The phonetics and phonology of assimilation and gemination in Rural Jordanian Arabic by Mutasim Al-Deaibes A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Linguistics University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Copyright © 2016 by Mutasim Al-Deaibes Abstract This dissertation explores the phonetics and phonology of voicing and emphatic assimilation across morpheme boundaries and investigates gemination word-medially and word-finally in Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA). The results reveal that assimilation across morpheme boundaries behaves differently from assimilation across word boundaries in RJA. Vowel duration and vowel F1 were found robust parameters to indicate voicing assimilation. Similarly, F1, F2, and F3 were also adequate correlates to indicate emphatic assimilation. Phonologically, assimilation is best accounted for through the Sonority Hierarchy, Notion of Dominance, and Obligatory Contour Principle. For gemination, consonant as well as vowel durations were found robust acoustic correlates to discriminate geminates from singletons. Phonologically short vowels in the geminate context are significantly shorter than those in singleton context, while phonologically long vowels in geminate context are significantly longer than those in singleton context. The results indicate that the proportional differences between geminates and singletons based on word position and syllable structure are significantly different. Geminates word-medially are one and a half times longer than geminates word-finally. It has also been found that there is a temporal compensation between geminate consonants and the preceding vowels. Phonologically, geminates are best accounted for through prosodic weight rather than prosodic length. ii Acknowledgement First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and sincerest appreciation to my advisor Dr. Nicole Rosen for her constructive and insightful comments and her endless patience. Without her constant guidance, scholarly spirit, friendly attitude, and big heart, this work would not have been possible. She has always been there for my questions, and she has saved no efforts to encourage me and to teach me whenever I needed. I am also grateful to her for teaching me how to use Praat and R-Studio, for having me in her Linguistic Variation class, and for giving me the opportunity to participate in different conferences. She has always been and will continue to be my role model. No words would help me express my appreciation to her. Many thanks are also due to Dr. Stuart Davis, the external examiner and member of the committee, to have taken time to review my work and to have exerted great efforts to come in person to Canada on the defense day. I would like to heartily thank him for his instructive feedback, annotations, criticism, and praise of this work. I would also like to thank the other members of the committee, Dr. Robert Hagiwara and Dr. Daniel Bérubé for their fruitful comments and insightful suggestions from the proposal stage untill the final version of this dissertation. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Hagiwara for his constructive comments on my second generals paper, for teaching me phonetics and prosody and acoustic phonetics, and for advising me in my first year of the PhD program. Special thanks extend to Dr. Kevin Russell for teaching the most up-to-date statistics and for allowing me to audit his Phonological Theory and Research Methods classes. He has spared no effort to answer my questions concerning statistics. Other thanks extend to the other faculty members at the Department of Linguistics, Dr. Terry Janzen, Dr. Verónica Loureiro-Rodriguez, Dr. Jila Ghomeshi, Dr. Lorna MacDonald, Dr. William Oxford, and Dr. Erin Wilkinson. I also owe special thanks to the wonderful Heather Lee, the administrative assistant at the Department iii of Linguistics, for her smile and assistance during my teaching duties at the Department. I am so grateful to the Department of Linguistics for nominating me to get the University of Manitoba Graduate Student Fellowship and for recommending me to get numerous travel awards to attend different international and local conferences. I am also particularly indebted to Dr. Terry Janzen for giving the opportunity to teach a variety of linguistics courses and for being a great mentor. I am also thankful to my colleagues and friends Jesse Stewart, Anna Parenteau, Amin Olaimat, Mohammed Al-Omari, Mohammed Alluhaybi, Lanlan Li, and Meera Sahawneh for their encouragement and friendship. I cannot express my gratitude and appreciation enough to my wife Haneen and beloved kids Mohammad, Faris, and Masa for their patience, understanding, and unconditional love. They were the source of inspiration and strength that kept me alive at times of discomfort and despair. Finally, I would like to thank the people of Canada, my second home, for being welcoming, friendly, nice, and warm-hearted. iv Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the soul of my mother, who always waited impatiently for my graduation, and to my father for his endless encouragement and love. v Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgement .................................................................................................................. iii Dedication ............................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ xi Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... xiii Chapter One ........................................................................................................................... 1 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Theoretical frameworks ........................................................................................................ 7 1.1.1 Autosegmental theory and feature geometry ................................................................. 7 1.1.2 Moraic theory ............................................................................................................... 15 1.2 An overview of Arabic dialects .......................................................................................... 17 1.2.1 Jordanian Arabic sub-dialects ...................................................................................... 21 1.3 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 27 Chapter Two .......................................................................................................................... 28 2. An overview of the phonology and morphology of RJA ....................................................... 28 2.1 Vowel and consonant inventories in RJA ........................................................................... 28 2.1.1 Monophthongs ............................................................................................................. 28 2.1.2 Diphthongs ................................................................................................................... 40 2.1.3 Consonants in RJA ....................................................................................................... 41 2.2 A brief description of some phonological processes in RJA .............................................. 44 2.2.1 Vowel epenthesis ......................................................................................................... 44 2.2.2 Syncope ........................................................................................................................ 48 2.2.3 Metathesis .................................................................................................................... 49 2.2.4 Word stress ................................................................................................................... 50 2.3 The morphology of the affixes used in the study ................................................................ 50 2.3.1 Suffixal /h/ ................................................................................................................... 54 2.3.2 Prefixal /t/ ..................................................................................................................... 55 2.3.3 Prefixal /l/ ..................................................................................................................... 56 2.3.4 Prefixal /n/ .................................................................................................................... 57 2.4 Summary ............................................................................................................................. 58 Chapter Three .......................................................................................................................