A Phonological Analysis of Verbal Inflection in Rbati-Moroccan Arabic PDF

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Mohammed V-Agdal University Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences – Rabat Department of English English Studies Track A Phonological Analysis of Verbal Inflection in Rbati-Moroccan Arabic Paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Licence Degree in English Studies Module 24: ...

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Mohammed V-Agdal University Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences – Rabat Department of English English Studies Track

A Phonological Analysis of Verbal Inflection in Rbati-Moroccan Arabic

Paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Licence Degree in English Studies

Module 24: Research Project Seminar: Phonological Processes in Moroccan Languages

Submitted by: Abdessamad Saidi

Supervised by: Prof. Nourddine Amrous

Academic Year:

2013/2014

Abstract The present work endeavors to account for various phonological processes that are operative within Moroccan Arabic inflectional verbs. The rationale behind this topic stems from an interest in the morphophonemics of Moroccan Arabic. Another motivating factor behind the choice of this topic is the lack of recent studies on the phonology of MA. It is in this sense that this study is sought to fill this gap along with many others. The data of this research were drawn mainly from the variety of Rbati-Moroccan Arabic, of which the writer is a native speaker. Some basic facts about the morphology of inflectional verbs were presented before dealing with the phonological analysis. Furthermore, a number of phonological processes observed in the data were discussed. First, the process of schwa epenthesis was discussed in detail and different generalizations were made concerning the context in which it operates. Then, two processes of vowel-glide alternation were dealt with. Afterwards, the investigation of more data revealed various assimilatory processes which were combined into different categories depending on their types and discussed with the aim of making generalizations among them.

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Dedication In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful. All praises are due to Allah; we praise Him; we seek His help; we seek His forgiveness; and we seek His guidance. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil in our souls and the badness of our deeds. For whomever Allah guides, there is none to lead him astray. And for Whomever He allows to go astray, there is none to guide him. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, for whom there is no partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. **************************************** To my mother and my father, To my brothers and sisters, To the memory of my grand-father, To my newborn nephew, This piece of work is dedicated.

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Acknowledgments First and foremost, my sincere praise and thankfulness go to the Almighty Allah for granting me this opportunity and for giving me the strength to overcome all the difficulties during my undergraduate studies. Second, I would like to thank my dear supervisor, Prof. Nourddine Amrous, for the pertinent guidance, encouragement and advice he has provided throughout this year. Were it not for his constant support and valuable discussions, completing this work would have been more difficult. Besides, during my second and third year, I learnt different things from him concerning the field of linguistics and the English language in general. He has never hesitated in correcting a student’s mistake or in sharing valuable knowledge with everyone. Allah is the only one who can reward him for his work. I am also truly indebted to Prof. Karim Bensoukas for his continuous advice and priceless discussions. I will never forget his willingness to give his time so generously which has been very much appreciated. I am subsequently obliged to many professors in the faculty who kept inspiring me throughout the three years. Mentioning all of them would require a long list, but among them I would like to specify Prof. Zeddari, Prof. Benrahal, Prof. Guenoun, Prof. Jalal, Prof. El Kirat, Prof. El Ouedghiri and Prof. Lamrani among many others. I owe sincere and earnest thankfulness to my seminar classmates whose friendly discussions and peer reviewing made the seminar more beneficial. I would like to offer my special thanks to those who put their trust in me for reviewing their work, I have learnt a

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great deal from them. My grateful thanks are also extended to all the students of the linguistics stream for making this year one of the best and unforgettable periods of our lives. Finally, but most importantly, I cannot express enough thanks to my family for their continued support and encouragement. My earnest gratitude is extended to my dear parents for their endless love and support.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

GP:

Generative Phonology

SPE:

The Sound Pattern of English

NP:

Natural Phonology

NGP:

Natural Generative Phonology

CA:

Classical Arabic

MSA:

Modern Standard Arabic

MA:

Moroccan Arabic

RMA:

Rbati-Moroccan Arabic

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PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

All the symbols used in the transcription are drawn from the International Phonetic Alphabet (2005). The feature emphatic or pharyngeal is marked with a dot underneath the symbol as follows: [d̩]

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Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................ i Dedication....................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................... v PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION .................................................................................... vi GENERAL INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1

