"Measuring against the majority" among Arabic grammarians and its implications

Abstract

All Arabic grammarians commonly assert that "the majority (al-akthar) is what is used as a standard, not the minority (al-aqall)." Sibawayh said, "Because verbs in nouns, when they exceed in number over verbs, only their commonality is used for the dual verbs, so the majority is measured against them" (1/101). He also said, "It is the most skillful and beautiful of boys, not continuous and not measured against it" (1/41). He further stated, "But the majority is measured against it" (2/216). And he said, "So this minority are rarities preserved by the Arabs and not measured against" (2/215). So what does Sibawayh—and those who came after him among the grammarians—mean by this term "the majority," and why should it be measured against rather than the minority? It may be abundant in what he heard from the Arabs.

Indeed, all those who came after Sibawayh among the early grammarians understood well what he intended by that. The first to attempt to clarify "measuring against the majority" while preserving the minority, which may not have others in what he heard from the Arabs, was Abu Bakr ibn al-Sarraj (in his book "Al-Usul fi al-Nahw" (1/57)), followed by his student Abu Ali al-Farsi. Ibn Junayd elaborated on this topic thereafter.