Elicitation and substitution in pre-Islamic poetry in dictionaries of words until the end of the fourth century AH.

Abstract

Pre-Islamic poetry is considered an important source for studying the Arabic language and its literature, and it serves as a fundamental pillar for linguistic research. It has enriched the field of language studies with its poetic texts, which are invaluable to scholars. Poetry has become a vital resource for citation in areas such as phonetics, morphology, grammar, and dialect studies. Much of our understanding in these areas is built upon it.

Regarding phonetic rules and studies, poetry played a significant role in preserving the sounds and phonetic phenomena of the Arabic language. Its musical qualities allowed for the identification of various phonetic phenomena, including adjectives and substitutions. Additionally, pre-Islamic poetry often contains ancient words that can be found in dictionaries. Many of these phonetic phenomena undergo changes in pronunciation that affect the structure of the word without altering its meaning. These incidental changes are important to lexicographers' treatment of phonetic phenomena such as causation and substitution. Pre-Islamic poetry greatly contributes to the preservation and understanding of these phenomena.