Abstract

This paper shows that the failure of names related to glide-medial and glide-final roots to form Pattern I C1aC2C2uuC3 hypocoristics is due to the effects of the OCP and syllable structure constraints, respectively. Names related to roots with medial [w] fail to form Pattern I hypocoristics since the sequence -wuu- violates the OCP. Names related to glide final roots [y] or [w] form C1aC2C2u hypocoristics where the deletion of the final glide avoids violation of syllable structure constraints in the language. The Optimality-Theoretic account in this paper demonstrates that there is only one native pattern of hypocoristic formation in Makkan Arabic with two manifestations, C1aC2C2uuC3 and C1aC2C2u. Syllable structure constraints and the OCP account for the apparent differences between these two forms. Data from Makkan Arabic hypocoristic formation show that native speakers can factor out the root consonants from the actual name and use them in hypocoristic formation.

Highlights

  • In several Arabic dialects including Makkan Arabic, (MA, ) the main pattern of Hypocoristic Formation, (HF, ) is disyllabic C1aC2C2uuC3

  • On the other hand, the medial glide is [y], the name forms Pattern I hypocoristic just like names related to regular triconsonantal roots: the glide appears in the Linguistics and Literature Studies 7(1): 31-38, 2019 hypocoristic, as the examples in (4) illustrate: (4) Medial [y] and Pattern I

  • The paper offers an explanation for the failure of names related to glide-medial and glide-final roots to form Pattern I hypocoristics without recourse to the idea of an output root

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Summary

Introduction

In several Arabic dialects including Makkan Arabic, (MA, ) the main pattern of Hypocoristic Formation, (HF, ) is disyllabic C1aC2C2uuC3. The failure of glide-medial and glide-final roots to form C1aC2C2uuC3 hypocoristics is shown to result from the domination of the faithfulness constraints by the OCP and by constraints on syllable codas in MA, respectively This in itself leads to a very welcome result of the analysis: what has been referred to as Pattern II C1aC2C2u in Abu-Mansour [1, 2, 3] and in Davis and Zawaydeh [4] will provide the only possible way of forming hypocoristics for names related to glide-final roots. It establishes the role of the OCP and syllable structure constraints in explaining the failure of glide-medial and glide-final roots to form C1aC2C2uuC3 hypocoristics.

Basic Patterns of HF in Makkan Arabic
Pattern I
Pattern II
Analysis of Pattern I C1aC2C2uuC3 Hypocoristics
Analysis
The Role of the OCP
The Role of Syllable Structure
Similarities between Pattern I and Pattern II Hypocoristics
Findings
Conclusions
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