Syllabic and emphatic conditioning of /l/ in Levantine Arabic: an auditory, acoustic and articulatory analysis
Abstract
Throughout the world’s languages, typologies of /l/-darkening systems are often reported as having
one of two patterns: those which have an allophonic distinction between a lighter, more coronal
variant of /l/ and a darker, more retracted variant, and those that do not. However, comparatively little
research has focussed on languages whereby there seems to be allophony conditioned by something
other than syllabic structure. The present study is an investigation into lateral variation in Levantine
Arabic. Early work by Delattre [1] suggests that, like German, Arabic has a clear ‘flat’ /l/ regardless of
its position in the syllable. This is of interest, particularly as onset/coda realisations of /l/ in languages
such as English have been argued to be a natural articulatory consequence of the dorsal gesture of the
following/preceding vowel and darkness is correlated with duration [2,3]. An acoustic investigation of
bilingual children’s lateral productions by Khattab [4] suggests that a dual gestural account may not
be appropriate for Arabic, but no instrumental work has so far been carried out to corroborate that.
Conversely, conditioning of Arabic laterals has been claimed to be predicted by the presence of an
emphatic (i.e. pharyngealised) consonant. /l/s in proximity to an emphatic consonant are said to be
pharyngealised themselves, but it is not clear whether this is an allophonic distinction or simply a
gradient effect of co-articulation. The present study investigates /l/ patterning in Levantine Arabic in a
variety of syllabic and emphatic environments to test the claims in the existing literature.
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