Empty Nuclei in Arabic Speech Patterns and the Diacriticsukuun

Vowel epenthesis, acoustics and phonology patterns in Moroccan Arabic

“…Statistically, exploratory ANOVA showed significant difference between the duration of singleton and geminates (F = 79.43, df = 1, p < .0001). The above singleton/geminate ratio findings are similar to Saudi Arabic [5,6] Iraqi Arabic [1] and Lebanese Arabic [3].…”

“…Previous studies with Saudi Arabic [5,6] and Lebanese Arabic [4] found an epenthetic vowel between consonant clusters. In this exploratory MA study, we have also found vowel epenthesis between consonant clusters in word initial position (in singleton cases of the minimal pairs).…”

“…The most interesting early findings were made by Baothman et al [5,6], who confirmed empirically in a large corpus of spoken Saudi Arabic that it has no branching onsets. She also found evidence in recordings and spectrograms that a phonologically active sukuun is present between clusters.…”

“…There are few phonetic timing studies in Arabic dialects that have investigated minimal pairs, singleton vs. geminates (vowels and consonants) in equivalent surroundings: Iraqi Arabic [1], Jordanian Arabic [2], Lebanese and Palestinian Arabic [3,4] and Saudi Arabic [5,6]. These studies have shown that duration plays an important role in distinguishing singleton and geminates consonants and their impact on the duration of the surrounding vowels.…”

“…She also found evidence in recordings and spectrograms that a phonologically active sukuun is present between clusters. For example, in the final cluster of Arabic ْ َ (ba,r = 'sea') a schwa vowel /K/ can be heard in some speech [5,6,7] and even detected as vowel material in spectrograms. Baothman's evidence for the phonological reality of orthographic sukuun in clusters is; firstly, triggering of devoicing processes at word-internal cluster sites, and secondly a detectable lengthening of clusters and geminates by a unit of short-vowel duration.…”