Gutturals, emphatics, and the phenomenon of emphasis spread in Fallaahi Jordanian Arabic: A non- linear analysis

Abstract

The study aims to investigate guttural and emphatic sounds and the phenomenon of emphasis spread in Fallaahi Jordanian Arabic (FJA), a rural Jordanian dialect spoken in the north of Jordan. The study uses a non-linear approach, namely, the feature geometry approach to represent guttural and emphatic sounds and the phenomenon of emphasis spread. The data are collected by recording spontaneous conversations of twenty participants who are native speakers of this dialect. The analysis shows that gutturals in FJA are (/x, ʁ, ʕ, ħ, h, ?/) and the primary emphatics are (/T, D, S/). The analysis also shows that emphatic sounds can cause spreading of emphasis to other segments since they involve the back of the tongue and accompany a primary articulation at another place of articulation. Moreover, the study reveals that emphasis spread is bi-directional: leftward and rightward. Leftward emphasis is absolute, while rightward emphasis is blocked by the [+high, -back] segments (/i/, /i:/, /y/, and /ʃ/) since they are incompatible with and antagonistic to the Retracted Tongue Root [RTR] feature. Finally, the study shows that the domain of emphasis is minimally over the syllable and maximally over the phonological word.