The Role of Poetic Meter in Syntactic Movement (Samples from Bin Malik’s ‘Sharh al-Tashīl’)

Abstract

Syntactic Movement is one of the linguistic techniques addressed by both syntacticians and rhetoricians by using purely structural considerations. The rhetoricians speak of the syntactic movement with semantic rhetorical considerations capable of observing the aesthetics of the Arabic language, as these structural and semantic functions are considered the basis on which scholars relied in their view of the syntactic movement. However, this research aims to identify the syntactic movement and its effect on the poetic meter and what is related to the poetic meter in terms of rhyme, narration, and verbal and phonetic collocations, with an emphasis on the presence of rhetorical and synthetic advantages along with issues of meter and rhyme. This research, thus, gives insight into the factors influencing the syntactic movement in the structure of the poetic text and illustrates the metrical effect left by the syntactic movement in the meter of the poetic line through a set of applied models taken from the book "Ibn Malik’s Sharh Al-Tasheel, tackling the views of syntacticians in the formation of the structure of this syntactic movement. The significance of this research lies in addressing a synthetic linguistic style subject to another power than the power of syntax, which is the power of met

Syntactic Movement is one of the linguistic techniques that has been addressed by both syntacticians and rhetoricians. They explored the rhetorical and semantic roles of these movements as well as their structural functions.

This paper addresses syntactic movement and its effect on poetic meter including rhyme and lexical and phonetic overlap. The study emphasizes how rhetorical and structural strategies may serve meter and rhyme.

 Accordingly, this paper highlights one of the factors that affect the structure of the poetic text and the poetic meter of the poetic line. The syntacticians points of view were taken into consideration regarding the construction of these movements. The data was collected from Bin Malik’s book ‘Sharh al-Tashīl’. The analytical and descriptive approaches were adopted to achieve the purpose of the study.

The importance of this study lies in the fact that it deals with a structural linguistic technique that is constrained by non-structural rules (i.e., poetic meters). It also shows how Arab poets were highly interested in maintaining the rhythm of their poetic lines.

The first part of the paper addresses the syntacticians’ views concerning movement. The second part investigates the relationship between movement and meter. Finally, poetic samples were taken from Bin Malik’s book involving syntactic Movements.

er. Its significance is also reflected in the fact that it shows the poets' clear interest in preserving the rhythm of their poetic verses, especially those whose narrators are unknown, dealing with that according to the descriptive and analytical approach.