The Broken Plurals in the Diwan of Abi al-Najm al-Ijli: A Morphological and Semantic Study

Abstract

This research focuses on the study of broken plural structures in the Diwan of Abi al-Najm al-Ijli from both morphological and semantic perspectives. The goals are to catalog these structures, assess how well they align with forms described in morphological texts, identify key morphological phenomena, and elucidate the meanings of broken plurals in both their minor and major forms within the Diwan. The study is divided into several parts: an introduction, a preface that briefly introduces Abi al-Najm al-Ijli and his Diwan, and four sections. The first section defines the broken plural and its types. The second section presents the structures of broken plurals in the Diwan, detailing their frequency and the specific words associated with each structure. The third section explores the primary morphological phenomena present in these broken plurals. The fourth section examines the significance of these plurals within the Diwan. The conclusion summarizes the main findings, including the recognition of Abi al-Najm al-Ijli as a prominent early Islamic poet. The Diwan exhibits various morphological phenomena in broken plurals, such as i'lal, idgham, deletion, spatial inversion, and pluralization based on the infinitive structure. There is a notable disparity in the frequency of words among broken plural forms, with some forms containing over a hundred words (e.g., fi'aal and af'aal), while others have only a single word (e.g., fa'aali and fawa'il). Additionally, some common broken plural forms, such as fa'ala, fi'ala, and tafail, are absent from the Diwan. The research concludes with a list of sources and references.