Sound Disappearance: The Phonological Idiosyncrasy of Elision in Iraqi Arabic
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Received 6 August 2012; accepted 14 October 2012
Abstract
The present treatise is a phonological study of elision in Iraqi Arabic. It aims at identifying and investigating the individual segments and the various types of syllables which are subjected to elision. It also attempts to examine the influence elision on the phonotactic rules, syllable structure and syllabification of Iraqi Arabic. It is assumed that elision has different effect on the concatenation of phonemes at and across word-boundary, syllable patterning and syllabification.
Key words: Iraqi Arabic; Elision; Assimilation; Syllable; Phonotactics
Majid Abdulatif Ibrahim (2012). sound disappearance: The phonological idiosyncrasy of elision in iraqi arabic. Cross-Cultural Communication, 8(5), -0. Available from: /index.php/ccc/article/view/j.ccc.1923670020120805.2035 DOI: /10.3968/j.ccc.1923670020120805.2035
INTRODUCTION
Fluent, unselfconscious speech shows a variety of characteristic differences in comparison with the citation form pronunciations. Such differences are attributed to general strategies called “connected speech process” which include, among other things, elision. Elision or sound deletion affects the distribution of phonemes at and across word-boundary. In addition, the original syllabic structures and the syllabification of words may be changed as a result of such a process, and to some extent miscomprehension, misunderstanding and confusion may occur as well. It is worth-noting that a simple enumeration of elision and other phonological processes cannot provide speakers of language with predictive ability in the light of which pronunciations are expected to occur in a randomly spoken corpus. Regional and social accents, degrees of stress, positions of the word in the utterance, degree of formality and speech rate all interact to increase the possibility of appearing the process in a given phonological context.
Iraqi Arabic is that variety of Arabic which is spoken in Iraq by educated and non-educated people alike. It is the one which has its own lexical and phonological properties that make it remarkable among other varieties. Like other existing Arabic dialects, Iraqi Arabic is characterized by the deletion of different segments particularly the glottal plosive in different words. Moreover, in many contexts, whole syllables in different word-positions are elided, especially in words derived from Classical Arabic. Iraqi Arabic also exhibits deletion of complete words in certain cases where the syllabic templates of the Classical Arabic counterparts are changed under the influence of deletion.
This study is an attempt to investigate the phonological process of elision that occurs within the syllabic structure and across syllable and word-boundaries in Iraqi Arabic. The study contributes to giving more phonological facts and information about the types of phonotactics, the types of segments and types of syllables which are subsumed under deletion. To obtain authentic data for elision in this dialect, a tape recording of conversational speech is carried out, transcribed phonemically and then translated in Appendix (2).
ELISION: A GENERAL REVIEW
Elision (sound deletion) can be looked upon as the process of omitting sounds or segments in connected speech. Both consonants and vowels are possibly affected, and sometimes even the whole sound sequences may be elided. Elision can be of two categories: historical elisions where a sound, which existed in an earlier form of a word, was omitted in a later form and contextual elisions in which a sound, existed in a word and said by itself, is dropped in a compound and in a connected phrase (Wells & Colson, 1971; Jones, 1972; Crystal, 2002).
From a technical angle, elision can be viewed as zero realization of phonemes in the sense that it occurs in certain circumstances as the gradation of phonemes which implies the loss of consonants or obscuration of vowel. This view is confirmed by Roach (2000) and Gruttenden (2007) who report that just like assimilation, elision is associated with rapid colloquial speech and this, in turn, leads to state that the process of change in phoneme realizations results from changing the speed and casualness of speech. Accordingly, it is important for foreigners to be aware that when native users of language to talk to each other, a great number of phonemes that the foreigners might expect to hear are not in fact pronounced.
