In the following table we include a representation of the vocalism of each pattern—for the sake of convenience, we represent the vocalic string linearly even though it is a non-concatenative element. The vowel of the prefix ta- is not represented.
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Pattern Vocalization
p-stem52 i-stem m-stem
triliteral Iau aa au u Iai aa ai i Iaa aa aa a Iuu au au u Iia ai aa a Iii ai ai i II aa uai ai III aa uai ai IV aa ui i V aa aaa aa VI aa aaa aa VII aa aai ai VIII aa aai ai IX aa aa a X aa aai ai XI aa aai ai XII aa aai ai XIII aa aai ai XIV aa aai ai XV aa aai ai quadriliteral I aa uai ai II aa aaa aa QIII aa aai ai QIV aa aai ai
TABLE 10 Vocalism morphemes
52 Recall that p-stem stands for perfective stem, i-stem for imperfective stem and m-stem for
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Many authors have acknowledged the fact that there seems to be a subtle regularity in the organization of the vocalic qualities through the different patterns, both in the perfective and imperfective verbal paradigms. In the following lines we present some of these authors and their claims.
As McCarthy stated, “the vocalism—what I call the vowel melody—is not freely distributed among the vowels” (McCarthy, 1981). And he further remarks that “some vowel patterns seem to bear consistent meaning” (McCarthy, 1981). For instance, looking at the last vowel of the pattern stems, we notice a tendency of perfective stems exhibiting mostly a vowel a, whereas in the imperfective the vowel tends to be
i. However, the interpretation of the vowels’ semantic and morphosyntactic
properties has not been completely clarified yet.
Ryding states cautiously that “there are shades of meaning associated with the stem vowel differences in the past tense citation forms, but these semantic differences are very subtle” (Ryding, 2005:455). Danks, following Wright and Badawi’s view, points out that the vocalic material may be explained on the grounds of a purely lexical basis: “While there is clearly some systematicity relating the p-stem [imperfective] vowel to its s-stem [perfective] counterpart, opinions differ as to whether there is good synchronic evidence of syntactic or semantic consistency to the different vowelling schemes, suggesting a meaningful classification on this basis as per Wright (1967:I.30), or whether, as Badawi et al. (2004:60) claim, they are “best treated as a lexical feature” (Danks, 2011:18).
In relation to pattern I verbs, Danks adds that the middle vowel of the p-stem to some extent determines the quality of the i-stem vowel and suggests considering the p-stem vowels as non-morphemic (Danks,2011:45). However, he goes on to say that Ratcliffe, in turn, considers the i-stem to be basic over the p-stem. Actually, from a diachronic point of view it has been proved that the perfective aspect is a later formation. In this
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regard, Ferrando (1999:11) states that “El perfectivo es en las lenguas semíticas una formación posterior a partir de un esquema nominal, como demuestran los hechos del acadio”53. This may not be the case synchronically, yet the contrary cannot be claimed either.
Badawi, in turn, offers a more compact justification in support of the lack of morphological content of the vocalic melody string: “the vowels vary in both aspects, originally perhaps on the grounds of verb class (stative, transitive, intransitive, etc.), but now best treated as a lexical feature: while it is true that all verbs with -u- as their medial vowel in the perf. are intransitive and also have -u- in the imperf., the yaf’ulu form may be transitive. Even the crude generalization that most verbs are of the pattern fa’ala in the perf. and yaf’ulu in the imperf. is unreliable” (Badawi et al., 2004:60). In the same fashion, Danks points out the opinion of Holes in his work “Modern Arabic: structures, functions and varieties” (2004:101), who considers that the meaning of the second vowel in pattern I conveys transitivity and dynamic versus stative (Danks, 2011:45).
Another remarkable issue is the tendency that p-stems of Pattern I with i or u as their second vowel have transitive and stative meaning. The Iuu class is semantically determined for stativity or quality; many of the verbs belonging to this class are deadjectival verbs. Verbs of the pattern Iia, in turn, are often intransitive or stative, however, there are several exceptions (McCarthy, 1994).
Pattern Iaa has a special relevance for it is said to be phonologically determined—e.g. verb
َﺢَتَﻓ
fataHa ‘to open’, perfectiveَﺢَتَﻓ
fataHa “(he) opened” – imperfectiveُﺢَتْﻔَﻳ
yaf·taHu ‘(he) opens’. Various authors (Versteegh et al., 2007; Wright, 2007; McCarthy,1994; Danks, 2011; Watson,2007, among others) have reported the fact that guttural consonants—recall that the guttural class was composed of uvulars
خ
x andغ
g,
53 “perfective is in Semitic languages a later formation from a nominal pattern, as shown by the
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pharyngeals
ح
H andع
ç and lagyngealsء
c andه
h—tend to lower adjacent vowels due to their pharyngeal characteristic. As a result, many a vowels are derived from assimilated i or u. In this sense, Brame (1970) and later McCarthy claimed—and McCarthy endorsed this idea with data from the Hans Wehr dictionary—that pattern Iaa does not represent a real conjugational class, but it corresponds to Iai or Iau patterns whose second and third radicals are guttural consonants. In fact the idea of an assimilation process in verbs of the type Iaa can be traced back to Sibawayhi as well as to a later work by Ibn Jinni known, collected in his book “ﺺﺋﺎﻀﳋا” (“The Characteristics”). The fatha vowel which results from the assimilation is referred toﺮﻐﺻٔ�ا مﺎ�دٕﻻا
‘the partial assimilation’ by Ibn Jinni (Masʻūd and Åkesson, 2001).In relation to the semantics of pattern I different vocalizations, Dichy (2007) claimed that perfectives of the form façala are mainly transitive, though a good number of verbs from this pattern are intransitive. The form façila, he adds, have an equal amount of transitive and intransitive representatives. On the contrary, façula verbs are always intransitive.
Regarding the relationship established between perfective and imperfective vowel melodies in pattern I, McCarthy states that they are not marked by an apophonic relationship, i.e., alterations on vowel quality in the vocalic string do not imply affixal distinctions. “It is further clear that there is no unambiguous ablaut function from perfective to imperfective or vice versa. That is, given any vowel in one aspect, we cannot uniquely determine its quality in the other aspect” (McCarthy, 1981). Yet, he claims that if we exclude the pattern Iuu—which is semantically marked by stativity— it is possible to relate imperfective to perfective; There is a polarity shift between imperfective, marked by [+high], and perfective [-high] (McCarthy, 1981). Cahill (2010), as well, supports the existence of this ablaut process operation in the vocalic discontinuous string of Arabic verbs.
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Ferrando remarks the importance this polarity shift has in McCarthy’s theoretical framework. He described his redesign of the root-and-pattern model by saying that McCarthy’s analysis “consiste en un mayor nivel de abstracción que el proporcionado por el tradicional análisis “raíz + esquema”, y que se basa en la observación del material prosódico representado en fórmulas o templates y en el importante principio de polaridad vocálica, según el cual es el juego de oposiciones vocálicas, básicamente vocales de formante alto (i, u) frente a vocales de formante bajo (a), lo que permite explicar satisfactoriamente varias de las estructuras morfológicas del árabe (formación de verbos no agentivos, derivaciones verbales y, naturalmente, pluralización) mediante reglas sencillas” (Ferrando, 1999:11)54.