Alignment versus sonority in CCC structures: a paradigmatic explanation

In the present analysis, we argue that the canonical difference between Moroccan Arabic triliteral nouns and verbs can be explained by invoking the active role of an alignment and a sonority condition constraint. We attempt to clarify the issue by arguing that an examination of the perfective inflectional paradigm of sound triliteral verbs can provide hints about the difference in behavior exhibited by CCC verbs and nouns. Our analysis, couched within Optimality Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1993a, Prince and Smolensky 1993), also revises the treatment of the Moroccan Arabic triliteral sound verb within Optimal Paradigms Theory (McCarthy 2005), which suggests that the structure of triliteral sound stems is the result of "majorityrules effects". The rationale behind our research is to demonstrate that triliteral verbs fail to satisfy the sonority condition because of phonological and paradigmatic reasons and to point to the necessity of incorporating a paradigmatic contrast constraint in the analysis.