The occurrence of elision is interpreted in terms of economy of effort where the speech energy is minimized. The nature and incidence of elision is assumed to be different from one language to another and thus it is institutionalized and considered a part of culture behavior (Ladefoged, 2006). That elision varies in extent and in frequency of occurrence in different languages paves the way to purport that it is regarded as being a variety-specific, i.e. it can serve the purpose of differentiating groups of speakers. A comparison of the citation forms and forms produced in connected speech elision may help in the understanding of dialect contact. Unlike ordinary variables, which are subservient to linguistic change, elision is phonetically motivated and its study therefore calls for a rather wider range of techniques (Kerswill, 1996, p.195).
The term “elision” may be broadly extended to traditional rhetoric, where the phenomenon of elision is dealt with in relation to the implications needed for the construction of well-formed metrical lines. In rhetorical terminology, elision in word-entail position is known as “aphesis” or “prosiopesis”, in word-medial position as “syncope”, and in word-final position as “apocope”. A similar classification is made for an opposite phenomenon known as “intrusion” (Heffffner, 1950, p.178).
ELISION: HISTORICAL AND CONTEXTUAL CATEGORIES
The loss of different segments in a variety of context is well-documented in Arabic dialectology. It has been reported that a number of Arabic dialects displays a tendency to delete certain segments in different environments. This deletion is not only conceived as a form of economy of effort but it is also thought of as “laziness in the production of speech sound” (Anis, 1973, p.134).
Iraqi Arabic shows two main types of elision: historical and contextual. The former stands for the loss of segments of certain lexemes whether these lexemes are spoken in isolation or within phrasal contexts. Such elided forms occur at a specific period of time and they are still in common use. That is, lexemes pronounced with certain elided segments in Iraqi Arabic have become a part of the vocabulary of this variety and have retained their deleted forms whether in isolation or in word-combination. Within Iraqi historical elisions, two subtypes can be recognized: elisions which take place for purely phonological purposes, and elisions which have resulted from morphological and syntactic processes such as affixation, negation and phrase formation. In the light of these two sub-types, both the underlying vowels and consonants are dropped. This can be clarified by reducing nouns of the classical word-pattern /fa?ala/ which are pronounced colloquially in Iraqi Arabic as /fu?la/ or /fi?la/. In such cases, a number of vowels of the classical words are deleted as in /ruba/ “neck” instead of /raqaba/, where the short vowel /a/ of the second unstressed syllable is dropped together with the phonemic substitution of /q/ by // and the short vowel /a/ by /u/ of the first stressed syllable, /?ib?a/ “net” in variation with /?abaka/, in which the segmental replacement of /k/ by /?/ and the short vowel /a/ of the first syllable by /i/.
Equally important, Iraqi Arabic does not distinguish between pausal and non-pausal forms. All words are pronounced with a distinct pausal form where the final short vowel of classical words whether they occur in isolation or in running speech is lost:
Iraqi Arabic Classical Arabic
tirak tarak “he left”
taar taara “he flew”
difa? dafa? “he pushed”
Elision of short vowels of the first unstressed syllables of bi-syllabic and monosyllabic words in Iraqi Arabic is another example of historical deletion which occur because of phonological purposes. This can be shown in words like
Iraqi Arabic Classical Arabic
tjuur tujuur “birds”
?huud ?uhuud “witnesses”
jadirsuun jadrusuun “they study”
j?irfuun ja?rifuun “they know”
Consonantal segments have also been dropped in Iraqi Arabic in individual words at a certain period of time. This can mainly be represented by the loss of the glottal plosive in different word-positions, for example:
Iraqi Arabic Classical Arabic
sbuu? ?usbuu? “ a week”
xuwwa ?uxuwwa “brotherhood”
braahiim ?ibraahiim “a proper name”
dbaara ?idbaara “file”
Historical elision of other consonants in Iraqi Arabic in relation to purely phonological factors can be illustrated by the loss of the glottal fricative /h/ in word-final positions. Such a process takes place within word boundary and in word combination as in qibloo “they admitted him”, baa?oo “they sold it”, saa?doo “they helped him”, min?oo “they awarded him”, min-naa “from here” and ?allaa bil-xeer “a type of greeting” in contrast to qiblooh, baa?ooh, saa?dooh, min?ooh, min-naah and ?allaah bil-xeer. More recently, particulary among young generation, a complete syllable of the pattern /cvc/, or the onset and the coda of a syllable of the same pattern have been elided, for instance:
