A case of "pivot" derivation in Arabic

What is it about?

Maʿīn, transliterated as Maïn, is the brand name of a Tunisian mineral water. It may be a word play with the colloquial Arabic noun phrase mā ʿīn (cl. māʾ ʿayn) « spring water », but it is also a Qurʾānic reminiscence. Indeed, it appears four times in the Qurʾān, qualifying twice the water, once implicitly and once explicitly, and twice, in a metophorical way, the drink of the chosen ones in Paradise. Medieval Arabic sources wonder whether maʿīn should be read as a maf ʿūl, related to the lexical family of ʿayn (« spring », cf. the verb ʿāna-yaʿīnu « to reach a spring ») or as a faʿīl, related to the lexical family of maʿn (« the running of water »). This discussion shows that maʿīn is the word allowing the transition from one lexical family to another. It illustratres both the formal and semantic conditions of this kind of derivation, which can be defined as « pivotderivation ».

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