A study of the place of articulation of the Arabic voiceless dorsal
fricative
Previous descriptions of the place of articulation of the
Arabic dorsal fricative suggest that it ranges from velar to uvular, and there
remains uncertainty in terms of identifying the place of articulation of this
fricative. If the dorsal fricatives are velar in articulation, this presents a
mismatch between their phonological class membership and their phonetic
manifestation, since the velar-uvular split is precisely where the guttural class
boundary is. If the natural class of gutturals excludes velars, then the common
patterning of the dorsal fricative with the gutturals suggests that it is not
underlyingly velar. This study seeks to empirically determine the place of
articulation of the voiceless dorsal fricative (/x/ or /χ/) in a speaker of each of
the following six Arabic dialects: Moroccan Darija, Algerian Darija (West side of
Algeria), Egyptian (Cairene), Triangle-Area Palestinian, Syrian (Aleppo), and Faifi
(Saudi Arabia). The study uses a state-of-the-art 3D/4D ultrasound machine,
digitized 3D palate impressions, and audio recordings to analyze the dorsal
fricatives of Arabic speakers. The results show a general tendency toward uvular
articulation or pre-uvular articulation across dialects, with some variation in some
speakers.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Methods
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Stimuli
- 2.3Experimental procedure
- 2.4Analysis
- 3.Results
- 3.1Ultrasound traces – 2D midsagittal profiles
- 3.2Nearest Neighbor Distance (NND) from Velar and Uvular Stops to Dorsal
Fricatives
- 4.Discussion and conclusions
-
References
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Appendix