Syllable weight and morphophonologically induced resyllabification in Maghrebi Arabic
Résumé
In the Arabic dialects of northwestern Africa (the Maghreb), restrictions on the acceptability of short vowels in light syllables have led to resyllabification phenomena whose details vary significantly from region to region (Stumme 1896; Marçais 1977). In Moroccan Arabic, attempts to understand this resyllabification and the structural constraints which motivate it have provoked considerable theoretical and empirical debate within phonology, including radical reanalyses of syllable structure (Kaye 1990), and proposals of frequent vowel-less syllables (Dell and Elmedlaoui 2002). By contrast, the corresponding phenomena in Algerian and Tunisian Arabic, complicated in some cases by secondary gemination, have received little attention outside of comparative overviews of Arabic (Angoujard 1990). This paper gives an overview of resyllabification in Maghrebi Arabic, covering: the empirical facts about resyllabification, including regional variation; the main proposed analyses of the phenomenon, and the varying role of syllable weight across them; and the diachronic development that produced the current situation, including the possible role of contact with Berber (Kossmann 2013).
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