Ablaut in Cairene Arabic

Abstract The vowel alternations relating the perfectives and imperfectives of Form I verbs in Cairene Arabic are examined in this article. It is argued that such alternations are driven by a coherent system of Ablaut (or apophony), the same system as was proposed by Guerssel and Lowenstamm for Classical Arabic. Mounting evidence from unrelated languages strongly suggests that Ablaut systems are organized in similarly rigid fashion cross-linguistically. The question of the impact of linguistic change on Ablaut thus arises. One possibility is that change may culminate in the abandonment of apophony. Another possibility is that apophony itself drives change. It is argued in this article that several past and ongoing developments in the evolution of the vocalization of verbs in Cairene took place under the control of the apophonic system.