Young generation speech Old generation speech
sii?a sii?lah “call him”
saa?o saa?oolah “they call him”
jdaawuu jdaawuunah “they treat him”
jtibxuu jtibxuunah “they cook it”
The second type of historical elision in Iraqi Arabic represents the disappearance of both vowels and consonants in terms of morphological and syntactic processes. Vocalic elision of this category can be demonstrated by the deletion of the short vowel of the final syllable of perfect verbs when a suffix beginning with a vowel is attached to these verbs as in kitbat “she wrote”, kitbaw “they wrote (masc.)”, kitban “they wrote (fem.)”, kitbu “write (pl.)”, which are derived from the perfect verb kitab “he wrote”. Pre-final and final short vowels may also be dropped when a suffix beginning with a consonant is added to certain lexemes, for example: abli “before me” is derived from abul, ?ahli “my family” from ?ahal, ?ibni “my son” from ?ibin, marti “my wife” from mara, sitirti “my jacket” from sitra, and ra?ilti “my desk” from ra?la.
Consonantal deletion resulting from morphological and syntactic factors can be verified by means of a speech change from one generation into another in this variety:
Young generation utterances Old generation utterances
biidi b?iidi “with my hands
bamrak b?amrak “at your orders”
la?mar ?il ?a?mar “the red”
linsaan ?il ?insaan “the human being”
fluus ahli fluus ?ahli “my family’s mony”
Contextual elision in Iraqi Arabic also involves both vowels and consonants. This can be pointed out by examples like ?amdilla wi??ikir “Praise thanks are to God” for ?al ?amdu lillaa wi??ikir, where the short vowel /u/ of the word ?al ?amdu is elided together with other segments, xan dil jamkum “let’s stay with you” in variation with xalli ndil jamkum, in which a complete syllable of the word xalli consisting of /l/ + /i/ is deleted together with the transference of the initial consonant of the subsequent word, namely ndil to the preceding word xalli, aa? jiqra “he is reading” as compared with aa?id jiqra, ?malla waaldeek “May God have mercy on your parents” instead of ra?malla waaldeek, where the /r/ and the short vowel /a/ of the lexeme ra?malla are dropped.
ELISION AND GRADATION: TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
Vowels in Arabic as a whole can either be long or short. However, one can identify other degrees of length of the basic Arabic vowels in which such phonemes become in certain contexts very short or probably very weakly articulated where they lose their phonetic value. In fact, Arab scholars (Ibn Jinni, 1955; Hijazi, 1978) recognize two degrees of vowel gradation in Arabic. The first degree entails a slight articulation of the short vowel, i e. the short vowel is not given a full value: it is weakened or obscured. This degree can be illustrated by the slight pronunciation of the short vowels /a/ ans /i/ in words like ?anta “you (sing. /masc.)”, and ?anti (sing. /fem.)”. The second degree implies the closure of the lips after eliding the short vowel /u/ that follows the final consonant of a word in the pausal form, for example: wahu llaah “and he is Allah” instead of wahwa llaahu.
Qualitative vowel gradation in Iraqi Arabic can be shown by gradual modification of the quality of some vowels of classical lexemes where such vowels appear in unstressed positions:
Iraqi lexemes Classical lexemes
?i?iir ?a?iir “barley”
?irab ?arib “he drank”
?iraf ?araf “he knew”
?idwaan ?udwaan “aggression”
In Iraqi Arabic, quantitative gradation can be elicited in a number of grammatical words, particularly prepositions, where their vowels are dropped rapid connected speech. Such a phenomenon usually takes place when these lexemes appear in unaccented positions. Nevertheless, when these words are stressed they retain their full forms. It is worth noting here that unlike English, grammatical words in Iraqi Arabic show not more than two pronunciations, except in few cases: a full form and a reduced form where the nucleus of these words may be elided, for instances:
Gradational phrases Non-gradational phrases
mnil a?san min il ?a?san “it is better”
?la baxtak ?ala baxtak “for God’s sake”
ba?di? ?wajj ba?ad i?wajj “after a while”
wja hee? naas wijja hee? naas “with such people”
mil ta?ab min it ta?ab “as a result of tiredness”
ELISION AND ASSIMILATION: INTERRELATED PROCESSES
What is worth underlying here is to examine those contexts in which both and elision and assimilation may take place simultaneously in Iraqi Arabic. That is, there are certain phonological environments where two processes may co-occur, and above all, elision, in particular, tends to provide the contexts for assimilation to appear in a number of situations.
