The Syllable Shape of Al-Ahsa Dialect: An OT Perspective

• Authors: Abdullah Aljumah
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This work discusses the syllable structure of Al-Ahsa dialect of Arabic. Al-Ahsa dialect is a variation of Arabic spoken in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. An OT (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004) framework is adopted and provides a complete analysis of the syllable structure found in the dialect under discussion. It is concluded that Al-Ahsa dialect prohibits initial consonant clusters but allows complex codas. The geminates, however, are allowed medially and finally.

Keywords

EN

Optimality Theory; syllable shape; Arabic; Al-Ahsa dialect; phonology

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Journal: Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 155-177

Dates

published

2008-06-01

online

2008-07-11

Contributors

author

Abdullah Aljumah

• Ypsilanti

References

• Newman, D.L. 2002. "The phonetic status of Arabic within the world's languages: The uniqueness of the lughat al-daad". Antwerp Papers in Linguistics 100. 65-75.
• Prince, A. and P. Smolensky. 1993. Optimality Theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. (Technical Report no. RuCCS-TR-2.) New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science.
• Prince, A. and P. Smolensky. 2004. Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
• Selkirk, E.O. 1980. "The role of prosodic categories in English word stress". Linguistic Inquiry 11. 563-605.
• Selkirk, E.O. 1981. "Epenthesis and degenerate syllable in Cairene Arabic". In Borer, H. and J. Aoun (eds.), Theoretical issues in the grammar of the Semitic languages. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 111-140.
• Al Ghadi, A. 1994. An OT account of Moroccan Arabic prosody. [Ms., Delaware University, and Université Mohamed V, Rabat.]
• Archibald, J. 2003. "Learning to parse second language consonant clusters". Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue Canadienne de Linguistique 48(3-4). 149-177.[Crossref]
• Boudlal, A. 2004. Constraint interaction in the phonology and morphology of Casablanca Moroccan Arabic. [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Université Mohamed V, Rabat.] (Rutgers Optimality Archive 650.)
• Carter, M.G. 2004. Sibawayhi. London: Tauris.[WoS]
• Edzard, L. 2000. "Sibawayhi's observations on assimilatory processes and re-syllabification in the light of optimality theory". Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 3. 48-65.
• Gadoua, A.H. 2000. "Consonant clusters in Quranic Arabic". Cahiers Linguistiques d'Ottawa 28. 59-85.
• Gafos, A.I. 2003. "Greenberg's asymmetry in Arabic: A consequence of stems in paradigms". Language 79(2). 317-355.[Crossref]
• Haddad, Y.A. 2005. "Etymological itineraries in second language phonology: The case of Arabic". Paper presented at the Second Language Research Forum, Columbia University. (Rutgers Optimality Archive 784-1105.)
• Hayes, B. 1989. "Compensatory lengthening in moraic phonology". Linguistic Inquiry 20(2). 253-306.
• McCarthy, J. 1979. Formal problems in Semitic phonology and morphology. [Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.] (Distributed by IULC; published by Garland, New York, 1982.)
• McCarthy, J. 2005. "Optimal paradigms". In Downing, L., T. Alan Hall and R. Raffelsiefen (eds.), Paradigms in phonological theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 170-210.
• McCarthy, J. and A. Prince. 1995. "Faithfulness and reduplicative identity". In Beckman, J., L. Walsh Dickey and S. Urbanczyk (eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in Optimality Theory. Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications. 249-384. (Rutgers Optimality Archive 60.)
• McCarthy, J. and A. Prince. 1999. "Faithfulness and identity in prosodic morphology". In Kager R., H. van der Hulst and W. Zonneveld (eds.), The prosody-morphology interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Selkirk, E.O. 1990. "A two-root theory of length". In Padgett, J. and E. Dunlap (eds.), Papers in phonology. (University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 14.) Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications. 123-177.
• Selkirk, E.O. 1991. "On the inalterability of geminates". In Bertinetto, P.-M., M. Kenstowicz and M. Loporcaro (eds.), Certamen Phonologicum II. Papers from the 1990 Cortona Phonology Meeting. Torino: Sellier. 187-209.
• Smeaton, B.H. 1973. Lexical expansion due to technical change. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Spencer, A. 1998. Morphological theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10010-008-0009-8