ABSTRACT
Text Any given stretch of speech or writing assumed to make a coherent whole. A minimal text may consist of a single word – for instance, the road sign ﻒﻗ ‘stop’ – provided this is construed as an independent message. A maximal text may run into thousands of pages. An example of a maximal text in Arabic would be the many volumes of كﻮﻠﻤﻟاو ﻞﺳﺮﻟا ﺦﯾرﺎﺗ بﺎﺘﻛ by the classical Islamic writer يﺮﺒﻄﻟا ﺮﯾﺮﺟ ﻦﺑ ﺪﻤﺤﻣ, sometimes referred to in English as Tabari’s Annals. The notion of ‘coherent whole’ is inherently vague. So, while Tabari’s Annals might be said to make a ‘coherent whole’ and thus be a text, so might a chapter within Tabari’s Annals, or even a section within a chapter. It is thus possible to have larger texts which themselves contain numerous shorter texts.