In a similar vein to elision categories mentioned so far, Iraqi Arabic also exhibits historical and contextual assimilation. However, in both types of assimilation segments are assimilated to each other regressively whether within word-boundary or in word-combination. The former can be represented as follows:
Assimilated segments Non-assimilated segments
?fuun ?fuun “eyelids”
?ambar ?anbar “a type of Iraqi rice”
mizzawwi? mitzawwi? “married”
maanna maalna “ours”
mi?itti mi?idti “my stomach”
Most of these assimilated forms have been established in this dialect where they are spoken in the way whether they appear in slow careful speech or in rapid speech.
The latter type involves that the final segment of a preceding word may be assimilated to the initial segment of a subsequent word. This can be shown by the following examples:
Assimilated forms Non-assimilated forms
?ahlaw wasahlan ?ahlan wasahlan “welcome”
ba?a? ?way ba?ad ?wajj “a little later”
sit tillaab sit tillaab “six students”
The co-occurrence of both elision and assimilation can be illustrated by examples like maassawwar “I do not think so” for maa ?atsawwar or maa ?assawwar, maazzawwa? “I do not get married” in comparison with maa ?atzawwa? or maa ?azzawwa?, hassa “now” in variation with hassaa?a, fa? ?ii “something” in comparison with farid ?ii or fari? ?ii and mis suu “from the market” for mnil suu.
In a variety of contexts, elision in Iraqi Arabic may cause some sort of juxtaposed segments to be assimilated to each other. This is attributed to the fact that many adjacent sounds of different place or manner of articulation are difficult to be uttered successively since they need much more effort on the part of the speaker. Hence, Iraqi speakers appeal to accommodate such pronunciations via adopting various strategies including assimilation. The following examples may illustrate this assumption: ritt ailla “I wanted to tell him” as compared with ridit ?ailla where the loss of the short vowel /i/ of the first word leads to the assimilation of /d/ under the influence of /t/ producing a final geminate cluster, ssawweet “what have you done?” in variation with ?inu sawweet in which the reduction of the word ?inu into /?/ yields to the assimilation of /?/ under the influence of /s/ resulting in an initial geminate cluster, xaj jruu? “let him go” instead of xalli jruu? whereby the loss of the syllable /li/ of the first word provides the assimilation of /l/ into /j/ creating a medial geminate cluster, ?assuu “towards the market” for ?alal suu where the elision of the onset and the nucleus of the syllable /lal/ constitutes the assimilation of /l/ into /s/ under the influence of the following /s/.
Elision and assimilation may function subsequently and in combination on the same base form in Iraqi Arabic. In such a case, an assimilated segment may be further assimilated after dropping a subsequent segment. Putting on the concrete footing, the loss of the following sound may provide the context for the preceding assimilated sound to be further coalesced:
Base form Syllable deletion Assimilation Double assimilation & elision
xalli nbaawi? xal nbaawi? xan nbaawi? xam baawi? “let’s see”
xalli nbaat xal nbaat xan nbaat xam baat “let’s sleep”
In all the examples cited so far, both the final reduced form and the pre-final assimilated form occur in rapid speech, while in slow careful speech the base form as well as the first elided form may be heard frequently. Other examples of such a case in which various processes operate on the same original form are very common in this dialect as in ?issawwi “what are you doing?” in comparison with ?inu tsawwi, ?issaalfa “what is the matter?” instead of ?inhi saalfa, bbee? “how” for bi?ajji ?aj?.
