Stress placement; phonemes vs. allophones

ARBC0225/LNGT0225
Arabic Linguistics
ةيبرعلا تايناسللا ملع
Lecture #8
March 12 th , 2012
Broad Phonetic Transcription
[ʔafra:d ʔusrati: kulluhum yaʕi:ʃu:n fi:
madi:nat ʔalmansˁu:rah fi: misˁr]
يف ةروصنملا ةنيدم يف نوشيعي مھلك يترسأ دارفأ
. رصم
Stress
• Stress refers to the perceived prominence of a
particular syllable relative to the syllables
around it.
• In essence, stress is the combined effect of
pitch, loudness, and length.
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Announcements
• HW1 was returned to you. Check your mailbox
if you haven’t already.
• I will post remaining questions homework 2 by
tomorrow. It’ll be due next Monday.
• Given that we’re rather behind in the syllabus,
the midterm exam will be posted later next
week, and will be due after the Spring break
on April 4 th .
Broad Phonetic Transcription
. يﱪﻟﺪﻴﻣ ﺔﻌﻣﺎﺟ ﰲ ﺔﻴﺑﺮﻌﻟا ﺔﻐﻠﻟا ﻢﺴﻗ ﰲ بﻼﻃ ﻦﺤﻧ
[nanu tˁulla:b fi: qism ʔalluɣah
ʔalʕarabiyyah fi: dʒa:miʕat
midilbiri:]
Stress
• In some languages, stress placement is
predictable, e.g., in Czech stress almost always
falls on the first syllable, whereas in Welsh stress
falls on the penultimate (= next to last) syllable.
• In other languages, like English and Russian,
stress is unpredictable and has to be learned for
every word. In such languages stress placement
may also create a difference in meaning:
export could be [»Ekspç®t] or [Eks»pç®t]
present could be [»p®Ezn1t] or [p®ә»zEnt]
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Stress in Arabic
• In Arabic dialects, stress placement is
predictable (with a few exception words, as
you should expect), and it does not cause any
difference in meaning.
• Stress placement in Arabic dialects is sensitive
to syllable structure.
• We focus here on stress placement in Egyptian
Arabic.
Applying the algorithm: Step 1
• (Note: The IPA symbol to mark stress is ˈ.)
• Stress is on a final superheavy syllable.
نيملسم [mus.li.ˈmi:n]
تبتك (‘I wrote’) [ka.ˈtabt]
تيرفع (‘ghost’) [ʕaf.ˈri:t]
Applying the algorithm: Step 3
• Stress is on the penultimate or the antepenultimate,
whichever is separated by an even number of syllables
from the closest preceding heavy syllable if there is one
(case A), or the beginning of the word if there are none
(case B), where zero separation is counted as even.
• Penultimate stress:
ةسِّردُم [mu.dar.ˈri.sah] (case A)
هُتِبتَك [ka.ta.ˈbi.tuh] (case B)
• Antepenultimate stress:
تعطقنا [ʔin.ˈʔa.tˁa.ʕit] (case A)
ت ِس َرَد [ˈda.ra.sit] (case B)
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Stress placement algorithm in EA
• Stress placement algorithm in Egyptian:
1. Stress a final superheavy syllable, if available.
2. Otherwise, stress a penultimate heavy syllable, if
available.
3. Otherwise, stress is on the penultimate or the
antepenultimate, whichever is separated by an even
number of syllables from the closest preceding
heavy syllable if there is one (case A), or the
beginning of the word if there are none (case B),
where zero separation is counted as even.
Applying the algorithm: Step 2
• Stress is on a penultimate heavy syllable.
كتيب [ˈbe:.tak]
كتنب [ˈbin.tak]
سِّردم [mu.ˈdar.ris]
Stress in Classical Arabic
• See homework assignment.
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Phonology
Phonology: Introducing phonemes
• Let’s look at some examples from English first.
• Given English [l] and [ɹ] (retroflex ‘r’), can we
predict which one would occur in the blank slot in
the following transcription?
