DOCSLIB.ORG

The Realization of the Uvular Stop [Q] in Arabic: the Phonetic

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Realization of the Uvular Stop [Q] in Arabic: the Phonetic A Diachronic Phonetic and Phonological Study of the Uvular Stop [q] in Arabic Author’s name: Taoufik GOUMA Affiliation: University Paris 8 E-mail: [email protected] Among the different linguistic phenomena related to the study of Arabic linguistics and particularly its phonology and phonetics, we find one related to the analysis of the uvular stop [q]. This phoneme attracted the attention of early Arab grammarians as well as many orientalists and modern linguists for the different issues related to its evolution and treatment. We are going to explore here two of these. First of all we are going to give a diachronic analysis of this segment in early Classical Arabic (CA henceforth) which is intended to determine its early phonetic realization. According to the descriptions of some early Arab grammarians (such as Sibawayh and Ibn Jinni) the [q] of CA had the phonetic value of [g]. Sibawayh for example describes it as majhuura (voiced) and as being articulated in ‘aqsā llisan wama fawqahu mina lanak al alā’ (Al Kitāb, Vol 4, p. 433), i. e. as a velar. Following Sibawayh, Ibn Jinni gives the same description when he says ‘wa mimā fawqa dālika makhraju lqāf’ (Sir Senāat al Irāb, Vol 1, p. 278). Finally, Avicenna also describes it, in his ‘’Rissāla’’, as a velar when he says that it is realized in the place of articulation of [x]. But, when we look at the analysis of Ibn yaich (Sharal Mufassal, Vol 10, p. 124) we find that he puts it in the same place of articulation as [k] and defines this place as lahāt, i. e. the uvula. I show that these descriptions run counter to the phonetic features of [q] of fusa Arabic known in modern linguistics, and in the traditional Quranic recitation, i. e. a voiceless uvular stop. Making another analysis of the descriptions made by the Arab grammarians, I show that the reasons behind this contradiction lie in our misunderstanding of the terms used by these last named, and not in their non comprehension of the manner of articulation of this segment. As an example, what Sibawayh calls ‘aqsā llisān’ is defined by Al Farāhidi as ‘aqsa lalq’ and by Al layth in ‘At tahdīb’ as al lahāt, i. e. the uvula. The second issue concerns the link that some linguists (Cantineau 1960, Jakobson 1957) made between the [q] and the emphatics. This link was done on the basis of the place of articulation of this segment which is uvular, and then guttural, which is not far from that of the secondary articulation of the emphatics, i. e. the pharynx. I will give a phonetic and acoustic analysis of the [q] through which I will show that this latter cannot be considered as an emphatic, and that the feature it shares with the emphatics is only acoustic. This acoustic feature is what is called in Arabic linguistics tafkhīm; a sort of grave resonance created by the shape of the oral cavity that is larger as in the emphatics. This large configuration is due, at the same time, to the back of the tongue which goes up to reach the uvula and to the front part of the tongue which goes down. If [q] had the phonetic value of [g] then Arab grammarians would not have included it among the mufaxxama, since [g] does not have this acoustic feature. References. - Al Nassir, A.A. 1993 ‘Sibawayh the Phonologist’ A critical study of the phonetic and phonological theory of Sibawayh as presented in his treatise Al Kitaab. Kegan Paul International Ltd. - Al Farāhīdi (1980) ‘Al ayn’, eds. Al Makhzumi et al. vols. I-IV, Baghdad. - Az Zamakhshari (1999) ‘Al Mufassal fi sanat al irāb’, ed. Yaakoub. Beyrouth, Lebanon. - Cantineau, J. (1960) ‘Cours de phonétique arabe’ P., Klincksieck, Paris. - Cohen, D. (1988) ‘Les langues dans le monde ancien et moderne; les langues chamito-sémitiques’. Edition du CNRS, Paris. - Ibn Jinni (1954) ‘Sir Senāat al Irāb’, eds. Mustafa al Saqqa et al, Vol. 1. Cairo. - Ibn Sīna (1981) ‘Rissāla fī asbāb udūth al urūf’, eds. Mohammad Hassan et al, Damascus. - Jakobson, R. (1957) ‘Mufaxxama-the ‘Emphatic’ Phonemes in Arabic’, in E. Pulgram (e. d), Studies Presented to Joshua Whatmough, Mouton, pp. 105-16. - Moscati et al. (1981) ‘An Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages: phonology and morphology’. Third printing, Otto Harrassowitz. Wiesbaden. - Rabin, C. (1951) ‘Ancient Western Arabian’. London, Taylor’s Foreign Press’. - Sibawayh. (1975) ‘Al Kitaab’ 4 vols. Ed. A.S.M. Harun, Cairo. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Anatolian Evidence Suggests That the Indo- European Laryngeals * H2 And
