Reanalyzing Exaggeration in Arabic through Autosegmental and Morphophonological Processes Lenses

This study reaffirms findings from existing linguistic literature, including works by Sibawayh (1988), Al-Mubarrad (1994), and Al-Anṣārī (2008), regarding the productive derivation of exaggeration adjectives in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) from five standard templates: مِفْعال /mif.ˈʕaːl/, فَعُول /fa.ˈʕuːl/, فَعِيل /fa.ˈʕiːl/, فَعِل /ˈfa.ʕil/, and فعّال /faʕ.ˈaːl/. Beyond these templates, some adjectives follow irregular forms. While previous studies acknowledged these forms, they often lacked a systematic analytical approach. This study enhances the field by employing McCarthy's (1981) autosegmental analysis, which highlights two distinct tiers: one for the root and another for deriving the exaggeration adjective itself. Additionally, we applied morphophonological rules to connect root forms to their word realizations, illustrating detailed derivation processes that had not been previously documented. A key methodological contribution of this paper is the introduction of the Exaggeration Adjective Identification Procedure (EAIP). This procedure was developed by adapting the Hyperbole Identification Procedure (HIP) from Burgers et al. (2016) to effectively identify exaggeration adjectives in context. Earlier works, such as those by al-Homsi (2016) and Medallal (2021), often overlooked the dynamic nature of derivation, which shows how derived forms relate to their roots. This study addresses that gap. We illustrate these relationships through phonological rules that connect the results of derivation to the root, highlighting phonological processes like gemination and metathesis. To support these findings and bridge the gap between formal theory and practical usage, we exclusively used data from natural discourse. The present study also tackled inconsistencies in root-template mapping that prior studies on exaggeration adjectives in MSA failed to address. Our findings indicate that the root-template ˈCa.CaC is the standard for the five exaggeration adjective forms, while we also identified other discrepancies caused by medial structures or specific phonological traits in the roots. While much recent research has focused on the functional aspects of exaggeration adjectives in colloquial Arabic, this study provides a complementary perspective centered on the form and structure of these adjectives in MSA. It offers a linguistically rigorous and empirically grounded explanation of exaggeration adjectives, thereby contributing to both the descriptive and theoretical understanding of Arabic morphology. Future research should extend this framework to encompass other Arabic dialects for comparative insights.