SEMGRP: Semantic Grouping

    From The Encyclopedia of Arabic Rhetoric

    مراعاة النظير
    SEMGRP: Semantic Grouping
    CategoryLinguistic Embellishments
    (‘ilm al-badī‘)
    SubcategoryGrouping & Distinguishing
    Synonymsالتناسب، الائتلاف، التوفيق
    Built upon6 sources
      
    Annotation Unit
    ARDT CodeSEMGRP
    Level1
      
    Included in Taxonomy
    ARDTv0.1.1
    v0.1.0
      
    External Identifiers
    BALAGHAScoreCB-1
    BalaghaBaseQ83
    OpenAlexW4415388529
      
    Cite this page
    🔗 Live DOI10.64393/balagha.Q83
     
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    Definition

    Semantic Grouping (murāʿāt al-naẓīr) is an Arabic rhetorical device where the communicator brings together a thing and what is congruous with it, not by way of opposition.[1][2][3][4]

    It is also called al-tanāsub, al-iʾtilāf, al-tawfīq, al-ittifāq wa-al-iṭṭirād, al-muʾākha, and al-talfīq.[2][3][5][4]

    Al-Nābulusī provides further evidence for this underlying operation within his discussion of al-iḍrāb, where he describes the communicator as bringing together congruous clauses or individual expressions (jumal aw mufradāt mutanāsiqa) separated by a particle of iḍrāb. He further notes that its finest form exhibits ascending or descending progression (taraqqin aw tadallin).[6]

    Linguistic Operations

    • The device consists in assembling two or more mutually congruous elements, provided they are not related by opposition.[1][2][3][4]
    • The congruence may obtain between two items or among more than two.[7]
    • The congruence may be between word and meaning, word and word, or meaning and meaning.[2][3][4] Al-Nābulusī therefore allows correspondence at the phonetic level, the semantic level, or both, although he himself questions whether purely phonetic correspondence can be distinguished from PARONOM: Paronomasia.[4]

    Recognition

    • Are two or more elements brought together in one expression?
    • Do they share suitability or congruence rather than opposition?
    • If the relation is oppositional, the device is antithesis rather than observance of counterparts.

    Diagnostic Communicative Enhancements

    • Semantic coherence: Bringing together mutually suitable elements creates unity and internal consistency in the utterance.
    • Reinforcement through associative clustering: The grouping of related elements strengthens the intended meaning by mutual semantic support.
    • Imagistic enrichment: When the related elements belong to the same imagistic field, the expression becomes denser and more vivid.
    • Completion and closure: In tashābuh al-aṭrāf, the ending completes and reinforces the opening by returning to a congruous meaning.
    • Ease of reception: Grouping mutually fitting elements makes the meaning easier to follow and strengthens the conceptual unity of the passage.
    • Ascending or descending progression: Where the grouped elements form a scale, Semantic Grouping may realise the independently attested patterns of ascending progression (al-taraqqī) or descending progression (al-tadallī). ʿAkkāwī reports al-taraqqī as mentioning a meaning and then following it with something more emphatic, while al-tadallī proceeds from the higher to the lower for a rhetorical purpose.[8][9]

    Applying the Recognition Framework

    The information on this page can be used to evaluate whether this device is present in a candidate lexical item using the Specific Device Recognition part of the Universal Framework for Identifying Arabic Rhetorical Devices:

    • Use the Definition, Mechanism, and Recognition sections of this page in Step 1.
    • Apply the substitution test in Step 2.
    • Consider contextual indicators in Step 3.
    • Use the Diagnostic Communicative Enhancements section of this page in Step 4.

    Instances of of Semantic Grouping

    The sources identify two special instances of Semantic Grouping:

    SEMGRP-BE: Beginning–End Correspondence tashābuh al-aṭrāf

    Q302 A passage concludes with something congruent in meaning with its opening.[7][3][10] Nābulsī defines it as concluding a discourse with something appropriate in meaning to its beginning.[10]

    لَا تُدْرِكُهُ الْأَبْصَارُ وَهُوَ يُدْرِكُ الْأَبْصَارَ وَهُوَ اللَّطِيفُ الْخَبِيرُ

    "Vision perceives Him not, but He perceives all vision; and He is the Subtle, the Acquainted."

    Explanation
    The ending returns to and completes the semantic frame of the opening through congruous divine attributes.[7][3]

    من أحسنَ إلى الناسِ عادَ إليه الجميلُ، وكان محمودَ الذكرِ.

    "Whoever does good to people will have goodness return to him, and his remembrance will be praised."

    Explanation
    The closing phrase returns to and suits the opening idea of beneficence, completing the semantic frame.

    "The garden woke in spring, and by evening every path still breathed of spring."

    Explanation
    The ending returns to a meaning congruent with the opening idea of spring, creating semantic correspondence between the beginning and the end.

    SEMGRP-SC: Apparent Semantic Congruence īhām al-tanāsub

    Q303 A case where the apparent congruence rests on a secondary or non-intended sense of one of the elements rather than its primary meaning.[7][3]

    الشَّمْسُ وَالْقَمَرُ بِحُسْبَانٍ ۝ وَالنَّجْمُ وَالشَّجَرُ يَسْجُدَانِ
    Qur'an 55:5–6

    "The sun and the moon follow their courses; and the stars and the trees prostrate."

