فوضعوا علم المعاني للأول
They therefore established ʿilm al-maʿani for the first task.
The first task is avoiding error in conveying the intended meaning in its rhetorical situation. ʿIlm al-maʿani studies how alternative structures of Arabic discourse are selected according to the demands of the occasion.
For example, it examines reinforcement for a denying audience, purposeful fronting of a constituent, and fitting degrees of brevity or elaboration. It is not merely the memorization of dictionary meanings; it concerns appropriate choice of sentence structure.