Dictionary of Roots-Qur'aan WordNet

Mazhar

Semantics of Grand Qur'aan

Linguistic Semantics is the study of meanings as inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences and larger units of discourse-text. It is used for understanding human expression through language. The discourse-text of Grand Qur'aan is in Arabic a perspicuous, eloquent, distinctive and precisely expressive language; the language of the sons of soil of Arabian Peninsula.

Experts suggest that it is useful to view the vocabulary of a language/text as a set of words referring to a series of conceptual fields. In linguistics, these divisions are called Semantic fields. A semantic field or semantic domain is a set of words grouped by meaning referring to a specific subject; languages will have fields of distance, location, size, shape, time, emotion, beliefs, economics, academic subjects, natural phenomena, etc. Each field can have many sub-divisions or lexical sets actual words and expressions. Semantic fields are arranged hierarchically, going from the more general to the more specific. Linguists generally refer the general word by umbrella term "superordinate" and the specific word as "hyponym". The propositional meaning carried by a general word or superordinate is part of the meaning of each of its hyponyms but not vice versa.

Arabic words stem from Roots. Root is a cluster of three, in some cases four, consonants of Alphabet placed in a peculiar sequence. Out of 29 parts of Arabic alphabet, Aleph is not a consonant since it has no sound; hence it is never the part of a Root. Each Root is specific to a semantic field referring to a specific subject.
The Root has specific, defined, distinct, conspicuous and apparent concept, phenomenon, perception and signification folded in it. It is the source, the reservoir of knowledge. Roots can be termed as "repertory of frames" of Arabic language if we follow frames approach to semantic analysis.

The amazing fact about the Roots of Arabic is that the perception infolded in them is reflective of physical?scientific realities pertaining both to matter and life. They seem as if they are the baseline for scientific study and investigation.

Words originating from these Roots; on various well defined patterns-moulds-structuring frames, retain the original perception infolded in the Root, dominantly and conspicuously.
Additional meanings and connotation, shades and colours get added to the perception-concept-meanings infolded in the Root by the peculiar pattern - placing of vowels?syllabification and addition of consonants.

Moreover, relational aspect of the semantic field will also influence and add connotations to the word with reference to its collocates. Hence; the meanings, perception and connotation of an Arabic word is the composite whole of the perception infolded in its Root, coupled with meanings associated with its pattern, and its relation to the semantic field where it is used?collocates.

It signifies that the basic meanings of a Root and word do not exhaust when they are used in a different semantic field, relational area, while necessarily retaining the base meanings. This phenomenon is particular to the words which are other than those coined to denote and identify a specific tangible object, or person, i.e. substantive nouns. Actions and gestures, bodily actions or body language has various levels of intensity, depth, magnitude proportionally reflecting the feel and state of heart and mind.

The words in the miscellany of Grand Qur'aan belong to only 1646 Roots. Therefore, at preliminary stage, we should feel pleased that learning the skill for real-time translation of Qur'aan is rendered facilitative by the use of a small part of otherwise large vocabulary of Arabic in its discourse. If we merely run through the basic perception infolded in these Roots, we will gain a fairly good understanding of meanings of the words of Grand Qur'aan, even before learning the meanings added by other features of the language; morphology and syntax.

Dictionary of Roots and Qur'aan WordNet

Mazhar

Semantics of Grand Qur'aan - Dictionary of Roots and and Lexicon of Qur'aan

Introduction
Semantics of Qur'aan is like "semantics" of DNA?triplet schema
Root +
Morphology +
Syntax

Features of this project

Explains the semantic essence and irreducible features embedded in each Root.

Its semantic field and other roots relating to its domain.

Links Lane Lexicon html

Links Classical Lexicons

All words stemming from the Root that occur in Qur'aan and mentioned in the Root page

Morpholigical and syntactic features of words are also mentioned.

Help is sought for completing it.

Semantics of Grand Qur'aan - Dictionary of Roots and and Lexicon of Qur'aan