Mora in Basrah Arabic: A Morpho-Phonological approach

Abstract

This paper has been written to fall within the orbit of the moraic framework of the syllable, particularly the syllable weight, of Basrah Arabic. Universal as its nature is, mora, when studied and then applied, has, metaphorically speaking, the power of casting its phonological 'spell' over the problems of the morpho-phonology of Basrah tri-segmental verbs, adjectives and nouns which have popped up in the context of investigating the behavior of Basrah syllabicity, and thus the mora 'spell' gets these problematic issues easily solvable and surmountable. The problems overcome by applying the moraic model are of two facets: some of them are phonologically-based problems and others are morphologically-based ones. Either case, mora is manipulated to throw its shadow on them equally and adequately. With this in mind, the application of moraic aspects to some Basrah verbs presupposes a drastic shift in segmental durations, namely, vowel ones when occurred word-medially. Among different results reached by this paper is that Basrah Arabic syllabic templates of certain verbs, adjectives and nouns need to be pinpointed from the mora-tier angle other than from the CV-tier and X-tier angles.