Musnad, Musnad ʾilayhi and Commentaries on the Kitāb of Sībawayhi: Transmission and Development of Grammatical Knowledge between 2nd/8th and 5th/11th Centuries

The real meaning of the grammatical technical terms musnad and musnad ʾilayhi (only 4 occurrences in the Kitāb of Sībawayhi) has been the object of much scholarly debate since the beginnings of both Arabic grammatical tradition and Western scholarship on it. This is due, mainly, to a complete shift in meaning and function of this pair of terms from early (2nd/8th and 3 rd/9th centuries) to late (from 4th/10th century onwards) usage in Arabic grammatical tradition itself. The paper provides a comprehensive study of meaning and function of musnad and musnad ʾilayhi in the Kitāb of Sībawayhi and in contemporary and early subsequent Arabic grammatical tradition, as well as a survey of commentaries on the Kitāb of Sībawayhi from 2nd/8th to 5th/11th centuries, of interpretations given about musnad and musnad ʾilayhi in extant commentaries and of the role of Sībawayhi’s commentators (especially Sīrāfī, Rummānī and Šantamarī) in the transmission and development of Arabic linguistic thinking