Ahmad bin Faris’s attention to the pivotal meaning in (Dictionary of Language Standards)

Abstract

Ibn Faris can be considered one of the early linguists who sought to establish a connection between the various meanings of a single linguistic root and attempted to trace them back to their origins, clarifying this connection as much as possible. While previous dictionaries such as Al-Ayn and Al-Jumhura contained some scattered references to this idea, it was Ibn Faris who elevated it to the highest level and created a comprehensive dictionary that explored this semantic phenomenon, which had caught his attention. With his powerful linguistic intellect, he provided a dictionary that collected the scattered aspects of this phenomenon and clarified the methods of meaning transition. His work was not merely etymological, as Dr. Ibrahim Anis accused him (2), but rather a unique semantic endeavor that allowed him to transcend time and place, influencing the minds and hearts of his contemporaries, as it continues to do with us. A careful reader of this dictionary, when examining it under the light of modern theories with its old-fashioned framework, will find that Ibn Faris had already referred to these theories and elaborated on them in his work. He collected different, sometimes distant meanings and explained the ways and stages of meaning transfer. If a meaning of a root did not align with the criteria he meticulously derived, he acknowledged its anomaly or admitted that he did not know its origin.