A Quantitative and Stylo-Statistical Approach to the Phono-Semantic Structure of Two Companion-Prayers of the Qurʾān: al-Falaq and al-Nās

Year 2011, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 19 - 45, 01.06.2011

Afnan Hussein Fatani

https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2011.21.26

Abstract

This paper is a linguistic investigation of al-Falaq and al-Nās, two
companion-prayers in the Qurʾān. Although both prayers exhibit a
marked symmetry on both lexical and phonological levels, this symmetry
has not been extensively studied by scholars due to the highly
familiar nature of these two short prayers. Immediately noticeable on
the phonological scale is the highly cacophonous and staccato
rhythms of al-Falaq, which appear to be produced by a profusion of
fricatives (/f/, /kh/) and plosives (/q/, /b/, /d/), combined with a
scarcity of nasals and glides. In contrast, al-Nās has a much smoother
sound patterning as a result of the profusion of nasals and sibilants.
This striking numerical difference in the phonological configuration
of these two companion-prayers leads us to suspect the presence of
phonosymbolism or a correlation between phonological patterning
and subject matter. In other words, this variation can be accounted for
by shifts in subject matter from the dynamic process of “splitting” in
al-Falaq to the movements of the Hisser (Satan) in al-Nās. Subjecting
the phonological data in both texts to simple statistical checks will allow
us to be sure that these observed patterns are indeed statistically
significant and not attributed simply to chance variability. The perspective
that I am adopting here is stylo-statistical, where the main
purpose is to devise a measure that is not only statistically satisfactory
but stylistically interesting as well.

Keywords

Arabic phonosymbolism, phonological symmetry, stylostatistics, Arabic Qurʾān, iconicity, functions of fricatives and plosives

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