A Syllable-based Account of Arabic Morphology

Abstract

Syllable-based morphology is an approach to morphology that considers syllables to be the primary concept in morphological description. The theory proposes that, other than simple affixation, morphological processes or operations are best defined in terms of the resulting syllabic structure, with syllable constituents (onset, peak, coda) being defined according to the morphosyntactic status of the form. Although most work in syllable-based morphology has addressed European languages (especially the Germanic languages) the theory was always intended to apply to all languages. One of the language groups that appears on the surface to offer the biggest challenge to this theory is the Semitic language group. In this chapter a syllable-based analysis of Arabic morphology is presented which demonstrates that, not only is such an analysis possible for Semitic languages, but the resulting analysis is not significantly different from syllable-based analyses of European languages such as English and German