The Directionality of Emphasis Spread in Arabic

Abstract

Many modern Arabic dialects exhibit asymmetries in the direction of emphasis (for most dialects, pharyngealization) spread. In a dialect of Yemeni Arabic, emphasis has two articulatory correlates, pharyngealization and labialization: within the phonological word, pharyngealization spreads predominantly leftward, and labialization spreads rightward, targeting short high vowels. Since asymmetries in the directionality of spread of a secondary feature are phonetically motivated and depend on whether the feature is anchored to the onset or the release phase of the primary articulation, it is argued that the unmarked directionality of spread should be encoded in the phonology as a markedness statement on that feature. This article considers phonological emphasis in Arabic. It is divided into two parts. I first discuss an article by Davis (1995) on asymmetries in emphasis spread (spread of [RTR]) in two dialects of Palestinian Arabic, and argue for the significance of directionality in emphasis spread. I then present further supporting arguments for a hypothesis regarding directionality of spread by considering data from S . an»ānī, a dialect of Yemeni Arabic, in which emphasis has two articulatory correlates, pharyngealization and labialization, and by discussing the asymmetries in the directionality of spread, particularly of labialization, in this dialect. Emphasis Spread and Grounded PhonologyIn an article on emphasis spread in two modern Palestinian dialects of Arabic, Davis (1995) adopts Grounded Phonology (Archangeli and Pulleyblank 1994) to account for sets of opaque Thanks to Barry Heselwood for spectrographic analysis of my data and for reading and commenting on various drafts of this article; to James Dickins; to Judith Broadbent; and to S. J. Hannahs, Mike Davenport, Phil Carr, and other members of the Phonology Reading Group at Durham University for providing critical comments on earlier versions. Thanks also to two anonymous reviewers for LI.

Effects of Gender on the Production of Emphasis in Jordanian Arabic: A Sociophonetic Study

“…While pharyngealization has been the most reported articulatory configuration of emphasis in different dialects of Arabic (Laufer and Baer, 1988;Wahba, 1993;Davis, 1995;Hassan, 2005;AlTamimi et al, 2009), other configurations have also been proposed either besides or instead of pharyngealization. Among the proposed configurations are labialization (Watson, 1999), velarization (Norlin, 1978;Hetzron, 1998), uvularization (Zawaydeh, 1999), tongue retraction (Lehn, 1963) glottalization (Ladefoged, 1971) and, less frequently, heaviness, strong articulation and uresonance (Lehn, 1963). Wahba (1993) attributed the multiplicity of terms for emphasis to the articulatory complexity of emphasis.…”

Vowel Deletion in Arabic Dialects of Yemen (ADY): A Linguistic Perspective

“…However, some of the important phonological features that attracted linguists are the segmental features, mainly, vowels and consonants. Watson (1999) made it clear that target short and/ or high vowels are determined by two articulatory correlates: "pharangealization" (which is predominately spread leftwards) and "labialization" (which is predominately spread rightwards).…”

Emphatic Segments and Emphasis Spread in Rural Jordanian Arabic

“…The term emphasis is a distinctive feature of Semitic languages which defines segments produced with a primary articulation in the dento-alveolar 1 region and a secondary articulation that involves some constriction in the upper region of the pharynx (Card 1983;McCarthy 1994;Davis 1995;Watson 1999;Huneety 2015;Mashaqba 2015). The outcome of this is two contrastive classes of phonemes that share the same place and manner of articulation and differ only by the feature [+emphatic].…”

“…Obretch (1968), Al-Ani (1970), Card (1983), McCarthy (1994), Zawaydah (1999), Watson (1999) and Dickens (2007). Different terms have been used to refer to emphasis, including velarization (Obrecht 1968), pharyngealization (Al Ani 1970;Watson 2002;Dickins 2007), uvularization ( McCarthy 1994;Shahin 1997;Zawaydah 1999), retracted tongue root (Ladefoged 1975;El-Dalee 1984), and dorsalization (Halle et al 2000).…”

“…Primary emphatics comprise the set of pharyngealized coronals / /, / /, / /, and / / which are traditionally viewed as primary or phonemic and they cause spreading of emphasis to other segments (Davis 1995;Watson 1999;Bellem 2007). They contrast respectively with the following set of plain coronals /t/, /s/, / /, and /d/.…”