Re: question: Arabic morphology

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> Okay, I'd been wondering about this for a while but it's taken 2 hrs.
> with Mark Rosenfelder's neat but not-useful-to-me-at-the-moment Sound
> Change Applier for me to be able to articulate this.
>
> Arabic uses three-consonant verbs, correct?  I borrowed this for
> Chevraqis (which is a compound, I haven't figured out for what yet, and
> the name is subject to change anyway).
>
> I was trying to use the SAC and ran into a problem.
> How does the morphology evolve?
This is a big, big question you're asking here.  I wouldn't even know
how to begin to address it.  I can, however, suggest a book you could
read:   _Grammaticalization_, in the Cambridge linguistics series. (I haven't
read it, but all the others I've read seem to be pretty good).   Also, for
a somewhat more iconoclastic look at language change, look at Dixon's
_The Rise and Fall of Languages_, where he introduces the notion of
punctuated equilibria into linguistics (at least, I think he's the first to discuss
that idea in linguistics).

> imperative: aCCaCu -> CiCaCu
> causative: CiCoCu -> CiCoCu
> generic: CaCaCu -> CeCaCu
[What is 'generic' here?]

> Now that I look at essays on how sound change happens, a wholesale shift
> like this seems unlikely.  My question is, as far as this morphology
> business goes, do I apply sound change across a pattern (what I have
> above) or per individual word?
Well, the thing is, phonology and morphology usually operate autonomously
from one another.  This is one of the reasons we have the distinction between
fusional and agglutinative languages:   a soundshift can come through and obliterate
what had been heretofore clearly distinguished morphemes, fusing them into one,
or motivating their loss entirely.   So, while sound changes obviously have to start
somewhere with an individual word, over the process of weeks, months or years,
it can be quickly assimilated by a community of speakers into the rest of their
lexicon.  This is usually the case, because phonological shifts are to a large extent
unconscious in nature.  The only question then becomes to what extent that set of
changes will spread beyond its original environs, whether it will remain limited to
that one community, or spread beyond it.

It is important to note that phonological shifts tend to occur in what are called
_natural classes_:  abstract acoustic properties of sounds, such as the place or
manner of articulation, are unconsciously registered into classes by all speakers.
What soundchange really is is mapping the distribution of one class onto
another, and then shifting the relevant segments of words to the new class.  So, for
example, the most famous such shift was Grimm's Law, which governs the behavior
of the shift of Indo-European consonants:

(a) voiceless stops to voiceless fricatives:   [p t k] --> [f T x]  (--> [f T h])
        [No change in place or voicing; change in manner of articulation]
(b) voiced stops to voiceless stops:           [b d g] --> [p t k]
        [change in voicing but not place or manner]
(c) 'voiced aspirates'* to voiced stops:        [b_h d_h g_h] --> [b d g]
        [complicated, but a change in voicing, not place or manner]

*(I use quotes here because voiced aspirates technically cannot exist, but that is
the label used for them.)

Vowels shift in the same way:  they also have natural classes (like [+high], [-back] etc.).
Once you get this principle of regular sound change, you can then easily apply
that to your own language.  In your case, I would say you should consider what
kind of consonant inventory you have as well.  The quality of the vowels adjacent
consonants can affect how shifts occur, and vice-versa.

So, my suggestion is, if I understand your problem correctly, would be to read up
on articulatory phonetics first (assuming you haven't already done this), so that you
can get a feel for precisely what changes are more likely to occur.

(Please excuse me if I seem to be going into detail about stuff you already know;
I have little idea of where you're coming from, so I just go through a bit of
everything.  I hope this has been helpful.)

> Am I missing something here?  Is there a good source on Semitic
> languages?  I scoured the web and came up with nothing (in English,
> anyway).  Help!
I'm not a good person to ask about Semitic linguistics.  I'd suggest posting a
query to the <sci.lang> newsgroup.  I know there are some Semiticists there.

======================================
Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
======================================