Computational Analyses of Arabic Morphology

TL;DR

This paper presents a formal computational approach to Arabic non-linear morphology using multi-tape two-level grammars, addressing complex phenomena like broken plurals with high-level, tractable notation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-tape two-level formalism for Arabic morphology, including grammars for CV, moraic, and affixational analyses, and proposes a method for deriving broken plurals.

Findings

Moraic grammars best describe templatic stems.

Affixational grammars are optimal for a-templatic stems.

Broken plurals can be derived via implicit singular derivation.

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how a (multi-tape) two-level formalism can be used to write two-level grammars for Arabic non-linear morphology using a high level, but computationally tractable, notation. Three illustrative grammars are provided based on CV-, moraic- and affixational analyses. These are complemented by a proposal for handling the hitherto computationally untreated problem of the broken plural. It will be shown that the best grammars for describing Arabic non-linear morphology are moraic in the case of templatic stems, and affixational in the case of a-templatic stems. The paper will demonstrate how the broken plural can be derived under two-level theory via the `implicit' derivation of the singular.