Home Chapter 15. My favorite morphome
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 15. My favorite morphome

The Arabic suffix AT
  • Robert D. Hoberman
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Search
All Things Morphology
This chapter is in the book All Things Morphology

Abstract

Arabic has a suffix, glossed here as AT, that is a clear and simple example of a morphome. It most frequently and productively marks feminine gender in singular nouns and adjectives, but in fact it has diverse morphological, syntactic, and semantic functions that cannot be unified. That all these functions are expressed by a single element AT, rather than a clutch of accidentally homophonous suffixes, is proven by the fact that AT, in all its functions, has two allomorphs, /at/ and /ah/, with identical distributional patterns no matter which function it is an exponent of. Because AT is not unifiable on the function side and not simplex on the form side, it is a purely morphological entity, a morphome.

Abstract

Arabic has a suffix, glossed here as AT, that is a clear and simple example of a morphome. It most frequently and productively marks feminine gender in singular nouns and adjectives, but in fact it has diverse morphological, syntactic, and semantic functions that cannot be unified. That all these functions are expressed by a single element AT, rather than a clutch of accidentally homophonous suffixes, is proven by the fact that AT, in all its functions, has two allomorphs, /at/ and /ah/, with identical distributional patterns no matter which function it is an exponent of. Because AT is not unifiable on the function side and not simplex on the form side, it is a purely morphological entity, a morphome.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. All things morphology 1
  4. Part I. Paradigms
  5. Chapter 2. Making sense of morphology 17
  6. Chapter 3. A formal restriction on gender resolution 41
  7. Part II. Words, stems, and affixes
  8. Chapter 4. Signs and words 57
  9. Chapter 5. Leaving the stem by itself 81
  10. Chapter 6. Stem constancy under the microscope 99
  11. Chapter 7. Major lexical categories and graphemic weight 117
  12. Chapter 8. Word formation in the brain 127
  13. Chapter 9. The suffixing preference 147
  14. Part III. Competition, inheritance, and defaults
  15. Chapter 10. Feature-based competition 171
  16. Chapter 11. Competition in comparatives 199
  17. Chapter 12. Multi-layered default in Ripano 215
  18. Part IV. Morphomes
  19. Chapter 13. Morphomes all the way down! 239
  20. Chapter 14. Conditional exponence 255
  21. Chapter 15. My favorite morphome 279
  22. Chapter 16. In further pursuit of the adjective 289
  23. Chapter 17. Two-suffix combinations in native and non-native English 305
  24. Part V. Interfaces
  25. Chapter 18. A short history of phonology in America 327
  26. Chapter 19. Realization Optimality Theory 349
  27. Chapter 20. A-prefixing in the ex-slave narratives 377
  28. Chapter 21. Trajectory of children’s verb formation in Hebrew as a heritage language 395
  29. Chapter 22. A primer for linguists on the reading wars 415
  30. Index of languages 431
  31. Index of names 433
  32. Index of terms 435
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.353.15hob

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. All things morphology 1
  4. Part I. Paradigms
  5. Chapter 2. Making sense of morphology 17
  6. Chapter 3. A formal restriction on gender resolution 41
  7. Part II. Words, stems, and affixes
  8. Chapter 4. Signs and words 57
  9. Chapter 5. Leaving the stem by itself 81
  10. Chapter 6. Stem constancy under the microscope 99
  11. Chapter 7. Major lexical categories and graphemic weight 117
  12. Chapter 8. Word formation in the brain 127
  13. Chapter 9. The suffixing preference 147
  14. Part III. Competition, inheritance, and defaults
  15. Chapter 10. Feature-based competition 171
  16. Chapter 11. Competition in comparatives 199
  17. Chapter 12. Multi-layered default in Ripano 215
  18. Part IV. Morphomes
  19. Chapter 13. Morphomes all the way down! 239
  20. Chapter 14. Conditional exponence 255
  21. Chapter 15. My favorite morphome 279
  22. Chapter 16. In further pursuit of the adjective 289
  23. Chapter 17. Two-suffix combinations in native and non-native English 305
  24. Part V. Interfaces
  25. Chapter 18. A short history of phonology in America 327
  26. Chapter 19. Realization Optimality Theory 349
  27. Chapter 20. A-prefixing in the ex-slave narratives 377
  28. Chapter 21. Trajectory of children’s verb formation in Hebrew as a heritage language 395
  29. Chapter 22. A primer for linguists on the reading wars 415
  30. Index of languages 431
  31. Index of names 433
  32. Index of terms 435
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 9.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/cilt.353.15hob/pdf
Scroll to top button