Non-concatenative morphological domains constrain phonotactics

A case study of Egyptian Arabic

Bibliographic Data

ID20399549
AuthorsLily Xu (0009-0001-1560-4822, University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume42
Publication date2025-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhonology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0952-6757 • E-ISSN: 1469-8188
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0952675725100134
OpenAlexW4414708304
LanguageEN
References cited32

Phonotactic patterns are commonly constrained by morphology. In English, for example, non-homorganic nasal–stop sequences are disallowed within morphemes but may occur across morpheme boundaries. This article demonstrates that similar effects of morphology on phonotactics can be found with non-concatenative morphology, even though they involve morphological domains that are more difficult to identify on the surface. Specifically, vowel alternation in a class of Egyptian Arabic verbs is affected by gradient phonotactic restrictions on consonant–vowel co-occurrence. However, such restrictions are only active in the imperfective form (e.g., [-rg a ʕ] ‘return. ipfv ’), not the perfective (e.g., [r i g i ʕ] ‘return. pfv ’). Using a lexicon study and a wug test, I show that this pattern is in fact bounded by morphological domains and is reliably generalised by speakers when deriving novel forms. I compare accounts of this effect that differ on whether they require abstract morphosyntactic representations and non-concatenative morphemes and discuss their implications

Allomorph · Arabic · Lexicon · Morpheme · Morphophonology · Phonology · Phonotactics · Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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