Statement of the Problem and Objective: This study critically examines the semantic level in the linguistic project of Dr. Muḥammad Ḥusayn Āl Yāsīn, taking his book al-Aḍdād fī al-Lugha as its theoretical foundation, Risālat al-Aḍdād, which he edited, and al-Istiftāʾāt al-Lughawiyya as its applied domain. The study proceeds from the methodological observation that all of Āl Yāsīn’s semantic inquiries—from aḍdād (auto-antonymy) to sound symbolism, semantic change, and the semantics of particles and grammatical words—are grounded in a single, coherent interpretive principle: the centrality of context. The problem, however, is that the unrestricted application of this principle turns it into a key that opens every door and therefore belongs to none, since a principle that explains everything predicts nothing. The study examines this principle from three perspectives: its explanatory capacity; the absence of a criterion specifying when context ceases to provide an adequate explanation and inherent lexical antonymy must be conceded; and the tension between his descriptivism in treating aḍdād and his prescriptivism in correcting usage. The study aims to clarify the methodological foundations underlying this level of his thought, test the consistency of these foundations in his applications, reveal their internal tensions, and determine the position of his intellectual project within the development of Arabic semantic studies between tradition and modernity. The significance of the study lies in the fact that the semantic level in Āl Yāsīn’s thought, despite its centrality, has not previously been examined in an independent critical study. The research questions are formulated around four main issues: What are the methodological foundations of the semantic level in his thought, and to what extent are they consistently maintained in his applications? Has he proposed an operational criterion for distinguishing inherent lexical antonymy from context-dependent polysemy? To what extent is his descriptive approach compatible with his prescriptive approach? What is the position of his intellectual project in relation to the Arabic linguistic tradition and modern semantic studies? It should be emphasized from the outset that the critique offered here is evaluative rather than refutational. This is not intended to undermine the validity of his individual and particular analyses, most of which are precise and well-founded, but rather to examine the methodological structure underlying them and to identify its limits and gaps.
Methodology: The study employs a descriptive-analytical, critical, and comparative methodology. First, Āl Yāsīn’s semantic views are described on the basis of his own texts; then, the methodological structure underlying these views is analyzed; subsequently, they are compared with the views of earlier and contemporary scholars, leading to a reasoned critical evaluation. This process requires an inductive examination of his texts in the three aforementioned sources, the extraction of implicit principles that he does not explicitly formulate, and the testing of their consistency through their application to the lexical items under discussion. The comparative section examines the views of Ibn Jinnī, Ibn Fāris, al-Suyūṭī, Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Lughawī, and Ibn al-Anbārī among the classical scholars, and those of Ibrāhīm Anīs, Aḥmad Mukhtār ʿUmar, and Tammām Ḥassān among modern scholars. The scope of the study is limited to the three aforementioned sources. The other levels of Āl Yāsīn’s work—phonological, morphological, and syntactic—are considered only insofar as necessary to demonstrate the unity of his method
Discussion and Analysis: An examination of the five lexical items analyzed by Āl Yāsīn—“al-ẓann”, “al-qurʾ”, “al-jawn”, “al-sudfa”, and “al-shaʿb”—shows that the five factors to which he attributes the phenomenon are sufficient to account for it: “al-ẓann” is related to differences in degrees of probability determined by context rather than to inherent antonymy; “al-qurʾ” results from the overlap between the juristic and linguistic domains; “al-jawn” and “al-sudfa” are attributable to dialectal variation; and “al-shaʿb” involves the intermingling of literal and figurative meaning. Nevertheless, the analysis revealed three methodological shortcomings. First is excessive restriction: Āl Yāsīn narrows the domain of antonymy without drawing a clear boundary around it, thereby leaving his method unfalsifiable. Second is the problem of circularity: the word is explained through context, while context is in turn interpreted through lexical items that themselves require contextual explanation. Third is his reliance on a subjective criterion in his account of sound symbolism, which places him in a position similar to that for which he criticizes earlier scholars. The analysis also reveals an internal tension between his descriptivism to the explanation of linguistic phenomena and his prescriptivism to the evaluation of contemporary usage. At the same time, a consistent and operational principle emerges in his favour: the distinction between epistemic levels. This includes distinguishing the linguistic from the juristic in “al-qurʾ”, the linguistic from the theological in “sarmadī”, the linguistic from the cultural in “warāʾ”, and phonetic similarity from semantic association in “wāḥa”. Furthermore, his applications of the cases discussed in al-Istiftāʾāt al-Lughawiyya—including “warāʾ”, “mirfaq”, “wāḥa”, “kharīṭa”, Iraqi “dāl”, and “lan”—show that each begins with a case question and leads to a precise answer, and that in most cases the issue is ultimately related to the same principle of the centrality of context. This demonstrates the unity of his intellectual project while simultaneously confirming the need for a qualification capable of preserving the interpretive capacity of this principle. A comparison with contemporary Arabic semantic studies further indicates that Āl Yāsīn shares with Anīs, Mukhtār ʿUmar, and Tammām Ḥassān a commitment to the same general principles, but differs from them in his deeper engagement with the earlier sources, while his theoretical formulation remains less developed than theirs.
Findings: The study concludes that Āl Yāsīn elevated the question of aḍdād from the level of lexical classification to that of semantic interpretation, which constitutes a significant strength of his approach. The most prominent feature of his method is his distinction between epistemic levels. In his discussion of terminology, he also provides a three-part operational criterion with broader applicability: the validity of the root, the clarity of the mechanism of semantic transfer, and the stability of usage. Conversely, he narrows the domain of antonymy without establishing a clear boundary for it; he does not make use of classifications of oppositeness developed in modern semantic studies, despite their availability during his time; and his semantic project remains dispersed across brief responses to specific questions rather than being systematized into a comprehensive theory. Nevertheless, his observations are, in most cases, accurate and valuable and have the potential to provide a foundation for a theory of Arabic semantics situated between tradition and modernity. The study therefore proposes four directions for further research: first, developing an operational criterion for distinguishing inherent antonymy from polysemy by drawing on classifications of antonymic relations in modern semantic studies; second, re-examining, word by word, classical works on aḍdād on the basis of his criteria in order to compile a critical dictionary of antonyms; third, testing the hypothesis of sound symbolism through statistical and empirical methods; and fourth, collecting his dispersed semantic responses and classifying them according to mechanisms of semantic change in order to reconstruct his implicit methodology within a comprehensive theoretical framework.