Arabic Linguistics Study Doc

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Arabic

This lively introduction to the linguistics of Arabic provides students with aconcise overview of the languages structure and its various components: its

phonology, morphology, and syntax. Through exercises, discussion points andassignments built into every chapter, the book presents the Arabic language invivid and engaging terms, encouraging students to grasp the complexity of itslinguistic situation. It presents key linguistic concepts and theories related toArabic in a coherent way, helping to build studentsanalytical and critical skills.

Key features:

study questions, exercises, and discussion points in every chapter encouragestudents to engage with the material and undertake specic assignments;

suggestions for further reading in every chapter allow readers to engage in

more extensive research on relevant topics; and technical terminology is explained in a helpful glossary.

k a r i n c . r y d i n g is Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor Emerita of Arabiclinguistics at Georgetown University, where she taught Arabic linguistics forover twenty years.


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ArabicA Linguistic Introduction

K A R I N C . R Y D I N G


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University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New YorkCambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the Universitys mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit ofeducation, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title:www.cambridge.org/9781107606944

Karin C. Ryding 2014

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the writtenpermission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2014

Printed in the United Kingdom by MPG Printgroup Ltd, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

ISBN 978-1-107-02331-4 Hardback

ISBN 978-1-107-60694-4 PaperbackCambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy ofURLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,accurate or appropriate.
http://www.cambridge.org/http://www.cambridge.org/9781107606944http://www.cambridge.org/9781107606944http://www.cambridge.org/


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Contents

Preface pageviiAcknowledgments ixAbbreviations and symbols used in this book xi

1 Arabic linguistics: overview and history 1

2 Arabic phonology 13

3 Arabic phonotactics and morphophonology 23

4 Arabic syllable structure and stress 33

5 Introduction to Arabic morphology 41

6 Derivational morphology: the root/pattern system 557 Non-root/pattern morphology and the Arabic lexicon 79

8 Arabic inectional morphology 89

9 Syntactic analysis and Arabic 107

10 Arabic syntax I: phrase structure 119

11 Arabic syntax II: clause structure 127

AppendicesA Fields of linguistics and Arabic 141B Arabic transcription/transliteration/romanization 145C Arabic nominal declensions 149

Glossary of technical terms 157References 167Index 181

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Preface

Despite widening international interest in Arabic language and culture,few resources exist for a systematic introduction to the linguistics of Arabic and forteaching the basics of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics. This is truedespite the fact that distinguished works exist in Arabic, English, and other

languages examining and documenting Arabic language history, structure, andprocesses. Works by Aoun, Badawi, Bateson, Beeston, Bohas, Carter, Eid, Holes,Owens, Parkinson, Stetkevych, Talmon, Versteegh and others have contributedvastly to understanding the linguistics of Arabic. However, there is a place for anorganized overview, both as a reference tool and as a foundational textbook forlearning about the eld.

For teaching courses on Arabic linguistics, I have used books and articles by allthe above-mentioned authors. In particular, I have found that Batesons Arabic

Language Handbook, Beestons The Arabic Language Today, and StetkevychsThe Modern Arabic Literary Language useful for concise summaries of key topics.These books originally date from 1967 (Bateson) and 1970 (Beeston andStetkevych). HolesModern Arabic(2004) is a more modern and comprehensiveapproach, but I have found that it is less useful as a textbook than as a referencework, and I usually assign only certain parts of it. Versteeghs bookThe Arabic

Language (1997), provides historical background for key developments in theArabic language but does not analyze the actual linguistic structures and processes

of contemporary modern standard Arabic (MSA). Owens

many excellent workson the history of Arabic and of Arabic grammatical theory are focused primarily onpremodern developments. Thus none of these books despite their many merits forms by itself a framework for a course in contemporary Arabic linguistics, andthere is a distinct need for a more pedagogically focused work that includesdiscussion topics, questions, and suggestions for further readings on specicsubjects. This book aims to meet the challenges of teaching elements of Arabiclinguistics to students and teachers-in-training who may know little about linguis-tic theory, and for classes where there are mixed levels of ability in the languageand in academic background.

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In 2005, I publishedA Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabicbased ona corpus of data from contemporary Arabic newspapers and other types of expos-itory prose. It was intended for audiences of Arabic learners and teachers, as well asthose with a general interest in the grammatical features of the written language.

The present book is a more technical introduction to the structures and processesthat characterize Arabic linguistics, aiming to gather in one place current scholarlyresources and theories for study and further research. It has emerged and beendistilled from the content of graduate courses that I have taught at GeorgetownUniversity during the past thirty years. Rather than adopt one particular theoreticalstance, I have chosen to be as objectively descriptive as possible, introducingtheories of varying levels of formality and indicating where readers may want to

pursue further reading on particular topics. Due to length limitations, I have had to

omit a considerable amount of interesting and relevant research; likewise I haveomitted extended descriptions of grammatical structures because this is not agrammar of Arabic, but an introduction to linguistics as applied to Arabic.

A key factor motivating the writing of this book is the need for more extensiveprofessional resources for teachers of Arabic as a foreign language, especially withthe steady demand for knowledge of Arabic language both as a professional skilland as a discipline within the elds of humanities and social sciences. Teaching

practical knowledge of Arabic relies on the sophistication and depth of under-standing that teachers bring to their classes understanding not only the rules oflanguage structure, but the theoretical underpinnings of the language, its intellec-tual and scholarly heritage, and the ways in which its grammatical system can beelegantly and efciently portrayed.

This book may serve as a text in courses on Arabic language and linguistics, orcourses on Arabic pedagogy, or it may serve to give non-specialists a general

picture of linguistic issues in MSA. In designing this book, I have assumed anaudience with some knowledge of the Arabic language, but little knowledge oftechnical linguistic terms, theories, or approaches. There are bound to be those who

will nd shortcomings and gaps in this overview, and I assume total responsibilityfor any errors or deciencies. I hope that this book will constitute a useful rst stepin conveying the enormous wealth of meaningful data, methods of linguisticresearch, and critical insights into language systems that have made progressthrough close analysis of Arabic language structures and processes.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank and acknowledge the following people, past andpresent, who inspired me, helped me form my ideas for this book, and assisted metoward its completion:

my Georgetown professors Wallace M. Erwin and Michael Zarechnak,who led me to and through Arabic linguistics;

my students, who challenged and stimulated my thinking on points ofArabic linguistics;

my colleagues at Georgetown, outstanding Arabists and linguists;at Cambridge University Press, Andrew Winnard, for his unfailing

support and encouragement every step of the way, and to HelenaDowson for her attentive and patient help in nalizing the manuscript;

my husband, Victor Litwinski, for being a vital interlocutor on all things

linguistic, and for his unstinting professional and emotional support;and

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Sultan of Oman, whose patronageand encouragement of Arabic language study has been a great boon tothe development of Arabic linguistics, transcultural communication,and intercultural understanding.

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Abbreviations and symbols used in this book

Additional abbreviations used specically in syntactic theory are listed atgreater length inChapter 9.

acc. accusativeadj. adjectiveadv. adverbAP active participleC any consonant (phonology); complement, complementizer

(syntax)dat. dativedef. denitedu. dual

EALL Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and LinguisticsESA educated spoken Arabicf./fem. femininefut. futuregen. genitiveIC immediate constituent imp. imperfect indef. indenite

indic. indicativem./masc. masculineMSA Modern Standard Arabic

N nounno. number nom. nominative

NP noun phraseO object

pl. pluralPP passive participlepron. pronoun

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S subject; sentencesing. singular subj. subject; subjunctiveUG universal grammar V any short vowel (phonology); verb (syntax)vd voicedvls voicelessVN verbal nounVP verb phraseVV any long vowelWFR word formation rule# word boundary

- morpheme boundary{ } encloses morpheme/ / encloses phonemic transcription[ ] encloses phonetic transcription encloses glosses* indicates a hypothetical or nonstandard form~ alternates with; orsmall caps indicate morphemic structure

xii Abbreviations and symbols


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1

Arabic linguistics: overview and history

1. Introduction

In approaching the study of human language in general, if the aim is tocategorize, classify, and identify how languages work, then these functions must be

based on clearly documented empirical observations. This kind of activity sepa-rates linguistics from anecdotal, philosophical, impressionistic, or speculativeobservations about language that may come from anyone anywhere. Linguisticscan be dened as follows.

(1) Linguistics is the study of language as a system of human communica-tion(Richards and Schmidt2010: 343).

(2) Linguistics is a natural science, on a par with geology, biology, physics,and chemistry.And the task of linguistics is to explain the nature ofhuman language, through active involvement in the description of lan-guage each viewed as an integrated system together with explanationof why each language is the way it is, allied to the further scientic

pursuits of prediction and evaluation(Dixon2010: 1).(3) For the beginning linguist, saying that linguistics is a science can be

interpreted as implying careful observation of the relevant real-worldphenomena, classication of those phenomena, and the search for useful

patterns in the phenomena observed and classied. For the moreadvanced linguist, saying that linguistics is a science is a matter of seekingexplanations for the phenomena of language and building theories whichwill help explain why observed phenomena occur while phenomenawhich are not observed should not occur(Bauer2007: 17).

