Pre-aspirated sonorants in Shehret, a Modern South Arabian language

This paper examines pre-aspirated sonorants in the Central and Eastern varieties of Shehret, an endangered Modern South Arabian language (MSAL) spoken by c. 50,000 speakers in Dhofar, southern Oman. We assume pre-aspirated sonorants fall in the class of breathy sonorants, acknowledged to be typologically rare [1], [2], and phonotactically tightly restricted [3]. Shehret pre-aspirated sonorants are restricted to the offset of stressed word-final syllables in a closed set of words [4]; they contrast both with non-pre-aspirated sonorants and with strings of /h/ followed by a sonorant (/hS/ realised as [həS] with epenthesis), giving a /hS/ versus /hS/ phonological sequence contrast; pre-aspiration also characterises voiceless obstruents in the language. Western Shehret apparently lacks pre-aspirated sonorants [6]. While related Soqotri exhibits a post-aspirated palatal glide [7], pre-aspirated sonorants appear not to be attested elsewhere within the Semitic language family.