What triggers 'imāla
Focus on a Palestinian variety with phonological analysis
'imāla is a term used to describe the raising
of the low vowel /a/ to [e] or [i], a feature of several Arabic dialects, including
Levantine varieties where conditional raising occurs. This paper discusses various
issues related to final 'imāla focusing on a Palestinian dialect.
Final 'imāla typically affects the feminine marker suffix /-a/ in
nouns and adjectives (the equivalent of tā
marbūtˤa in Standard Arabic). Some of the issues to be
discussed concern consonants that block 'imāla and their
phonological features, the exceptional classes of colors and mental/physical
challenges, and the lack of 'imāla to loanwords. One important
observation is that short nouns whose consonantal roots start with a /w/, such as
[sʕif-a] ‘characteristic’ and [hib-a] ‘gift’, systematically fail to
undergo 'imāla. Phonological analyses will be given.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Exemplification of 'imāla in PA-TA
- 3.Feature geometric representation and the blocking of
'imāla
- 4.The historic uvular /q/ and the back velar problem
- 5.The semantic class of colors and mental/physical challenges
- 5.1Morpho-semantic class
- 5.2A morphophonological analysis
- 6.Other exceptional word groups
- 7.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgments
-
Notes
-
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