Templatic Morphology

        Templatic morphology, also known as prosodic morphology, cannot be explained without mentioning autosegmental phonology, which is crucial when it comes to infixing. Being a direct descendant of the theory of generative phonology, autosegmental phonology carries the idea that phonological representations consist of several independent, parallel tiers (levels) of representation. It also describes how these autonomous tiers are represented and how they link up with each other. This theory was initially used to describe tone, and its essential properties are still best illustrated using tone. Just like stress is independent of consonants and vowels, it just so happens that in tone languages, tone is an independent prosodic category as well. Due to its independency, tones are represented on the tonal tier and vowels and consonants on the segmental tier. That is why the name autosegmental phonology is meant to mirror the fact that phonological representations consist of segments such as stress, tone, vowels and consonants that appear on autonomous tiers. Phonological representations are therefore organised and independent, but not isolated from each other – what is more, they are linked in complex structures and are capable of interacting with each other. In order to explain the constraints of the linking of elements on various tiers, autosegmental phonology incorporated Mapping Principles, which go under the names of Universal Linking Conventions and the Well-formedness Condition (WFC). The WFC’s main concerns are phonotactic constraints, which is why it ensures that restrictions on the combination of phonological elements are not violated. However, violations of the WFC can appear, and if they do, the WFC triggers certain repair rules to correct the mistake. Another part of autosegmental phonology that is of great importance for morphological theory is skeletal tier. Given that tones may be linked in different ways to tone-bearing units, we can observe that segments may be linked to the skeletal tier in similar way.

        Besides four main methods of word-formation (affixation, compounding, conversion, incorporation) there are also another two processes – infixing (inserting a word-building element within the root) and reduplication (the full or partial repetition of the base). Traditional morphological approaches are not helpful when it comes to dealing with these processes, but templatic morphology is more than capable. When comparing Semitic languages and modern English, we notice that in languages such as Arabic and Hebrew words can also be formed by modifying the root itself internally, and not only by concatenation (linking together) of affixes and roots. In modern English, however, word-formation does not involve changes in the root vowel, although there are a few exceptions that include umlaut and ablaut words. On the other hand, in Semitic morphology much of the word-formation takes place root-internally, meaning that infixing and modification of the root is the norm. It is important to observe that in Arabic, verbs are structured around a root that consists only of consonants, which leads to verb forms being assigned to one of fifteen derivational classes or binyanim (singular binyan). According to data based on McCarthy and Wickens when comparing derived form and derivational source, there is clear semantic and morphological evidence that one binyan is derived from the other. McCarthy was also the one who initiated templatic morphology and recognised the similarity in the behaviour of vowels introduced into consonantal roots by morphological processes in Arabic. He presented the theory that the verb in Arabic has elements arranged on three independent tiers – the root tier, the skeletal tier and the vocalic melody tier. The meaning of a verbal lexeme is signalled at the root tier by the consonantal segments, while the skeletal tier provides a canonical shape that is associated with a particular meaning or grammatical function and also plays a key role in morphology. The vocalic melody tier gives information similar to the one carried in English by inflectional affixes like tense, aspect, number or derivational affixes. Another important part of Arabic language that templatic morphology accounts for are geminate and quadriliteral roots – in geminate roots the second consonant is geminated by the rule of left to right spreading so that it fills the vacant third slot in the CV template provided by the skeletal tier, while quadriliteral roots consist of four consonants, and they differ from triconsonantal roots only in having an extra C-slot in their prosodic template. Templatic morphology also includes the morpheme tier hypothesis, according to which the representation of each morpheme in a word occupies a separate tier. It is common to find discontinuous morphemes interrupted by infixes in morphological systems that are not linked together, such as the system of Arabic language. According to the morpheme tier hypothesis, such infixes are independent of the root and the vocalic melody; they appear on their own tier and are pre-associated in the lexicon with a C-slot. At the end of each cycle in the lexicon, tier conflation happens, and in a way similar to Bracket Erasure Convention, it removes all brackets. Based on this, morphemes which start off on separate tiers at the beginning of a lexical cycle end up on the same tier.