[ait]
• We really cannot. Either sound would give us a
possible English word with its own meaning.
[lait] ‘light’ [ɹait] ‘right’
Aspiration in English
• Now, let’s consider the voiceless stops in English: [p, t,
k].
• When these sounds occur initially, they are typically
pronounced with an extra puff of air. This property is
called aspiration. The way we mark aspiration in the
IPA is by a superscripted ‘ h ’.
pan [pʰæn] vs. span [spæn]
team [tʰim] vs. steam [stim]
cool [kʰul] vs. school [skul]
• The question now is: Are aspirated and unaspirated
voiceless stops phonemes of English?
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Phonology
• While phonetics studies how speech sounds are
articulated, what their physical properties are,
and how they are perceived, phonology studies
the organization of speech sounds in a particular
language.
• Among the questions phonologists discuss are:
‐ Which sounds are predictable and which ones are
unpredictable in a particular language?
‐ What is the phonetic context that allows us to
predict the occurrence of these sounds?
Phonology: Introducing phonemes
• The same thing is true of the vowels [i] and [ɪ]
here:
[st]
• Again, either vowel would give us a possible
English word with a different meaning:
[sit] ‘seat’ [sɪt] ‘sit’
• Sounds that are unpredictable and lead to
difference in meaning in a language are called the
phonemes of this language. Phonemes are
contrastive in a language.
Phonology: Introducing allophones
• In other words, suppose we pronounce tar as *[ta®],
rather than [t h a®], would we get a difference in
meaning?
• Similarly, suppose we pronounce star as *[st h a®]
rather than [sta®], would we get a difference in
meaning?
• The answer is NO. That means that [t h ] and [t] are
not contrastive in English. We say that [t h ] and [t] are
two allophones of the same phoneme, which we
might represent here as /t/.
(Notice the slash, rather than the square bracket, notation.)
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Phonemes vs. allophones
• So, a phoneme is a sound that distinguishes
meaning in a language, whereas an allophone
is a phonetic variant of a particular phoneme
that does not affect meaning.
So, how do languages differ, then?
• Now, consider these words from Thai with
aspirated and non‐aspirated voiceless stops:
[paa] “forest” [p h aa] “to split”
[tam] “to pound” [t h am] “to do”
[kat] “to bite” [k h at] “to interrupt”
• We know aspiration is allophonic in English,
but is aspiration phonemic or allophonic in
Thai?
The phonemes of Classical Arabic
ّمد [damm] ‘blood’ ّمض [dˁamm] ‘grouped/added’
راج [dʒa:r] ‘neighbor’ راد [da:r] ‘house’
رمق [qamar] ‘moon’ رمأ [ʔamara] ‘ordered’
بتك [kataba] ‘he wrote’ بتاك [ka:taba] ‘corresponded with’
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Minimal pairs
• Phonemes are contrastive.They create words
that differ in meaning. Allophones are not
contrastive; the do not distinguish meaning.
• But how do we know if two sounds are
contrastive in a particular language?
• Answer: Minimal pairs.
• A minimal pair is two words with different
meanings that are identical except for one sound
that occurs in the same place in each word, e.g.,
seed [sid] and seat [sit]
The phonemes of Classical Arabic
• Now, consider these data, and draw
conclusions about the phonemes of Classical
Arabic.
راث [θa:r] ‘revolted’ راز [za:r] ‘visited’
حنم [manaa] ‘granted’ عنم [manaʕa] ‘prevented’
ةحابس [siba:ah] ‘swimming’ ةحايس [sija:ah] ‘tourism’
نيت [ti:n] ‘figs’ نيط [tˁi:n] ‘mud’
Emphatic vowels: Phonemes or allophones?
• Let’s for convenience use the symbol [A] and [A:] to
mark [a] and [a:] when they are pronounced
emphatically in Arabic.
رئاط [tˁA:ˁʔir] ‘bird’
• Suppose that we pronounced that word as [tˁa:ʔir]
instead, i.e., without spreading the emphatic feature to
the vowel. Would that lead to a difference in meaning?
