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Emphatic Consonants of Modern Standard Arabic and Effects on Vowel Height, Backness, and Dispersion Ghadi Al Ghoul University of Toronto, Scarborough

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Emphatic Consonants of Modern Standard Arabic and Effects on Vowel Height, Backness, and Dispersion Ghadi Al Ghoul University of Toronto, Scarborough Emphatic Consonants of Modern Standard Arabic and Effects on Vowel Height, Backness, and Dispersion Ghadi Al Ghoul University of Toronto, Scarborough I. Introduction It is known that vowel quality is affected by its environment, that is, a vowel’s quality varies depending on the place or manner of articulation of a preceding or following consonant. The Arabic language, an Afro-Asiatic Semitic language spoken in various regions of the Middle East1, possesses the emphatic consonants /tˤ, dˤ, ðˤ, sˤ/, and the pharyngeal consonants /ḥ, ʕ/ which, are consonants unique to Semitic languages with the exception of general Modern Hebrew and Maltese. Such consonants allow for the experience of a constricted pharynx to different degrees. Emphatic consonants have pharyngealization as a secondary articulation whilst, pharyngeal consonants have pharyngealization as a primary articulation.2 In addition to that, it has been quite well observed that the Modern Standard variation of Arabic has a triangular 3 vowel system that retains the vowels /a, i, u/ and their lengthier variations /a:, i:, u:/3. Based on the research carried out in the literature, it hasn’t been observed that there were many studies specific to MSA’s emphatic consonants and their effect on the Modern Standard Arabic vowels. This paper observes and discusses how vowel quality, specifically, the frontness backness and the vowel dispersion of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is affected when the vowel is preceded by the emphatic consonant /sˤ/. There have been studies in the literature that have observed the linguistic issues of Arabic pharyngeal and emphatic consonant production4; as there have been studies of the effects of pharyngealization on vowel quality in Maltese Arabic, however, it was more of a phonological study rather than a phonetic study, and it didn’t really account to how vowel quality was affected by emphatic sounds.5 There are only a handful of academic papers in the literature that observe the effect of emphatic consonants on Arabic vowels. More importantly, there aren’t any studies that observe how one emphatic consonant preceding a vowel affects the frontness 1 It’s known that there exist other variations of Arabic, such as, Levantine, Maltese, and Moroccan, just to name a few, and they all to an extent, differ phonetically when compared to MSA’s consonant and vowel inventories. 2 (Laufer) 3 (Newman) 4 That is, debating whether or not emphatic consonants are really pharyngealized. 5 (Walter) and backness qualities of that very vowel and its lengthier counterpart in MSA nor are there any that observe the dispersion of those vowels. In a thesis paper by M. Anani, it has been observed that vowel quality appeared to be rather centralized and more back when occurring in an environment with an emphatic consonant. The prediction of this study is that vowel height and backness will be affected by the emphatic consonant /sˤ/ such that the values of vowel height will be lowered and the vowel backness will be raised to match the qualities of the emphatic consonant hence eliciting the hypothesis that emphatic consonants preceding the vowel will raise the F1 value and lower the F2 value of the vowel of interest. It’s also predicted that vowels will disperse more in the emphatic environment more than they will in the non-emphatic environment. II. Methods 1. Speaker Information Data was collected only from one speaker, the researcher herself, a 20 year old female speaker. The speaker is a native Arabic speaker whom grew up speaking a Palestinian dialect of Arabic, and was taught and exposed to Modern Standard Arabic for 20 years. In addition to that, the speaker was brought up in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and acquired many dialectal variations of Arabic and was taught English at about the same age she was taught Arabic. The speaker is fluent in both the Palestinian and MS dialects of Arabic. 