CALIFORNIA .STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE A PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF BEDOUIN PALESTINIAN ARABIC IN RELATION TO ARABIA PETRAEA BEDOUIN DIALECTS A graduate thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics by Ali Abu Wadi May 1989 The thesis of Ali Abu Wadi is approved: Dr. Rei R. Nogucffi Dr. Iris S. Shah Dr. Paul'L. Kirk Committee Chairman California State University, Northridge ; ; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am particularly indebted to Professor Paul Kirk, chair of my thesis committee, for the hours he dedicated to my thesis, and for his invaluable help and guidance. I would also like to thank Dr. Rei Noguchi and Dr. Iris Shah, whose advice and encouragement helped me immeasurably. I am thankful to Misha Schutt for typing the thesis, and to Jim Box for making the maps. My thanks are also due to my many friends and informants among my Bedouin tribe, al-Tayaha of the Naqab, and in particular the al­ Ramadin subtribe, for their valuable help. Last but not least, thanks to my mother, who went out into the wilderness somewhere east of the Mediterranean one dark night, col­ lected firewood and started a fire in our tent, to provide me with enough light to do my homework. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments iii Symbols and Abbreviations viii Abstract xi Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Study 1 1.2 The Diglossic Nature of Arabic 3 1.3 The Arabic Dialects 5 1.4 The Bedouin Palestinian Dialects 6 1.5 The Bedouins of the al-Naqab Desert 7 Chapter 2 The Sound System of Bedouin Palestinian Arabic 8 2.1 The Consonants 9 2.1.1 The Obstruents 11 2.1.2 The Pharyngeal Segmental Phonemes 14 2.1.3 The Sonorant Segmental Phonemes 16 2.1.4 The Emphatic "Pharyngealized" Segmental Phonemes 17 2.1.5 Other Emphatic Consonants 19 2.1.6 /x/, /g/, and /g/ in Relation to Emphasis 23 2.2 The Vowel System of Bedouin Palestinian Arabic 27 2.2.1 The Short Vowels 28 2.2.2 The Long Vowels 29 2.2.3 The Diphthongs 33 iv Chapter 3 . The Phonology of Bedouin·Palestinian Arabic 36 3.1 The Consonants 38 3.1.1 Assimilation 38 (A) Lateral Assimilation of the Prefixed Article al- 38 (B) Final Lateral Assimilation 39 (C) Nasal Assimilation 40 (D) Complete or Optional t- Assimilation 40 (E) Devoicing Assimilation of Final /d/ and /g/ 41 3.1.2 Emphasis Revisited 42 3.1.3 The Effect of Pharyngeal Sounds on Syllable Structure 47 3.2 The Vowels 52 3.2.1 The Status of Short Vowels in Open Unstressed Syllables 53 3.2.2 Vowel Harmony 57 3.2.3 The Diphthongization of Long Vowels in Final Position 63 3.3 The Diphthongs 69 3.3.1 The Retention of the Diphthongs 69 3.3.2 The Monophthongization of the Diphthongs 70 3.4 Stress 75 V Chapter 4 . The Arabia Petraea Dia;ect Group 79 4.1.1 Ge-neral Phonological Features of Bedouin Dialects · 80 4.1.2 General Classification of Bedouin Dialecta 83 (A) North Arabian Dialect Group 83 (B) The Syro-Mesopotamian Dialect Group 83 (C) The Northeast Arabian Dialect Group 84 (D) The Southern Mesopotamian Dialect Group 85 (E) The South Arabian Dialect Group 86 (F) The Hijazi. Dialects 86 (G) North African Bedouin Dialects 88 (H) The Ma cc-azah Dialect of Egypt ' s Eastern Desert 88 4.2 The Arabia Petraea Dialect Group 90 4.2.1 A Proposed Classification of the Dialects of Arabia Petraea 91 (A) The Western Arabia Petraea Dialect Area 92 (B) The Eastern Arabia Petraea Dialect Area 93 4.3 Some Common Phonological Distinguishing Features of the Arabia Petraea Dialect Group 96 4.3.1 The Absence of Affrication of /k/ and /g/ 96 4.3.2 The Effect of Pharyngeal Sounds on Syllable Structure 99 4.3.3 Low Vowel Deletion 100 4.3.4 The Retention of the Long Vowel /I/ of the First Person Pronominal Suffix 102 vi 4.3.5 Other Common Features 104 (A) The .emphatic sounds lOl• (B) Trochaic versus a trochaic syllable structure 104 (C) The glottal stop in initial position 106 (D) The low vowel /a/ in open syllables 107 4.4 Some Phonological Distinguishing Features of the Western Arabia Petraea Dialect Slightly Confirmed for the Eastern Sub-Variety 110 4.4.1 The diphthongization of the long vowels in final position 110 4.4.2 The monophthongized vowel /e/ < OA /ay/ 113 4.4.3 Stress 116 :hapter 5 :onclusions 120 Bibliography 127 !