Abstract:
The specificity of the peculiar auxiliary morph – transfix,
which is a commonplace in Semitic languages is well known in
the scholarly literature. It consists of vocals only and splits the
root morph comprising of common consonants, and contrasts with other gramemes of the category with its number of vocals
and quality.
Transfix - internal vocalism - in Arabic morphology, sometimes
the consonant together with the composition root also acts
as the root morph in a certain number of nouns and verbs and
serves to differentiate the semantic content. Arab grammarians
have happened to detect the polysemy of individual segments
of morphemes as well.
It should be noted that according to the modern linguistic
mindset, despite their large number, segmentation into separate
indicators is an important task.
In general, several principles may contribute to determining
the multifaceted morphological functions of phonemes:
5. A morpheme may be either divided or not divided.
6. It is univocal or polysemous.
7. It is included only in the auxiliary, if also in the root
morph.
8. It is either included or not included as a segment in a
morph.
The said method is well suited to the complex type of Arabic
morphology, given that it was originally developed for the
study of Eastern languages (Thai, Indonesian) per se. Its application
may become the basis for an adequate definition of the
complex type of Arabic morphology.
