Morphological Transformations of Derived Nouns in the Qurʾānic Reading of Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ (d. 154 AH)

A Study in Light of the Transformational-Generative Approach

Abstract

Morphological transformation and the semantic implications of variant morphological patterns constitute a significant field of inquiry that has long occupied the attention of Arab linguists throughout their scholarly heritage. These phenomena have been designated by several terms, including alternation, deputation, and deviation. This study examines a set of morphological transformations pertaining to the structural patterns of derived nouns as they appear in the Qurʾānic reading of one of the earliest linguistic authorities—Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ al-Baṣrī (d. 154 AH). Among the transformations explored are: variations in the reading of the active participle, the passive participle, the adjectival noun (ṣifah mushabbahah), the intensive form (ṣīghat al-mubālaghah), and finally, the noun of place.

Qurʾānic readings have received considerable scholarly attention within the Islamic intellectual tradition, including from grammarians and linguists. Indeed, the foundational efforts of early Arabic linguistic studies were primarily motivated by the desire to preserve the Qurʾān and protect its recitation from error. My choice to focus on the reading of Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ stems from the fact that he was not only a renowned Qurʾānic reciter but also a distinguished linguist and grammarian. His reading gained wide currency across the Islamic world, particularly in the Levant and Egypt, before it was gradually overshadowed by the Kūfan reading of ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Nujūd (d. 120 AH) as transmitted by the celebrated reader Ḥafṣ ibn Sulaymān (d. 180 AH), whose narration later became dominant and widely adopted.