(4) Linguists believe that their eld is a science because they sharethe goals of scientic inquiry, which is objective (or more properlyintersubjectively accessible) understanding(Aronoff and Rees-Miller2001: xiv).

(5) The task of linguistics is to explain the nature of human language,through active involvement in the description of languages each viewedas an integrated system together with explanation of why each language

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is the way it is, allied to the further scientic pursuits of prediction andevaluation(Dixon2010a: 1).

The eld of linguistics is therefore seen as a scientic approach to language in all

its diversity: spoken and written, formal and informal, internal and external. Itconcerns the analysis of language in use (such as conversation analysis), languageas a universal form of human cognition (e.g., universal grammar), theories oflanguage structure, and language acquisition in its various forms. Linguistics isdescriptive rather than prescriptive; it aims to document and explain language as itis, rather than to prescribe rules of performance.1

1.1. Linguistics and grammar

It is important to distinguish the realm of linguistics from the moresubordinate concept of grammar. In fact, it is important to delineate exactlywhat grammardenotes. Usually, the term grammarrefers to the study of bothmorphology and syntax: word structure and clause structure. Because morphol-ogy and syntax often interact, a core component of grammar is morphosyntax.One denition of grammar states that a grammar consists of a number of closedsystems categories such as tense, gender, and evidentiality and a number ofconstruction types, or ways of relating together words into phrases, clauses,

sentences, and utterances (Dixon2010a: 23). A linguists way of looking atgrammar is as a descriptivemechanism that accounts for all the morphologicaland syntactic phenomena in a language.2 A more didactic view of grammar isprescriptive,i.e., a grammar indicates what is correct and incorrect usage. Theformer takes language as it is and describes it; the latter takes an idealizedstandard of language and provides rules for adherence to that standard. Bothare useful in terms of language pedagogy, but it is important to know thatlinguists rarely see language in black and white correct or incorrect; rather,

they view language as a feature of human cognition and behavior, and try tocharacterize that behavior (or cognition, as it may be) as accurately and empiri-cally as possible.

2. Linguistics and Arabic

Arabic linguistics is a vasteld combining study of the Arabic language

with the analytical disciplines that constitute the eld of linguistics. Linguistictheories, methods, and concepts are used to analyze the structure and processes ofArabic; but at the same time, Arabic with its millennium-long intellectual

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traditions, its complex morphology, and its current broad diversity of registers,informs linguistic theory. Many linguistic approaches to Arabic language anal-ysis have been applied over the pastfty years both within the Arab world andfrom the point of view of western scholars. These approaches and their discipli-

nary procedures are both varied and convergent, covering a wealth of data butalso coming to terms with central issues of concern to Arabic linguistics that had

been neglected in the past, such as validating the prominent role of vernacularArabic and variation theory in Arabic society and culture. Arabic linguistics isnow an active subeld in sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, and computationallinguistics as well as theoretical and applied linguistics. Both traditional and newgenres of Arabic writing are now being examined within postmodern frameworksof literary theory and linguistic analysis. Media Arabic studies is a new and

rapidly growing

eld; medieval texts are being re-examined in the light of newphilology and discourse analysis; previously ignored forms of popular culturesuch as songs, advertisements, oral poetry, vernacular writing, letters, email, and

blogs are now legitimate grist for the linguistics mill.The discipline of linguistics has a growing number of subelds. The traditional

four core divisions usually include theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics,sociolinguistics, and computational linguistics. Each of these has developed newapplications, perspectives, hypotheses, and discoveries that extend their analytical

power in novel ways, such as cognitive linguistics in theoretical linguistics, secondlanguage acquisition in applied linguistics, corpus linguistics in the computationaleld, and discourse analysis in sociolinguistics. When these perspectives andtheories are applied to Arabic, the ndings can be revealing, satisfying, or puz-zling, but generally lead toward greater understanding of how languages work,how they resemble each other, and how they differ. The eld of computationallinguistics has provided ways to develop extensive corpora of spoken and writtenArabic that can be used for pioneering research and analysis of language in use. Anactive subeld of linguistics history of linguistics examines linguistic histor-

iography, the development of language analysis over time, and the evolution ofgrammatical theory in different cultures.

The phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures of Arabic reect itsSemitic origins and its essential differences from Indo-European languages. Thesedifferences and their cultural embeddedness are what make Arabic of interest toresearch in many elds of linguistics. For example, the particularly well-denedand elaborated verb system and its derivations reect an aspect of Classical Arabicthat is both fascinating and rigorous in its structure and linguistic logic.3 As another

example, the contrasts between vernacular and written language, their differentroles within Arab society, and the tensions between local and regional linguisticidentities, form areas of sociolinguistics that pose particular challenges to data

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collection, empirical study, and objective analysis. Many research challenges andopportunities still lie ahead in this regard.4

2.1. Theoretical linguistics

In a very real sense theoretical linguistics is the mother of all branches oflinguistic science and it is often referred to as general linguisticsbecause of itswide range of coverage.

Prior to the emergence of the eld of modern linguistics, philology was the termused for the study of language structure and literary tradition, with special focus onhistorical developments and relationships among cognate languages (comparative

philology). The examination and analysis of language families, their relationshipsand development is referred to as diachronic analysis (analysis of language struc-

ture and growth over time).5

2.1.1. Background

The nineteenth century witnessed a shift in perspective away from dia-chronic analysis to synchronic analysis; that is, the examination of language as it isat any point in time, especially contemporary language. In pinning down languageas an object of study, one of the rst steps of early linguists was to establish itssystematic nature and the difference between abstract language-as-a-system andconcrete language-in-use (see Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussures distinction

between langue and parole).6 It was language-as-a-system that early twentieth-century structural linguists such as Jespersen, Sapir, and Bloomeld believedwould yield the most fruitful research results because it was an objective realitymeasurable in reliable, empirical ways. Central to the structural linguistic approachis the difference between descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar, the ideathat theories focus on discovering and describing the structures and processes oflanguage as it is, rather than on placing particular values on the type or register of

language involved, or on prescribing rules for correctlanguage use.A turning point in theoretical linguistics was reached in the mid 1960s, when

Noam Chomsky, in his seminal text on generative grammar,Aspects of the Theoryof Syntax, offered a distinction between human beings knowledge of language(competence) and their actual use of language (performance) (1965: 4). Thefocus was still on language as a system, only Chomskys theory crucially includedcognition as a key component of language systems and processes. He stressed thatlinguistic theory . . .is concerned with discovering a mental reality underlying

actual behavior

(1965: 4).7

In Chomskys view, syntax the structures and

processes of sentence-building is the key to revealing that mental reality. Inaddition to placing syntactic structure at the center of linguistic theory, Chomsky



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posited the existence of linguistic universals, structures, and concepts that arecommon to all human communication, and which indicate that human beings areuniquely endowed with a shared cognitive capacity to learn and use language.

2.1.2. Generative grammar and beyondThe notion of generative grammar within the study of linguistics is well

dened by Haegeman, who states: The total of all the rules and principles thathave been formulated with respect to a language constitutes the grammar of thatlanguage. A grammar of a language is a coherent system of rules and principlesthat are at the basis of the grammatical sentences of a language. We say that agrammargeneratesthe sentences of a language(1994: 5) (emphasis in original).The concept of generative grammar is thus based on sentence grammar, how

humans construct their syntactic rule-systems, and what those rule-systems are.Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-rst, debate and conceptualdevelopments in theoretical linguistics have ourished, different theoreticalapproaches yielding different types of analysis, from the detailed descriptionsdone in terms of structuralism to the powerful formalisms of generative syntactictheory. In recent years various theoretical approaches to the study of language havedeveloped in addition to generative theory, such as relational grammar, lexicalfunctional grammar, cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, functional

linguistics, lexical semantics, and others.

