Emphasis spread: The domain and trigger

Area of Science:

• Phonetics and Phonology
• Linguistic Phonetics
• Sociolinguistics

Background:

• Emphasis spread is a known phenomenon in Arabic dialects, influencing adjacent sounds.
• Previous research suggested morphemes can confound emphasis spread, but the extent and directionality were unclear.
• Urban Jordanian Arabic exhibits unique phonological features requiring specific investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the domain and directionality of emphasis spread in Urban Jordanian Arabic.
• To examine the acoustic coarticulatory effects of emphasis on surrounding vowels.
• To determine if morpheme boundaries influence emphasis spread differently based on direction (prefix vs. suffix).

Main Methods:

• Recording nine native speakers of Urban Jordanian Arabic reading minimal pairs.
• Minimal pairs featured the emphatic fricative /sˁ/ and its plain counterpart /s/ in initial and final positions.
• Acoustic analysis of F1, F2, and F3 in vowels adjacent to the emphatic/plain fricatives.

Main Results:

• Emphasis spread was confirmed, with morphemes acting as a confounding factor, albeit disproportionately.
• Emphasis demonstrably spread to preceding morphemes (prefixes).
• Emphasis spread to succeeding morphemes (suffixes) was less evident, indicating a more robust stem-suffix boundary.

Conclusions:

• The morpheme boundary's strength varies, with the stem-suffix boundary being more resistant to emphasis spread than the stem-prefix boundary.
• A distinction in boundary strength between prefix and suffix boundaries is hypothesized.
• Findings contribute to understanding prosodic domain and directionality in Arabic phonology.