    Indo-European Linguistics 6 (2018) 69–94 brill.com/ieul Anatolian evidence suggests that the Indo- European laryngeals *h2 and *h3 were uvular stops Alwin Kloekhorst Leiden University [email protected] Abstract In this article it will be argued that the Indo-European laryngeals *h2 and *h3, which recently have been identified as uvular fricatives, were in fact uvular stops in Proto- Indo-Anatolian. Also in the Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Luwic stages these sounds prob- ably were stops, not fricatives. Keywords Indo-European – laryngeals – phonological change – Indo-Anatolian 1 Background It is well-known that the Indo-European laryngeals *h2 and *h3 have in some environments survived in Hittite and Luwian as consonants that are spelled with the graphemes ḫ (in the cuneiform script) and h (in the hieroglyphic script).1 Although in handbooks it was usually stated that the exact phonetic interpretation of these graphemes is unclear,2 in recent years a consensus seems to have formed that they represent uvular fricatives (Kümmel 2007: 1 Although there is no full consensus on the question exactly in which environments *h2 and *h3 were retained as ḫ and h: especially the outcome of *h3 in Anatolian is debated (e.g. Kloekhorst 2006). Nevertheless, for the remainder of this article it is not crucial in which environments *h2 and *h3 yielded ḫ and h, only that they sometimes did. 2 E.g. Melchert 1994: 22; Hoffner & Melchert 2008: 38. © alwin kloekhorst, 2018 | doi:10.1163/22125892-00601003 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at the time of publication.
    [Show full text]
  • Sociophonetic Variation in Bolivian Quechua Uvular Stops
    Title Page Sociophonetic Variation in Bolivian Quechua Uvular Stops by Eva Bacas University of Pittsburgh, 2019 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 Committee Page UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This thesis was presented by Eva Bacas It was defended on November 8, 2019 and approved by Alana DeLoge, Quechua Instructor, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh Melinda Fricke, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh Gillian Gallagher, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, New York University Thesis Advisor/Dissertation Director: Claude Mauk, Senior Lecturer, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by Eva Bacas 2019 iii Abstract Sociophonetic Variation in Bolivian Quechua Uvular Stops Eva Bacas, BPhil University of Pittsburgh, 2019 Quechua is an indigenous language of the Andes region of South America. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, Quechua and Spanish have been in contact for over 500 years. In this thesis, I explore sociolinguistic variation among bilingual speakers of Cochabamba Quechua (CQ) and Spanish by investigating the relationship between the production of the voiceless uvular stop /q/ and speakers’ sociolinguistic backgrounds. I conducted a speech production study and sociolinguistic interview with seven bilingual CQ-Spanish speakers. I analyzed manner of articulation and place of articulation variation. Results indicate that manner of articulation varies primarily due to phonological factors, and place of articulation varies according to sociolinguistic factors. This reveals that among bilingual CQ-Spanish speakers, production of voiceless uvular stop /q/ does vary sociolinguistically.
    [Show full text]
  • The Stops of Tlingit
    The Stops of Tlingit IAN MADDIESON1,2 and CAROLINE L. SMITH2 1University of California, Berkeley and 2University of New Mexico Introduction One aspect of the maintenance of languages is the maintenance of the appropriate pronunciation. A language whose speakers use it only a minority of the time is often strongly affected by the phonetic patterns of the dominant language, particularly as speech habits natural to the ‘new’ language are carried over to the traditional one. Documenting the phonetic patterns of those speakers who were the last to have learned the language in question as their first language can provide an appropriate source of guidance to the pronunciation to adopt for later generations. In this paper we aim to present a good description of certain important aspects of the pronunciation of the stops of Tlingit. We hope that this data will be of value to those interested in the continuation of Tlingit as a spoken language. Of course, all languages change over time, and pronunciation will evolve in natural ways, so this information should be used in ways that accommodate natural changes. This data will also have value for comparative phonetic studies as illustrating details of a language whose phonetics has been previously little studied. Tlingit ([!i"ít]) is a Na-Dene language (Krauss 1979) spoken in South-East Alaska and the Yukon. There are now few fluent speakers under the age of 60 (Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1995). The language has some dialect variation, with particular differences noted between Inland or Yukon Tlingit and Coastal or Alaskan varieties, and further differences between Northern, Central, and Southern varieties along the Coast.
