundations in order to reform some fields. His writings were directed for educational purposes. Besides, he included the reform of Islamic jurisprudence, which was aimed primarily for jurists and rulers. Furthermore, some of his writings were sermons and ethical moral instructions for commoners. His endeavours led him to enter the political life as he assumed the judicial profession of a judge, that enabled him to be in more touch with the various kings of sects giving him the chance to advise and guide them. His efforts in that end resulted in seeking to reunite the kings of the sects and their princes under the banner of Islam and unite their forces for the defence of Muslim presence in Andalusia against the Christian threat.


1994 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Rice

The publication of Toni Morrison's new novel Jazz with its insistent jazzy themes and rhythms will have concentrated the minds of critics on the relationship of her work to America's most important indigenous artistic form, jazz music. However, in their headlong rush to foreground the impact of jazz on Toni Morrison's latest novel critics should be wary of isolating this novel as her only jazz-influenced work. All of her novels have been informed by the rhythms and cadences of a black musical tradition and in this article I want to stress the centrality of jazz music stylistically to her whole corpus of work. Morrison herself has acknowledged the centrality of a musical aesthetic to her work in interview after interview long before the publication of Jazz:…a novel written a certain way can do precisely what spirituals used to do. It can do exactly what blues or jazz or gossip or stories or myths or folklore did – that stuff which was a common wellspring of ideas…Morrison is writing out of an oral tradition which foregrounds musical performances as well as other oral forms. Some critics have acknowledged the importance of jazz to her work, notably Anthony J. Berret in his article “Toni Morrison's Literary Jazz”. But, despite some provocative and illuminating comments, his is not a systematic account of the use of a jazz mode in Morrison's fiction and I wish in this paper to attempt a more rigorous analysis of her early novels, outlining her willed use of a jazz aesthetic as a pivotal structural device.


Traditio ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gillett

Olympiodorus of Thebes is an important figure for the history of late antiquity. The few details of his life preserved as anecdotes in hisHistorygive glimpses of a career which embraced the skills of poet, philosopher, and diplomat. A native of Egypt, he had influence at the imperial court of Constantinople, among the sophists of Athens, and even outside the borders of the empire. HisHistory(more correctly, his “materials for history”) is lost, surviving only as fragments in the narratives of Zosimus, Sozomen, and Philostorgius, and in the rich summary given by the ninth-century Byzantine patriarch Photius. These remains comprise the most substantial narrative sources for events in the western Roman Empire in the early fifth century. Besides its value as a source, theHistoryis important as a monument to the vitality of the belief in the unity of the Roman Empire under the Theodosian dynasty. Olympiodorus wrote in Greek, and knowledge of his work is attested only in Constantinople, yet his political narrative, from 407 to 425, concerns only events in the western half of the empire. To understand the significance of these facts, it is necessary to set the composition of Olympiodorus's work in its proper context. Clarifying the date of publication is the first step toward this goal. Internal and external evidence suggests that the work was written in 440 or soon after, more than a decade later than the date of composition usually accepted. Taken with thematic emphases evident in the structure of theHistory, this revised dating explains why an eastern writer should have written a detailed account of western events in the early part of the century. Olympiodorus's account is a characteristic product of the highly literate class of eastern imperial civil servants, and of their genuine preoccupation with the relationship between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire at a time when both were threatened by the rise of the new Carthaginian power of the Vandals.


1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 111-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. F. Konrad Koerner

Summary Noam Chomsky’s frequent references to the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt during the 1960s produced a considerable revival of interest in this 19th-century scholar in North America. This paper demonstrates that there has been a long-standing influence of Humboldt’s ideas on American linguistics and that no ‘rediscovery’ was required. Although Humboldt’s first contacts with North-American scholars goes back to 1803, the present paper is confined to the posthumous phase of his influence which begins with the work of Heymann Steinthal (1823–1899) from about 1850 onwards. This was also a time when many young Americans went to Germany to complete their education; for instance William Dwight Whitney (1827–1894) spent several years at the universities of Tübingen and Berlin (1850–1854), and in his writings on general linguistics one can trace Humboldtian ideas. In 1885 Daniel G. Brinton (1837–1899) published an English translation of a manuscript by Humboldt on the structure of the verb in Amerindian languages. A year later Franz Boas (1858–1942) arrived from Berlin soon to establish himself as the foremost anthropologist with a strong interest in native language and culture. From then on we encounter Humboldtian ideas in the work of a number of North American anthropological linguists, most notably in the work of Edward Sapir (1884–1939). This is not only true with regard to matters of language classification and typology but also with regard to the philosophy of language, specifically, the relationship between a particular language structure and the kind of thinking it reflects or determines on the part of its speakers. Humboldtian ideas of ‘linguistic relativity’, enunciated in the writings of Whitney, Brinton, Boas, and others, were subsequently developed further by Sapir’s student Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941). The transmission of the so-called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis – which still today is attracting interest among cultural anthropologists and social psychologists, not only in North America – is the focus of the remainder of the paper. A general Humboldtian approach to language and culture, it is argued, is still present in the work of Dell Hymes and several of his students.


1995 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Møller Andersen

AbstractThis essay is essentially a review of the monographic work by the German zoologist Martin Mahner : 'Systema Cryptoceratum Phylogeneticum (Insecta, Heteroptera)' (Zoologica, Heft 143, Stuttgart 1993). The monograph is the most comprehensive systematic account of the aquatic bugs to date and the first major work on this group where the principles of phylogenetic (cladistic) systematics are consistently applied. Mahner follows the principles of the 'konsequentphylogenetische oder cladistischen Systematik', being Willi Hennig's phylogenetic systematics as interpreted and modified by Peter Ax. The methodological procedures recommended by this school of systematics is controversial, however, and call for a broader discussion of current trends in systematics as exemplified by the phylogeny and classification of the aquatic bugs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 684-717
Author(s):  
Anna Lankina

The fifth-centuryEcclesiastical Historyof Philostorgius is an unusual example of a surviving minority source. Although scholars have mined his work for raw data on events between 320 and 425c.e., in contrast to other contemporary ecclesiastical historians, Philostorgius has received little attention. His work has suffered derision, being seen as nothing more than “Arian” polemic and thus as more partisan than its pro-Nicene counterparts. This essay analyzes Philostorgius's role as one of many competitive voices participating in the composition of historical works for the elite readership of Constantinople in the fifth century. Philostorgius'sEcclesiastical Historyconstituted an integral part of the historiography of late antiquity and early Christianity. His representation of the relationship between bishops and emperors reveals a distinctive theory of history which informs his entire work.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-386
Author(s):  
Hamed Ahmad Almahadin ◽  
Yazan Salameh Oroud

This study aims to investigate the moderating role of profitability in the relationship between capital structure and firm value in Jordan, as an example of an emerging economy. For this purpose, two functional models were formulated to capture the direct relationship as well as the interaction impact of capital structure on firm value. The robust empirical findings of panel data analysis provide strong evidence of an adverse relationship between capital structure and firm value. The findings confirm that the impact of capital structure appears to be complicated in nature and difficult to examine without controlling for the interaction of profitability as one of the major determinants. Therefore, studying the interaction effect provides ample evidence and enhances the understanding of the link between firm value and capital structure. The empirical results of the study may provide important insights and policy implications to decision-makers.


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