ELISION: APHAERESIS, SYNCOPE AND APOCOPE
In phonetics and phonology, the term “aphaeresis” has been used to denote elision of the initial vowel of a lexeme when that vowel is preceded by the final vowel of another lexeme. The terms “syncope” and “apocope” refer to the loss of segments (consonants and vowels) in word-medial and word-final positions respectively. The word in Arabic never begins with a vowel as compared with English where lexemes may begin either with a vowel, a diphthong, a single consonant or a consonant cluster. In Arabic, the word usually begins with a single consonant and in Iraqi Arabic the word starts either with a single consonant or with a two-element cluster. Accordingly, “aphaeresis” is not applicable Arabic and its dialects, but it is confined to English and other languages like French.
Syncope and apocope are not recently detected phenomena in Arabic dialects including Iraqi Arabic. They have been investigated thoroughly in Arabic in relation to different topics, particularly the investigation of the various linguistic characteristics of the old Arab dialects, elision elicited in the recitations of the holy Quran, metrics and the like Shahin (1980), Al-Jundi (1978) and Al-Muttalibiy (1984).
In the light of syncope, Iraqi Arabic shows many examples where both vowels and consonants are dropped in word-medial position. Iraqi speakers often delete short vowels occurring in the first unstressed syllables of bi-syllabic words having the structure /cv+cvvc/. So, words like kbaar “big (pl.)”, dmuu? “tears”, ?nuud “soliders”, ?aal “headband”, nriid “we want” and hnaak “there” are commonly used instead of the classical versions kibaar, dumuu?, ?unuud, ?iqaal, nuriid and hunaak.
In rapid connected speech, medial vowels are lost in Iraqi Arabic. This can be illustrated by the examples like ?eeb ?leek “shame on you” as compared with ?eeb ?aleek, joom ?la joom “day after day” in comparison with joom ?ala joom, mini b?iid “from a distance” instead of min bi?iid. Consonants are also elided in word-medial position, most notably the glottal plosive, for instance: taariix “history” for ta?riix, biir “a well” instead of bi?r, muumin “believer” in comparison with mu?min.
In phrasal contexts, consonants and vowels are also lost word-medially in Iraqi Arabic. This can be indicated by the following examples: ?aan jbaa? ?al walad “he was looking at the boy” instead of ?aan jbaawi? ?alal walad, xan ?uuf “let’s see” for xalli n?uuf, fad sbuu? “a week later” as compared with fard sbuu?, bit ?ammi “my cousin” for bint ?ammi, ?id ?ali “with Ali” in comparison with ?ind ?ali.
With regard to apocope, Iraqi Arabic shows deletion of different segments in word-final position particularly consonants. In this dialect, vowels are rarely dropped word-finally except in certain words of classical origin where these words are always used in their pausal forms. Thus, verbs like tirak “he left”, ?irab “he drank”, naDDaf “he cleaned” are the variants of the classical verbs taraka, ?araba, naDDafa. Elision of final short vowels may be elicited in some words which are in common use as alternatives to their colloquial words terminating with vowels. In consequence, words like ?wajja “a little” and ?alajja “against me” may be pronounced as ?wajj and ?alajj. The loss of final short vowel can also be observed in words such as twaffa “he died” in comparison with tawaffaa, moota “dead (pl.)” for mawtaa, ?ibla “pregnant” instead of ?ublaa. rima “he threw” for ramaa.
Final consonants are frequently lost in Iraqi Arabic as in ?bii “what is wrong with him” in comparison with ?biih, wajjaa “with him” instead of wajjaah, ta?a illak “come to tell you something” for ta?aal ?aillak, xoo ma za?al “I hope he has not been offended” in variation with xoob ma za?al.
