Arabic is a family of West Semitic languages spoken across t…
Questions
Arаbic is а fаmily оf West Semitic languages spоken acrоss the Middle East and North Africa. While each country has a national version, Modern Standard Arabic exists to bridge international communication and serves many cultural and political purposes. Examine the following data from Modern Standard Arabic as it is spoken in Egypt and answer the questions that follow. Note: [dˤ, sˤ, tˤ, ðˤ] are pharyngealized versions of the consonants [d, s, t, ð]. Some aspects of the phonetic system have been simplified for this problem, but these changes will not affect your results. [ʕ] is a voiced pharyngeal fricative. In this dialect, [æ] represents a low front TENSE unrounded vowel. mædinæ ‘city’ tˤɪn ‘clay’ sur ‘fence’ næðˤɑræ ‘to watch’ æsˤsˤɪn ‘China’ ðˤʊlul ‘shadows’ tæjær ‘stream’ tin ‘fig fædi A name næðæræ ‘to vow’ sæjf ‘sword’ tut ‘berry’ qutˤʊʕ ‘pieces’ sˤɑjf ‘summer’ ʕatˤɪʃæ ‘he was thirsty’ dˤɑrb ‘hit’ tˤɑjær ‘pilot’ hæðul ‘these ðuriyæ ‘descendant’ jærkædˤʊ ‘he runs’ dærb ‘path’ æssin Name of a letter tˤʊfæn ‘flood’ fædˤɪ ‘free’ 1. Ignoring vowel differences (that is, treating vowels all as V), are the pharyngealized consonants [dˤ, sˤ, tˤ, ðˤ] and their non-pharyngealized versions allophones of the same phoneme or of separate phonemes? 2. Provide evidence, and if they are allophones of the same phoneme provide their environments. 3. Now look at the vowels (that is, stop treating them as V); the allophones [i] and [ɪ] are in complementary distribution, as are the pairs [æ] and [ɑ] and [u] and [ʊ]. Determine the conditioning environments of each pair, and state a rule that describes the distribution of the allophones. 4. Describe the distribution of these vowels in the most general terms possible, assuming each pair follows the same pattern.