The optimisation of the analytical conditions for the spectrophotometric determination of canavanine (a non-protein amino acid that is important in animal nutrition) with pentacyanoaminoferrate-(11) and -(Ill) (PCAF) is described. The most influential parameters, e.g., reagent preparation, oxidant, pH, buffer composition, interferences, etc., were studied. The best results were obtained with freshly synthesised PCAF whose aqueous solutions were either kept in the dark or activated with UV light, with pH 7 phosphate buffer, by the addition of potassium persulphate solution (1 %) and by measurement at 520 nm. The procedure was applied to the determination of canavanine in an acidic extract of lentil vetch seeds, a legume that is widely used in animal feed.

No abstract

This chapter describes a syntactical structure typical of Andalusi Arabic, as well as many other Arabic varieties: the use of a nominal suffix -an/-in after an indefinite noun followed by a modifier. Some scholars have linked this morpheme to the so-called tanwīn (‘nunation’), the morpheme of indefiniteness of Classical Arabic. However, both the synchronic analysis of the linguistic facts as they appear in the Andalusi corpus explored in this chapter (the poetry of Ibn Quzmān, twelfth century) and the use of this suffix in other Arabic dialects suggest a different function. The adnominal linker represents not an indefiniteness morpheme or the remains of the tanwīn of Classical Arabic, but a syntactic connection between the indefinite noun and its modifier. It was not a sporadic, stylistic, or optional trait, but a specific and almost compulsory feature widespread in Andalusi Arabic sources, at least until the thirteenth century.

No abstract

No abstract