    Explanation
    al-najm here means plant or herb, not star. It is not congruous with the sun and moon in its intended sense, but its word-form creates an apparent congruence by evoking its secondary sense of celestial body.[7][3]

    افتتحَ المصرفُ فرعًا جديدًا تحتَ شجرةٍ وارفةٍ.

    "The bank opened a new branch beneath a leafy tree."

    Explanation
    فرع means a branch or office of the bank in its intended sense, but it also means the branch of a tree. The presence of شجرة ("tree") therefore creates an apparent semantic congruence through the secondary, non-intended sense of فرع.

    "After months of uncertainty, the company finally found its footing on solid ground."

    Explanation
    Ground is intended in the abstract sense of a secure basis or position, but it also denotes the physical earth beneath one's feet. The presence of footing therefore creates an apparent semantic congruence through this secondary, non-intended physical sense.

    Examples

    وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْبَصِيرُ

    "And He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing."

    Explanation
    Two congruous divine attributes are brought together.[7]

    أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلَالَةَ بِالْهُدَىٰ فَمَا رَبِحَتْ تِجَارَتُهُمْ

    "Those are the ones who purchased error for guidance, and their trade profited not."
    Qur'an 2:16

    Explanation
    The verse gathers mutually fitting commercial elements.[7]

    كالقِسِيِّ المُحَنَّفاتِ بل الأسهمِ بَرِيَّةً بل الأوتارِ

    (...emaciated camels) like curved bows, nay, like the arrows when whittled sharp, nay, like the bowstrings.

    — Al-Buḥturī

    Explanation
    The successive similes are all drawn from the same semantic field (archery), showing the gathering of multiple congruous images within one domain.[5][11] Their successive presentation also illustrates how grouped elements may be arranged as a progression, a pattern independently described in the rhetorical tradition as al-taraqqī when the sequence proceeds towards something more emphatic.[8]

    وَمَشْمُولَةٍ فِي الْكَأْسِ تَحْسَبُ أَنَّهَا سَمَاءُ عَقِيقٍ زُيِّنَتْ بِالْكَوَاكِبِ
    بَنَتْ كَعْبَةَ اللَّذَّاتِ فِي حَرَمِ الْمُنَى فَحَجَّ إِلَيْهَا اللَّهْوُ مِنْ كُلِّ جَانِبِ

    "Many a wine held in a cup you may take to be a ruby-like heaven studded with stars; it builds a shrine of delights in the sanctuary of desire, and from every quarter pleasure makes pilgrimage to it."

    — Ibn Bāqiyya al-Qurṭubī

    Explanation
    The expression groups mutually congruous imagery into associated semantic fields: heaven and stars, and the Kaʿba, sanctuary, and pilgrimage.[4]

    تفتّحتِ الأزهارُ، وغرّدتِ الطيورُ، وهبّتِ النسماتُ في صباحِ الربيع.

    "The flowers blossomed, the birds sang, and the breezes blew on a spring morning."

    Explanation
    The elements belong to one mutually fitting semantic field (springtime and renewal), and are gathered without opposition.

    "The harbour was filled with sails, anchors, ropes, and gulls."

    Explanation
    The expression brings together several mutually congruous elements from the same semantic field of the harbour, without opposition.

    Different From

    See Also

    References

    1. ↑ a b c Aḥmad al-Hāshimī, Jawāhir al-Balāgha fī al-Maʿānī wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Badīʿ (Windsor: Hindāwī Foundation, 2019), 367, ISBN 9781527316386.
    2. ↑ a b c d e Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 646.
    3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 179-181.
    4. ↑ a b c d e f Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), p. 48; §73, ISBN 9783447040327.
    5. ↑ a b W. P. Heinrichs, ‘Rhetorical Figures’, in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey (London: Routledge, 1998), 658-659, ISBN 0415068088. DOI: 10.4324/9780203020425
    6. ↑ Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), pp. 46-47; §70, ISBN 9783447040327.
    7. ↑ a b c d e f g Ḥafnī Nāṣif, Muḥammad Diyāb, Sultan Muḥammad and Muṣṭafā Ṭammām, Durūs al-Balāgha (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2012), 108, ISBN 9786144162798.
    8. ↑ a b Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 308.
    9. ↑ Inʿām Fawwāl ʿAkkāwī, Al-Muʿjam al-Mufaṣṣal fī ʿUlūm al-Balāgha: Al-Badīʿ wa-al-Bayān wa-al-Maʿānī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1996), 299-300.
    10. ↑ a b Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician: Or The Schemer’s Skimmer : A Handbook of Late Arabic Badīʻ Drawn from ʻAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī’s Nafaḥāt al-Azhār ʻala Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Studies in Arabic Language and Literature 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 38, ISBN 9783447040327.
    11. ↑ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Atīq, ʿIlm al-Badīʿ (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2002), 180.



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