LW 32: Qur’anic Stylistics

A Linguistic Analysis

Hussein Abdul-Raof
Taibah University, Saudi Arabia

Stylistic variation is the colourful manifestation of language. It is an intriguing linguistic phenomenon that can take place at different levels of language as it has been found in Qur’anic genre. Stylistic shift can occur within the sentence boundary at both the micro and the macro levels. In the micro text, stylistic variation occurs at the morpheme, word, and sentence levels. However, in the macro text, stylistic change can occur at the macro textual level beyond the sentence boundary. In other words, stylistically different sentences are found at different texts far away from each other. Stylistic variation mirrors language behaviour and the manipulation of the linguistic tools and strategies available to the text producer. Stylistic variation in Qur’anic Arabic occurs for a good reason and is context and co-text sensitive. Context and co-text are the linguistic habitat for stylistic shift. The surrounding grammatical, semantic, and phonetic environment has a direct impact upon the linguistic behaviour of Qur’anic genre. This is due to the fact that the text unfolds in a given context of situation.

Therefore, the distinctive stylistic patterns are influenced by the contextual and co-textual factors. A linguistic-stylistic exploration of sentence patterns illuminates the reader’s appreciation of the grammatical and semantic subtleties underpinning the distinct meanings of two stylistically different but structurally identical sentences. A linguistic investigation of the stylistic patterns of language also unearths the underlying signification of two stylistically distinct sentences. The present analysis attempts to provide an insight into the resourceful stylistic and linguistic strategies of Arabic. The book sharpens up the reader’s awarness of the exotic stylistic patterns that are semantically-oriented. These stylistic structures can be realized through various linguistic processes that are specific to Arabic. The resourceful mechanism can be a useful linguistic tool to achieve various communicative functions with different semantic significations. The present account of Qur’anic genre explores how grammatical acceptability and semantic syntax are interrelated to stylistic variation in Arabic. This work provides an in-depth explicated analysis of stylistic variation in Qur’anic genre.

Contents:

Linguistic and Stylistic Expressions
Introduction

Chapter One Linguistic and Textual Features of Qur’anic Discourse

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Qur’anic Linguistic Features
1.3 Qur’anic Textual Features

Chapter Two Syntactic Changes and Stylistic Variation

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Types of Syntactic Change
2.2.1 Word Order
2.2.1.1 Fixed Word Order
2.2.2 Morphological Form
2.2.3 Case Ending
2.2.4 Singular and Plural
2.2.5 Definite and Indefinite Nouns
2.2.6 Feminine and Masculine
2.2.7 Person
2.2.8 Present and Past Tense

Chapter Three Contextual and Co-Textual Factors

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Context and Lexis
3.2.1 Semantic Componential Features
3.2.2 Sentence-Final Words
3.3 Co-Text and Lexis
3.4 Phonetic Factors
Chapter Four Cohesion Network and Stylistic Shift
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Ellipsis
4.2.1 Stylistic Ellipsis
4.2.1.1 Conjunctions
4.2.1.2 Particles
4.2.1.3 Prepositions
4.2.1.4 Addition of Elements
4.2.1.5 Omission of Elements
4.2.2 Grammatical Ellipsis
4.3 Substitution

Chapter Five Discourse Variation

5.1 Introduction
5.2 Grammatical Incongruity
5.2.1 Masculine and Feminine Incongruity
5.2.2 Sound Feminine Plural Incongruity
5.2.3 Nominative and Accusative Incongruity
5.2.4 Morphological Form Incongruity
5.2.5 Singular and Plural Incongruity
5.3 Semantic Incongruity
5.4 Semantic Redundancy
5.5 Selectional Restrictions
5.6 Repetition
5.6.1 Repetition of Words
5.6.2 Repetition of Formulas
5.6.3 Repetition of Motifs
5.6.4 Repetition of Parables
5.6.5 Stylistic Presentation

Chapter Six Motifs and Stylistic Patterns

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Motif and Stylistic Shift
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

ISBN 9783895868177. Languages of the World 32. 250pp. 2003.