2.1.3. Basic linguistic theory and relational grammar

One approach that has been fruitful for the discussion and description ofmany languages is Dixons Basic Linguistic Theory(BLT) (Dixon2010). BLTconsists in study and comparison of the grammatical patterns of individuallanguages (Dixon2010: 5), and centers on the fact that every grammar is anintegrated system. Each part relates to the whole; its role can only be understood

and appreciated in terms of the overall system to which it belongs(Dixon2010:24). Along these lines, Dixon also characterizes grammar as an abstract system ofinterlocking elements (2010: 34). This concept of language structure helps tofocus analysis not just on individual components of language (e.g., morphology,

phonology, syntax), but how those parts interrelate with the whole; that is, howvarious language systems and sub-systems synchronize and synthesize to create acomplex and effective network of communication.8

Relational grammar (RG) emerged as an alternative to transformational/gener-

ative grammar in the 1970s. RG sought to do justice to the interaction betweengrammatical relations, case relations, and thematic roles across language (Butt2006: 33). I have found that RG is useful in analyzing Arabic syntax and semantics,

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in part because RG implicitly assumes a relationship between overt case markingand grammatical relations,(Butt2006: 36) but also because of its compatibilitywith traditional categories of Arabic dependency relations. In addition, conceptsfrom lexical semantics (formerly generativesemantics) and lexical decomposi-

tion (especially predicate decomposition) are well suited to the analysis of Arabicsyntax and especially morphosyntax.9

2.1.4. Arabic linguistics

As applied to Arabic, linguistic theory has yielded many insightful studiesand also ways of approaching the language with precise, well-delineated analyt-ical, and discovery procedures. Particularly in the area of derivational morphology,Arabic offers a highly systematic and even exemplary perspective on languagestructure. In an overview of Arabic linguistics, Eid notes that:

Two approaches are identied as being dominant in research in theoreticallinguistics. One is more focused on developing a theory, or a part thereof,with data from individual language(s) serving as a testing ground for aspecic model being developed or an argument being made. The other ismore focused on analyzing linguistic data and discovering principles under-lying a linguistic system, with the theory being a means of approaching thedata . . . Both approaches are well represented in the literature on Arabic

theoretical linguistics. (1990: 12

13)

Modern theoretical linguistics focuses to a large extent on syntax: phrase structureand clause structure. Much of the linguistic work on Arabic in recent years hascentered around word order, subordination, coordination, conjunction, agreement,relative clauses, prepositional phrases, transitivity, argument structure, and othercomponents of syntax and morphosyntax. The John Benjamins series,

Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics (now amounting to more than twenty volumes),reproduces selected papers from the annual meeting of the Arabic Linguistics

Society, and is a key resource for anyone interested in current theoretical thinkingabout Arabic.

As well as analyzing Classical Arabic and MSA, theoretical linguistics hassignicantly improved the understanding of vernacular Arabic grammatical struc-tures through the results of persistent and painstaking eldwork. The subdisciplineof Arabic dialectology has produced extensive and valuable descriptive studies ofcolloquial Arabic in numerous regions in the Arab world and sponsored confer-ences on that topic (see, for example, the web site of AIDA: Association

Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe atwww.aida.org.at). Publications such asthe journalZeitschrift fr Arabische Linguistikregularly provide a range of articleson Arabic linguistics, examining both standard and spoken Arabic variants. Brills

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recent publication of the ve-volume Encyclopedia of Arabic Language andLinguistics(20062009)has provided a much-needed reference work for research-ers in Arabic linguistics.

3. The Arabic grammatical tradition

Every scientic discipline has a chronologically earliest paradigm, inother words, there is a denite point in time when a eld achieves scienticmaturity (Percival1976: 287). For Arabic, the earliest paradigm for languageanalysis dates to the days of the young Islamic empire. The examination andanalysis of Arabic language structure do not start in the contemporary era.Centuries of indigenous erudition have preceded the application of current linguis-tic approaches to the description of Arabic, providing a powerful intellectuallineage for those who study Arabic today. The Arabic linguist who is not familiarwith the key conceptual insights of the great Arabic grammarians is bound to seeonly part of the picture of Arabic language analysis. Because of the centralimportance of the Quran and its message, and because of the more practical butessential role of Arabic literacy in building and administrating an international

political and religious power, Arabic language sciences were among the earliest

disciplines to emerge in the context of the Islamic empire, starting as early as theseventh century ad.10 Sociolinguist and historian of linguistics Dell Hymes pro-

posed that the rise of linguistic analysis in any society is based on two factors: rst,the existence of a corpus of written material; and, second, the recognition oflanguage change the awareness of discrepancy either synchronic or diachronic,i.e., language differences emerging within a speech community, language change

because of contact with other language groups, or a recognition of differencebetween the current stage of a language and a previous one. It is particularly this

consciousness of imminent lossof a valued form of language that appears to be adriving force in the growth of conscious awareness of language structure (Hymes1974: 5). In the case of Arabic, the language of the Quran was not only revered,

but sacred, an inimitable rhetorical gift. Its preservation, therefore, and theanalysis of its linguistic processes and structures became a foundational discipli-nary activity in early Islam. The earliest Arabic grammarians used not only theQuran but also the highly regarded genre of pre-Islamic and early Islamic poetryas the cornerstones of eloquence and correct usage for Arabic. As the context of

Arab society shifted to greater horizons, and with the passing of time, the languageof the Quran and of the old poetic tradition became distanced from everydayspoken vernaculars, and the need for literacy in the written language became more

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acute in order to maintain cultural awareness of the Arabic word both sacred andaesthetic.

To Hymestwo factors for the development of language analysis I would addtwo more that apply, especially to the situation of classical Arabic: rst, the need

for transference of language skills to other groups, i.e., the need to teach Arabic as aforeign language; and, second, the demand for translations and translators. Thesefour factors were all at play during the early days of the Islamic empire as it spreadits culture, religion, and language over a vast expanse of territory, encouraged

popular conversion to Islam, and developed a sophisticated cultural/political basein and around the Abbasid capital, Baghdad. With the establishment of a denitivewritten version of the Quran during the reign of Uthman, the third Caliph (644656) had come the need to dene principles of Arabic orthography, and with the

stabilization of orthography came increased attention to grammar and lexicon.

11

Scholarly momentum and literacy burgeoned during the rst hundred years ofIslam, and a great thirst for systematized knowledge pervaded the Muslim world inthe eighth and ninth centuries. Language disciplines were leading components ofthe surge in translation, commentary, exegesis, documentation, education, andlegislation that were needed to form the foundations of Muslim culture, civilsociety, science, and governance. At the same time, other disciplines medicine,alchemy, music, astronomy, and mathematics to name a few began to ourish andform principles of practice, each with their own needs for taxonomies and technicalterms, translations, forms of education, and transmission of knowledge.12

The foundations for Classical Arabic grammar and lexicography were set by theend of the eighth century ad, with the extraordinary lexicographical legacy of Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad (Kitaab al-Ayn), and the evergreen grammatical masterwork ofSibawayhi (Al-Kitaab). The Arabic grammatical tradition thus consolidated itsfundamentals in written form over a thousand years ago, and constituted a back-ground against which disciplinary progress could be initiated, taxonomies could becompiled, terminology could be rened, and theoretical speculation could be

engaged in a matrix of information, analysis, and procedure that fostered thedevelopment of a lasting research tradition in Arabic language study.

The story of the development and elaboration of Arabic grammatical theory is along, intellectually fascinating, and distinguished one. Further readings in this areaare listed at the end of this chapter. I encourage those who have not yet had theexperience of dealing with Arabic primary sources from the late classical period/early Islamic period to try their hands at reading Sibawayi, at reading Ibn Jinni,Al-Khalil, or many of the prominent grammarians of early Islamic times, probing

their architectures of linguistic complexity. Careful, close reading of originalsources helps us contemporary readers to integrate the intellectual discourses ofthe past into our epistemological frameworks and to prepare us for grounded,



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thoughtful, and coherent analyses and queries not only about Arabic language butof linguistics as applied to the Arabic language. Foundational questions may nowyield transformational answers.

4. Aims of this book

This work aims to provide readers with a systematic introduction to thedescriptive methods and terminologies of contemporary Arabic linguistics, espe-cially as regards modern standard Arabic (al-fuaa). This book deals with levelsof linguistic analysis beginning with the sound system (phonology), progressingthrough morphology (derivational and inectional), and to syntax. At each level,

descriptive analysis is provided as well as an introduction to various theoreticalapproaches and intellectual trends. In addition, each chapter includes review anddiscussion questions as well as suggestions for further reading.

Questions and discussion points

(1) Some denitions of linguistics are given at the beginning of this chapter.Do they all agree? Do you know of others? Look up two more denitionsof linguistics and see how they compare.

(2) How does linguistics differ from the traditional eld of philology? Howdoes it differ from the study of grammar?

(3) The terms diachronicand synchroniclinguistics make a key distinc-tion in how the study of language structure is approached. Discuss thisdifference and its implications for Arabic.

(4) A further key distinction is between Chomskys use of the terms com-petence and performance. How do these terms relate to each other, andwhat do they imply for the study of Arabic linguistics?

(5) Discuss and evaluate the four factors mentioned in this chapter that areprerequisites for the initiation of language analysis within a particularculture. Do you agree that these are foundational? Do you think that thereare other factors that were especially pertinent for the emergence ofArabic language science?

Further reading

Bauer, Laurie. 2007.The Linguistics Students Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Bohas, Georges, Jean-Patrick Guillaume, and Djamal Eddine Kouloughli. 1990.The Arabic

Linguistic Tradition. London and New York: Routledge.

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Carter, M. C. 1972. Les origines de la grammaire arabe. Revue des tudes Islamiques.40: 6997.

1973. An Arab grammarian of the eighth century, A.D. A contribution to the history oflinguistics.Journal of the American Oriental Society 93: 146157.

1981.Arab Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1985. When did the Arabic word naw rst come to denote grammar? Language &Communication5(4): 265272.

