CHAPTER FOUR

ON THE DEFINITE ARTICLE

4.1 Introduction: The Arabic definite article The definite article of Classical Arabic takes the fonn of a proclitic prefixed to nouns and adjectives, assuming one of the following environmentally conditioned fonns: After a preceding vowel Elsewhere Before "lunar" (qamariyya) letters 1- al• Before "solar" (Samsiyya) letters C- aC- Here "c" indicates the initial consonant of the word to which the article is attached. When the word in question begins with one of the so-called "solar" set of consonants (i.e., the apical elements t, (), d, 0, r, z, s, S, $, 4, /, ~, I, n), the article thus features a gemination of this consonant-e.g., as• sams-u 'the sun' nom., ar-rajul-u (}-(}iili(}-u 'the third man' nom. (lit. "the• man-nom. the-third-nom.")-although the traditional orthography retains the I. In contrast, words beginning with one of the remaining consonants (the "lunar" set, i.e., ',b,j, h, x, ',f, q, k, m, h, w, y) display the forms al- or I--e.g., al-qamar-u 'the moon' nom., al-mar'at-u I-xiimisat-u 'the fifth woman' nom. The distinction between the postvocalic fonns of the article and those found elsewhere ( -I-/-C- vs. al-/aC-) is correlated with the position of the article in the utterance. More frequently than not, Arabic words end in a vowel; moreover, when a word ends in a consonant, a sandhi-vowel is introduced before any following consonant cluster (such as is constituted by the prefixation of the article -I-/-C- to a word)l-e.g., katabat-i I-kitiiba 'she wrote the book' t- katabat + I-kitiiba. The forms al- and aC- are consequently limited to the initial position of an utterance. This alternation of utterance-initial VCC- and non-initial -CC- is familiar elsewhere in

1 In a limited number of situations, there is a vowel implicit in the word which appears in the position before such c1usters-cf. the -u which appears after the pronominal plural ending -urn: ra'ayturn-u l-binta 'you (m. pI.) saw the girl' vs. /'Q'ayturn bintan 'you (m. pI.) saw a girl.' In such cases, the added vowel represents the survival of one which was historically present but has generally been lost-thus the final -u associated with Arabic -urn may be traced back to a Common Semitic *-u (cf. the endings of G;)';)Z ra'i-karnu 'you (m. p\.) saw,' Biblical Hebrew qa!al-tu-nf 'you (m. p\.) killed me,' etc.; note also the shape of the Arabic ending before a pronominal object (ra'ayturnu-hii 'you (m .pl.) saw her'). 136 CHAPTER FOUR

Arabic phonology, the graphic representation of the vanishing V-being known as the hamzat al-wa$l, the 'glottal stop of the juncture.' What distinguishes the syllable of the utterance-initial shapes of the definite article from the canonical manifestations of the hamzat al-wa$Z is the quality of the vowel: for the article, the vowel is the low vowel a, while in the case of all other words the vowel of the VC- is i or, in certain verbal situations, u. 2

Table 23' The hamzat al-wasl of Arabic' Phonology vs spelling Non-initial position Initial position (after wa- 'and') 'the-girl' al-bintu <'lbnt> wa-I-bintu '(a) son' ibnun <'bn> wa-bnun 'he departed' intalaqa <'ntlq> wa-ntalaqa 'write!' m. sg. uktub <'ktb> wa-ktub Contrast the behavior of the hamzat al-wa$Z with that of the normal stable hamza (hamzat ai-qat', 'the glottal stop of severing'), such as is found in the first-person singular subject prefix: ' an!aliqu 'I depart' /wa-' an!aliqu 'and 1 depart'; 'aktubu 'I write'/wa-'aktubu 'and 1 write.'3 The hamzat al-wa$Z has long been interpreted as an epenthetic syllable introduced to remove a consonant cluster from the initial position.4 As a result of this added syllable, the syllabic inventory of Arabic is relieved of the necessity of encompassing syllables of the structure CCV(C)- (i.e., ib• nun 'son' consists of two closed syllables rather than a single *CCVC syllable). The curious vocalic quality (a) of the article has long attracted attention, however: while Sibawayh took the article to consist solely of the 1- itself (with the a- being essentially the same as the prothetic V-of ibnun, uktub, etc., i.e., an extraneous syllable introduced to alleviate the unacceptable CC in the initial position of, e.g., * l-bintu), al-Xalil b. 'Ahmad interpreted the article as ' al- (i.e., with the hamza as an integral part of the article). The latter interpretation thus viewed' al- as a particle with the shape CVC (essentially comparable in configuration to bal 'rather'

2 For verbs the prefixed vowel is i before a syllable containing i or a «('i)n!alaqa 'he departed,' ('i)q,rib 'beat!'), but u before a syllable with u (,uktub 'write!' ('u)stuqbila 'he was met'); for non-verbs the prefixed vowel is normally i throughout «'i)bn-un, ('i)bn-an, ('i)bn-in 'son' nom., acc., gen.). 3 In the following discussion I shall use the apostrophe ' to mark the true etymological glottal stop (,aktubu), while hamzat al-wa# will be left unexpressed, with a word-initial vowel (uktub). 4 In other words, to use the traditional grammarians' terms, it is necessary to add the hamzat al-wa# when the initial letter of a word is to be read with sukun-i.e., when the initial consonant is not followed by a vowel.