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Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXV: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Washington, D.C., 2022
Edited by Ahmad Alqassas
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 14] 2025
► pp. 6–28

Chapter 1
What can phonetics tell us about Arabic phonology?

| Stony Brook University
The enrichment of phonological representations over the past decades has given rise to competing analyses of phonological structures. The goal of this paper is to examine the potential usefulness of one potential criterion for choosing among competing analyses: the fit between the phonological representations posited in an analysis and the phonetic details of the corresponding surface forms. We survey evidence in three areas: the syllable affiliation of complex and highly marked sequences of consonants at the beginnings of words in North African varieties of Arabic; the internal representation of word-internal syllables in a number of dialects, particularly syllables containing a long vowel followed by either a singleton consonant or the first half of a geminate; and the apparent weightlessness of word-final consonants, both singleton and geminate.
Keywords: phonological representations, syllable weight, phonology-phonetics interface
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The representation of word-initial consonant clusters
  • 3.The representation of word-internal syllables
    • CVC and CVVC
    • Syllables closed by geminates
    • Summary: Phonetic evidence and the bimoraic hypothesis
  • 4.The representation of word-final consonants
    • Final singleton consonants
    • Final geminate consonants
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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