Major phonological processes in Sancani Arabic

Abstract

Major phonological processes in Sancani Arabic (SA) include epenthesis, assimilation, geminate devoicing, pausal diphthongization, pausal glottalization, imiilah, and pharyngealization. The helping vowel/il is inserted after the first of three consonants or between word boundaries. If the article prefix /'all is used with a second noun, the glottal stop of the article prefix is dropped, and thus no helping vowel is used. The helping vowell/i/ is also used between two words, the first of which ends with a two-consonant cluster and the second begins with a two-consonant cluster. Assimilation includes both progressive assimilation and regressive assimilation. The former is rare in SA. Geminate devoicing operates on the voiced stops /b/, /d/, Igl and the affricate /j/. Pausal dipthongization operates on forms ending with /-if or /-ul and changes them into the dipthongs /-iy/ ~ /-ey/ and /-uw/ ~ /-ow/, respectively. Pausal glottalization occurs in two cases: (I) After words with final/-a/ and (2) after a vowel preceded and followed by a consonant at the end of a word.Imiilah occurs in a word final sequence /-e'/ or /-a/, especially in personal proper names. Its use is optional in SA.