411 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — ARABICA 412 ARABICA ALHAWARY, M.T. — Arabic Grammar in Context. (Lan- guages in Context). Routledge, London & New York, 2016. (25,5 cm, 264). ISBN 978-0-415-71595-9. ₤ 90.00. Mohammad Alhawary (hence MA) is associate professor of Arabic linguistics and second language acquisition at the Uni- versity of Michigan. He is editor of the Journal of Arabic Lin- guistics Tradition, and of Al-‘Arabiyya: Journal of the Ameri- can Association of Teachers of Arabic. He is also the author of Modern Standard Arabic Grammar: A Learner’s Guide, and Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax. The book under review (abbreviated here as Context) pre- sents according to the Preface (p. vii) mainly an exercise tool for intermediate and advanced students of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). This characteristic feature is elaborated in 70% of the 22 chapters which are assigned to exercises while the remaining 30% is devoted to the introduction of the required theoretical foundation in a condensed form. Context leans heavily on the forementioned Learner’s Guide of the same author; the Bibliography in Context mentions even only Learner’s Guide. Learner’s Guide which presents a theoretical framework of Arabic grammar in a more ampli- fied form, is meant for beginners and also, like Context, for more advanced students, so the readereship of these books is largely the same, but the presentation of grammatical items is different. Because of the inextricable bond with Context I will present an additional review of Learner’s Guide at the end of this article. MA states explicitly (p. viii) that Context “does not pre- sent an exhaustive coverage of (Modern, WvT) Standard Arabic Grammar”.1) Nor does Learner’s Guide, even put 1) More complete reference works include Modern Written Arabic. A Comprehensive Grammar (Elsaid Badawi, Michael G. Carter and Adrian Gully, 2nd ed., 2016, Routledge) and A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic (Karin C. Ryding, First published 2005, Cambridge Uni- versity Press). 413 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXXV N° 3-4, mei-augustus 2018 414 together with Context, I would like to add here already. Nev- of the chapters is concluded with ‘Other points to note’ ertheless the most important grammatical issues are dealt which contains not only issues accessory to the previous with in these two books. theoretical essentials but also references to the precise find- Context consists of 22 chapters, followed respectively by ing places in Learner’s Guide. Additional texts for review, Keys (to the exercises), a Bibli- The Arabic language used in the Introductory texts and in ography, a Glossary of Vocabulary and Expressions, and the Exercises (especially in the last two of them) is roughly finally an (English) Index (of grammatical terms). The Addi- 85% prosaic and for the remaining 15% of poetic origin. For tional texts for review are intended to practice the gained and a non-Arab student who has to find his way in the Arabic developed grammatical skills in all of the preceding chapters. ‘desert’ of grammatical difficulties I am of the opinion that The Keys contain elaborations of all exercises, i.e. those in the poetic part in the exercises, meant to achieve the pro- the chapters individually as well as those included in the posed learning objectives, should be 5% at most. This is Additional texts. The ensuing Glossary is a very convenient because grammatical analysis of poetic constructions tool for students in order to get a flavour of the right transla- demands additional skills from students which makes the tion of the Arabic texts. However, I am astonished that the intended learning process unnecessarily difficult for them. contained words and expressions are arranged alphabetically, not according to the root-arrangement of most Arabic dic- Now I will make some remarks on the treatment of gram- tionaries. For the student of MSA it is of utmost importance matical items throughout the chapters. to learn mastering to look up such words in that way. It is In Ch. 1, section “Form”, about the definite article, MA the more surprising because in the very Learner’s Guide MA starts with the sentence “Apart from pronouns and proper unfolds a separate part to pick up this skill.2) The final Index names which are definite, words in Arabic (nouns and adjec- is restricted to grammatical terms in English. I would expect tives) are marked for definiteness or indefiniteness.” The here an Arabic Index, just as MA does in Learner’s Guide, possible carrying of nunation of some proper names has the more so because throughout Context grammatical terms nothing to do with indefiniteness; proper names (and also in Arabic are used, although mostly combined with their pronouns) are definite by nature. The only reason for this English counterparts. Unfortunately the Glossary does not nunation lies in the fact