The present volume has largely emerged from a section on Comparative Semitic and Arabic studies
at the conference Horizons of Islamic Theology which was held at Goethe University Frankfurt
in September 2014. It comprises five contributions and covers an area reaching from general and
comparative Afro-Asiatic syntax to South Arabian phonology to diachronic and synchronic Arabic
linguistics. Ahmad Al-Jallad explores the diagnostic features the languages commonly bundled as
Ancient North-Arabian and discusses their relationship with Arabic. Daniel Birnstiel
investigates the meaning of the Qur'anic term mubin from a synchronic linguistic perspective.
Lutz Edzard discusses various functions of the Arabic accusative and demonstrates how they can
be analyzed as marked nominatives from a comparative Afro-Asiatic and Semitic perspective.
Phillip Stokes traces the history of the common Arabic dialectal relative marker illi and he
adduces evidence suggesting a derivation from the definite article *al followed by a plural
demonstrative *¿ulay. Janet Watson and Abdullah Musallam al-Mahri look at word stress in Mehri
from the perspective of stratal optimality theory and show how the rules determining Mehri word
stress may be analyzed as combinations of lexical stress and the interaction of constraints.