Part One: Review of The Literature ......................................................................... 3 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 4 I. Phonological Processes: An Introduction .................................................................. 4 I.1. Definition of Phonological Processes ................................................................. 5 I.2. Motivation behind Phonological Processes ......................................................... 7 II. Phonological Processes in The SPE ......................................................................... 8 II.1. Abstractness and phonological representations .................................................. 9 II.2. Rule Ordering ................................................................................................. 11 III. Phonological Processes in Natural Phonology ...................................................... 14 III.1. Principles of Natural Phonology .................................................................... 14 III.2. Processes and Rules ....................................................................................... 17 III.3. Types of Natural Processes ............................................................................ 19 III.4. Phonological Strength Hierarchies ................................................................. 21 III.5. Naturalness and Markedness .......................................................................... 23 IV. Phonological Processes in Natural Generative Phonology .................................... 25 IV.1. The True-Generalization Condition and the No-Ordering Condition .............. 26 IV.2. Rule Types in NGP ....................................................................................... 29 V. Process Typologies................................................................................................ 32 V.1. Assimilation and Dissimilation ....................................................................... 33 V.2. Strengthening and Weakening ........................................................................ 38 V.3. Syllable-structure, whole-segment and prosodically-based processes ............. 39 VI. Distinctive Feature Theory ................................................................................... 43 VI.1. Trubetzkoy’s theory of distinctive oppositions .............................................. 43

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VI.2. Jacobson’s theory of binary oppositions ....................................................... 44 VI.3. Chomsky and Halle’s theory of distinctive features ...................................... 45 VI.4. Redundancy and motivation behind distinctive features ................................ 46 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 48

Part Two: Analysis ......................................................................................................... 49 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 50 I. Preliminaries: The Variety and the Data .................................................................. 50 I.1. Moroccan Arabic ............................................................................................. 50 I.2. Rbati-Moroccan Arabic .................................................................................... 53 I.2.1. Geographical Situation .............................................................................. 53 I.2.2. Dialectal Situation .................................................................................... 54 I.3. The Data .......................................................................................................... 55 I.4. Previous Literature on Moroccan Arabic .......................................................... 55 II. Moroccan Arabic Inflectional Morphology: Preliminaries ..................................... 57 III. Phonological Analysis .......................................................................................... 59 III.1. Schwa Epenthesis ......................................................................................... 59 III.1.1. Sound Roots .......................................................................................... 60 III.1.2. Doubled Root Consonants ..................................................................... 64 III.1.3. The (C)CVCC pattern ........................................................................... 66 III.1.4. Verbs with underlying quadriconsonantal stems ............................... 69 III.2. Vowel-Glide Alternation .............................................................................. 73 III.3. Assimilatory Processes ................................................................................. 79 III.3.1. Voicing Assimilation ............................................................................. 79 III.3.2. Pharyngealization .................................................................................. 81 III.3.3. Devoicing .............................................................................................. 83 III.3.4. Depharyngealization .............................................................................. 84 III.3.5. Schwa Labialization .............................................................................. 87 Conclusion to Part Two.............................................................................................. 91 GENERAL CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 93 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 94 Appendix

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION Moroccan Arabic has taken the interest of several linguists. During the past twenty years, various studies have been embarked upon from various linguistic vantage points. In more specific terms, several linguists and phonologists have endeavored to investigate different varieties with the purpose of eliciting what is peculiar about each one. The present monograph purports to investigate different phonological processes that are operative in MA inflectional verbs. In other words, the primary purpose is to develop some generalizations regarding the phonological system of MA. The rationale behind this study stems from, first and foremost, an interest in phonology as a linguistic sub-discipline. Secondly, studying one’s own native language from a linguistic or particularly from a phonological, perspective will surely help you to get new insights not only in linguistics but in the variety as well. Furthermore, many previous studies dealing with MA focused on inflectional verbs from a morphological standpoint; works such as Harrell (1962) or Ennaji et. al. (2004) paid lip service to phonological processes. This monograph comprises two major parts: the first is concerned with the theoretical framework, while the second is devoted to the phonological analysis. In the first part, we will first discuss the concept of a “phonological process” according to different theories, namely Generative Phonology (Chomsky and Halle, 1968), Natural Phonology (Stampe 1973), and Natural Generative Phonology (Hooper, 1976). Then, various types of phonological processes will be explored by

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dealing with some typologies proposed by different phonologists. We will also explore distinctive features theory and its major underpinnings. In the second part, we will start by introducing the variety under scrutiny. Therefore, we will explore some linguistic facts about MA and, in particular, we will present the geographical and dialectal situation of Rbati-Moroccan Arabic. Then, after a brief description of the data, some previous literature on MA will be reviewed and some basic facts about MA inflectional morphology will be pointed out. Thereafter, we will set out to discuss the main phonological processes that are operative in inflectional verbs. The first process to be dealt with is schwa epenthesis, which is widespread in MA. Then, we will discuss two types of vowel-glide alternation whereby a vowel is turned into a glide in some verbs, or a glide is turned into a vowel in others. Afterwards, we will embark on a discussion of a number of assimilatory processes; these include, but not limited to, voicing assimilation, pharyngealization, devoicing, depharyngealization, and schwa labialization.

