Thesis--Columbia University, 1913. / Bibliography: p. [xv]-xxii.

Thesis--Columbia University, 1913. / Bibliography: p. [xv]-xxii.

Thesis--Johns Hopkins University.

This study investigates the acquisition of a most intriguing system of nominal plurality in Arabic, the Broken Plural (BP), in the speech of bilingual Iraqi-English children. BP is an irregular plural form, there is no fixed suffix to be added and it is derived by altering the consonant and vowel patterns inside the singular noun/adjective. Monolinguals acquire it from their environment; they learn it spontaneously as they grow up and expand their vocabulary. The study includes 11 bilingual children living in the UK and ‘control groups’: 9 female adults living in the UK, 11 monolingual female adults and 17 monolingual children living in Baghdad. Data collection combined quantitative and qualitative techniques. The research as a whole addresses the issues of how reduced Iraqi Arabic input can affect the formation of BP, the range of strategies that the bilingual children use to recoup their lack of knowledge and the correlation between these strategies and social factors, viz. parents’ level of education and proficiency in English, language use at home (input), and attitudes. The data (BP) were analysed into correct and incorrect responses based on monolingual female adults performance. The incorrect responses (repair strategies) were classified into various categories including: overgeneralisation (used more frequently by bilinguals as a default form but was least favoured by the monolingual children); and the employment of ‘rudimentary semantic strategies’ rather than morphological markers e.g. repetition/singular, new words, random patterns. The findings show that the formation of BP is present in bilingual children –to a different digree- but its formation underwent a crucial reanalysis. There is a strong correlation between the social factors and the repair strategies. Bilingual children’s attitudes towards English positively correlate with their low proficiency in Iraqi Arabic (IA); parents’ attitudes towards IA, religion and identity as core values; and parents’ command of English were also found to play a crucial role in nurturing or impairing the use of IA, which in turn affects acquisition of BP.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis attempts to study the celebrated literaryhistorical and critical work, al-TIhakhira of Ibn Bassam, from a number of aspects that have until now received either inadeQuate attention or no attention at all. It is divided into two parts, the first of which is concerned principally with the author and his work in their historical and critical context. There are six main sections in this part: The cultural background of the fourth and fifth centuries; Ibn Bassam's life; Ibn Bassam's education and literary career; The background to al-TIhakhira; Ibn Bassam's regional system and some of his critical attitudes; Ibn Bassam's literary criticism. The second part consists of an attempt to analyse, in different ways, a number of sample passages of Ibn Bassam's writing, in order to examine the techniQues underlying his artistic composition. It is not claimed that the means by which his effects were obtained were necessarily selfconscious; it seems, however, worthwhile to investigate any characteristics that can be identified and analysed, if we are to be able fully to evaluate and appreciate the literary Qualities of the best Arabic prose-writing. This part concludes with a summary of the characteristics of Ibn Bass~'s style that emerge from the detailed analyses. Finally, the names of all the liteOrary figures dealt with in al-Dhakhira are listed in an appendix.

The name Mukhadrimin/Mukhadramin is given to those Arabic poets who were born before Islam but continued to live and compose during the Islamic period. A portion of the surviving poetry of these poets - specifically, the longer and most complete poems that are believed to have been composed after the advent of Islam by the most important of the poets generally designated by this name - has been taken as the basis for a~ attempt to compile a stylistic concordance. This particular body of work is of a convenient size for such an attempt, and it has the added advantage that the impact of Islam might be expected to have affected it in certain common respects that would distinguish it from pre-Islamic poetry. The "Index of descriptive words and phrases", which forms the principal part of·this thesis, lists the words and phrases used to refer to, and to describe, both directly and metaphorically, the persons, objects, and other phenomena that most commonly appear in what may be termed the more "conventional" sections of these compositions, that is to say, the very large proportion of lines in which the poets, like all early Arabic poets, compose variations on certain conventional themes. The ultimate object must be, of course, to make such a concordance, and indeed other kinds of concordances, for the whole of early Arabic poetry. It will then be possible to say to what extent different periods can be distinguished from one another. The "Index" compiled here represents an experiment carried out on a limited, and to some extent legitimately separable, portion of an enormous corpus. It is to hoped that the process will prove useful for wider application. Texts of the poems are provided for reference; many of them have been translated into English in the form in which they appear in Ibn Hisham by A. Guilla~ but since the nlwans of the individual poets - where these exist - often present fuller, and variant, versions, and since it is sometimes possible to produce a closer rendering than that of Guillaume new translations are also offered here. Basic annotations and short biographies of the poets are appended.

Early Arab writers have little to say about Ibn al-Rùm and his poetry. His life and his poetry are, indeed, different from early Arabic poets and poetry in general. Those who have written on Ibn al-Rùm have covered neither the whole of his life nor the whole of his works. There are, consequently, in my opinion, many aspects of his life and poetry which need to be studied. I have approached Ibn al-Rùm's life through his poetry and have used this as my primary source, attempting to see the relevance of his poetry to his life and hopefully, the relevance of his life to his poetry. I have not devoted a separate chapter to the period during which Ibn al-Rùm lived and wrote; I have attempted to study this period through Ibn al-Rùm's poetry and life. This thesis consists of an Abstract, a short introductory notice, three chapters and a brief summation. My main concern has been to translate the poetry into English and to assist it to speak in its own voice, adding notes and comments only when strictly necessary. In the first chapter (one) Ibn al-Rùm's ancestry, education and emotionally fraught life are studied, as well as his relationship with Caliphs and princes, his intellectual and physical malaise, his effeminacy and the milieu in which he lived. In chapter two; I study Istiqsa' before Ibn al-Rùm and his poetry Tashkis, his quotations from al-Qur'an and from the Jahli and 'Abbasid poetry. His relationship with the other poets of his period and the role played by the realm of the senses in his Dwan. Chapter three is a study of the genres: panegyrics, lampoons, elegies and love poetry. The work ends with a short summary of the principal findings of this study of Ibn al-Rùm through his poetry.