Eid, Mushira. 1990. Arabic linguistics: The current scene. In Perspectives on ArabicLinguistics, vol. I, ed. Mushira Eid, 337. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ferguson, Charles A. 1959. Myths about Arabic.Georgetown University Monograph Serieson Languages and Linguistics 12, 7582. Washington, DC: Georgetown UniversityPress.

1962. Glossary of Terms Related to Languages of the Middle East. Washington, DC:Center for Applied Linguistics.

1990. Come forth with a surah like it: Arabic as a measure of Arab society. InPerspectives on Arabic Linguistics, vol. I, ed. Mushira Eid, 3951. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Owens, Jonathan. 1997. The Arabic grammatical tradition. InThe Semitic Languages, ed.Robert Hetzron, 4658. London: Routledge.

2006.A Linguistic History of Arabic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.2013b. History. InThe Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, ed. J. Owens, 451471.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.Rets, Jan. 2013. What is Arabic? In The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, ed.

J. Owens, 433450. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Talmon, Rafael. 1985. Who was the

rst Arab grammarian? A new approach to an oldproblem.ZAL15: 128145.Versteegh, C. H. M. (Kees). 1978. The Arabic terminology of syntactic position.Arabica

25(3): 261281.1980. The origin of the term qiys in Arabic grammar. Zeitschrift fr Arabische

Linguistik4: 730.

Notes

1. Linguistics is an empirical science, like biology or physics or astronomy. As such, itsgoal is the structure of explanatory hypotheses: empirically vulnerable accounts (theories)of observed phenomena(Green and Morgan1996: 37).

2. Dixon states further that the grammar of a language has two components, syntax andmorphology. Some linguists treat phonology as a third part of a grammar; others regard

phonology as distinct from grammar, but linked to it. A feature can be called morpho-syntacticif it both occurs in a morphological paradigm and marks syntactic function; forexample a system of case afxes(2010a: 93).

3. See Danks2011, for an extensive analysis of the Arabic verb system.4. SeeAppendix Afor an outline of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and computationallinguistics as applied to Arabic.



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5. Study of language history and development from an empirical point of view is nowprimarily referred to as historical or comparative linguistics.

6. de Saussure (18571913) is considered the founder of modern structural linguistics,mainly by virtue of his Course in General Linguistics, given at the University of Geneva(19071911), and later published as a text through the efforts of certain of his students.

See de Saussure1972, 1983 [2009]: 9 The linguist must take the study of linguisticstructure as his primary concern, and relate all other manifestations of language to it,and 19: The study of language thus comprises two parts. The essential part takes for itsobject the language itself(i.e., langue). The subsidiary part takes as its object theindividual part of language, which means speech(i.e.,parole). See also Culler1986,for de Saussures intellectual biography and his theory of language.

7. van Valin in his article, Functional linguistics(2001: 325327) has a useful summaryof these issues.

8. But note that Dixon also observes thatdivisions within a grammar are seldom neat andtidy, and . . . one morphological form may have several roles in the syntax of alanguage(2010a: 97).

9. For lexical semantics, see Cruse1986and 2001; for lexical semantics and predicatedecomposition, see Levin and Rappaport Hovav1998; for a foundational study oflexical decomposition, see Gruber 1965; see also Jackendoff1972; and for generativesemantics, see Parisi and Antinucci1976.

10. Face aux peuples civiliss, dtenteurs de cultures suprieures la leur, les Arabesprirent conscience de la ncessit de faire la conqute de leur propre langage par larexion sur ses structures, an de dcouvrir toutes les richesses et mieux saisir toutesles signications du texte sacr(Belguedj1973: 169).

11.

The Qur

an conformed to Arab speech: it provided the reason for codifying Arabicgrammar and stylistics and was used as a criterion for these disciplines (Abdel Haleem2009: 21).

12. A thorough knowledge of grammar. . .was considered as a fundamental prerequisitefor any other intellectual pursuit, religious or secular (Bohas, Guillaume, andKouloughli 1990: 49). See Baalbaki (2013) and Larcher (2013) for authoritativesurveys of the Arabic grammatical tradition.

Aims of this book 11


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2

Arabic phonology

Phonologyis the analysis of the sound system of a language, including thestudy of the individual sounds themselves and how they are articulated (articulatory

phonetics) and how they are perceived (acoustic phonetics). Phonology also includes

the analysis of meaningful segments of sound (phonemes): their composition,distribution, and function (phonemics). This chapter will concern itself primarilywith the phonemics of Arabic, that is, analysis of distinctive MSA sounds and theirvariants (allophones). This analysis involves detailed description of the phonemesthemselves as well as description of processes that can be phonemic,(meaningful)such as vowel lengthening and consonant doubling (gemination).

1. Phonemics

The study of phonemics is concerned with the sounds of a language thatmake a difference in meaning; phonemes can be described as the semanticallysignicant sounds of a language. In order to establish a sounds status as a

phoneme, linguists look for environments or contexts in which everything isidentical except for one sound or a particular feature of a sound (such as voicing).If that sound or feature of a sound carries a difference in meaning and it contrasts

with another sound in the same position, it is established as aphoneme. Phonemesare said for this reason to be in contrastive distribution.1 By contrasting sounds inpaired contexts, the identity of a phoneme can be established. This kind ofcontrastive comparison is called minimal pair analysis.2 For example, in Englishthe pair of wordspetandbet, are exactly the same except for the initial sound, butthey are completely different in meaning. This contrast in meaning establishes thatthe sounds /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes.3 Note that phonemes are conven-tionally written between two forward slashes, e.g., /k/.

In Arabic, one can also come up with signicant minimal pairs that establishmeaning differences between sounds (phonemes). Some of the most commonlyused examples are:

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(1) kalb dog/qalb heart(both /k/ and /q/ are voiceless stops; the differ-ence is in point of articulation: /k/ is velar and the /q/ uvular.)

(2) sayf sword/ ayf summer (both /s/ and // are voiceless alveolarfricatives, but the // has an added feature, velarization, that makes it a

distinctive, separate phoneme.)(3) tiin g/iin clay(both /t/ and // are voiceless alveolar stops, but // hasthe added feature of velarization.)

In the above example, the sounds /k/ and /q/ are established as phonemes, as well as/s/ and //, and /t/ and //. These sounds, in addition to being recognizably differentfrom each other are also thus established as theoretical constructs components ofthe phonemic system of Arabic.

Each language has a particular sound inventory, or phoneme inventory thatrepresents all the meaningful sounds of the language. In Modern LiteraryArabic, we nd a very small vowel inventory . . . but a very rich consonantinventory(Cohn2001: 182). In an ideal situation, the phoneme inventory willcorrespond precisely with the symbols of an alphabetic writing system. This is notthe case for English (which has a complex and historically divergent system forspelling), but it is largely true of Arabic, where the letters of the alphabet essentiallyrepresent all the consonant phonemes of the language.4

1.2. Phoneme feature matrix

Phonemes each consist of a matrix of features that characterize them, andthey are described in these terms. The matrix consists of two basic sets of features:(1) place (or point) of articulation and (2) manner of articulation, i.e., where andhow the sound is produced in the vocal tract. A third feature, voicing (vibration ofvocal chords), is also a distinctive feature for many phonemes. For example, the

phoneme /b/ is described as a voiced bilabial stop; the phoneme /s/ is described as avoiceless alveolar fricative, and the Arabic phoneme // is described as a voiced

pharyngeal fricative. Note that sometimes a sound exists as a phoneme in onelanguage but not in another. For example, the glottal stop (usually transliterated as// or // ) is a phoneme in Arabic, but not in English (even though it exists in manydialects).5

1.3. Consonants of modern standard Arabic (MSA)

The phoneme inventory of a language is usually represented in the form

of a chart that indicates point of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing.Arabic has twenty-eight consonants: eight stops: /b/, /t/, //, /d/, //, /k/, /q/, //,thirteen fricatives: /f/, /th/, /dh/, /Z/, /s/, //, /z/, /sh/, /x/, /gh/, //, //, / h/, one

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affricate: /j /, two nasals; /m/ and /n/, one lateral: /l/, one ap: /r/, and twosemivowels: /w/ and /y/. They can be charted as follows. Note that the point or

place of articulation is represented in the line across the top of the chart, proceedingfrom the front-most point of articulation at the lips to the farthest-back point, nearthe trachea (windpipe). The manner of articulation is noted in the far-left columnand indicate the degree of stricture or closing of the articulators. Generally, thedegrees of stricture include stops (where the airow is blocked completely),affricates (where the airow is blocked and then released into a fricative), fricatives(where the airow is restricted but allowed through), and resonants (consonantsounds where the airows smoothly nasals, laterals, and semivowels).6

