Gutturals, emphatics, and the phenomenon of emphasis spread in Fallaahi Jordanian Arabic: A non- linear analysis

Year 2020, , 1656 - 1679, 30.12.2020

Muneera Jaradat

https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.850979

Abstract

The study aims to investigate guttural and emphatic sounds and the phenomenon of emphasis spread in Fallaahi Jordanian Arabic (FJA), a rural Jordanian dialect spoken in the north of Jordan. The study uses a non-linear approach, namely, the feature geometry approach to represent guttural and emphatic sounds and the phenomenon of emphasis spread. The data are collected by recording spontaneous conversations of twenty participants who are native speakers of this dialect. The analysis shows that gutturals in FJA are (/x, ʁ, ʕ, ħ, h, ?/) and the primary emphatics are (/T, D, S/). The analysis also shows that emphatic sounds can cause spreading of emphasis to other segments since they involve the back of the tongue and accompany a primary articulation at another place of articulation. Moreover, the study reveals that emphasis spread is bi-directional: leftward and rightward. Leftward emphasis is absolute, while rightward emphasis is blocked by the [+high, -back] segments (/i/, /i:/, /y/, and /ʃ/) since they are incompatible with and antagonistic to the Retracted Tongue Root [RTR] feature. Finally, the study shows that the domain of emphasis is minimally over the syllable and maximally over the phonological word.

Keywords

Fallahi dialect;, gutturals;, emphatics; emphasis spread; feature geometry approach

References

• Al-Bataineh, H. (2019). Emphasis harmony in Arabic: A critical assessment of feature geometric and optimality- theory approaches. Languages, 4(79), 1-24.
• Algryani, A. (2014). Emphasis spread in Libyan Arabic. International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL), 2(12), 30-38.
• Archangeli, D., & Pulleyblank. D. (1994). Grounded phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Bellem, A. (2007). Towards a comparative typology of emphatics across Semitic and into Arabic dialect phonology (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of London.
• Brame, M. (1970). Arabic phonology: Implications for phonological theory and historical Semitic (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Broselow, E. (1979). Cairene Arabic syllable structure. Linguistic Analysis, 5(4), 345- 382.
• Card, E. (1983). A phonetic and phonological study of Arabic emphasis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Cornell University.
• Chomsky, N., & Halle, M. (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row.
• Clements, G. (1985). The geometry of phonological features. Phonology, 2, 225-252.
• Clements, G. (1991). Place of articulation in consonants and vowels: A unified theory. Working papers of the Cornell phonetics laboratory, 5, (pp.77-123). Cornell University: New York.
• Clements, G. & Hume, E. (1995). The internal organization of speech sounds. In Goldsmith: John A. (Ed.). The handbook of phonological theory (pp.245- 306), Cambridge: Massachusetts and Oxford, UK, Blackwell Publishers.
• Davis, S. (1993). Arabic pharyngealization and phonological features. In M. Eid & C. Holes (Eds.), Perspectives on Arabic linguistics V. Papers from the fifth annual symposium on Arabic linguistics (pp.149-162). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s publishing Company.
• Davis, S. (1995). Emphasis spread in Arabic and grounded phonology. Linguistic Inquiry, 26(3), 465- 498.
• El- Dalee, M. (1984). The feature of retraction in Arabic (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Indiana, Bloomington.
• Finch, R. (1984). Emphatic consonants in the Semitic Languages. Sofia Linguistica, 17, 26- 46.
• Ghazeli, S. (1977). Back consonants and backing coarticulation in Arabic (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Texas.
• Halle, M. (1988). The immanent form of phonemes. In W. Hurst (Ed.), Giving birth to cognitive science: A festschrift for George A. Miller (pp. 167-183). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Halle, M. (1991). Phonological features. International Encyclopaedia of Linguistics, 3, 207- 212.
• Halle, M. (1995). Feature geometry and feature spreading. Linguistic Inquiry, 26(1),1-46.
• Halle, M. (2002). From memory to speech and back: Papers on phonetics and phonology 1954–2002. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Herzallah, R. 1990). Aspects of Palestinian Arabic phonology: A non-linear approach (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Cornell University.
• Huneety, A. (2015). The phonology and morphology of Wadi Mousa Arabic (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Salford University.
• Huneety, A., & Mashaqba, B. (2016). Emphatic segments and emphasis spread in rural Jordanian Arabic. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 7(5), 294- 298.
• Jaber, A., Omari, O., & Al- Jarrah, R. (2019). The domain of emphasis spread in Arabic evidence from urban Jordanian Arabic. Lingua, 222, 10-25.
• Kenstowicz, M. (1994). Phonology in generative grammar. Blackwell publishers: 238 Main Street. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Ladefoged, P. (1993). A course in phonetics. U. S. A: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
• Mashaqba, B. (2015). The phonology and morphology of Wadi Mousa Arabic (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Salford University.
• McCarthy, J. (1979). Formal problems in Semitic phonology and morphology (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
• McCarthy, J. (1981). A prosodic theory of nonconcatentive morphology. Linguistic Inquiry, 12, 373- 418.
• McCarthy, J. (1982). Prosodic templates, morphemic templates, and morphemic tiers. In H. van der Hulst & N. Smith (Eds.), The structure of phonological representations (pp.191-223). Dordrecht: Foris.
• McCarthy, J. (1988). Features geometry and dependency: A review. Phonetica, 45, 84-108.
• McCarthy, J. (1994). The phonetics and phonology of Semitic pharyngeals. In P. Keating (Ed.), Phonological structure and phonetic form (pp. 191-233). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mielke, J. & Elizabeth, H. (2006). Distinctive features. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Language & Linguistic, (pp. 723–31). Amsterdam.
• Rakhieh, B. (2009). The Phonology of Ma’ani Arabic: Stratal or parallel OT (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Essex.
• Sakarna, A. (1999). Phonological aspects of ʕabaady Arabic: A Bedouin Jordanian Dialect (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Wisconsin – Madison, Wisconsin.
• Shaaban, K. (1977). The phonology of Omani Arabic (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Texas, Austin.
• Sagey, E. (1986). The representation of features and relations in nonlinear phonology (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). MIT.
• Sibawayh, A. (1898). Kitab Sibawayh, 2. Baghdad: Al-Muthanna Library.
• Watson, J. (1999), The directionality of emphasis spread in Arabic. Linguistic Inquiry, 30, 289 -300.
• Watson, J. (2002). The phonology and morphology of Arabic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Wright, W. (1955). A grammar of the Arabic language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.