David Larsen, <<Captivity and Semiosis in Early Arabic Poetry>>

The idea of meaning is hard to define in any language, and words for meaning are often resistant to lexical analysis. In this regard, the Arabic noun ma‘nā (naturalized throughout the languages of the Islamicate world) is exemplary. Careful attention to morphology and historic usage reveals a connection between the “meaning” named by al-ma‘nā and the social facts of subjugation and captivity. It is a connection without exact precedent in Western semiotics, though it is suggested in philosophical and psychological literature at large, and in this talk it comes brightened with poetic evidence from the first few centuries of recorded Arabic verse.