THE PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY OF YEMENI TIHAMI DIALECT: AN AUTOSEGMENTAL ACCOUNT

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Date
2010-07
Authors
AHMED, ABDULGHANI MAHDI
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Abstract
Little methodological studies are available on Arabic dialectology particularly on Yemeni Arabic dialects (YADs) (Versteegh, 1997). Linguistic and grammatical sources in Yemen are insufficient; even those being published are yet not enough to be taken as valid grammatical and linguistic references (ALHanadwah, 2005). Hence, the current study aims at exploring one of the Arabic dialects in the Yemeni context namely Yemeni Tihami dialect (YTD). Precisely, the present study is an attempt to undertake phonological investigation to achieve better understanding of these objectives: (1) to examine the nature of consonantal and vowel phonemes in YTD, (2) to investigate the distribution of phonemes in YTD, (3) to identify and describe the set of possible phonological phenomena in YTD, (4) to analyse and explain the phonological processes by using Autosegmental Theory and (5) to identify the morphological items (proclitics, enclitics, roots etc) of YTD. To accomplish the objectives of the study, the data were analysed and examined within the framework of the Autosegmental Phonology Theory and the Feature Geometry Model by Clements (1985). The data of Yemeni Tihami dialect were methodologically elicited by employing different methods, viz. Swadesh list, the two tasks of Labovian models - word list reading and passage reading, interviews, oral phonology questionnaires, recordings and participant observations. As a consequence, the findings revealed various phonological phenomena e.g., nasal homorganic assimilation (NHA), deletion, diphthongisation and alternation. Fieldwork data illustrated that the postulation of Spencer (1996) of compensatory lengthening is probably applicable to some, but definitely not all, languages/dialects of the world since it is inapplicable to YTD, and thus is not a universal. Although the deletion of coda, diphthongisation was illustrated as an independent operative phonological process rather than occurring accidentally with coda deletion as claimed by Spencer (1996) in his explanation of syllabification. Besides, the striking property of YTD phonology is the vowel /u:/ appended commonly to the end of words. As far as the morphological items are concerned, the findings demonstrated that the types of YTD clitics are two in number: proclitics and enclitics. Pedagogically, the findings revealed the linguistic structures of YTD and the phonological processes and phenomena, which demonstrate and contribute to better understanding of the phonology of YTD for academicians and those who are interested in undertaking more extensive studies in this field. Ultimately, the present study suggested considering its outcome as merely a starting point for YTD to be investigated thoroughly in further research, and stated the gaps and remaining issues, and as well as recommended some other branches (e.g., phonetics, semantics and syntax) and ot~er phonological issues of YTD.
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PHONOLOGY , MORPHOLOGY
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