Inflectional Regularity in Modern Standard Arabic Broken Plural Nouns

This study aims to investigate the inflectional regularity in Modern Standard Arabic broken plural nouns because Arabic broken plurals have recently attracted the attention of many linguists. It is based on data qualitatively collected from English and Arabic materials on Arabic broken plurals, reference dictionaries and supplemented by data obtained from native speakers’ competence. Inflectional regularity refers to the use of the rules of a language to form new forms of a lexeme used in a grammatical context. In Arabic plural nouns, semantic regularity is the norm even where forms differ. The Arabic plural nouns are morphologically classified into two types: sound plurals formed by the addition of affixes and broken plurals formed by modifying the stem. It has been observed that Arabic broken plurals show a large number of variation in forms because of stem changes. However, these changes are not random or arbitrary. They are regular and productive. This result processes lines to further research on regularity in Arabic broken plurals and the relationship between phonology and morphology in forming broken plurals.