Numerous studies on Arabic linguistics make reference to the phonological word (PW) as a constituent that serves as the domain for various phonological phenomena, however, there is no clear and precise definition in the Arabic linguistics literature of what actually constitutes as a PW and whether it consists of just the bare morphological stem or whether it includes affixes as well. The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the status of this phonological constituent in Najdi Arabic (NA), a variety of Arabic spoken in Najd, located in the central region of Saudi Arabia. Affixation and other phonological processes are thoroughly investigated to examine how they interact with the stem in an attempt to give an accurate and precise definition of the domain of the PW. Using syllabification and stress placement as reliable diagnostic tools, in addition to other phonological processes, it is concluded that the PW in NA consists of the morphological stem including all affixes (i.e. prefixes and suffixes, both inflectional and derivational) and functions words (e.g., prepositions). Evidence that supports this conclusion stems from the fact that the stem plus affixes comprise the domain for syllabification and the stress assignment rules as well.

As with other varieties of Arabic, Najdi Arabic (NA), spoken in central Saudi Arabia, contains a set of emphatic consonants, /? – ? – ð?/, which have an uncontrollable phonological effect on neighboring segments whereby the presence of an emphatic in a word entails “emphasis spread” to the adjacent non-emphatic segments. Acoustically, emphasis is manifested by lowering the frequency of the second formant (F2) of vowels in the vicinity of an emphatic. The purpose of this study is investigate the domain and directionality of emphasis spread in NA and whether it is blocked by any opaque phonemes by measuring and comparing the F2 frequencies of vowels in minimal pairs contrasting on the basis of the presence/absence of emphatics. The results show that the domain of emphasis spread in NA is the entire phonological word consisting of the stem plus any inflectional/derivational affixes. In addition, emphasis spreads rightward and leftward throughout the phonological word in a gradient manner in an inverse relationship, where emphasis peaks in the syllable containing the emphatic and gradually decreases as it moves into the following/preceding syllables. Finally, the high front phonemes /y – ? – ?/ act as opaque segments as they block rightward spread but not leftward spread.

The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed and unified analysis of word stress in Najdi Arabic (NA), a variety of Arabic spoken in Najd, located in the central region of Saudi Arabia. Regular stress, seemingly exceptional cases, and also variations within NA itself are all accounted for in a simple and straightforward manner. The proposed analysis is based on two principles. First, unlike previous studies that employ a three-way weight distinction between light, heavy, and superheavy syllables, a binary weight distinction between light (monomoraic) C(C)v; and heavy (bimoraic) C(C)vX(C) is proposed, where “X” is either a vowel or a consonant. Second, word-final consonants are crucially assumed to be “extrasyllabic”. The stress algorithm is constrained so that stress may fall on one of the last three syllables of a word, as follows: Stress the rightmost heavy syllable if and only if it is one of the word’s last three syllables; otherwise stress the antepenultimate syllable (initial syllable in disyllabic words). Variations within NA and seemingly exceptional cases are accounted for by the fact that stress assignment applies earlier in the derivation before the application of any other phonological processes that subsequently alter the shape of the word.

This paper presents the results of an experiment conducted to investigate how adult native speakers of English perceive some Arabic contrasts within Brown’s Phonological Interference Model (PIM) (1998, 2000), based on the theory of Feature Geometry. Three Arabic pairs of contrasts were chosen for the experiment: the contrast /b – d/ consisting of consonants present in both English and Arabic; the contrast /x – ?/ consisting of consonants that are non-native to English but are distinguished by the features [dorsal, voice, continuant] which are available in the English feature geometry; and finally the contrast /h – ?/, of which only the former exists in English, whereas the latter is non-native to English and is distinguished by the feature [RTR], which is unavailable in the English feature geometry, thereby rendering /?/ completely alien to the English sound system. The experiment consisted of an AX Discrimination task where subjects heard two sounds and were asked to decide whether they were the same or different. Three groups participated in the experiment: an Arabic L1 control group, an English L1 group, and finally an Arabic L2 group. The results of the experiment confirm Brown’s findings in a similar experiment with Japanese and Chinese speakers’ perception of English.