THE INTERACTION OF STRESS AND PHONOLOGICAL VARIATION IN QASSIMI ARABIC

Abstract

This dissertation studies the phonology and phonetics of an understudied variety of Arabic: Qassimi Arabic (QA). It acoustically investigates the QA prosodic system and examines its interaction with segmental phonology. Various optional and categorical phonological processes arise from such interaction. The analyses for the optional processes are tested against a handful of optionality theories, namely, Partial Orders, Noisy Harmonic Grammar, Maximum Entropy, and rank-ordered model of EVAL. Only the first two models are compatible with the QA optional data. QA has a default-to-left stress: primary stress falls on the rightmost heavy syllable, otherwise, it falls on the initial syllable. The acoustic experiment’s results show that stress is expressed by longer duration, greater intensity, higher F0 and higher F1. An Optimality Theoretic (OT) account of the QA stress system is provided. This forms the foundation for various analyses of the optional and categorical phonological processes. Triconsonantal clusters (CCCs) in QA exhibit a complicated behavior that can only be explained by taking into account the interaction between morphosyntax, phonology and perceptibility factors. Word-internal CCCs are avoided by vowel epenthesis. Monomorphemic CCCs are variably realized as CVCC or CCVC in an older dialect, while a younger dialect categorically produces CCVC. Monomorphemic CVCC satisfies a tendency of placing heavy stressed syllables close to the right edge of the word while CCVC avoids stressed epenthetic vowels. Word-internal heteromorphemic CCCs are categorically avoided by vowel epenthesis at the morpheme boundary, a consequence of O-CONTIGUITY. However, epenthesis does not occur in two situations: when the third consonant is a glide (a fact attributed to the glide’s ability to host the middle C’s perceptual cues), and when CCC arises across word boundaries. Certain combinations of pronominal suffixes exhibit optional alternations that facilitate placing heavy stressed syllables close to the right edge of the word. These alternations can be blocked by homophony avoidance. Other combinations of pronominal suffixes do not undergo the optional alternations suggesting that when certain morphosyntactic features are present in the input, the suffixes are treated underlyingly as one which explains the blockage of optionality.