ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is based to a great extent on the basic assumptions of generative phonology, and for that reasons assumes a certain familiarity with representative works like Chomsky and Halle and subsequent literature. The thesis is that several formal enrichments, along basically prosodic lines, of the theory of Chomsky and Halle are both descriptively necessary and theoretically desirable. A solution to the traditional problem of the root and pattern morphological system of Semitic is proposed and illustrated by an extensive treatment of Classical Arabic. Although the Semitic problem is itself of great inherent interest, the morphological model as conceived to lead to a variety of other consequences, a strong constraint on the form of morphological rules and a deeper understanding of nonconcatenative morphology in general.
