The Verb in Transitional Libyan Arabic: Morphomes, the Stem space and Principal parts

Should we analyse Arabic morphology in terms of a morpheme-based approach or in terms of a stem-based approach? This is the question which has figured prominently in morphological debate in recent years, especially in Semitic linguistics with ablaut-rich inflectional systems. This study provides a novel synchronic account to Transitional Libyan Arabic morphology, using a stem-based approach that assesses the morphomicity (Maiden, 2009, p.45) of stem alternations in the verb inflectional paradigm. This work focuses on the role of stem alternations in defining inflectional paradigmatic complexity in relation to implicative relations and inflection classes within the stem-space and principal parts morphological approaches. Following Bonami and Boyé’s (2002) approach to stem alternations in French, we define an inheritance hierarchy for TLA morphomic verb stems and show how this effectively identifies a set of inflection classes in the absence of affixal allomorphy. Within Stump and Finkel (2013) principal parts model, TLA inflection class membership can be determined by principal parts as indexed stems and/or as substems. The scale of the complexity of TLA inflectional system is also measured using the Principal-Parts Analyzer (PPA) computational tool. TLA conjugations reveal a synchronic morphomic patterning which shows sensitivity to extramorphological factors. The TLA semi-autonomous morphology is reflected by stem referencing features that provide the base for stem indexing possibilities which in turn can define TLA inflectional classes in the absence of the affix allomorphy. The results of principal parts analysis reveal that verb inflectional complexity of TLA as a Semitic language is as morphologically complex as concatenative stem based systems, posing serious empirical problems for any justifications for a unique distinctive non-concatenative morpheme-based account.