    [Show full text]
  • The Diachronic Emergence of Retroflex Segments in Three Languages* 1
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Hochschulschriftenserver - Universität Frankfurt am Main The diachronic emergence of retroflex segments in three languages* Silke Hamann ZAS (Centre for General Linguistics), Berlin [email protected] The present study shows that though retroflex segments can be considered articulatorily marked, there are perceptual reasons why languages introduce this class into their phoneme inventory. This observation is illustrated with the diachronic developments of retroflexes in Norwegian (North- Germanic), Nyawaygi (Australian) and Minto-Nenana (Athapaskan). The developments in these three languages are modelled in a perceptually oriented phonological theory, since traditional articulatorily-based features cannot deal with such processes. 1 Introduction Cross-linguistically, retroflexes occur relatively infrequently. From the 317 languages of the UPSI database (Maddieson 1984, 1986), only 8.5 % have a voiceless retroflex stop [ˇ], 7.3 % a voiced stop [Í], 5.3 % a voiceless retroflex fricative [ß], 0.9 % a voiced fricative [¸], and 5.9 % a retroflex nasal [˜]. Compared to other segmental classes that are considered infrequent, such as a palatal nasal [¯], which occurs in 33.7 % of the UPSID languages, and the uvular stop [q], which occurs in 14.8 % of the languages, the percentages for retroflexes are strikingly low. Furthermore, typically only large segment inventories have a retroflex class, i.e. at least another coronal segment (apical or laminal) is present, as in Sanskrit, Hindi, Norwegian, Swedish, and numerous Australian Aboriginal languages. Maddieson’s (1984) database includes only one exception to this general tendency, namely the Dravidian language Kota, which has a retroflex as its only coronal fricative.
    [Show full text]
  • City Research Online
    SPEECH SOUND ACQUISITION AND PHONOLOGICAL ERROR PATTERNS IN CHILD SPEAKERS OF SYRIAN ARABIC: A NORMATIVE STUDY By Husen OWAIDA Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of doctor of philosophy in Communication sciences and disorders School of Health Sciences Division of Language & Communication Science City University London April 2015 THE FOLLOWING PARTS OF THIS THESIS HAVE BEEN REDACTED FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS: p. 78 Map of Syria. pp. 248-265 Appendix 1 – Articulation Test. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................................. V LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................. VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ VIII ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... X CHAPTER 1: AIMS OF THE STUDY ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 RESEARCH AIMS ............................................................................................................................. 11 1.3 RATIONALE .......................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Phonetics and Phonology of Nyagrong Minyag: an Endangered Language of Western China
    UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA PHD DISSERTATION The Phonetics and Phonology of Nyagrong Minyag, an Endangered Language of Western China John R. Van Way 2018 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE UHM GRADUATE DIVISION IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS DISSERTATION COMMITTEE: Lyle Campbell, Chairperson Victoria Anderson Bradley McDonnell Jonathan Evans Daisuke Takagi Dedicated to the people of Nyagrong khatChO Acknowledgments Funding for research and projects that have led to this dissertation has been awarded by the Endan- gered Languages Documentation Program, the Bilinski Foundation, the Firebird Foundation, and the National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute. This work would not have been possible without the generous support of these funding agencies. My deepest appreciation goes to Bkrashis Bzangpo, who shared his language with me and em- barked on this journey of language documentation with me. Without his patience, kindness and generosity, this project would not have been possible. I thank the members of Bkrashis’s family who lent their time and support to his project. And I thank the many speakers of Nyagrong Minyag who gave their voices to this project. I would like to thank the many teachers who have inspired, encouraged and supported the re- search and writing of this dissertation. First, I would like to acknowledge my mentor and advisor, Lyle Campbell, who taught me so much about linguistics, fieldwork and language documentation. His support has helped me in myriad ways throughout the journey of graduate school—coursework, funding applications, research, fieldwork, writing, etc. Lyle has inspired me to be the best mentorI can to my own students.