1.3.1 Arabic consonant phonemes

Descriptions of Arabic consonants are usually expressed in the followingtechnical terms:

hamza() voiceless glottal stopbaa(b) voiced bilabial stop

Labial

Stops

Voiceless

Voiced

Affricates

Voiceless

Voiced

Fricatives

Nasals

Laterals

Flaps

Semivowels

(approximants)

w

m

b

t T

d

s sh

gh

x H h

c

c

z

n

l

r

y

S

j

k q

D

f th

dh Z

Voiceless

Voiced

Labio-dental Interdental Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal

Figure 1 Phonemic chart of MSA consonantsSource: Ryding2005

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taa(t) voiceless alveolar stopthaa(th) voiceless interdental fricative

jiim(j) Three standard variants:(1) voiced alveopalatal affricate; /j/ as in judge(2) voiced alveopalatal fricative /zh/: as in rouge

(3) voiced velar stop; /g/ as in guyaa() voiceless pharyngeal fricative

xaa(x/ kh) voiceless velar fricative; also described as a uvular fricativedaal(d) voiced alveolar stopdhaal(dh) voiced interdental fricative: // or /dh/ pronounced like the /th/ in

thereraa(r) voiced alveolar ap or trill7

zayn or zaay(z)

voiced alveolar fricative

siin(s) voiceless alveolar fricativeshiin(sh) voiceless palatal fricativeaad() voiceless velarized alveolar fricative: /s/ pronounced with a

retracted tongue rootaad() voiced velarized alveolar stop: /d/ pronounced with a retracted

tongue rootaa() voiceless velarized alveolar stop: /t/ pronounced with a retracted

tongue rootZaa(Z) Two standard variants:

(1) voiced velarized interdental fricative: /dh/ as in there

pronounced with a retracted tongue root(2) voiced velarized alveolar fricative: /z/ pronounced with aretracted tongue root

ayn() voiced pharyngeal fricativeghayn(gh) voiced velar fricative; also described as a uvular fricativefaa(f) voiceless labiodental fricativeqaaf(q) voiceless uvular stopkaaf(k) voiceless velar stoplaam(l) voiced lateral: this has two realizations:

(1) the dark/l/ as in wallor bull(back or dark/l/)

(2) the clear/l /as in liftor leaf(fronted or light/l/)miim(m) voiced biblabial continuantnuun(n) voiced nasal continuanthaa(h) voiceless glottal fricativewaaw(w)or

(uu):bilabial semivowel: /w/ as in windor long vowel /uu/pronounced like the ooin boot

yaa(y) or(ii):

palatal semivowel: /y/ as in yellowor long vowel /ii/pronounced like the /i/ in machine.8

The consonant inventory of Arabic (listed above in standard alphabetical order)

is characterized by two things in particular that distinguish it from the consonantinventory of English: consonants with secondary articulation (the velarized

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consonants), and what are often termed gutturalconsonants: the velars, uvulars,and pharyngeals. Other components of the sound system vary as well, of course,

but these two sets of phonemes are distinctive.In this book, I have chosen to represent word-initial non-elidable glottal stop

with the symbol // because it forms either part of the lexical root or part of thepattern. Often, word-initial glottal stop is omitted entirely from romanization intextbooks, but in that case there is no distinction between stronghamza (hamzat al-qa) and weak or epenthetichamza (hamzat al-wal).

1.4. Vowels of MSA

The Arabic vowel system is straightforward: three different vowelqualities, each with a short and long variant. The difference in vowel length inArabic is not a difference in vowel quality, but in duration. This is similar to thedifference in duration of musical notes, where a half-note, for example, is heldtwice as long as a quarter note, and so on. There are two ways of analyzing thenumber of vowel phonemes in Arabic: they can be seen as six: three short andthree long, or they can be seen as four: three short vowels plus one length

phoneme that can be added to each one. Either way is acceptable. Transliterated

representation of long vowels varies from system to system. For my own use andin agreement with a number of other scholars, I prefer to represent long vowels asdoubled short vowels (i.e., aa, ii, uu) rather than use a macron (, , ) or thedotted length notation ( a:, i:, u:).9

2. Phonemic processes

In addition to the consonant and vowel phoneme inventory of Arabic,there are also two phonemic processes, (1) vowel lengthening (as in kataba hewrote kaataba he corresponded) and (2) gemination, or doubling (tashdiid),

Front Central Back

high i/ii u/uu

mid

low a/aa

Figure 2 Phonemic chart of MSA vowels

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as indarasa he studied darrasa he taught). Each of these processes contrib-utes to the derivation of words from a lexical root and forms a key component ofthe derivational system of Arabic.

It is important to note, however, that various forms of non-phonemic doubling

also occur. For example, in certain forms of preposition plus rst person pronounsufx: instead of *an-ii away from me; about me the form is annii; likewise, for*min-ii from me; than methe form isminnii. In both of these cases the nuunisdoubled, but this does not change the meaning of the expression. Various con-textual situations also cause assimilation to occur, which often results in doublingthe pronunciation of a consonant, as in the assimilation of the laamof the denitearticle to the rst sound of a word beginning with a sun letter(arf shamsi), e.g.,al-nuur is pronounced an-nuur; al-salaam is pronounced as-salaam. The pro-

cesses of assimilation are discussed more extensively in the following chapter.

3. Allophones

An allophone is a contextually caused pronunciation variant of a pho-neme. That is, the pronunciation of the sound varies because of the environmentthat it is in. An allophonic variation of a phoneme is not a separate or independent

phoneme because it does not carry or cause a difference in meaning. For example,American English has two kinds of pronunciation for /l/ the fronted or light/l/of leaf and the backed or dark /l/ of well. The fronted /l/ occurs pre-vocalically and the backed /l/ occurs after a vowel. These two slightly differentrealizations of /l/ are still the same phoneme, just variant in pronunciation.

3.1. Allophones oflaam

The /l/ phoneme in Arabic is usually realized as a fronted, light /l/

sound. This Arabic /l/ is fronted and palatalized, approximating French /l/ as inbelle.10 In certain restricted contexts, it is pronounced farther back in thearticulatory tract, with a raised tongue, as a darker/l/ sound. Thus the /l/ ofilelephantand the /l/ ofwallaah by Godare different, but not separate phonemes;they are allophones of the phoneme /l/.11

3.2. Allophones ofjiim

The most variable consonant phoneme in MSA is /j/, represented by the

letter jiim. Acceptable MSA pronunciations of jiim include the palatal voicedfricative /zh/ (as in the English word measureor the French word je I), or itmay be the voiced velar stop, /g/ (as in good) if the speakers regional spoken

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variant is Egyptian or Sudanese, or it may be a voiced alveopalatal affricate, /j/ as inEnglish judge.12 Some Arabic speakers use both the /j/ and /zh/ variants. These

pronunciations are all allophones of the MSA phoneme /j/.13

3.3. The issue oftaamarbuuta

The special form of taa which can be written as word-nal (taamarbuua) shows contextual variation as well, but it is unclear if this is trulyallophonic. In pause form, if a word spelled with nal taamarbuua isthe rst partof an iaafa, or construct phrase, then the taa is usually pronounced as avoiceless alveolar stop (e.g., madiinat bayruut, the city of Beirut). Elsewhere in

pause form, it is pronounced as the voiceless glottal fricative /h/ (i l-madiinah in

the city

;madiinah kabiirah

a big city

). Because of its word-

nal position, the /h/is sometimes difcult to hear at all, and it sounds as though the word ends with thevowel /a/. There are also optional pronunciations oftaamarbuuawhen it followsthe long vowel /aa/, as in the wordHayaat/Hayaah life.This particular variation

process is complex because it is bound up with historical linguistics, grammaticalstructure, orthographic conventions, morphology, and regional differences in

pronunciation.

3.4. Arabic vowel allophonesThe pronunciation of Arabic vowels, especially /aa/ and/a/, but also /ii/

and /i/ varies over a rather wide range, depending on word structure and theinuence of adjacent consonants, but also on regional variations in pronuncia-tion.14 The primary cause of backed vowel allophones is the presence of anemphatic (velarized) consonant in a word.

Ranges of vowel variation (front to back):

for/i/:min, xiffa, qi,i, niffor/a/:hal, sakan, qatal,aff,tafaalfor /aa/: islaam, waadii,aalib, bayaat

for /ii/ : diin,iin, tamshii

The transference of the feature of velarization or emphasis from consonants toadjacent or even non-adjacent vowels and other consonants is referred to astafxiim, or emphasis spread.15 The retraction and raising of the tongue roottoward the velum (soft palate) or even farther back toward the uvula or phar-yngeal area for the pronunciation of the consonant, causes backing of thevowel.16 Postvocalic raaalso has a backing effect on /aa/ e.g., naar re,

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daar house; so does the prevocalic uvular stop qaaf, e.g., qaadir mighty,maqaal article.

To sum up, the consonant system of modern standard Arabic shows littleallophonic variation except for jiim and laam, whereas the pronunciation of

vowels especially /a/ and /aa/ shows considerable allophonic variance dueparticularly to the spread of emphasis.


(1) Where are the major contrasts between the Arabic phonemic inventoryand the English phonemic inventory? What kind of impact might thesedifferences have on English speakers who are learning Arabic as a foreignlanguage? On Arabic speakers learning English?

