--- title: "A Logical Analysis of Autosegmental Approaches — Payne 2026" description: "Jardine (2017) showed that left-to-right association of autosegmental representations of arbitrary length is not definable in monadic second-order logic…" authors: ["Sarah Payne"] year: 2026 venue: "Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026" source: "https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.9/" doi: "10.18653/v1/2026.scil-main.9" licence: "CC BY 4.0 (ACL Anthology)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lingbulk-2026-payne-logical-analysis-autosegmental-approaches-root/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lingbulk-2026-payne-logical-analysis-autosegmental-approaches-root/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/) / A Logical Analysis of Autosegmental Approaches to Root-and-Pattern Morphology in Arabic # A Logical Analysis of Autosegmental Approaches to Root-and-Pattern Morphology in Arabic **Authors:** [Sarah Payne](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/sarah-payne/) · **Year:** 2026 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026 (pages 90–99) **Link:** [aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.9](https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.9/) · library `lingbulk-2026-payne-logical-analysis-autosegmental-approaches-root` · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) (ACL Anthology) [**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W7166847268) OpenAlex · 2026-10-14 · [Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/2026.scil-main/) · [licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.9/) - [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.9.pdf) - [DOI 10.18653/v1/2026.scil-main.9](https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.scil-main.9) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7166847268) **Authors (1)** 1. [Payne, Sarah](https://openalex.org/A5128921473) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/50023668) · h 0 · 0 citations · 8 works Citations and author metrics: OpenAlex, 2026-10-14; authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about Jardine (2017) showed that left-to-right association of autosegmental representations of arbitrary length is not definable in monadic second-order logic, which casts doubt on the cognitive plausibility of the autosegmental approach. Payne shows that the finite length of the Arabic consonantal root avoids this problem. She builds a relational model with three tiers (prosodic template, affixes, root) and the precedence relation, adds constraints such as "each C slot links to one element", and writes McCarthy's (1981) analysis of the fifteen binyanim of the root KTB as association transductions in first-order logic. Binyan-specific rules, the flop of reflexive [t] in binyan VIII and the erasure rule for gemination in II, V and XIII, are written as binyan-indexed transductions. The paper is formal; it reports no measurements, and it notes that the result depends on the root being finite, not on its exact length. ## Ideas - I1. Write the binyan-indexed association as a finite table (binyan, template slots, affix position) and apply it in Rust, left to right, with no search. Each generated form then has a traceable chain of associations. - I2. Hebrew hitpa'el forms have the same t-infix problem as binyan VIII. Write Payne's flop rule as a rule and test it on the hitpa'el forms in MACULA. The paper names Hebrew as a possible extension. - I3. Use the paper's Table 1 (the root KTB in all fifteen binyanim, in the perfective, imperfective and participle columns) as a closed gold test for any Semitic root-and-pattern generator. The set is small and closed, so a generator either passes it or fails. ## For Mova I1 goes into [languages/hbo/06-verb.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/06-verb/), as a verb-stem table. I2 goes into [languages/hbo/07-weak-verbs.md](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/07-weak-verbs/). I3 is a test set for the same verb-stem table and for any generator in `tools/hbo`. ## Cite The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.18653/v1/2026.scil-main.9](https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.scil-main.9) ```bibtex @inproceedings{payne2026logical, title = {{A Logical Analysis of Autosegmental Approaches to Root-and-Pattern Morphology in Arabic}}, author = {Payne, Sarah}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026}, year = {2026}, doi = {10.18653/v1/2026.scil-main.9}, url = {https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.scil-main.9} } ``` - [← previous A Layered Annotation Workflow for Semitic Epigraphy](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/aclbulk-2026-bernstein-layered-annotation-workflow-semitic-epigraphy/) - [next → A Longitudinal Study of the Adoption of Specialized MT Systems in Canadian Parliamentary Translation](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/simard-2026-longitudinal-study-adoption-specialized-mt/) - [↑ back to papers of 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/) ## References 17 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. 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