ABSTRACT
The stochastic constraints analysis provides the best model yet proposed for the place cooccurrence restrictions of Arabic. The lexicon of modern Arabic matches the predictions of the stochastic constraint model fairly closely. The mechanism of stochastic constraint combination is multiplication. Stefan Frisch, Michael Broe, and Janet Pierrehumbert offer parasitic vowel harmony as an example of a phonological effect that can be modeled through stochastic constraint combination. Rather than governing the mapping of input forms to output forms, stochastic constraints describe the relative numbers of forms of different types in the lexicon. Frisch, Broe, and Pierrehumbert 1995 and Frisch 1996 build on the work of Pierrehumbert 1993 to propose a novel account of the cooccurrence restrictions operating on place of articulation within Arabic verbal roots. Frisch 1996 does address one example of a place cooccurrence restriction that appears to involve the identity effect.
