A syllable based account of Arabic morphology

Lynne Cahill

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceeding with ISSN or ISBNChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Syllable-based morphology is an approach to morphology that considers syllables to be the primary concept in morphological description. The theory proposes that, other than simple affixation, morphological processes or operations are best defined in terms of the resulting syllabic structure, with syllable constituents (onset, peak, coda) being defined according to the morphosyntactic status of the form. Although most work in syllable-based morphology has addressed European languages (especially the Germanic languages) the theory was always intended to apply to all languages. One of the language groups that appears on the surface to offer the biggest challenge to this theory is the Semitic language group. In this chapter a syllable-based analysis of Arabic morphology is presented which demonstrates that, not only is such an analysis possible for Semitic languages, but the resulting analysis is not significantly different from syllable-based analyses of European languages such as English and German
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationArabic computational morphology: knowledge-based and empirical methods
EditorsA. Soudi, G. Neumann, A. Van den Bosch
PublisherSpringer Netherlands
Pages45-66
Number of pages22
Volume38
ISBN (Print)9781402060458
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2007

Publication series

NameText, speech and language technology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A syllable based account of Arabic morphology'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this