In:All Things Morphology: Its independence and its interfaces
Edited by Sedigheh Moradi, Marcia Haag, Janie Rees-Miller and Andrija Petrovic
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 353] 2021
► pp. 279–288
Chapter 15My favorite morphome
The Arabic suffix AT
Published online: 25 August 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.353.15hob
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.353.15hob
Abstract
Arabic has a suffix, glossed here as AT, that is
a clear and simple example of a morphome. It most frequently and
productively marks feminine gender in singular nouns and adjectives,
but in fact it has diverse morphological, syntactic, and semantic
functions that cannot be unified. That all these functions are
expressed by a single element AT, rather than a clutch of
accidentally homophonous suffixes, is proven by the fact that AT, in
all its functions, has two allomorphs, /at/ and /ah/, with identical
distributional patterns no matter which function it is an exponent
of. Because AT is not unifiable on the function side and not simplex
on the form side, it is a purely morphological entity, a
morphome.
Keywords: Arabic, ta’ marbuta, morphome, allomorph, gender, number, collective, singulative, feminine
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The phonological level
- 3.The morphological level
- 3.1Morphological functions: Feminine forms
- 3.2Morphological functions: Singulative for mass nouns
- 3.3Morphological functions: Gerund for action
- 3.4Morphological functions: Plural for human nouns
- 3.5Morphological functions: Component of broken plural
- 3.6Morphological functions: Gerunds of certain verb classes
- 3.7Morphological functions (unproductive): In numerals
- 3.8Morphological functions (unproductive): Masculine nouns of esteem
- 3.9Summary of morphosyntactic properties
- 4.Discussion
- 5.Conclusion
Acknowledgement and Dedication Notes References Appendix
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