Schwa in MA After Morphological Operations: Against A Transderivational Account

Abstract

In this paper, I present an alternative account of the placement of schwa in Moroccan Arabic after morphological operations. This vowel, considered epenthetic by many scholars, moves position when certain morphological processes are applied. For example, in a word like ‘kt?b’ meaning ‘write’, schwa is inserted between C2 and C3. If the –u morpheme meaning ‘they’ is added, we get the following form: ‘k?tbu’. Schwa moves to the position between C1 and C2. Boudlal (2001) analysed this from a transderivational perspective. As far as the present account is concerned, this analysis is too complicated. Hence, I provide an analysis using tools provided by Optimality Theory to overcome the weaknesses of Boudlal’s analysis. It was found that a constraint active in the language which bans the occurrence of schwa open syllables, in combination with other constraints, is responsible for the placement of schwa. Such an analysis is simpler and accounts more elegantly for the placement of schwa resulting from morphological operations.