CONCLUSIONS
The present study unveils a number of outstanding findings that contribute, in a way or another, to trace the landmarks of how Iraqi sounds are subsumed under the process of elision. Vowels, consonants and syllables are elided in various degrees in different word positions at and across word-boundary. Elision affects the distribution of phonemes among word positions, and this effect is therefore reflected mainly through the alternation of the patterns of the syllabic structure of words which is accompanied in most cases by the decrease in the number of the original syllables. In certain contexts, elision violates the phonotactic parameters in a way that it leads to the formation of impermissible consonant combinations.
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APPENDIX 1: IRAQI SEGMENTAL SYMBOLS
The Vowels:
i as in ?ibin “son”
ii as in bziim “buckle”
ee as in ween “where”
a as in matbax “kitchen”
aa as in waasta “medium”
oo as in xoof “fear”
u as in du?bul “marbles”
uu as in hduum “clothes”
The Consonants:
b as in bhaam “thumb”
s as in sal?a “blad”
w as in wlaaja “city”
t as in ta?baan “tired”
z as in zibid “butter”
j as in jnaam “he sleeps”
t as in tiin “mud”
? as in ?a?ar “hair”
d as in dmuu? “tears”
x as in xaadim “servant”
d as in daabut “officer”
? as in ?aali “expensive”
k as in kital “he killed”
? as in ?ilim “dream”
as in waani “sacks”
? as in ?aal “headband”
q as in qamiis “shirt”
h as in hnaak “there”
? as in ?amal “hope”
? as in ?aaj “tea”
f as in faz?a “effort”
? as in ?ibin “cheese”
T as in Taani “second”
m as in moot “death”
D as in Deel “tail”
n as in nahar “river”
D as in Daruf “envelop”
l as in lia “he found”
s as in sirdaab “cellar”
r as in rubu? “quarter”
APPENDIX (2)
The text is an Iraqi farmer’ recorded speech in which he describes how palm trees are cultivated, and what types they are.
Text
?innaxla jzir?uunha jsammuunha faraxl naxal. taali hannooba taaxaD mu?addil ?am sana lamman maa duum ti?mal. hassa huwwa nnaxal anwaa?. ?indak naxal bir?i, xudraawi, sa?amran, firsi w untar w ba?id anwaa? w qasaam maa adri biihin aana. amman akDar lijzir?uunha hnaak huwa sa? amraan min ?ihat haj ?issa?amraan, awwalan jsaddiruun min ?inda ?ihwwaj lilxaari?. hannooba hatta ji?ta?luun biihin b?iradaa? wijsaffuuna wijsaffuuna. Taali nooba jisaffuuna wilbaaqi jbii?uuna, ?atta ja?ni kill joom awaadim ji?tiruuna jaakluuna, bass Daak ?alilakTar maal jsaddiruuna lilxaari?. hannooba naxal aku illi ji?al w taali Daak ?ilfa?al. ?ilfa?al kill aa? ?it?uuf mija miiteen naxla, biiha fa?al waa?id, Dikar. haaDa juum, ba?ad ma ?innaxal juum jtalli?, jxalluuna jtalli?, taali waa?id j?i jlai?, jsammuuna laaa??i. ra??aal iih! haaDa j?utt ?ilfarwand maala jis?ad ?alilfa?al jussla ?am tal?a.
Translation
They plant the palm tree and it is called a palm sapling. So, they plant it and it takes about on average a number of years before it begins to bear fruit, they say it bears fruit. Now the palm is of many kinds: you have the Birhi, Khudhrawi, Sa’amran, Firsi and Guntar, and also many other types which I do not know. But, the type which the people there plant mostly is the Sa’amran because they export much of it abroad. Firstly, they work on them in a hut, cleaning them and opening them. Then, they export them and the rest they sell in the area, every day people come and buy them and eat them. However, most of it they export abroad. Now there is the type of palm which bears fruit and then there is also the male palm. In every plot of land in which you see a hundred or two hundred palms, there is one male palm. When the palm begins to bring out buds, they let it bring out buds, then someone comes to pollinate them. He is called a laggahchi. A man, yes! He puts on his climbing belt and climbs up the palm. He cuts off a number of buds.