Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a general state of the art of Arabic phonology, Broselow and Shosted, Fu, and Hermes to take up more specific issues that have dominated the debate about Arabic phonology in the last four or five decades, namely syllable structure and the pharyngeal and emphatic consonants respectively. It provides an excellent summary of the two major positions on the issue of how Arabic words are formed, namely the root-based position and the stem-based position. The book focuses on syntax and semantic and pragmatic aspects that have syntactic dimensions. It explores a leading figure in Functional approaches to Arabic linguistics, reviews an alternative approach to the Arabic language that draws heavily on Functional Grammar. The book presents a clear overview of the available evidence that attempts to provide more specific dates for the earlier stages of Arabic and its geographical location.