Military ranks: a study in derivation and significance

The idea of ​​the research is to stand at the known military ranks whose names are almost the same in all Arab countries, and are divided into ranks of soldiers and officers and analyze their semantic dimensions from several aspects. The first aspect was by citing the lexical meaning of the root of each rank and balancing it with its real meaning, i.e. with its meaning in military usage. The second aspect was represented by standing on the morphological form of each rank and knowing its meaning and the extent of its harmony and consistency with the word that came with it. The other aspect was represented by analyzing the hierarchy of meaning for military ranks, i.e. the semantic gradation from the most powerful to the least powerful; as the hierarchy of the lexical meanings of the ranks is consistent with the hierarchy of ranks, so the higher the rank, the more a word is used for it that indicates a stronger and more influential lexical meaning. The lexical meaning of brigadier general is stronger and more influential than the rank that precedes it, and so on for the rest of the ranks in general. This is one of the results of the research, in addition to the fact that most of the ranks came in the form of Fa'il, which indicates severity and strength, which is in harmony with the general meaning in the military field and what it suggests of meanings of severity and hardness that characterize this field. The meaning of abundance in Fa'il was consistent with the abundance of powers and responsibilities of the holder of the rank. Then, most of the words of the ranks came in a linguistic meaning that is appropriate with the realistic meaning (the meaning of usage in the military field.