Investigating variants of /dˤ/ (ḍād) In Modern Varieties of Arabic

Abstract

This study investigates the realization of the pharyngealized voiced alveolar/dental stop /dˤ/ in the Arabic-speaking world. What is found in most research until now is that /dˤ/ has [dˤ], [ɮˤ], and [ðˤ] as variations. However, a recent thesis pointed out that [z] is also a variation of /dˤ/ (Alsharif 2017). This previous study did not provide a modern evidence; it rather referred to some remarks from the 15th century. Thus, this study aims to investigate if [z] is a variation of /dˤ/ in the modern-day Arabic speaking world. For the sake of investigation, the study investigated the production of /dˤ/ in videos available on the video-hosting website YouTube (2020). Tokens were taken from six videos from different countries where Arabic is spoken: Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Iraq, and Oman. Tokens were auditorily observed and analyzed via the software Praat in an attempt to consult the waveforms of the allophones of /dˤ/ (Boersma & Weenink, 2010). The results indicate that there is wide variability in the realization of the /dˤ/ phoneme in different varieties of Arabic. The study found that [z] is an allophone of [dˤ] in Egypt. Furthermore, the study revealed that Morocco has retained [dˤ] as allophones of /dˤ/. Moreover, Tunisia was discovered having the fricative [ðˤ] as a variation. Finally, Oman possessed the classical [ɮˤ] which was thought to be vanished (Brown, 2007).