The analysis of valency in Sībawayhi’s Kitāb

Sībawayhi’s Kitāb devotes a large section (chapters 8-17 in Derenbourg’s edition) to the analysis of different typologies of verbal valency in Arabic. This analysis is unprecedented in other linguistic traditions in both extent and deepness, and largely overperforms later Arab grammarians’ treatment in its peculiar concern for what would be called thematic roles or actants in contemporary linguistics, which has been considerably studying this matter for the last decades. Valency in the Kitāb is analyzed from a prevalent logic-semantic perspective which strikingly differs from the sharper distinction of the level of lafẓ and maʿnā which becomes normative for later grammarians. In particular, Sībawayhi accurately distinguishes verbs that “pass over” (taʿaddā) one or more objects (mafʿūl) and/or subjects/agents (fāʿil), which refers to the semantic-thematic role of the arguments rather than to their “surface” realization as fāʿil or mafʿūl. This analysis is an interesting earliest example of the type of classification of verb classes which became a central issue in some of contemporary lexicalist approaches to grammar. The paper presents a taxonomy of verb classes detected by Sībawayhi, together with a discussion of a number of relevant issues for the history of linguistics and the relation of historical theories with contemporary linguistic analysis.