Inter-consonantal intervals in Tripolitanian Libyan Arabic: Accounting for variable epenthesis

Abstract

This paper reports on an acoustic investigation of inter-consonantal intervals in plosive sequences in Tripolitanian Libyan Arabic (TLA). TLA permits a wide range of two, three, and four-consonant strings within and across word boundaries. Previous descriptive work has suggested that TLA is characterized by widespread, partly optional vowel epenthesis throughout these sequences. We conducted a production study to investigate the phonetic and phonological properties of inter-consonantal intervals (ICIs) in these sequences, including their durations and voicing characteristics, as well as the voicing of surrounding plosive hold phases. Our aim was to assess the extent of 'variable epenthesis' and narrow down the range of possible accounts for it. Unlike many previous studies, we did not rely on native speaker intuitions and made minimal use of manual categorical coding, instead focusing on modelling distributions of continuous acoustic parameters. The central question we address is whether our data contain patterns that can only be explained with reference to phonological vowel insertion-given that variable epenthesis can also be accounted for in terms of vocoid intrusion alone (Hall, 2006). Our study improves our understanding of consonant articulations in Arabic, and of epenthesis and related phenomena.

Finnish inserted vowels: a case of phonologized excrescence

“…This paper focuses on vowel insertion as exhibited in two major dialect groups: the Savo dialects, which are the major dialect group of the Eastern branch of Finnish (itämurteet), and the Keski-and Pohjois-Pohjanmaa dialects (henceforth Pohjanmaa 1 ), which are spoken in the region adjacent to the Savo dialects but form a subgroup of the Western branch of Finnish (länsimurteet) (Palander 2011). In these dialects, words that have the form CVC 2 :C 3 VX in Standard Finnish are realized as CV:C 2 V i :C 3 VX, where the subscript i indicates insertion (Kettunen 1940;Harms 1976;Suomi 1990;Harrikari 1999).…”

“…There are two types of inserted (i.e., not underlying) vowels: those that are produced as the result of phonetic intrusion (excrescent vowels), and those that are inserted as part of a phonological repair (epenthetic vowels) (Hall 2006; Fougeron and Ridouane 2008; Hall 2011; Plug et al 2019). These two types of vowels have different phonological and phonetic characteristics: for example, on the phonology side, excrescent vowels are frequently invisible to phonological constraints and processes such as word minimality and stress assignment, while epenthetic vowels participate in these same processes; on the phonetic side, excrescent vowels are more likely to be schwa than epenthetic vowels, and are also more variably present.…”