Emphatic Segments and Emphasis Spread in Rural Jordanian Arabic

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide an analysis of emphasis spread in Juff?n Arabic, henceforth JA, a rural dialect spoken in Juff?n village in the north of Jordan. The study considers a sample of 50 minimal pairs that differ solely in the feature [emphatic] in different word positions; the 50 minimal pairs were tested in the speech of 12 ideal participants, males and females, who are 40 years and above. The study reveals that the class of emphatics in JA comprises a primary set of /?/ /?/ and /??/, and a secondary set of /?/, /?/, and /m?/. Where emphasis spreads bidirectionally in JA, rightward is bounded by the set of /i/, /?/, /y/, and /š/.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n5p294