Greenberg's Asymmetry in Arabic: A Consequence of Stems in Paradigms

How different is the phonology and morphology of nontemplatic (concatenative) word formation from that of templatic (nonconcatenative) word formation? In this article, I focus on the Arabic verbal system, the prototypical example of templatic morphology, with the aim of deriving some of its distinctly special traits from basic principles. The key novel aspect of the approach is its focus on paradigms. The main result is that the paradigm coupled with general phonotactic constraints sets limits on the theoretically possible diversity of stems within that paradigm. As a consequence of its generality, the proposed approach obviates a range of highly specific tools and postulates. Broader implications are developed for the phonological and morphological prerequisites of templatic (nonconcatenative) word formation.