A Survey and Analysis of Phonological and Phonemic Views in

زبان و ادبیات عربی

Article 3, Volume 1, Issue 1, February 2010   

Document Type: research article

DOI: 10.22067/jall.v1i1.3009

Author

Dr.Mahin Hajizadeh Mahin Hajizadeh^*

Abstract

Phonetics was initially made the subject of diversified range of sciences, and attracted many researchers, who were under the influence of Arabic – Islamic cultural system. In the meantime, syntacticians and grammarians dealing with conjugation and syntax issues inevitably encountered phonetically related points. For, these sciences, and in particular conjugation, had overlaps with phonetics in many issues and subjects.
Ibn-e-Jenni was the first grammarian who allocated an independent book on phonetic subjects and discussed it as a distinct science. He used the linguistic term of "Elm-al-Aswat (Phonetics)" for referring to this science.
The present article is an endeavor for extracting Ibn-e-Jenni's viewpoints and doctrine regarding Arabic language phones by studying his works as available, and for studying considers that Ibn-e-Jenni's method in his phonetical studies is descriptive. It further demonstrates that despite notwithstanding paucity of facilities and tools for phone analysis, the conclusions reached by him on description of phones are so advanced that they do match to a large extent with those of the contemporary phoneticians who are equipped with advanced laboratories and instruments.

Key words: Ibn-e-Jenni; phonetics, phonology, modern linguistics