Arabic-L:LING:Broken Plural Book

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 15 Oct 1999
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1) Subject: Broken Plural Book

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1)
Date: 15 Oct 1999
From: Andrew Gallinger <promotion at benjamins.com>
Subject: Broken Plural Book

John Benjamins Publishing would like to call your attention to the
following new titles in the field of Arabic Linguistics:

THE "BROKEN" PLURAL PROBLEM IN ARABIC AND COMPARATIVE SEMITIC: Allomorphy
and analogy in non-concatenative morphology.
Robert R. RATCLIFFE (Tokyo Univ. of Foreign Studies)
Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 168
US/Canada: 1 55619 884 1 / USD 84.00 (Hardcover)
Rest of the World: 90 272 3673 9 / NLG 168.00 (Hardcover)

The formal aspects of non-concatenative morphology have received
considerable attention in recent years, but the diachronic dimensions of
such systems have been little explored. The current work applies a modern
methodological and theoretical framework to a classic problem in Arabic and
Semitic historical linguistics: the highly allomorphic system of
'stem-internal' or 'broken' plurals. It shows that widely-accepted views
regarding the historical development of this system are untenable and
offers a new hypothesis. The first chapter lays out a methodology for
comparative-historical research in morphology. The next two chapters
present an analysis of Arabic morphology based on contemporary formal
linguistic approaches, and applies this analysis to the noun plural system.
Chapter Four shows that neither semantic shift nor ablaut-type sound change
account adequately for the data. The fifth chapter offers a systematic
comparison of the plural systems of Semitic languages, incorporating much
new research on the languages of South Arabia and Ethiopia. Chapter Six
proposes a new reconstruction.

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End of Arabic-L: 15 Oct 1999