A Preliminary Account of Hypocoristics in Moroccan Amazigh

This paper purports to undertake a taxonomic survey of hypocoristics in one of the Moroccan Amazigh varieties, namely, the variety spoken in Figuig, and described in Yeou (Dictionnaire Amazighe-Français. Parler de Figuig. Publications de l’IRCAM, Rabat, 2022). The paper is also a contribution to the ongoing debate on root-based – as opposed to word-based morphology. In particular, it considers whether or not hypocoristics take the root, or the word, as the base of derivation. The paper tries to show that the derivation of hypocoristics in Moroccan Amazigh is better analyzed as a case taking both the root and the word as a base. Facts from the language lend support to this assumption: hypocoristic nouns such as kari, ttu, and jja (from ʕabdǝlkarim, kǝttu, and mǝkkijja, respectively) should, in principle, take the word as a base, while nouns such as mǝnna, ħǝffu, and basa (from jamina, mǝħfudˁ, and bǝnnasˁǝrˁ, respectively) take the root, or part of it, as a base to derive disyllabic hypocoristics. Both root- and word-based hypocoristics are subject to a truncatory process which yields an output that corresponds to a minimal word. The paper also provides a preliminary account of a number of hypocoristics within the constraint-based framework of optimality theory.