The Root-and-Prosody Approach to Arabic Verbs∗

This article argues from data motivating the existence of the consonantal root in Nonconcatenative Templatic Morphologies (NTM) and the derivational verbal system of Iraqi Arabic for an approach to such root-and-pattern behavior called the “Rootand-Prosody” model. Based upon work in Kramer (2007), this model claims that root-and-pattern behavior arises from the necessary satisfaction of prosodic markedness constraints at the expense of the faithfulness constraints Contiguity and Integrity. Additionally, this article shows that a solution exists to the problem of NTM languages within Generalized Template Theory (McCarthy and Prince, 1995) which does not need Output-Output Correspondence (Benua, 2000; Ussishkin, 2005). In doing so, this work also argues for the extension of indexed markedness constraints Pater (To Appear) to prosodic alternations. Prosodic augmentation is shown to follow from particular rankings of such indexed prosodic markedness constraints, eliminating the need for prosodic material in the input. Finally, discussion of difficulties faced by the FixedProsodic analyses of such systems (Ussishkin, 2000; Buckley, 2003; Ussishkin, 2005) motivates the necessity of the Root-and-Prosody approach.