Deriving Arabic verbal "templates" without templates

Sam Zukoff

doi:10.3765/plsa.v6i1.4955

Abstract

Much of the recent OT-based literature on Arabic root-and-pattern morphology has identified prosodic constraints as a main driver of the language’s verbal "templates". I argue instead that the system is governed by non-prosodic (morpho)phonological constraints (in the spirit of McCarthy 1993). Following much recent work, this approach views Arabic’s root-and-pattern system as garden-variety morpheme concatenation that is subject to unusual complications in the phonology and/or at the (morpho)syntax-phonology interface. This paper outlines an integrated analysis of the morphophonological properties of the Arabic verbal system without CV templates or prosodic constraints.

Highlights

Arabic’s root-and-pattern verbal morphology has long been described in terms of Consonant/Vowel (CV) “templates”, which were analytically reified in McCarthy (1979, 1981) and subsequent work
I outline an integrated analysis of the morphophonological properties of the Arabic verbal system, based on the types of constraints previewed in (1), that does not rely on CV templates or prosodic constraints
While we have identified a distinction in the alignment behavior between the two types of structures, the Mirror Alignment Principle (MAP) itself doesn’t directly explain why Reflexive /t/ is infixal in Form VIII

Summary

Introduction

Arabic’s root-and-pattern verbal morphology has long been described in terms of Consonant/Vowel (CV) “templates”, which were analytically reified in McCarthy (1979, 1981) and subsequent work (see, e.g., Faust 2015). Regardless of the constraint’s precise formulation, it is a lexically-indexed markedness constraint (following Pater 2009, a.o.), indexed to (i) Reflexive /t/, (ii) Causative /P/, and (iii) the imperfective agreement affixes (or at least the morphs that show up at the left edge: /y,t,P,n/).5 This derives the absence of clusters in certain forms where alignment would otherwise predict them. This vowel varies by voice (and by Form, in the active), but not by person — i.e., the [ya]’s and [yu]’s of the 3rd person singular are matched by [ta]/[tu], [Pa]/[Pu], and [na]/[nu]. This candidate is ruled out by phonotactics: either *CCC (see below) or a constraint forbidding geminates adjacent to consonants, both of which are surface true constraints in the language

Explaining the vocalic melodies

Conclusion