2. Data and Data Collection Methods Data was recorded using a built in MacBook Pro recorder, through which data from the word list were recorded in a quite closed room using Praat’s Mono recording feature, that was used to maintain reception of only one sound, i.e. the speaker’s. The speaker was distanced about 10 cm away from the recorder. Three trials were recorded per word and all were collected at around the same time. For efficiency purposes, Praat’s text grid feature was used to illustrate word and segment boundaries and was saved per “.wav” file to ensure that there was always backup in case anything went wrong or in case the OS X system was overwhelmed with the data and the overload of simultaneously open windows. The word list, below, contained minimal and near minimal pairs of words containing /sˤ/ and /s/ preceding all the 3 MSA vowels and their lengthier variations. The carrier sentence, which is provided below along with the word list, used mainly demonstrative determiners to elicit a sentence similar to “This is a _____” or “They/ He/ She is ______” in MS Arabic. Word-List 1. /haða: sˤari:r/ 7. /haða: nasˤi:b/ This is a screech. This is fate. 2. /haða: sari:r/ 8. /haða: nasi:b/ This is a bed. He is a relative. 3. /huwa sˤa:ra/ 9. /haða: sumun/ He became. This is poison. 4. /huwa sa:ra/ 10. /hum sˤumun/ He walked. They are deaf. 5. /haða: sˤira:tˤ/ 11. /haðihi: sˤu:war/ This is a pathway. These are pictures. 6. /haða: sira:tˤ/ 12. /haða: su:r / This is a clear path. This is a fence. 3. Acoustic Analysis Methods 3.1. Vowel Height and Backness The acoustic analysis methods used for this paper varied from an F1 average range measurement to an F2 average range measurement per trial. The data was organized in a Microsoft Excel sheet that specified the word, whether the preceding consonant was emphatic or not, the length of the vowel, the F1 per trial, the Average F1, the F2 per trial, and the Average F2. The Average F1 and F2 were calculated using the average formula in Excel. Four clustered column charts were carried out, 2 charts illustrated the Vowel Height (F1) in the Emphatic /sˤ/ and Non-Emphatic /s/, respectively, and 2 charts that illustrated the Vowel Backness (F2) in the Emphatic /sˤ/ and Non-Emphatic /s/, correspondingly. Duration was not considered as a numerical value but rather it was taken into account qualitatively as long or short since, MS Arabic has only two variants per vowel. 3.2. Vowel Dispersion The F1 values of the Formant plots have been carried out on Excel through the use of the charts option and through using the X Y Chart Labeler for Mac which, allowed for the labeling of the respective vowels on the chart. A formant plot was carried out to observe the general dispersion of vowel qualities in the environment of the emphatic consonant /sˤ/ and another formant plot was drawn to observe the dispersion of vowel qualities in the environment of the non-emphatic /s/. To observe the change of vowel dispersion in the environment of the emphatic consonant /sˤ/ and in the environment of its non-emphatic equivalent /s/ a formant plot containing both data was plotted. III. Results 1. Acoustic Analysis Methods 1.1 Vowel Height The height of the vowels as observed in chart 1.1. on the next page which, shows that the vowel height represented by the first formant F1 in Hz, varied slightly for some vowels and greatly for other vowels across the two environments. I. /i/ vs. /i:/ Beginning with the short high front vowel /i/, it had the least change of F1 from the non-emphatic environment /s/ to the emphatic environment /sˤ/. Interestingly, it’s variation, /i:/ or, the long /i/, had a similar change. Nevertheless, the F1 of /i/ decreased slightly in the emphatic environment while that of /i:/ slightly increased in the emphatic environment. This indicates that the height of /i/ is raised when preceded by the emphatic consonant /sˤ/, while, the height of the vowel /i:/ is slightly lowered. II. /a/ vs. /a:/ The F1 of the short low front vowel /a/ increased significantly in the emphatic environment (an F1 value of about 200 Hz from that of the non-emphatic value). The F1 of its lengthier counterpart /a:/ decreased slightly in the emphatic environment. Hence, it can be deduced that the height of the vowel /a/ is lowered significantly when preceded by the emphatic consonant /sˤ/, while, the height of the longer vowel /a:/ is slightly raised. III. /u/ vs. /u:/ On the other hand, the F1 values of the remaining high back vowels /u/ and its lengthier variations /u:/ were consistent in the sense that the vowel and it’s long variation both increased (an F1 difference value of 100 Hz for /u/ and /u:/) in the emphatic environment. Thus, it can be inferred that the height of both variations (short and long) of the vowel /u/ were lowered in the emphatic environment /sˤ/. MS Arabic Vowel Height (F1) 800 u a: 700 a 600 u: i 500 i: Emphatic 400 Non-Emphatic 300 200 100 0 Chart 1.1.: Vowel height in emphatic /sˤ/ versus non-emphatic /s/ environment. 1.2 Vowel Backness The backness of the vowels as observed in chart 1.2. on the next page which, shows that the vowel backness represented by the second formant F2 in Hz, varied slightly for some vowels and greatly for other vowels across the two environments, an observation similar to that of the findings in F1, or vowel height. I.
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