Abstract

The article aimed to uncover some aspects of the syntactic thought of al-Farra'a in determining the answers of some conditional phrases in the Quranic text in light of his book (The Meanings of the Quran). One of these aspects was a characteristic that involved the combination of two particles with a separator between them, differing in form but agreeing in meaning. Another aspect involved the combination of two particles that were identical in form and meaning. A third characteristic was associated with the addition of certain letters in the answer to the phrase, and a fourth was related to the omission of the answer because its meaning was known or inferred from the context, and it was omitted for the sake of brevity. One of the most important findings of the article was that it demonstrated that al-Farra'a had different views; some of which were similar to those of other grammarians while others were unique to him. This was evident when he examined and analyzed certain conditional phrases in the Quran, which required answers that seemed complicated and concealed. The study also found that the article was keen to elucidate the value of these characteristics and their implications in clarifying the meaning through citing statements that contradicted the al-Farra'a's views. Undoubtedly, such citations provided evidence in demonstrating these values. Furthermore, the article revealed that al-Farra'a was keen to seek the answer to the phrase from the text itself and from the context (of the speech). He only resorted to omitting the answer when he was certain that its meaning was known to the listeners. The article followed a descriptive approach to present these characteristics, firstly by identifying the Quranic text, then explaining the al-Farra'a's view on it. Additionally, where necessary, it adopted an inductive approach to rely on the opinions of other Arabic linguists who responded to similar texts, explained them, and provided concise references to other Quranic texts that fell under each characteristic mentioned by al-Farra'a.