that such proper names are triptotes, furnish these Arabic grammatical terms. so his mentioning of definiteness in this spot is irrelevant and Each chapter concentrates mostly on one main grammati- may even confuse the reader. cal matter, which leads to a clear-cut arrangement. However, Also in this chapter the broken plural accusative pause this positive claim is impaired because the theme of diptotes form should be supplied with an alif᾽ , not without it as MA has been postponed to the very last chapter. The very central does and this ʾalif is pronounced an, both in pause form and and characteristic Arabic grammatical feature of case-end- in the corresponding full form. The only difference here with ings is now just rendered in a very compressed scheme in the full form concerns the nunation that is not visible in Chapter 2, not systematically as a topic or chapter on its own, pause forms. Besides, the author did not take the chance to as the treatment of this feature would deserve. mention the fact that words ending with hamza or tā ᾽ marbūṭa Chapter 6 combines ʼinna and kāna, together with their never receive a final alif᾽ in accusative forms.3) so-called ‘sisters’. This concurrence in one chapter is justi- In the scheme on p. 2 the author presents four possible fied because they share particular predicates and subjects forms according to the heading of form: pause and full form, only named in relation to them. The learning point here is to and to the heading of number: singular and plural (irregular enable the students to distinguish subjects and predicates in broken). Other plurals and the dual are treated in Ch. 2. In nominal sentences starting with the particle ʼinna as well as this scheme only indefinite forms are represented; their defi- to make such a distinction in verbal sentences with the verb nite counterparts are sorely missing here. So I consider this kāna. scheme and the accompanying explanation rather defective Each chapter consists of the following parts: Introductory and incomplete. Arabic text(s) with highlighting of the forthcoming main In Ch. 2 about noun-adjective and iḍāfa᾽ phrases I was very grammatical matter, Form (equalling morphological ele- surprised that MA does not explicity4) mention the important ments), Use (resembling syntactical elements), Other points characteristic Arabic grammatical rule that non-human plural to note (including references to topics and also sections of nouns behave as singular feminine. This rule should be noted Learner’s Guide), and finally Exercises (always five of in Context as Learner’s Guide does (on p. 64). them). In Ch. 3 about present and future tenses of the verb it It’s my opinion that the organization of the chapters is strikes me that MA, while he introduces here the term ‘nomi- very logical and analytical. The ‘Introductory text’ is not nal sentence’ (in ‘Other points to note’), doesn’t mention the only drawing the reader’s attention to the following gram- term ‘verbal sentence’. It would have been easy to do so after matical topic but also preludes on the strengthening of the the last bullet of this part (p. 18), starting with “If the verb recognition skills to be executed by students in this chapter, precedes the subject (…)”. The accompanying examples are which reaches its climax in the final exercises. In the subse- restricted to humans, singular and plural only, not dual, while quent part ‘Form’ the main grammatical point is explained non-humans are not accounted for at all here. Besides, the in a very lucid way which must be easy to grasp for the target grammatical terms ‘nominal sentence’ and ‘verbal sentence’ readership of this book. The following section ‘Use’ enables the student to build further on the fundamentals laid before, keeping their attention to the main point. The theoretical part 3) MA could have done so, for example by making use of the second text of this chapter on p. 2, line 6, where the accusative form masāʾan (‘in the evening’) occurs, ending with Hamza but without final ʾalif. 2) Learner’s Guide, Appendix D ‘Identifying the Root and Looking up 4) Implicitly application of this rule is shown in this chapter, in the text Words in the Dictionary’, pp. 363-371. on p. 8, line 6, in al-ʾansām-u l-qawiyyat-u (‘the strong breezes’). 415 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — ARABICA 416 are hardly to be found in the Index; you will not catch them I miss examples of geminated verbs and also of verbs with under ‘sentence’, as you might expect, but surprisingly under hamza as first radical. ‘subject’. On both p. 97 and p. 99, the author uses in the examples In this chapter I would have appreciated that MA had verbs with t as third radical. Such verbs may hamper the included the generally known interchangeability of the sub- student in identifying the verbs in the right way, because they junctive particle an᾽ together with the following verb in sub- can easily be confused with verbs in the past tense.