Computational Analyses of Arabic Morphology

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 computation-ally tractable, notation. Three illustrative grammars are provided based on CV-, moraic-and aaxational 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 aaxational in the case of a-templatic stems. The paper will demonstrate how the broken plural can be derived under two-level theory via thèimplicit' derivation of the singular.