Semitic languages are typologically unusual in making extensive morphological use of so-called “root-and-pattern” morphology, in the form of fixed-length templates that fix vowel qualities in the output while ignoring the vowels of the input. The expansion of Arabic over the past 1500 years has created ideal conditions for the borrowing of fixed-vowel fixed-length templates into the languages of massively bilingual minority groups in the Arab world. Prominent among the morphemes borrowed in such circumstances is the comparative/superlative template ʔaCCaC, conventionally termed the elative. This template has become fully productive in languages including Siwi Berber, Western Neo-Aramaic, and Mehri, and suppletively productive in Domari. A nearly exhaustive examination of massively bilingual minority groups in the Arab world suggests that the outcome is determined not only by sociolinguistic factors but also by structural ones: only languages with pre-existing triliteral fixed-vowel templates – used in particular for change-of-state verbs – borrow this template in a fully productive fashion, while other languages, if they borrow it at all, are forced to resort to suppletion and/or to leave it unproductive. This observation is consistent with two more broadly generalisable explanations: that the productive borrowing of “root-and-pattern” morphology requires not only the borrowing of its outputs but also the presence (through borrowing or common inheritance) of enough of the corresponding inputs, and that, in any given category, pre-existing root extraction processes are a precondition for the productive borrowing of “root-and-pattern” morphology.

符号学在类型学上是不寻常的，它以固定长度模板的形式广泛使用所谓的“根和模式”形态，固定长度模板固定了输出中的元音质量，而忽略了输入的元音。在过去的1500年中，阿拉伯语的扩展为将固定元音固定长度模板借用到阿拉伯世界中大量双语少数群体的语言创造了理想的条件。在这种情况下借用的语素中最突出的是比较/最高级模板templateaCCaC，通常称为“亲戚”。该模板已经以包括Siwi Berber，Western Neo-Aramaic和Mehri在内的各种语言全面产生成果，并在Domari中产生了丰富的成果。对阿拉伯世界中大量双语少数群体的近乎详尽的研究表明，结果不仅取决于社会语言因素，还取决于结构因素：仅具有预先存在的三字固定元音模板的语言，尤其是用于语言变化的语言状态动词–以完全有效的方式借用此模板，而其他语言（如果完全借用）则被迫诉诸补充和/或使其无效。该观察结果与两个更广义的解释是一致的：