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Introduction The present chapter endeavors to deal with the theoretical aspect of this study. It is introduced with a discussion of the different definitions of phonological processes. For this reason, we will resort to a dictionary definition along with three other definitions from three phonologists. Then, some theories of phonology will be explored by stressing how each one views phonological processes. In this respect, the theories of Generative Phonology (Chomsky and Halle, 1968), Natural Phonology (Stampe 1973), and Natural Generative Phonology (Hooper, 1976) will be taken into consideration. This chapter also seeks to explore the different types of phonological processes. Therefore, four different taxonomies will be examined with the purpose of establishing a comparison concerning what is common and what is unique about each one. Subsequently, we will deal with distinctive features by discussing how their theory emerged and developed to be one of the main aspects of the study of phonology.

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Phonological Processes: An Introduction: When we approach any theoretical concept, from any field, we tend to form a single

definition about it. However, once we look at it from different perspectives, the scope of our view becomes larger and we can achieve a better understanding of the concept. In the field of linguistics, and particularly in phonology, many concepts are questioned by different theorists (linguists and phonologists) and several different definitions are created. In the present section, we will deal with the definition of a phonological process from different perspectives. Afterwards, we shall look at what motivates these phonological processes.

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I.1. Definition of Phonological Processes: Before delving into the definition of a phonological process, we need to know what a process is in the first place. According to the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, a process is a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes that lead to a particular result. Here, we must put emphasis on the concepts of “change” and “result”. In every process there is an input, a change, and a result or output. Phonologically speaking, the input is the underlying or mental representation i.e. the phoneme, the change is the process itself, and the result is the surface representation or the allophone, or briefly as the Longman Dictionary of Teaching and Applied Linguistics cites:

“Phonological processes explain how phonemes combine and vary when they are used in speech i.e. in the form of allophones” (1911: 32)

To illustrate this definition, let us consider examples from English, Classical Arabic, and Moroccan Arabic:

1) English:

/ði æpl/  [ði jæpl̩ ]

“The apple”

/bluː aɪz/  [bluː waɪz]

“Blue eyes”

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2) Classical Arabic:

/tɒʕsɒn lɒhum/  [tɒʕsɒl-lɒhum]

3) Moroccan Arabic: /tədrəb/  [d-drəb]

“You kick”

As one can observe from the data above, change occurs in one or more segments of sounds. This change affects the mental representation and gives us the result, which is the surface representation of the words.

So far, we have been looking at phonological processes from one angle i.e. as changes from phonemes to allophones. This definition is related and can be applied to the one given by Odden (2005: 121):

“A rule changes a given set of segments in a uniform manner, in a specified environment”

However, Schane (1973) and Katamba (1989) take the concept from a different angle. Schane brings up the idea of juxtaposition of sound segments. According to his definition, phonological processes are the changes that these sound segments undergo when morphemes are combined to form words. Thus, phonological processes take place during word formation processes. 6

On the other hand, Katamba (1989) sees phonological processes as the result of biological and mental rules, governed primarily by mental rather than biological rules. To explain this point, Katamba (1989) discusses the case of an “impossible articulation”: an apico-uvular consonant made with the tip of the tongue and the uvular as the articulators. This articulation is, according to the author, regulated primarily by biological rules, which means that human anatomy imposes limits on our pronunciation. Eventually, Katamba (1989) describes phonological processes as recipes that need ingredients; these ingredients are the sound segments. The following excerpt sums up all of these ideas:

“It is significant, but not unexpected, that the phonological recipes which are available fall within the range permitted by human biology. What is intriguing is the fact that not everything that is biologically possible is equally likely to occur. Within the range of possible sounds, certain articulatory parameters are exploited by languages much more commonly than others.” (1989: 80)

I.2. Motivation behind Phonological Processes:

In order to answer this question, many phonologists rely on external evidence, namely from phonetics. Phonetic motivation has taken the attention of different phonologists. It is discussed in several works (Hayes, Kirchner & Steriade 2004), most of which are related to the field of phonetically based phonology. Two basic concepts must be raised to answer the question of the reason beh...