Antigemination as Morphosemantic Integrity in Arabic Dialects

Abstract

Resistance to syncope in certain data from Arabic dialects motivated the proposal for antigemination as a function of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP). More recent revisions to the OCP as being operative in this phonological process have claimed that the non-application of syncope is due to homophony avoidance or resistance to paradigm collapse. The present analysis considers the importance of the morphosemantic properties of the forms which block syncope. The approach seeks to unify the targets of resistance to syncope (Forms II and III) in the discussion of gemination as encoding plurality. The cross-linguistic implications for the claims made here is that phonological processes will be prohibited from applying if their application results in morphosemantic information being jeopardised. This study investigates the problem of antigemination in certain Arabic dialects. I put forward the view that any proposal for the occurrence of antigemination should not be purely formally driven within an isolated phonological framework, but should also address a systematic study into the morphosemantic properties of the particular forms. This is dependent on acknowledging that there is a morphosemantic association between the verbal forms II and III, with particular reference to the reduplicative structure exhibited by geminate consonants and lengthened vowels. While this paper is not meant to be an exhaustive account of the morphosemantic or morphosyntactic properties of the Arabic verbs, I try to highlight the issue that considerations on these properties are dependent for an explanation of antigemination.