Tafxi:m in the vowels of Muslawi Qeltu and Baghdadi Gilit dialects of Mesopotamian Arabic

Abstract

Tafxiːm defines a post-velar place of articulation, under which it may subsume consonantal (C) and vocalic (V) Place features for consonantal and vocalic elements that are the correlates of tafxi:m in sounds specified as underlyingly mufaxxama (heavy or dark) sounds in auditory terms (Jackobson,1957), also called post-velars (PVs). A considerable amount of research on tafxi:m in vowels is done on dialects of Arabic of different linguistic backgrounds (Herzallah, 1990; Zawaydeh, 1999; Shahin 2003). However, not much has been done on tafxi:m in the vowels of Mesopotamian Arabic (MA) dialects, the Muslawi Qəltu (MQ) and Baghdadi Gilit (BG) of two different linguistic backgrounds where tafxi:m in vowels is thought to be driven by the dialect background. In the dialects of Arabic including the Mesopotamian sedentary Muslawi Qəltu and Bedouin Baghdadi Gilit dialects under investigation, the post-velars (PVs) represent sounds with two locations for two manners of articulation: the pharyngeals which include the /ʕ/ and the /ħ/, and the uvulars which include the /q/, the /χ/ and /ʁ/. The third group of sounds are the pharyngealised coronals, the so-called emphatics (i.e. heavy or dark). They are represented with two places of articulation. The coronal place as their primary articulation and the pharyngeal place as their secondary articulation. The pharyngealised coronals include sounds with two manners of articulations; that is the stops /tˤ/, and the fricatives /ðˤ/and /sˤ/. They represent the dark or heavy counterparts of the plain stops /t/, /d/, and the plain fricatives /ð/, /s/ respectively (ibid). Tafxi:m in vowels as driven by PV mufaxxama sounds is defined as lowering, retraction, centralisation or as rounding being conditioned by the nature of articulatory feature (constriction) in the trigger PV mufaxxama and is being conditioned by the presence of particular lexemes identified as secondary mufaxxama. However, the featural manifestations of PVs in vowels, and the presence of secondary mufaxxama is phonologically governed by vowel quality and is specific to a particular language or dialect. In this research, it is found that the featural manifestation of tafxi:m are presented both locally and in long domain as backing and backing and rounding in the /i/ and /a/ vowels in Baghdadi Gilit of Bedouin origin with a significant drop in F2 onset in a uvular and pharyngealised PV context conditioned by lexemes identified as secondary PVs (mufaxxama) and are phonologically driven by the dialect background. III On the other hand, tafxi:m is featured as lowering in the /a/ vowel in Muslawi Qəltu of sedentary origin with a significant rise in F1 onset in a uvular context. In MQ, a sedentary vowel feature known as ʔima:la (vowel fronting) of /u/ and centralisation of /i/ vowels occur in domains where it is present as lowering or retraction of /u/ in Gilit. In long / i:, a:, u:/ vowels, tafxi:m is represented as lowering and centralisation with significant lowering of /i:/ and /u:/ in a uvular context in Muslawi Qəltu compared to /a:/ lowering and centralisation in a pharyngeal and pharyngealized context in Baghdadi Gilit. Tafxi:m is also represented as a feature of harmony which is introduced in non-local vowels as /u/ vowel colouring or /a/ backing in Baghdadi Gilit when secondary mufaxxama sounds are present in the same phonological domain.