(2) Come up with ten minimal pairs in Arabic, establishing certain sounds asphonemes. Remember, the sounds must occur in identical environmentsand be similar in terms of articulatory features, such as comparing thewords aalcondition andxaalmaternal uncle, oraxarmore danger-ousand axar green.

(3) Read the article on emphatic /l/by Ferguson and discuss his ideas aboutthe phonemic status of dark/l/. Does he make a convincing argument?Why or why not?

Further reading

For book-length studies of Arabic phonology, see Al-Ani1970, Gairdner1925, and Semaan1968.Al-Ani, Salman H. 2008. Phonetics. In Encyclopedia of Arabic language and Linguistics,

vol. III, ed. Kees Versteegh, 593603. Leiden: Brill.Bauer, Laurie. 2007.The Linguistics Students Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(Especially 127136 on the International Phonetic Association (IPA) and phoneticsymbols.)

Cohn, Abigail. 2001. Phonology. InThe Handbook of Linguistics, eds. Mark Aronoff andJanie Rees-Miller, 180212. Oxford: Blackwell.

Ferguson, Charles. 1956. The emphatic l in Arabic.Language32: 486552.Gordon, Cyrus. 1970. The accidental invention of the phonemic alphabet. Journal of Near

Eastern Studies 29:3: 193197.Ladefoged, Peter. 1997. Linguistic phonetic descriptions. In The Handbook of Phonetic

Sciences, eds. William J. Hardcastle and John Laver, 589618. Oxford: Blackwell.

Laver, John. 2001, 2003. Linguistic phonetics. In The Handbook of Linguistics, eds.Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller, 150179. Oxford: Blackwell.Mitchell, T. F. 1990.Pronouncing Arabic. vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Notes

1. Also called paralleldistribution.2. Minimal pairs (or sets) are words with distinct meanings differing only in one sound

(Cohn2001: 186).3. In fact, /p/ and /b/ are similar in both point and manner of articulation (bilabial stops) butdiffer in one feature, voicing (/p/ is unvoiced, /b/ is voiced/). It is actually this singlefeature, voicing, that distinguishes the two words and the two phonemes.

4. For an interesting article on the correspondence between the Arabic phoneme inventoryand the Arabic alphabet, see Gordon1970.

5. The glottal stop exists in English in various positions and in various dialects, but it is notconsidered an English phoneme. A Scotsman might pronounce the word bottle as[bol]; I myself pronounce the word kittenas [kin] and the word satinas [saen] inmy Michigan dialect. In the clear enunciation of vowel-initial words in English, a glottal

stop is sometimes inserted to clarify word boundaries: Isaid an ice house, notanicehouse.Parrish, in his classic book on English pronunciation,Reading Aloud, color-fully refers to this as a glottal attack (1932:160161). The English expression oh-ohnormally has two glottal stops, one before each oh.

6. See Laver2001: 168 for a concise description of degree of stricture.7. The conventional use of r in the transcription of Arabic and English completely

obscures the fact that the sounds so symbolized in the two languages are entirelydifferent; in Arabicrrepresents an apical trill, in English a slightly retroex resonantcontinuant (a vocoid)(Lehn and Slager1983: 35).

8. Certain consonants have some of the phonetic properties of vowels. . .they are usually

referred to as approximants (or frictionless continuants), though [/w/ and /y/] arecommonly called semi-vowels, as they have exactly the same articulation as vowelglides. although phonetically vowel-like, these sounds are usually classied along withconsonants on functional grounds(Crystal1997b: 159).

9. Long vowels are best analyzed . . . as two identical short vowels. A universal rule,which need not be included in the grammar. . .accounts for this(Abdo1969: 9).

10. See Gairdner1925: 1719 for discussion of darkand light/l/.11. See Ferguson1956for an analysis arguing that darkArabic /l/ is indeed a separate

phoneme.12. For this reason, the phoneme is often transliterated as /dj/, to indicate affrication (i.e.,

stop + fricative).13. Note that these variants are regionally determined, rather than caused by linguistic

context. These widely accepted MSA variants do not include the /y/ variant of vernac-ular Gulf Arabic because it is considered nonstandard.

14. Arabic allophonic variations were recognized by the Arab grammarians long ago, andgiven technical names referring to the manner of articulation: (1)imaala(leaningorinclinationi.e., toward the high front part of the mouth), e.g., /aa/ or /a/ fronted to[ae] or [e]; (2) tafxiim thickening (or heavying pronouncing the vowel farthertoward the back of the vocal tract). Consonants that cause the latter pronunciation are

called mufaxxama in Arabic,

emphatic

or

velarized

consonants. See Bakalla 2009 formore ontafxim (tafkhiim), and Barkat2009for acoustic analysis of vowel backing inArabic dialects.

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15. See Davis2009: 636637 for a discussion of velarizationand emphasis.Note thatthe term pharyngealizationis also used to describe the coarticulation feature of theseconsonants. Abdo and Hilu state that a constriction in the throat, a sort of tightening ofthe muscles, accompanies the articulation of emphatics(1968: 61). As Davis notesabout velarization and pharyngealization, there is very little acoustic distinction

between the two(2009: 636).16. Articulatorily, backed vowels are characterized by a constriction in the pharyngeal

cavity caused by Retracted Tongue Root (Barkat2009: 670). The term retractedtongue rootis abbreviated as RTR. See Davis1993: 150.

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3

Arabic phonotactics and morphophonology

The term phonotacticsrefers to the study of sound distribution patternsand distribution restrictions within words (and sometimes across word bounda-ries).1 Phonotactic rules inuence Arabic word structure in derivational and inec-

tional morphology, and also in lexical root structure.2

Most of these rules andrestrictions were discovered and described by the Arabic grammarians over athousand years ago (in particular by Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad, but also Sibawayhiand others). They are organized and described in this book in technical linguisticterms as they apply to MSA, using formalizations whenever possible. There are atleast two aspects to Arabic phonotactics: the phonotactics of root morphology andthe phonotactics of derivational and inectional morphology. The study of mor-

phological processes interfacing with phonological structures and rules is termed

morphophonemics. In Arabic the study of phonotactics and morphophonology areclosely interrelated. Four phonological processes are essential to the Arabic soundsystem: assimilation (one sound absorbing or affecting another), epenthesis (vowelinsertion), deletion (of vowel or semivowel), and vowel shift.

1. Assimilation (iddighaam/idghaam)

Assimilation can be dened as a change or spread of phonetic featurevalues (such as voicing or velarization) that makes segments more similar, or evenidentical. In Arabic it often occurs as a result of phonological rules applying at theintersection of morphological processes, for example, as a result of a pattern (wazn)applying to a particular lexical root (jidhr). Assimilation is normally non-

phonemic; i.e., it does not affect the meaning of a segment or word. It may beprogressive or regressive.

1.1. Progressive assimilation

Progressive assimilation refers to the inuence of a previously articu-lated sound on following sound, i.e., A B, A inuences B. The most prevalent

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examples of this result from the inxed /t/ of Form VIII verbs: theiftaalaform,changing the nature of the inxedtaato a pronunciation closer to that of the rst

phoneme of the lexical root. It usually involves an orthographical change as wellas a change in sound.

1.1.1. Partial assimilation of inxedtaa(spelling variant)

iadama t to collide, clashizdaada t d to increaseizdawaja t d to be double, to pair

1.1.2. Full assimilation of inxedtaato preceding consonant (shaddain

spelling)ialaa t to view, be informediZZalama t Z to suffer injusticeiththaara t th to be avengediddaaa t d to allege, claimiddaghama t d to be assimilated

1.1.3. Reciprocal (or mutual) assimilation (inxed taa and precedingconsonant both change to a different consonant)

iddakara t + dh dd to rememberiddaxara t + dh dd to accumulate, preserve

1.1.4. Assimilation of initialwaawin Form IV verbal noun

Because of an Arabic phonological rule that prohibits the occurrence of thesequence [i + w] within a syllable, in the Form IV waaw-initial verbal noun, thekasra of the ifaalpattern assimilates the waaw and lengthens into a long vowel /ii/.

This assimilation and lengthening is reected in spelling as well as pronunciation.*iwdaah iidaah clarication*iwqaa iiqaa rhythm

1.1.5. Assimilation of initialhamzain Form IV verbal noun

Because of a phonological rule that prohibits the sequence [+ V + ](hamza vowel hamza), the hamza of Form IV hamza-initial verbs is assimilatedto thekasraof the ifaalpattern.3

*imaan iimaan faith*idhaan iidhaan proclamation

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1.1.6. Vowel assimilation/assimilation at a distance/vowel harmony

The vowel /i/, whether long or short, as well as the semi-vowel /y/,assimilate the short vowel /u/ when it occurs after the third person pronominalsufx/-h/. That is, the sufxes -hu, -hum, -hunna, -humaaall convert to-hi, -him,-hinna, -himaawhen preceded by a high front vowel or semi-vowel. This kind ofassimilation at a distance is usually referred to as vowel harmony.

