Phonological constraints and repair strategies of Standard Arabic words adapted into Qassimi Arabic

Abstract

Standard Arabic words underwent numerous phonological changes when they are adapted into Qassimi Arabic (QA), a dialect spoken in the central regions of Saudi Arabia. This study focuses mainly on the phonological constraints of QA grammar and repair strategies used by Qassimi speakers when they adapt Standard Arabic (SA) words. Qassimi Arabic phonology has been investigated by several researchers (Alhoody and Aljutaily, 2020, Almotairi, 2015, Alqahtani; 2020; among others), but, to my knowledge, none has investigated the words that QA has borrowed from SA and their phonological changes after adaptations. To fill this particular gap, this study analyzed more than 100 SA words that are currently used in QA to discover the phonological processes that occur after adaptation. The data used in this study was collected from daily life conversations by the researcher, who is a native speaker of QA. A list was made from the collected words and to further ensure the accuracy of the collected data, five other native QA speakers were asked to verify the data. The analysis was divided into two sections, one focuses mainly on the segmental changes that occur on consonants and the other is about the segmental changes at vowel levels. The analysis showed that SA words undergo several types of modifications to conform to QA phonological constraints, including insertion of some sounds, deletion, and substitution.