Language game evidence

There is a language game used by speakers of Arabic which provides independent evidence for the mental reality of these rules and underlying representations. The rule for the language game is very simple: permute the order of consonants within the root. Now let us consider the various phonetic results of permutation on the verb forms ħazam ‘he tied’ and ħzim-at ‘she tied.’ In ħazam, the first vowel does not dissimilate because of the preceding guttural; in ħzimat the second stem vowel dissimilates because it is neither preceded nor followed by a gutural, and it is not followed by a coronal sonorant.

In the permuted forms ħamaz and ħmizat, where the second and third consonants have exchanged place, the vocalic pattern remains the same because the transposition has not crucially changed the consonantal environment.

Now consider the forms zimaħ ~ zmaħat. This pattern of transposition has two effects on the vowel pattern. First, because the first consonant is now not a guttural, the dissimilation rule can apply in the first syllable, demonstrating the reality of the dissimilation rule. Second, because the final consonant is now a guttural, the dissimilation rule cannot apply in the second syllable, demonstrating the reality of the blocking condition on dissimilation. Finally, in the case of zaħam ~ zħamat, because the medial consonant is a guttural, neither vowel can dissimilate.

A crucial example, in terms of testing the validity of the proposed /CaCaC/ underlying form for surface [CiCaC] stems, is a stem such as /dafaʕ/ ‘push,’ which surfaces as [difaʕ]. Such a supposed underlying representation is abstract, since the vowel of the first syllable always surfaces as [i] or Ø, cf. difaʕ ‘he pushed,’ dfaʕat ‘she pushed,’ never as a. This stem contains a final pharyngeal consonant, and therefore movement of that consonant to first or second position will put the first vowel in contact with a pharyngeal. This should then block dissimilation, and will directly reveal the hypothesized underlying vowel to be [a].

The fact that this vowel actually surfaces as [a] under the circumstances predicted by the abstract hypothesis gives strong support to the claim for an abstract representation of such stems as having the vowel pattern /CaCaC/.