*i maktab-i-hui maktab-i-hi in his ofce*i maktab-i-humi maktab-i-him in their (m.) ofce*al-salaam-u alay-hu al-salaam-u alay-hi peace be upon him

Note that this kind of assimilation occurs only with third person pronounsufxes and is therefore conditioned by grammatical rules. In other contexts,such as when the /haa/ forms a part of the lexical root, it does not occur, e.g.

tawjiih-u-naa our guidancemutanizzih-uuna walkers, promenaders

1.2. Regressive assimilation

Regressive assimilation results from the inuence of a following sound

on previous sound, i.e., A B. The most prevalent occurrence of this form ofassimilation is with the assimilation of the laamof the denite article (al-) to thesound of the rst phoneme in a word; it also occurs with certain types of Form IVand Form VIII verbs.

1.2.1. Assimilation oflaamto rst sound of word

This assimilation occurs in the context of what are termed sun lettersofthe Arabic alphabet.4 It is important to note that the laamof the denite articleremains in the spelling of such words, but that the rst sound in the word is doubledin pronunciation and spelled withshadda.

*al-daftar ad-daftar the notebook*al-shams ash-shams the sun*al-raabi ar-raabi the fourth

1.2.2. Assimilation of initial semi-vowelwaawin Form VIII verbs:

Due to the phonological rule that prohibits the occurrence of the sequence[i + w], thewaawofwaaw-initial verbs is assimilated to the inxedtaaof Form

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VIII. This is a case of total assimilation and spelling change. Thewaawdisappearsin orthography as well as in pronunciation.

*iwtaala ittaala to contact

*iwta

ada

itta

ada to be united

1.2.3. Assimilation of afxednuunof Form VII

Form VII verbs whose initial consonant ismiim may optionally assimilatethenuunof the form VII pattern (infaala). They may be spelled either way.

inmaaa/ immaaa to be erasedinmaaqa/ immaaqa to be destroyed

1.2.4. Assimilation across word boundaries

This process of regressive assimilation occurs with prepositions ending in/n/ followed by a word starting with /m/. The bilabial nasal /m/ assimilates thecoronal nasal /n/ and doubles, usually causing the words to fuse orthographically aswell as phonetically:

min + maa mimmaa from whichan + maa ammaa about which

1.3. Partial assimilation in pronunciation but not spelling (feature spread)

A velarized consonant occurring anywhere in a word may lead to assimi-lated velarization in the entire word or in surrounding syllables.5 A well-knownfact about emphasis is that it spreads from an emphatic consonant to neighboringsegments(Younes1993: 119). This process of feature spread,is also known in

particular for Arabic velarized consonants as emphasis spread.6 For example, thefollowing words may be pronounced identically although the velarized consonantis in different positions:

awt voicesaw whip

The degree of emphasis spread varies among speakers of Arabic, and variesconsiderably between vernacular speech and careful MSA pronunciation.7 The

velarized consonant may affect the pronunciation of a whole word, even if thatconsonant is word-nal. Or it may affect one syllable only. To some extent, thespread of emphasis beyond the velarized syllable is in free variation, that is, it is an



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optional phonetic feature that does not affect word meaning.8 For example, differ-ent native speakers may pronounce the following words with a greater or lesserdegree of emphasis spread:

ixlaa sincerityniZaam systemabaa morningalabaat demands

2. Vowel insertion: epenthesis

The term epenthesisrefers to the insertion of a sound into a sequence in

order to ease pronunciation and facilitate transition from one sound to the next.

9

For this reason in Arabic these epenthetic vowels are often called helpingvowels.Because of Arabic phonotactic rules prohibiting the occurrence of threeconsonants in a row, vowel insertion is used to prevent consonant clusters.10 Theseconsonant clusters result from the interaction of lexicon, morphology, and syntax.All three short vowels (/u/,/i/, and /a/) are used in Arabicepenthesis,each vowelwith its own rules of occurrence.

2.1. Medial clustersIn medial clusters of three consonants, helping vowels are added accord-

ing to the rules as set out below.

2.1.1. The vowel/u/(amma) or /uu/ (waaw)

This may be inserted to ease pronunciation after the occurrence ofsufxed past tense second person masculine plural marker-tum. If-tum is followed

by a noun with the de

nite article, the short vowel/u/is inserted

hal katab-tum-ul-maqaaal-a? Have you (m. pl.) written the article?

When the -tumsufx is followed by a sufxed pronoun object, then the longvowel /uu/ is inserted between the inectional sufx-tumand the object pronoun:

hal katab-tum-uu-hu? Have you (m. pl.) written it?mataa raay-tum-uu-hum? When did you (m. pl.) see them (m.)?

2.1.2. The vowel /a/ (fata)

This is inserted as a helping vowel in one case: after the word min from

Vowel insertion: epenthesis 27


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hiya min-al-yaman-i. She is from Yemen.min-a sh-sharq-i ilaa l-gharb-i from the east to the west

2.1.3. The vowel /i/

This is inserted in all other instances

man-il-munassiq-u? Who is the coordinator?saal-at-is-suaal-a. She asked the question.

2.2. Initial clusters: vowel prosthesis

The procedure of prosthesis refers to adding a vowel to a word,

usually through prexing. Because there is an Arabic phonological rule prohib-iting utterance-initial or syllable-initial consonant clusters (i.e., two or moreconsonants), Arabic allows the addition of a vowel prex in order to make anutterance pronounceable.11 However, Arabic also has an even stronger rule thatno utterance or syllable may start with a vowel. It is therefore necessary to addhamzaplus vowel in initial position in order to provide a glottal onset for startingan utterance. Thehamzain this position is elidable (hamzat al-wal) because it isneither a root consonant nor part of a morphological pattern; it is used purely for

phonological reasons to ease pronunciation. Nonetheless, the alif seat

for theelidable hamzaremains present in orthography in most cases. Elidable hamzaplus vowel occurs in the following situations: (1) with the laamof the denitearticle (vowel /a/) (e.g., al-burhaan the proof); (2) with the small group ofcommon biliteral nouns (vowel /i/) (e.g.,-bn son,-sm name); (3) with FormsVIIX verbal nouns, imperatives, and past tense verbs (vowel /i/) (e.g.,inikaasreection,istanbaa to discover; to invent,istami! listen!); (4) with Form Iimperatives (vowel /u/ if verb stem vowel is /u/; otherwise, /i/) (e.g., uktub!write!, ifta! open!); (5) with borrowed words that start with consonantclusters (vowel/i/) such asistuudiyuu studio.

3. Deletion (h adhf)

Deletion of vowels and semivowels occurs in Arabic, but rarely if ever,deletion of consonants. For example, the semivowelwaawofwaaw-initial verbs

(termed

assimilated

verbs in English and

af

aal al-mithaalin Arabic) may bedeleted in the present tense (e.g.,waqaf-a / ya-qif-u to stand;waa-a/ya-a-uto put).12



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Short vowel deletion occurs under the following circumstances: where a vowelwould occur (based on a pattern template) between identical consonants preceded

by a short vowel:

marar-a marr-a he passed by (compare:marar-tu I passed by)*radad-uu radd-uu they replied (compare:radad-tum you (m. pl.) replied)

This rule may be expressed in formal notation, using the category symbols C forany consonant and V for any short vowel, as follows:

C1VC2VC3V! C1VC2C3V=C2 C3

That is, the sequence CVCVCV will become CVCCV if and when the second

and third consonants are identical and followed by a vowel.

13

In general,mathematical-style formalizations are considered strong evidence for the statusof rule-application because they summarize regularities and can be tested andevaluated for their predictive power.14 They strengthen the theoretical rigor ofobservations about language.

4. Vowel shift (qalb)

In addition to complete vowel deletion, Arabic phonological rules mayrequire vowel shift, i.e., displacement of a vowel from one position in a word toanother, as a result of either derivational or inectional morphology. This is a sub-rule that applies after the application of the vowel-deletion rule in cases wherevowel deletion would result in a three-consonant cluster. This rule applies withgeminate roots when a short vowel occurs between identical consonants preceded

by another consonant:

Form IV: *abab-a aabb-a he loved

(The /a/ between the/b/s is deleted according to the vowel-deletion rule, andshifts to the position before the /b/s in order to avoid a three-consonant cluster*abb-a.)

Form X: *na-stadid-u nastaidd-u we are getting ready

(In the same way, the/i/between the /d/s shifts to the position before the /d/s in

order to avoid the unpronounceable *na-stadd-u.)In the elative form of adjectives derived from geminate lexical roots, this rulealso applies:

Vowel shift (qalb) 29


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*ajdad-u ajadd-u newer*aqlal-u aqall-u fewer

And in certain plural patterns of nouns and adjectives from geminate lexical roots:

*abibaa aTibbaa doctors*azizaa aizzaa dear (pl.)

A formalization of this rule might read:

V1C1C2V2C3V3 ! V1C1V2C2C3V3=C2 C3

That is, a vowel between two identical consonants shifts to the position precedingthose consonants if the deletion of the vowel results in a three-consonant cluster.

