Phonological Argumentation - Essays on Evidence and Motivation - Steve Parker
11 Vowel length in Arabic verb stems
Phonological Argumentation - Essays on Evidence and Motivation - Steve Parker
Sam Rosenthall
Oakland University
Description
The long vowels in Classical Arabic verb stems that are concomitant with glide deletion can be characterized as cases of compensatory lengthening. Glide deletion, however, does not always result in a long vowel. This chapter proposes that cases of short vowels resulting from glide deletion are the consequence of constraint conflict defined by Optimality Theory. The distribution of long vowels in verb stems involves constraints on the verb stem conflicting with syllable markedness and faithfulness constraints. This paper argues for a triconsonantal analysis of all verb roots containing glides, contra Gafos (2003). This paper also argues for a prosodic analysis of verb stems, in accordance with the Prosodic Morphology Hypothesis. The prosodic organization, however, is obscured by conflict with higher ranking constraints.