AN INTRODUCTION TO PHONOLOGY
If not teaching in the Arabic world, please consider any questions based on the mother tongue of your students.

This page gives the answers to the introduction to phonology page and a commentary based upon the difficulties of many Arabic speakers.

A. Segmental
1) Sounds in isolation
a) consonants - Arabic speakers have the following difficulties:
/p/ = no aspiration = /b/
/T/ /D/ = /s/
/tS/ = /t/ or /S/
/dZ/ = /Z/ or / tS /
/L/ = /l/ coz no dark l
/N/ = /n/ + /g/
Consonant clusters especially 3 element initial or 2 element /s/ initial.

b) vowels
/I/ vs /e/
/A/ vs /e/ vs /Cy/
/O:/ vs /o/
/i:/ vs /i/ vs /I/
/c/ exists in Arabic e.g. the first vowel in Mohammed, but it is not represented by different letters as it is in English. It is also considered a 'full' vowel in Arabic.

c) diphthongs - e.g.day
d) triphthongs - e.g. Brian
There are no diphthongs or thriphthongs in Arabic but they have few difficulties with them.

2) Sounds in combination - linking
a) catenation - where a consonant sound is rolled into the next word when it begins with a vowel sound. e.g. pu-ti-ton
b) intrusion - where a semi-vowel is intruded between two vowel sounds. There are only three sounds that intrude in English: /r/,/w/,/j/
c) elision - where a sound disappears. e.g. Chris(t)mas
d) assimilation - where the final sound of a word is changed when followed by another specific sound. e.g. Green Park, where the /n/ is pronounced /m/
Past simple is often considered a sub-category of assimilation where the pronunciation of the -ed ending depends on the preceding sound.
These linking features, so common in English, do not feature in Arabic, which uses the glottal stop to separate vowel from consonant or vowels in consecutive words. There are also no words in Arabic that begin with a vowel sound as a glottal will always precede them.

3) Word stress-also accent or syllable stress.
Arabic also has word stress and shifting stress so concept no problem. Some L1 transference:
a. Words ending vowel + 2 consonants = final syllable stress (e.g difficult, comfort)
b. Words ending -ness, -less, -ism, -est = final syllable stress
c. Words ending diphthong or long vowel + 1 consonant = final stress (e.g.irritate, institution)

B. Supra-segmental
1) Rhythmic stress - weakening
- minor stresses have a set pattern on all content words which produces a rhythm to the English language by causing unstressed grammar words to be pronounced more softly and shorter than when stressed. This feature also involves vowel changes when some grammar words are weakened.
Out of context we can work out the rhythmic stress.
Italian, Japanese & Portuguese are syllable timed.
English, Chinese & Brazilian are stress timed - based on a rhythmic pattern of speech. Arabic is another example.
This is a very crude distinction as, in fact, all languages are a bit of both.
For example, Arabic stress is not as clearly defined as English with an unstressed syllable in Arabic having a full vowel and being pronounced fairly clearly.

2) Contrastive stress

3) Emphatic stress
- when there's nothing to contrast.
Both contrastive and emphatic stress are similar concepts in Arabic, but Arabic function words do not have weak forms so English speakers often find it sounds as though an Arabic speaker is using contrastive stress when in fact they are not.
Arabic uses word order to avoid confusion and hence this is often a difficult feature of English pronunciation for them.
They also have no verb phrases like 'can do', so their auxiliary verbs take a full form. This means that when they are speaking English it often sounds as if they are protesting when they are not. e.g. I CAN do it

4) Intonation
a) voice range - this is the difference between the lowest note a speaker can produce and the highest.
English has a very wide voice range whereas French has a narrow one.

b) key - any utterance we make begins at a point in the voice range. This is the key, and it plays a vital part in meaning.
There are few problems here for Arabic speakers although their voice range is not as wide.

c) nucleus - this is the one syllable in an utterance which is more important than the others. It is the centre of the sentence as determined by the speaker.
The nucleus is where the pitch changes, and in English it tends to be at the end of the sentence.
Also known as the main or tonic stress, it consists of three features:
Length
Loudness
Pitch change on the nucleus syllable
Germans stress with loudness, Brazilians with length and in English we stress with pitch change.
Pitch, a musical concept, is when the voice goes up or down.

So, intonation is the range, the key (starting point) & the nucleus (changing point). It is bringing pitch into language.

Go back to the introduction to phonology page, or go on to the second phonology worksheet on the phonemic chart and sounds in isolation.