Abstract
Paster (2014) has argued that grammar does not distinguish between weak and strong suppletion. This claim is countered in this paper, in an analysis of allomorphic effects in several Semitic languages. What has been traditionally called “root” is broken down into three levels: the formless index (Harley 2014), the phonological index (Borer 2005, 2009, 2013) and its underlying representation. The distinction between the first two leads to a principled structural difference between weak and strong suppletion. Several test cases are presented that require a distinction between the latter two. Two general conclusions are drawn: (1) allomorphy at the different levels has different functions, and (2) in the Semitic root-and-pattern system, weakly suppletive allomorphy never targets the root as a whole; there is no root allomorphy in Semitic.
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