The formal aspects of non-concatenative morphology have received considerable attention in recent years, but the diachronic dimensions of such systems have been little explored. The current work applies a modern methodological and theoretical framework to a classic problem in Arabic and Semitic historical linguistics: the highly allomorphic system of 'stem-internal' or 'broken' plurals. It shows that widely-accepted views regarding the historical development of this system are untenable and offers a new hypothesis. The first chapter lays out a methodology for comparative-historical research in morphology. The next two chapters present an analysis of Arabic morphology based on contemporary formal linguistic approaches, and applies this analysis to the noun plural system. Chapter Four shows that neither semantic shift nor ablaut-type sound change account adequately for the data. The fifth chapter offers a systematic comparison of the plural systems of Semitic languages, incorporating much new research on the languages of South Arabia and Ethiopia. Chapter Six proposes a new reconstruction.

The papers in this volume are a selection of papers presented at the 10th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (Salt Lake City, 1-3 March 1996). The contributions are: Remarks on Focus in Standard Arabic: Jamal Ouhalla; Definiteness Realization and Function in Palestinian Arabic: Dina Belyayeva; Case Properties of Nominalization Dps in Classical Arabic: Arthur Stepanov; Underspecification of Lexical Entries for Arabic Verbs: Mark S. LeTourneau; Plural Formation in Arabic: Ali Idrissi; Prosodic Templates in a Word-Based Morphological Analysis of Arabic: Robert R. Ratcliffe; The Suppletive Imperative of Arabic ‘Come’: David Testen; On an Optimality-Theoretic Account of Epenthesis and Syncope in Arabic Dialects: Bushra Adnan Zawaydeh; Acoustics of Pharyngealization vs. Uvularization Harmony: Kimary N. Shahin; Phonological Variation in Syrian Arabic: Correlation with Gender, Age, and Education: Jamil Daher; Arabic speakers and Parasitic Gaps: Naomi Bolotin; Stress Prosody and Speech Segmentation: Evidence from Moroccan Arabic: Younes Mourchid.

The papers in this volume are a selection of papers presented at the 10th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics (Salt Lake City, 1-3 March 1996). The contributions are: Remarks on Focus in Standard Arabic: Jamal Ouhalla; Definiteness Realization and Function in Palestinian Arabic: Dina Belyayeva; Case Properties of Nominalization Dps in Classical Arabic: Arthur Stepanov; Underspecification of Lexical Entries for Arabic Verbs: Mark S. LeTourneau; Plural Formation in Arabic: Ali Idrissi; Prosodic Templates in a Word-Based Morphological Analysis of Arabic: Robert R. Ratcliffe; The Suppletive Imperative of Arabic 'Come': David Testen; On an Optimality-Theoretic Account of Epenthesis and Syncope in Arabic Dialects: Bushra Adnan Zawaydeh; Acoustics of Pharyngealization vs. Uvularization Harmony: Kimary N. Shahin; Phonological Variation in Syrian Arabic: Correlation with Gender, Age, and Education: Jamil Daher; Arabic speakers and Parasitic Gaps: Naomi Bolotin; Stress Prosody and Speech Segmentation: Evidence from Moroccan Arabic: Younes Mourchid.

The papers in this collection derive from the Annual Symposia on Arabic Linguistics held in Stanford (1999) and Berkeley (2000). The selection is noteworthy for its diversity of approach, and for a noticeable broadening of the kinds of questions that are being asked and the kind of data being gathered about Arabic in various settings. These papers cover many aspects of Arabic linguistic research, from models of language acquistion, to the borrowing of discourse patterns, and the use of 'secret' languages.

The papers in this collection derive from the Annual Symposia on Arabic Linguistics held in Stanford (1999) and Berkeley (2000). The selection is noteworthy for its diversity of approach, and for a noticeable broadening of the kinds of questions that are being asked and the kind of data being gathered about Arabic in various settings. These papers cover many aspects of Arabic linguistic research, from models of language acquistion, to the borrowing of discourse patterns, and the use of 'secret' languages.

This book puts together contributions of linguists and psycholinguists whose main interest here is the representation of Semitic words in the mental lexicon of Semitic language speakers. The central topic of the book confronts two views about the morphology of Semitic words. The point of the argument is: Should we see Semitic words' morphology as “root-based” or “word-based?” The proponents of the root-based approach, present empirical evidence demonstrating that Semitic language speakers are sensitive to the root and the template as the two basic elements (bound morphemes) of Semitic words. Those supporting the word-based approach, present arguments to the effect that Semitic word formation is not based on the merging of roots and templates, but that Semitic words are comprised of word stems and affixes like we find in Indo-European languages. The variety of evidence and arguments for each claim should force the interested readers to reconsider their views on Semitic morphology.

This book is an investigation of Arabic derivational morphology that focuses on the relationship between verb meaning and linguistic form. Beginning with the ground form, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of the most common verb patterns of Arabic from a lexical semantic perspective. Peter Glanville explains why verbs with seemingly unrelated meanings share the same phonological shape, and analyses sets of words that contain the same consonantal root to arrive at a common abstraction. He uses both contemporary and historical data to explore the semantics of reflexivity, symmetry, causation, and repetition, and argues that the verb patterns of Arabic that express these phenomena have come about as the result of grammaticalization and analogical processes that are common cross-linguistically. The book adopts an approach to morphology in which rule-based derivation has created word patterns and consonantal roots, with the result that in some derivations roots may be extracted from a source word and plugged in to a pattern. It illustrates the semantic relationship between a source word and its derivative, while also offering evidence to support the view of the consonantal root as a morphological object. The volume will be a valuable resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of Arabic language and linguistics who are interested in understanding the verb patterns of Arabic, the derivational relationships between words, and the construction of meaning in the mind. It will also appeal to researchers and students in morphology, semantics, historical linguistics, and cognitive linguistics.