Biradicalist Mimophonic Triradicalism: Sounds, root nuclei and root complements in M. Ḥ. Ḥ. Gabal’s ‘etymological’ dictionary of Arabic (2012)

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the monumental ‘etymological dictionary’, or ‘lexicon’, al-Muʕǧam alištiqāqī al-muʔaṣṣal, 1 by the late Egyptian professor of Arabic language at al-Azhar University, Muḥammad Ḥasan Ḥasan Gabal (d. 2015),2 and tries to situate it on the map of positions taken in Arabic and Semitic Studies in the West regarding the question whether or not the triradical roots of the Arabic and Semitic lexicon may have developed, via extension, from earlier biradical ones.