Watson, JCE and Al-Kathiri, AAA (2022) A phonetically “unnatural” class in Central and Eastern Shehret (Jibbali). Kervan: International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies, 26 (1). pp. 129-159. ISSN 1825-263X
Abstract
The set of consonants /b m y/ and historical *w in the Central and Eastern varieties of the Modern South Arabian language, Shehret (Jibbali), pattern together phonologically in the following ways: all are subject to intervocalic elision; between underlying /e/~/i/ and a stressed mid vowel, /b/ patterns with /m/ in being realised as [y]~[əy] in a range of words; /y/ is the reflex of historical *b in a closed set of lexemes; and /b/ realises historical *w, rarely *y, in pre-and post-consonantal position and in a handful of lexemes word-initially. Phonological interest in the set, /b m y/ *w, lies in the fact that the member consonants form a phonetically “unnatural” class (Mielke 2008): they do not include all and only labial consonants (lacking /f/, including /y/) nor all and only sonorants (lacking /l n r/, including /b/), including /b/), and two members of the set, /b y/, share no phonetic characteristics beyond ‘voice.’ Moreover, it is rare cross-linguistically for one obstruent to be subject to intervocalic elision to the exclusion of all other obstruents of that phonological class. Phonetically “unnatural” classes such as this are far from uncommon cross-linguistically (Mielke 2008), however; within Mielke’s (2008) Emergent Feature Theory, they can be accounted for by the pressures of phonetics and “external” factors. In this paper, we consider the patterning of /b m y/ *w, examine phonetic reasons for the inclusion of the plosive, /b/, in this set, and, based on Emergent Feature Theory, present a phonological account of the patterning of /b m y/ and *w.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This article is protected by copyright. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Shehret; Modern South Arabian; phonetic classes; Emergent Feature Theory; lenition |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 Apr 2023 13:49 |
Last Modified: | 26 Apr 2023 13:49 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Università degli Studi di Torino |
Identification Number: | 10.13135/1825-263X/7023 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:198552 |