    [Show full text]
  • Information-Theoretic Causal Inference of Lexical Flow
    Information-theoretic causal inference of lexical flow Johannes Dellert language Language Variation 4 science press Language Variation Editors: John Nerbonne, Martijn Wieling In this series: 1. Côté, Marie-Hélène, Remco Knooihuizen and John Nerbonne (eds.). The future of dialects. 2. Schäfer, Lea. Sprachliche Imitation: Jiddisch in der deutschsprachigen Literatur (18.–20. Jahrhundert). 3. Juskan, Martin. Sound change, priming, salience: Producing and perceiving variation in Liverpool English. 4. Dellert, Johannes. Information-theoretic causal inference of lexical flow. ISSN: 2366-7818 Information-theoretic causal inference of lexical flow Johannes Dellert language science press Dellert, Johannes. 2019. Information-theoretic causal inference of lexical flow (Language Variation 4). Berlin: Language Science Press. This title can be downloaded at: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/233 © 2019, Johannes Dellert Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN: 978-3-96110-143-6 (Digital) 978-3-96110-144-3 (Hardcover) ISSN: 2366-7818 DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3247415 Source code available from www.github.com/langsci/233 Collaborative reading: paperhive.org/documents/remote?type=langsci&id=233 Cover and concept of design: Ulrike Harbort Typesetting: Johannes Dellert Proofreading: Amir Ghorbanpour, Aniefon Daniel, Barend Beekhuizen, David Lukeš, Gereon Kaiping, Jeroen van de Weijer, Fonts: Linux Libertine, Libertinus Math, Arimo, DejaVu Sans Mono Typesetting software:Ǝ X LATEX Language Science Press Unter den Linden 6 10099 Berlin, Germany langsci-press.org Storage and cataloguing done by FU Berlin Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments xi 1 Introduction 1 2 Foundations: Historical linguistics 7 2.1 Language relationship and family trees .............
    [Show full text]
  • An Acoustic Phonetic Study of Six Accents of Urdu in Pakistan
    An Acoustic Phonetic Study of Six Accents of Urdu in Pakistan by Mahwish Farooq M. Phil in Applied Linguistics Department of English Language and Literature School of Social Sciences and Humanities University of Management and Technology 2014 An Acoustic Phonetic Study of Six Accents of Urdu in Pakistan by Mahwish Farooq M. Phil in Applied Linguistics This research was submitted to University of Management and Technology, Johar Town, Lahore in the partial fulfillment for the requirements of the Degree of M. Phil in Applied Linguistics Department of English Language and Literature School of Social Sciences and Humanities University of Management and Technology 2014 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Start with the name of Allah Almighty who holds and guides us in darkness. I owe to start with the praise of Allah Almighty as I know I am nothing without His help. It is my pleasure to acknowledge different people who have been contributed a lot to my thesis. Firstly, I am incredibly thankful to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Sarmad Hussain for inspiring me with the idea for this project and of course for supervising me. I am very lucky to have a supervisor like him. I would like to express my gratitude for his patience, encouragement and guidance during my research. He is an inspiration for me to enter into the challenging field of research. I am very obliged and thankful to him for responding my queries each and every time during this work. I am very grateful to the former chairperson Mr. Rao Jalil and the present chairperson Dr. Shaban of Department of English Language and Literature, for their co- operation and guidance.
    [Show full text]
  • Reconstructing Lost Phonemes in Huehuetla Tepehua Using “Affectionate Speech”1
    Reconstructing Lost Phonemes in Huehuetla Tepehua Using “Affectionate Speech”1 Susan Smythe The University of Texas at Austin 1. Introduction Huehuetla Tepehua2 (hereafter, HT) is an endangered, underdocumented, indigenous language spoken by fewer than 1,000 people in the town of Huehuetla in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, northeast of Mexico City. It is one of the three languages that make up the Tepehua branch of the Totonacan language family. While conducting linguistic fieldwork on HT, I encountered a particular speech style called “affectionate speech.” HT speakers translate affectionate speech into Spanish as the diminutive, and it is used when the speaker feels great affection for or is much older than the addressee. Affectionate speech is more than an interesting social phenomenon; it has proven to be a potential tool in reconstructing two lost phonemes in HT. Originally, the phonemic inventory of HT included a glottal stop, a plain voiceless uvular stop, and a glottalized voiceless uvular stop (Arana, 1953; Bower, 1948; Herzog, 1974; Herzog, n.d.; Kryder, 1987; Watters, 1988). However, the glottalized uvular stop merged with the plain uvular stop, and now the plain uvular stop is in the process of merging with the glottal stop (Smythe, 2002). These mergers are shown below in (1). 1 This material is based on fieldwork supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0078453, the Fulbright-García Robles program, the Pan American Round Tables of Texas, and the Project for the Documentation of the Languages of the MesoAmerica. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting organizations.
