Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted An Acoustic and Perceptual Study of Interconsonantal Short Vowel Deletion in First Syllables of Najdi Arabic(University of Reading, 2024-07-26) Alsabhan, Rana; Setter, JaneThe process of short vowel deletion in open syllables word initially is attested in many Arabic dialects, such as Moroccan Arabic (Shaw et al., 2009), Omani Arabic (Al-Balushi, 2016), Jordanian Arabic (Bani-Yasin & Owens, 1987), San’ani Arabic (Watson, 2002), and Najdi Arabic (Ingham, 1994). The constraints that have been discussed so far which account for this deletion are attributed to stress (Bobaker, 2019; Watson, 2011) and syllable structure (Broselow, 2018; Kiparsky, 2003). It is widely agreed that short vowels are deleted in unstressed open syllables where the deletion does not result in a sequence of more than two consonants (Bani-Yasin & Owens, 1987). Few studies, if any, have examined the impact of the phonological features of the neighbouring consonants on this deletion. This thesis aimed to fill up this knowledge gap by exploring the effect of the phonological features on the deletion of short vowels in first syllables in Najdi Arabic from production and perception perspectives. Forty-five Najdi Arabic native speakers (31 females, 14 males) were recruited to do three production tasks: diapix, reading, and shadowing tasks to elicit various phonetic data that reflected different speech styles. The production data was acoustically analysed to confirm the deletion process. In addition, sixty-five Najdi Arabic native listeners (38 females, 27 males) were recruited to conduct an AX discrimination task, whereby listeners were asked to perceptually discriminate between two versions of the same word; one version with a vowel-presence and another with a vowel-absence. Both production and perception datasets were statistically analysed using mixed-effects logistic regression models to examine the effects of the phonological contexts on the deletion process. Results of the production data showed that male speakers significantly deleted first-syllable vowels more than female speakers and vowels were more likely to be deleted following a dorsal obstruent than a coronal one. The result of the perception experiment revealed that listeners’ perception was affected by three phonological factors. Listeners were more likely to detect vowel deletion following a dorsal obstruent more than those following a coronal one. Listeners were more likely to perceive vowel deletion in a front-to-back order more than those in a back-to front order. Lastly, front vowel deletion was more likely to be perceived than back vowel deletion. The manner of articulation of the obstruents did not play a role in the production tasks nor the perception task, short vowels were deleted in first syllables, regardless of the sonority value. These findings add to the phonological knowledge and understanding of the process of short vowel deletion in initial syllables in Najdi Arabic.23 0Item Restricted Arabic Obstruents: Laryngeal Contrast and Representation(Saudi Digital Library, 2023-08) Dallak, Abdulrahman; Khattab, Ghada; Altamimi, JalalThis thesis examines the phonetics and phonology of Arabic obstruents in light of Laryngeal Realism. It focuses on how the voicing contrast is laryngeally modulated across several acoustic metrics. I draw from three acoustic experiments conducted to unpack the phonetic realisation and phonological representation of Arabic obstruents. The larger picture of this thesis is comparative in nature in that it seeks to investigate whether stops and fricatives exhibit similar laryngeal behaviours. The overarching goal involves examining how phonetics may inform formal representation, and how phonological patternings may explain phonetic differences for obstruents in Jazani Arabic. This thesis also disentangles the relative contribution and robustness of each acoustic correlate in predicting the domain of laryngeal contrast. Bayesian and Generalised Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs) were used as statistical approaches to answer the research questions. For visualisation, Bayesian estimation figures and smoothing spline figures were used to visualise the predicted results. Experiment One examines how the voicing contrast is modulated in stops. The results show that 7 out of 16 voicing correlates exhibited a reliable difference between the effect of the voiced vs. voiceless stops on the respective measure with 0% of the 95% HDI of the posterior distribution falling within the ROPE range, indicating that these acoustic measures are robust and reliable for uncovering voicing distinction in the present dialect. In addition, the larger picture of the pattern of VOT and voicing%, inter alia, in all the contexts examined suggests that voiced stops in the Jazani dialect are specified as [voice] whilst the voiceless stops are specified as [tense]. Experiment Two examines how the voicing contrast is modulated in fricatives. The results show that 9 out of 14 voicing correlates exhibit a reliable difference between the effect of the voiced vs. voiceless fricatives on the respective measure with 0% of the 95% HDI of the posterior distribution falling within the ROPE range. In addition, the pattern of fricative duration, voicing%, zero-crossing rate, inter alia, suggests that voiced fricatives are specified as [voice] whilst voiceless fricatives are specified as [tense]. Experiment Three examines the effects of consonant voicing on f0 perturbation dynamically and whether it mirrors the VOT pattern and (dis)confirms the predictions of Laryngeal Realism. Laryngeal Realism predicts that acoustic correlates such as VOT, f0, etc. should exhibit a comparable pattern for either feature. The results show that voiced obstruents exhibit a pronounced lowering effect compared to the nasal baseline, indicating that voiced obstruents are specified as [voice]. In contrast, the results of the voiceless context show that voiceless obstruents exhibited an insignificant raising pattern at vowel onset. The results of f0 perturbation show that f0 perturbation exhibits a similar pattern as VOT. The results, furthermore, provide further evidence demonstrating that the feature driving these patterns in the voiceless obstruents is [tense]. These results are in line with the predictions of Laryngeal Realism. While the combined results of these experiments show that stops and fricatives appear to exhibit relatively similar laryngeal behaviours and each category can be predicted from the other, each category, nonetheless, exhibits its own characteristics at the microscopic level.7 0