Evidence in ancient Arabic dictionaries and its role in the structure of the lexical text in Lisan al-Arab as an example

Abstract

The citation in the ancient Arabic dictionaries is considered as a literary and cultural
reference and forms the basic material in the structure of the lexical text.
The citation concept became fixed from the dictionary foundation process by
al-Khalil Ibn Ahmed al-Farahidi in his dictionary al-Ayn, and then developed with Ibn al-Qali’s al- Bare‘ fi-l-Lugha and Ibn Essayida's al-muhakkam dictionaries, and
then knew a great development in Ibn Mandor's Lissan al-‘Arab.
This research aims at making a survey on the totality of the linguistic citations
contained in the ancient dictionaries taken from the Holy Coran and from the
Arabic poetry and literary texts, proverbs and anecdotes.
What distinguishes the citation in the ancient Arabic dictionaries is the fact that
it is followed by its author, and its clear revelation of the adoption of a linguistic
code to be referenced to. Thus, it is considered as the optimal model that seeks to
clarify language use in society whether was it related to the term’s use in its literally
or figurative sense. It also highlights the context of its use and the defining forms of its
syntactic formation.
This study relies on applied models to reach theoretical conclusions on the citation’s
nature, its importance and the necessity of its presence in the Arabic dictionary.