Assimilation in the phonology of a Libyan Arabic dialect :a constraint-based approach

Abstract

This study uses a constraint-based framework to investigate some assimilatory processes in one variety of Libyan Arabic. This is the variety spoken by the inhabitants of the city of Misrata, henceforth referred to as Misrata Libyan Arabic (MLA). Some of the assimilatory processes are so closely related that they can be accounted for using similar constraints. In this respect, the OCP is shown to play an important role in some of the processes. For example, assimilations of /l/ of the definite article prefix and the detransitivising prefix /t-/ are triggered by an OCP violation on the coronal tier. The OCP may have blocking or triggering effects; the two assimilatory processes just referred to are instances of the OCP triggering effects. On the other hand, a blocking effect not involving the OCP involves guttural consonants, which block voicing assimilation of the imperfective prefix /t-/. This blocking of voicing assimilation will be shown to provide support to some researchers’ proposal to classify gutturals as sonorant segments. Despite this blocking effect, some guttural segments devoice before suffixes that begin with /h/ and simultaneously cause this /h/ to agree with them in place of articulation. Lateral assimilation has been claimed to be restricted solely to /l/ of the definite article /ʔil-/. However, some of the forms introduced in chapter (3) demonstrate that /l/ in the homophonous morpheme /ʔil-/ ‘for/to’ may assimilate totally to a following coronal sonorant. The alveolar nasal /n/ assimilates partially (in place) to the obstruents /b/, /k/, /g/ and /f/. The segment /n/ assimilates totally to the sonorant consonants it immediately precedes. Partial assimilation takes place both within the same phonological word and across a word boundary. Total assimilation, by contrast, occurs only when two words ii are involved. This is because /n/ cannot be followed by a sonorant consonant word-internally.