Palatalization in educated Cairene Arabic

In the speech of some educated Cairenes, the coronal stops /t d tˤ dˤ/ acquire a secondary palatal articulation before high front vowels and glides, resulting in [t j ] or [d j ]. Based on first-hand data, this article provides a detailed phonetic and phonological investigation of this palatalization process in an attempt to fill a descriptive gap in the literature on Cairene Arabic. By examining the full range of triggers, targets, and potential blockers, I demonstrate that this is a phonetic coarticulatory effect, and that it should be distinguished from phonological assimilation. I also explore the hypothesis that this process – characterized as a sound change in progress – has been phonologized in a different sociolect of Cairene Arabic.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Unknown venue

• Publication date

  2016-03-07

• Fields of study

  Linguistics, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.7557/12.3739
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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