The Theory of Semantic Fields and its Presence in the Arab Heritage

Abstract

Arab scholars played a prominent role in addressing many issues related to the semantics of words; they collected and recorded the vocabulary of the Arabic language by going out into the Bādiyah. They studied it, deduced the rules that governed it, and determined the meanings of the words they collected from the Bādiyah. This played a role in preserving the integrity of the Arabic language and understanding the Qur'anic text. As a result, research into semantic issues in the Arab Dīwān arose, which contains great linguistic and semantic wealth. The efforts of scholars were directed towards developing dictionaries of meanings and dictionaries of words to preserve words and their meanings, and their efforts were characterized by methodology, accuracy, breadth, organization, and clarity. The dictionaries of meanings were based on the idea of semantic fields, even if their authors did not explicitly mention it. In the end, we did not find the term itself present in the Arab heritage; however, we found a noticeable presence of its applications since the beginning of Arabic linguistic studies. We also found that it is not accurate, as Ahmed Mokhtar 'Omar suggested, that the concept of semantic fields did not crystallize until the 1920s and 1930s. The correct view is that the concept has been applied by Arab scholars since the 2nd century AH, but its formulation as a theory with its own principles and foundations came later.