• Actually, it does not. That means that emphatic vowels
are not phonemes in Arabic; they are allophones. They
are non‐contrastive, and we can actually predict where
the occur in the language.
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Is there a [p] phoneme in Arabic?
• Arabic speakers may also pronounce تبتك as
[katapt]. Does that make [p] a phoneme of
Arabic?
[l] vs. […]: Phonemes or allophones?
• Now, let’s revisit the pronunciation of ﷲ again.
• After [i:] or [i], the laam is pronounced as [l].
After [u:], [u], [a:], or [a], it is velarized […]:
ﷲ مسب ِ [bismi-l-la:h]
ﷲ َءاش نإ [ʔin-ʃa:ʔa-…‐…A:h]
ﷲ ُدمحأ [ʔamadu-…‐…A:h]
• Do you think [l] and […] are phonemes or
allophones in Classical Arabic?
Interdentals
• Egyptian Arabic and most other sedantary dialects lost the
interdentals [θ], [D], and [Dˁ].
• [θ] has generally merged with [t] in most contexts and
occasionally with [s] in contexts that have MSA‐flavor to
them.
ةثلاث [tala:tah] جلث [talɡ]
لاثم [masalan] ةيوناث [sanawijjah]
• [D] has merged with the [z] in Egyptian:
ركاذ [za:kir] يكذ [zaki:]
• Words with Classical Arabic [Dˁ] are either pronounced with
[dˁ] or with a new phoneme [zˁ]
رھظ [dˁuhr] ملاظ [zˁa:lim] ‘unjust person’
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Emphatic [r]
• When [r] is followed by a low vowel, it’s
typically pronounced emphatically:
يأر [rAʔj] *[raʔj]
عبار [rA:biʕ] *[ra:biʕ]
ةحار [rA:ah] *[ra:ah]
Dialectal variation
• Arabic dialects differ from Classical Arabic and
from each other in their phonemic inventory.
• The differences may not be too many, but they
are salient enough to be able to identify
speakers of certain dialects.
• Let’s look at examples.
The [qa:f]
• Egyptian retained the [k] but backed the [q] into a
glottal stop.
بلق [ʔalb] ‘heart’ ميدق [ʔadi:m]
• In Southern Egyptian, however, the [q] is pronounced
as [g], as in the Bedouin dialects cited by Holes:
بلق [ɡalb] ‘heart’ ميدق [ɡadi:m]
• The [q] also became [k] in some Arabic dialects,
particularly in rural areas.
• In some dialects, the [k] became a voiceless alveo‐
palatal affricate [tʃ]: بلك [tʃalb].
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The [qa:f]
• The [q] is still pronounced in Egyptian Arabic and
other dialects today, mainly in words that have
some ‘elevated status’ due to being borrowed
from Fusha.
– ىقيسوملا – ( resignation)
ةلاقتسا – نآرقلا – ةفاقث
( armed forced)
ةحلسملا تاوقلا
• Dialects, however, differ as to which words get
assimilated to the dialectal phonology, and which
words stay resistant to such an assimilation.
Marginal ‘phonemes’ in the dialects
• We already mentioned the [q] in MSA
borrowings: ةفاقث [saqa:fah]
• [ʒ] in foreign borrowings: تكاج [ʒa:kit]
• [v] in foreign borrowings: لايف [villa]
• [p] in foreign words: سيراب [pari:s]
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The [dʒi:m]
• The Classical Arabic [dʒ] phoneme is still retained in
some Bedouin dialects, but has been lost for the most
part from sedentary dialects.
• In Egypt, [dʒ] is replaced by [ɡ]; in the Levant, by [ʒ]:
ليمج [ɡami:l] in Egypt
[ʒami:l] in the Levant
[dʒami:l] in some Bedouin diaelcts
• In lower Iraq and Gulf the [dʒ] has also been replaced
by [j].
Next class agenda
• Morphology. Read Holes’ Chapter 3, pp. 99‐
116 on verb morphology.
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