Thus it is evident that there are strong phonotactic rules in Arabic that affectword structure, and these rules apply with regard to both derivational and inec-tional processes. The study of this intersection of the rules of phonology withmorphological processes is referred to as morphophonology, and will be dealt withmore extensively in later sections of this book as we delve into morphological

processes.


(1) Find ten examples each of progressive and regressive assimilation, otherthan the ones listed in this chapter. Note when orthography changes as aresult of these rules.

(2) Avoidance of consonant clusters is a key rule of Arabic phonotactics. Arethere any times or occasions when certain clusters (two consonants orthree consonants) are allowed to occur? Think of word- or utterance-initial, medial and nal positions. Consider pause form as well as full-form pronunciation.

(3) Vowels and semivowels are sometimes incompatible in Arabic. We haveseen that the combination [i + w ] is prohibited by Arabic phonotacticrules, but not [w + i ] (e.g.,wikaala agency). What other combinationsof vowels and semivowels are permitted or prohibited? Provide veexamples of these combinations or combination restrictions. Can you

produce a formal rule or rules for the structure of these combinations?(4) The use of formalizations adds to the elegance and explanatory power of

linguistic observations. What areas of Arabic linguistics do you think lend

themselves to formalized rules? Could you improve on the formalized



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rules written in this chapter? Write a rule for the assimilation of /u/ to /i/when it occurs in a third person pronoun sufx (1.1.6.).

Further reading

Bakalla, Muhammad Hasan. 2009. Tafxm. Encyclopedia of Arabic Language andLinguistics, vol. IV, ed. Kees Versteegh, 421424. Leiden: Brill.

Bauer, Laurie. 2003. Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Washington, DC: GeorgetownUniversity Press (especially sections on afxes and bases, pp. 146156).

2007. The Linguistics Students Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Forexplanation of general linguistic material and especially 95103 on notationalconventions.)

Broselow, Ellen. 2008. Phonology. InEncyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics,vol. III, ed. Kees Versteegh, 607615. Leiden: Brill.Frisch, Stefan A. 2008. Phonotactics. InEncyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics,

vol. III, ed. Kees Versteegh, 624628. Leiden: Brill.Ryding, Karin C. 2005. A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press (especially pages 1934 on phonology).Zemnek, Petr. 2006. Assimilation. InEncyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics,

vol. I, ed. Kees Versteegh, 204206. Leiden: Brill.

Notes

1. An essential component of the phonological description of a language is statement ofwhich systems and subsystems of consonants and vowels correspond to the various slotsin the structure of syllable and of phonological word. This is phonotactics (Dixon2010a: 275).

2. Arabic has phonotactic restrictions between consonants within the verbal roots that haveplayed an important role in the development of phonological theory(Frisch2008: 624).

3. This rule applies widely, but usually when thehamzais xed (hamzat al-qa), not when

the rsthamzais weak (hamzat al-wal). Thus, sequences such as the Form VIII verbalnoun itilaaf agreement; coalitionare permitted.

4. The sounds represented by the sun letters(uruuf shamsiyya) include dentals, sibi-lants, and liquids (Zemnek 2006: 204). These include t,th,d,dh,r,z,s,sh,, , , Z, l, n.

5. The emphatic consonant inuences its neighborhood (the minimal domain of emphasisis the syllable, but in many cases, especially in the Arabic dialects, its domain can be awhole word(Zemnek2006: 205).

6. Shahin refers to emphasis spread in Palestinian Arabic in different terms, as postvelarharmonies: pharyngealization harmony and uvularization harmony(1996: 131).

7. See Bakalla (2009) and Younes (1993) for discussion of this point.

8. This does not mean that emphasis spread is random, especially in vernacular Arabic,where it may play key roles in discourse and identity. See Younes ( 1993) and Davis(1993).

Vowel shift (qalb) 31


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9. The inserted sound itself is described as anaptycticor excrescent.10. As my veryrst Arabic professor constantly reminded us, Twosukuunsnever meet.11. The existence of consonant clusters at the start of an Arabic word is usually the result of

morphological processes; it may also occur when a lexical item is borrowed fromanother language.

12. This is true of verbs whose stem vowel isfata in both past and present tenses, and verbswhose past tense stem vowel isfataand present stem vowel iskasra. Other forms ofassimilated verb roots do not allow semivowel deletion. See Ryding (2005: 460461)for more explicit rules and examples.

13. For a detailed analysis of this phenomenon based in prosodic morphology (McCarthyand Prince1990), see Moore (1990).

14. The arrows of such rules are usually interpreted as becomes, changes into.Theforward slash is usually read as in the environment of orwhen. (See Bauer2007 3435 for more description of linguistic rule formats.)



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4

Arabic syllable structure and stress

Syllable structure constitutes the component of phonological worddivision focused on pronounceable segments of words and how they are com-

posed, divided, and distributed. Syllable structure is also a subdivision of the

study of phonotactics, or the rules of sound distribution, the specic sequencesof sound that occur in a language. And, third, the study of syllables in Arabicinvolves the analysis of lexical stress. Although syllables themselves are linearand segmental in nature, word stress (the loudness or emphasis placed on asyllable) is suprasegmental; that is, it occurs at the same time as the pronunci-ation of the segment, adding a dimension of complexity to the syllable itself.MSA has explicit structural restrictions on syllables, as well as predictable rule-

based stress based on syllable strength.1 Although not a spontaneous spoken

register of Arabic, MSA is nonetheless spoken on formal occasions (usuallyscripted) and in broadcast news and information formats, and adheres to estab-lished norms of stress placement. Recent published work on the stress system ofMSA has largely been done within the theoretical framework of prosodicmorphology.2 The discussion set forth here uses a basic descriptive approachsimilar to the one used in Ryding2005(3639), Mitchell 1990(1921), andMcCarus and Rammuny (1974: 78, 23).

1. Syllable structure

In general, the core of a syllable is a vowel; in addition to a vowel, asyllable has margins that consist of consonants either prevocalic or post-vocalic or both. The vowel core of a syllable is referred to as the syllablenucleus.3 In addition to the nucleus, a syllable has anonsetor initial consonant,and may have a nal consonant or consonants, termed thecoda. Therefore in anArabic word such asmin from, the onset would be /m/, the nucleus /i/, and thecoda /n/.

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2. Arabic syllable constraints

There are clear phonotactic constraints on syllable structure in Arabic.4

Two sets of rules apply to MSA: one for full-form pronunciation and one for pause-

form pronunciation.

2.1. For full-form pronunciation

The rst constraint in the segmentation of MSA syllables is that nosyllable may start with a vowel. Second, no syllable may start with a consonantcluster (two or more consonants). Taken together these two rules yield the resultthat all Arabic syllables start with CV (consonantshort vowel) or CVV (conso-nantlong vowel). A third rule is that syllables must nowhere contain a cluster ofthree or more consonants. Therefore the permissible syllable types in full-form

pronunciation MSA are usually three, each assigned a metrical value: eitherweakor strong.

(1) CV (consonant plus short vowel)weakor lightsyllable

/wa/ /li/ /fa/ /mu/

(2) CVV (consonant plus long vowel)strongor heavysyllable

/maa/ /tii/ /Duu/(3) CVC (consonant-short vowel-consonant)

strongor heavysyllable/mak/ /ras/ /tin/ /tub/

For example: here are some full-form Arabic words broken down by syllablesseparated by hyphens. In these examples, the hyphens do not indicate morpheme

boundaries, but syllable boundaries.5 Stressed syllables are in bold.

shuk-ran thanksmu-qab-bi-laa-tun appetizersdha-ha-bun goldaf-la-tun party

faa-zuu they (m. pl.) won

yu-dar-ri-saa-ni they (two, m.) are teaching

nak-tu-bu we are writingna-ja-naa we succeededta-waq-qa-at she expected

34 Arabic syllable structure and stress


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(4) CVVC: in restricted circumstances a CVVC syllable may occur within anMSA word. This is most often the result of the morphophonology ofgeminate roots, where the active participles of Form I verbs results inwords such as:

jaaf-fun dryxaa-un special, privatemaad-da-tun substance, material

2.2. Pause-form pronunciation

In addition to the syllabic sequences listed above, pause-form (omit-ting nal short vowels) phonotactic rules allow for a word-nal syllable to be

either CVVC or CVCC. These syllables are considered superstrong orsuperheavy.

(5) CVVC (consonantlong vowelconsonant): superstrong/-liin#/ /-riim# / /-suun#/ /-maan# /6

(6) CVCC (consonantshort vowelconsonantconsonant): superstrong/-rast# / /-rudd# / /-milt# /

Examples include:

ya-ta-qi-duun they believenu-ibb we like, we lovea-milt I carriedmu-raa-si-liin reportersma-li-ka-taan two queensmab-niyy built

3. Formalization of syllable structure

Mitchell (1990) provides a concise formalization of Arabic syllablestructure, stating that any [Arabic] syllable is derivable from the expression

CV V C

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