Transitivité et intransitivité dans la grammaire de Bar Hebræus

Abstract

This contribution deals with how Bar Hebræus borrowed the notion of transitivity from the grammarian of Arabic, Zamaḫšarī, and how he reformulated it within his grammar of Syriac. I proceed by translating and commenting his text and comparing it with the text by Zamaḫšarī. His chapter is organised into four sections: 1. First section: concerning examples of intransitive and transitive verbs; 2. Second section: on the causes of transitivity; 3. Third section: concerning the failure of the causes of transitivity; 4. Fourth section: concerning verbs which are both transitive and intransitive. The difference between the two grammarians is manifest in the final two sections in which it appears that although Bar Hebræus borrowed the concept of transitivity from Zamaḫšarī, his treatment goes far beyond what is found in his source. Indeed, the only concern of the grammarian of Arabic is to ensure that all the complements are in the accusative and to identify the causes of transitivity. Without the problem of assigning the accusative, Bar Hebræus not only discusses transitivity (single, double or triple) and its causes (for us, FIV and FII) as Zamaḫšarī does, but he also envisages the failure of these causes: the cases in which they do not produce transitivity and the cases in which they produce something different from transitivity, namely, a new foreign sense. Finally, Bar Hebræus studies in depth the labile verbs which are both transitive and intransitive.

Keywords

• Arabic grammar
• Bar Hebræus
• Syriac grammar
• transitivity
• Zamaḫšarī