ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argued that the study of early Arabie grammar of the second and third centuries a.h. should be based on the sources of that era, and not on the work of the later grammarians, as these often do not report the real stand of a particular grammarian on a particular issue, and more often misunderstand certain early grammatical concepts, or use their own terminology rather than the older one to elucidate them. The problem becomes more acute when we find that many modem scholars can still only see early Arabie grammar through the eyes of the later grammarians, beginning with the fourth-century figures and probably ending with Suyuti. Learning about early grammar from later sources is inescapable, given the scarcity of existing second- and thirdcentury sources, but this is nevertheless permissible only if we do not impose the method, and especially the terminology, of the later authors on early grammar.