\ppendix A Maps 132 vii SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS Consonants b voiced ~ilabial stop b emphatic voiced bilabial stop m bilabial nasal m emphatic bilabial nasal w bilabial glide f voiceless labiodental fricative t voiceless dental stop t voiceless dental ejective stop t emphatic voiceless dental stop d voiced dental stop d emphatic voiced dental stop t voiceless interdental fricative d voiced interdental fricative d emphatic voiced interdental fricative T r alveolar trill r emphatic alveolar trill 1 alveolar lateral 1 emphatic alveolar lateral n alveolar nasal s voiceless alveolar fricative ~ C voiceless alveolar affricate s emphatic voiceless alveolar fricative z voiced alveolar fricative viii voiced' alveolar affricate voiceless palatal fricative V z voiced palatal fricative voiced palatal stop voiceless palato-alveolar affricate voiced palato-alveolar affricate y palatal glide k voiceless velar stop g voiced velar stop X voiceless velar fricative g voiced velar fricative h voiceless pharyngeal fricative C voiced pharyngeal fricative h voiceless glottal fricative ? glottal stop Vowels i short high front unrounded vowel r long high front unrounded vowel e long mid front unrounded vowel a short low vowel -a long low vowel -0 long mid back rounded vowel u short high back rounded vowel -u long high back rounded vowel ix Other Symbols C any consonant c any emphatic "pharyngealized" consonant (except h) . V any vowel V any long vowel > becomes, is realized as < is derived from / / underlying representation [ ] surface phonetic representation + morpheme boundary Abbreviations rn. masculine f. feminine sg. singular pl. plural dim. diminutive OA Old Arabic SR surface representation UR underlying representation X ABSTRACT A PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF BEDOUIN PALESTINIAN ARABIC IN RELATION TO ARABIA PETRAEA BEDOUIN DIALECTS by Ali Abu Wadi Master of Arts in Linguistics The aim of this study is to fill a considerable gap in Bedouin dialectology by providing a phonological analysis of the Bedouin dialect of the al-Ramadhin subtribe of al-Tayaha in the Naqab Des­ ert (southern Israel) in order to determine the presence of some specific distinguishing features of the Bedouin dialects of the Sinai, southern Jordan, and parts of northwestern Saudi Arabia. The data I collected indicate that the diphthongization of the long vowels in final position, the monophthongized variants of the diphthong /ay/, and the placement of stress are some of the main distinguishing features of this dialect. The study also indicates the occurrence of those same features in the Bedouin dialects of the Sinai, Araba Valley, and to a lesser degree southern Jordan and xi , . northwestern Saudi Arabia; this region is designated as Arabia Petraea in this stu9y. This study demonstrates that in view of the overall character­ istics of Bedouin dialects, the Arabia Petraea dialects are the primary representatives of the gahawah type, their syllable struc­ ture is clearly atrochaic, and their velars are never affricated. Finally, in view of my findings of the com.mon features of this group of Bedouin dialects, I propose the establishment of an inde­ pendent Arabia Petraea dialect group with two regional varieties: a Western, which includes the Bedouin dialects of the Naqab, Sinai and parts of the Araba Valley, and an Eastern, consisting of south­ ern Jordan and northwestern Saudi Arabia. xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This study presents a phonological analysis of the writer's Bedouin dialect, that of the al-Ramadhin subtribe of the al-Tayaha, spoken in the northern part of the al-Naqab Desert (southern Isra­ el). The main distinguishing features of the dialect are examined to determine its regional character along with other dialects of the Bedouins in the Sinai, southern Jordan and the northwestern parts of Saudi Arabia. The overall goal is to provide a classifi­ cation for the Bedouin dialects of this area among the ranks of other major Bedouin dialect groups. 1.1 The Study Recent research focuses on regional grouping of dialect groups (Johnstone 1967, Ingham 1982, Palva 1984a and Woidich 1987). Rather than concentrating on the dialects of individual speech com­ munities, these studies have been directed towards an areal exami­ nation in terms of their placement in large regional units which share common linguistic features. After giving a brief phonologi- cal description of the dialect of the al-Naqab Bedouins, the main distinguishing features of this dialect are traced throughout the whole area to determine its general place among the Bedouin dia­ lects of Arabic. 1 The sources for this study are the writer's collected data, as well as data from ?ublished sources. The data for the Naqab part of this study was tape-recorded over a period of three months in the summer of 19.81. The recordings were made by speakers of the writer's tribe, Al-Ramadhin, who reside 30 miles southwest of the city of Hebron (10 miles southwest of the village of al-Dhahriyya). The eight informants represent the main clans of the tribal unit: five males between the ages of 35 and 60, and three females between the ages of 40 and 55. This age group was chosen because they were considered to be true representatives of the community's dialect, while informants of a younger age were rejected because employment or schooling might have carried them outside their dia­ lect area, and their speech was possibly influenced by other dia­ lect groups, such as the Qaysiyyah of the Hebron, of Southern Pale­ stinian Arabic.