The Palatalisation of /ʤ/ into /j/ in Emirati Arabic (EA): A Rule-Governed or Random Alternation?

Abstract

This study aims to investigate a phonological phenomenon that occurs in Emirati Arabic (EA), whereby the voiced palato-alveolar affricate /ʤ/ changes into the voiced palatal approximate (glide) /j/. In particular, this study attempts to determine whether this phonological alternation is triggered by a certain phonological environment, or whether it occurs randomly without any rule. It also endeavours to examine the hypothesis that this phonological phenomenon was borrowed from other Arabic dialects spoken in the Gulf through language contact.

Phonological conditioning of affricate variability in Emirati Arabic

“…Recently, Szreder et al (2021) examined the variability of affrication and lenition in EA based on corpus data and an elicitation experiment. Contrary to Hassan (2017), the corpus analysis did suggest a modest effect of vowel quality, such that the presence of the back vowels /oː uː/ decreased the probability of both k-affrication and dʒ-lenition, although the presence of the front vowels /iː eː/ did not have a strong predictive power (i.e. both affricate and non-affricate variants of both phonemes occurred in the presence of front vowels).…”

“…As in other dialects of GA, the likelihood of k-affrication is also supposed to increase if the segment is preceded or followed by a non-back vowel. However, this generalisation appears to have little predictive power in modern day EA, and at least one study did not find any stable influence of non-back vowels on the probability of affrication in the dialect (Hassan 2017). Recently, Szreder et al (2021) examined the variability of affrication and lenition in EA based on corpus data and an elicitation experiment.…”

“…Studies investigating the correlation between affrication and extra-linguistic factors, including age, educational level, gender of the speaker and area, report that k-affrication appears more frequently in the speech of older, less educated speakers, and within this group, males are more likely to affricate than females (Al Rojaie 2013, Dashti, Akbar & Taqi 2015, El Salman 2016, Dashti 2018). In contrast, while dʒ-lenition also used to be considered an ‘incorrect’ pronunciation and as such associated with lower socioeconomic status and rural populations (As-Sammer 2010, Hassan 2017, Leung, Ntelitheos & Al Kaabi 2020), more recent reports suggest that the [j] variant has been adopted by young urban speakers in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the rest of the Gulf (Al Qouz 2009, Hassan 2009, Holes 2011). Nonetheless, both processes exhibit variability in application within speakers, and the probability of their occurrence has also been linked to phonological factors.…”

“…The above sociolinguistic factors have traditionally been considered the sole determinants in the process of dʒ-lenition, rendering it a purely sociolinguistic phenomenon (Hoffiz 1995, Feghali 2008, As-Sammer 2010, Hassan 2017). In contrast, a phonological factor which has often been associated with the likelihood of a surface [tʃ] is the vowel context, as the process is traditionally assumed to have originated from palatalization in front vowel contexts – a phenomenon widely attested cross-linguistically (Bhat 1978; Bateman 2007, 2011; Kochetov, 2011).…”