A syllable-based approach to verbal morphology in Arabic

Abstract

The syllable-based approach to morphological representation (Cahill, 2007) involves defining fully inflected morphological forms according to their syllabic structure. This permits the definition, for example, of distinct vowel constituents for inflected forms where an ablaut process operates. Cahill (2007) demonstrated that this framework was capable of defining standard Arabic templatic morphology, without the need for different techniques. In this paper we describe a further development of this lexicon which includes a larger number of verbs, a complete account of the agreement inflections and accounts for one of the oft-cited problems for Arabic morphology, the weak forms. Further, we explain how the use of this particular lexical framework permits the development of lexicons for the Semitic languages that are easily maintainable, extendable and can represent dialectal variation.