    [Show full text]
  • AN ANALYSIS of SOMALI PRONUNCIATION ERRORS By
    AN ANALYSIS OF SOMALI PRONUNCIATION ERRORS by Elizabeth A. Conway A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in ESL. Hamline University Saint Paul, Minnesota June 2008 Primary Advisor: Bonnie Swierzbin Secondary Advisor: Betsy Parrish Peer Reviewer: Alicia Cozine ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to give special thanks to my committee members. To Bonnie for her expertise in phonology and endless hours of revision, Betsy for her encouragement, and Alicia graciously sharing her time and editing skills. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………. 1 Arabic Influence in Somalia……………………………………….. 4 Somalis in America………………………………………………… 5 Chapter Two: Literature Review…………………………….…………….. 9 Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis and Phonological Development… 10 ELL Interlanguage and Intelligibility……………………………… 13 Arabic Problems with English……………………………………... 17 Contrastive Analysis: English and Somali…………………………. 20 Consonants…………………………………………………………. 23 Vowels……………………………………………………………... 27 Potential Pronunciation Issues for Somali ELLs…………………... 27 Studies Related to Methodology…………………………………… 30 Chapter Three: Methodology………………………………………………. 36 Paradigm…………………………………………………………… 38 Design……………………………………………………………… 39 Triangulation of Data………………………………………………. 40 Setting………………………………………………………………40 Participants…………………………………………………………. 41 iii Data Collection…………………………………………………….. 42 Technology………………………………………………………… 43 Additional Considerations…………………………………………. 44 Data Analysis……………………………………………................
    [Show full text]
  • Anatolian Evidence Suggests That the Indo- European Laryngeals *H2 and *H3 Were Uvular Stops
    Indo-European Linguistics 6 (2018) 69–94 brill.com/ieul Anatolian evidence suggests that the Indo- European laryngeals *h2 and *h3 were uvular stops Alwin Kloekhorst Leiden University [email protected] Abstract In this article it will be argued that the Indo-European laryngeals *h2 and *h3, which recently have been identified as uvular fricatives, were in fact uvular stops in Proto- Indo-Anatolian. Also in the Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Luwic stages these sounds prob- ably were stops, not fricatives. Keywords Indo-European – laryngeals – phonological change – Indo-Anatolian 1 Background It is well-known that the Indo-European laryngeals *h2 and *h3 have in some environments survived in Hittite and Luwian as consonants that are spelled with the graphemes ḫ (in the cuneiform script) and h (in the hieroglyphic script).1 Although in handbooks it was usually stated that the exact phonetic interpretation of these graphemes is unclear,2 in recent years a consensus seems to have formed that they represent uvular fricatives (Kümmel 2007: 1 Although there is no full consensus on the question exactly in which environments *h2 and *h3 were retained as ḫ and h: especially the outcome of *h3 in Anatolian is debated (e.g. Kloekhorst 2006). Nevertheless, for the remainder of this article it is not crucial in which environments *h2 and *h3 yielded ḫ and h, only that they sometimes did. 2 E.g. Melchert 1994: 22; Hoffner & Melchert 2008: 38. © alwin kloekhorst, 2018 | doi:10.1163/22125892-00601003 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC license at the time of publication.
    [Show full text]
  • April 12 Dissertation RS
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Guc̓a: An Account of the Phonetics, Phonotactics, and Lexical Suffixes of a Kʷak̓ʷala Dialect A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Rebekka S. Siemens Committee in charge: Professor Carol Genetti, Chair Professor Matthew Gordon Professor Marianne Mithun Professor Patricia A. Shaw, University of British Columbia March 2016 The dissertation of Rebekka S. Siemens is approved. ____________________________________________ Patricia A. Shaw ____________________________________________ Marianne Mithun ____________________________________________ Matthew Gordon ____________________________________________ Carol Genetti, Committee Chair January 2016 Acknowledgements This is the part of the dissertation where I get to thank and acknowledge all the people that have made this project possible. First and most importantly, I thank the Wallas family members who worked with me for their generosity in allowing me to record them, to ask them many questions, and to learn from them about their language. Their warmth and humor in working with me and inviting me to visit their home has been an incredible gift. I cannot say enough how privileged I am to have worked with each of you. Thank you. I also want to thank Liz Cadwallader who hosted me in her home during my first trip to learn about Guc̓a and helped me both with practical matters—such as arranging to meet the Wallases and accompanying me on my first trip to their home, suggesting many words to investigate in regards to dialect differences, and translating for me—but also in inviting me to join in many personal and cultural events in the Kʷakʷakaw̓akʷ community and helping me to understand their significance.
    [Show full text]