The phonetics and phonology of emphatics in Mehri

1. The phonetics and phonology of emphatics in Mehri Janet C.E. Watson & Alex Bellem Workshop on Pharyngeals & Pharyngealisation Newcastle University – 26 March 2009

2. Overview • Background • Modern South Arabian (MSAL) • Emphatics across Semitic • Emphatics in MSAL? • Data • Mehri evidence • Previous descriptive accounts • Fieldwork • Native speaker views • Acoustic analyses • Prepausal glottalisation in Ṣan’āni Arabic • Phonological patterning • Summary, conclusion, further work

3. Modern South Arabian (MSAL)

4. Semitic languages Based on the work of Hetzron (1972, 1974). See Faber (1997), Bennett (1998), Appleyard (2003) for overviews of Semitic classification. See Corriente (1996) for a recent alternative classification.

5. Emphatics in Semitic… Proto-Semitic • Proto-Semitic is generally reconstructed as having a series of consonantal triads

6. Emphatics in Semitic… Proto-Semitic • These consonantal triads have a voiced member and a voiceless member, with the third member being ‘emphatic’ • The ‘emphatic’ member has been the subject of controversy • ‘backed’ (Arabic-style) • ejective • It is now increasingly hypothesised that the early Semitic emphatics (inherited from Afroasiatic) were ejectives • Our work (on Arabic, not just Mehri) supports this • Under such a system, ‘emphatic’ is a laryngeal (phonation) contrast in obstruents

7. Emphatics across modern Semitic… • Ethiosemitic • Emphatics are ejectives, and thus ‘emphatic’ is a third laryngeal contrast (voiced–voiceless–emphatic) • Neo-Aramaic • Dialects vary – ‘trajectory’ of emphatic development can be traced through different dialects* • Most often ‘emphatic’ seems to be realised in some kind of ‘backing’ feature alongside non-aspiration (voiceless non-emphatics are aspirated) • Arabic • Generally, most salient correlate is ‘backing’ (uvularisation / pharyngealisation) • Certain dialects (/dialect types) show remnant of ‘laryngeal’ function, so there is dialectal variation in terms of the development of emphatics (2-way vs 3-way phonation systems)** • MSAL • Where do they fit into this typology? * Dolgopolsky (1977) ** See Watson & Bellem (in press), Bellem (2007); also see Heselwood (1996)

8. Emphatics in MSAL: the literature • Works based on fieldwork in the first half of the 20th C generally describe MSAL emphatics as similar to those of Arabic (but less salient) • Viennese expedition in the early 20th C (e.g. Jahn 1902, Müller 1909, Bittner 1909) • Bertram Thomas’ fieldwork (Thomas, 1937) • Wolf Leslau’s work (1947), based on Thomas (1937) • Leslau also notes, in the discussion following Johnstone 1975, his view that ‘[MSAL] glottalization did not sound to me to be of the same type as that in Ethiopic’ • T.M. Johnstone’s work in the 1970s breaks with this tradition – he describes MSAL emphatics as (post-)glottalised • For Harsusi, he observes that glottalisation is ‘energetically articulated in initial and final position, but in other positions…rather weak’ (1977, see also 1975, 1987) • Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle & Antoine Lonnet, 1983– • Simeone-Senelle (1997) describes the ‘prevailing’ articulation of MSAL emphatics as post-glottalised, but ‘The degree of this glottalization varies, depending on the position of the consonant in the word and on the dialects concerned…’ • Lonnet (2009) states that emphatics in some MSAL dialects tend to be pharyngealised–uvularised, and sees this in terms of a gradual sound change • Russian researchers in Soqotra • Naumkin & Porkhomovskij (1981) say that glottalisation in Soqotri is restricted to the emphatic stops, with the emphatic fricatives (and occasionally stops) pharyngealised – they suggest that there is an ongoing transition from glottalised to pharyngealised

9. Question: What are the MSAL emphatics? • Until 1973, Ethiosemitic was believed to be the only Semitic language sub-family in which emphatics were realised as ejectives • From the 1970s we find varying reports • Without assuming that emphatics are uniform across MSAL varieties, we can still say that overall there is no clear consensus, and it is not clear from the literature where the MSAL emphatics fit into the emphatic typology

10. Question: What are the MSAL emphatics? • This paper takes a closer look at one variety of an MSAL – the Mahriyōt dialect of Mehri, spoken in eastern Yemen • We aim to show why there has been such a lack of consistency in previous descriptions

12. Mahriyōt: Data • 111 texts recorded by Alexander Sima, to be published by Harrassowitz 2009 • Oral material recorded and transcribed by Janet Watson in al-Ghaydha Jan–March 2008 • 5 oral narratives • Oral descriptions and examples of emphatics and laterals in Mahriyōt

13. Mahriyōt consonants

14. Mahriyōt emphatics emphatic non-emphatic ṣ s z č̣ š ṭ t d ź ś θ̣ θ ð ḳ k

15. Mahriyōt evidence • Inconsistency of much previous descriptive work • E.g. transcriptions vary considerably and are inconsistent even within one work • Hein, ed. Müller (1909) • /ḳ/ as g and k: ġalgōt ‘she saw’ for ġalḳōt, occasionally as k, as in tekefôd ‘she goes down’, but ugofôd ‘and he went down’ • /ṣ/ as z, ṣ and s: zóṭer ‘basket’ for ṣōṭar, zayd ‘fish’ for ṣayd, but also as ṣ and s, particular in the word for ‘morning’, as in kṣôbaḥ and hesôbaḥ ‘in the morning’ • The inconsistencies most often relate to laryngeal category

16. Mahriyōt evidence: fieldwork • Native-speaker descriptions: • Five sounds not attested in Arabic: /ḳ/, /ṣ/, /č̣/, /ś/, /ź/ • /ḳ/ = /k/ + ʕayn • /č̣/ = ‘heavy Egyptian jīm’ + ʕayn • Mehri /ṣ/ considerably tenser than Arabic /ṣ/, sometimes partially voiced • /ṭ/ and /θ̣/ not grouped by informant with ‘five sounds not found in Arabic’ • /ṭ/ = ‘same’ or ‘like’ Arabic /ṭ/ • /θ̣/ = varies between voiced and voiceless

17. /ṭ, ṣ, č̣/ • ṣā’ / ṣā’ / wa-ṭā’ wa-č̣ā / yaʕnī / anṭughā bi-šakl at-tālī / ṣā’ ṣā’ ṣā’ ṣā’ / wa-ṭ-ṭā’ hūwa nafs aṭ-ṭā’ fi l-... bi-l-ʕarabīyah / ṭā’ / allī hū ʕalayh al-ʕūd hass-mā ygūlū / e:h ṭa’ / ṭā’ ṭā’ ṭā’ ṭā’ ṭā’ / wa-ṣā’ ṣā’ ṣā’ / wa-ḥarf č̣āʕ / e:h č̣āʕ č̣āʕ č̣āʕ / allī hēh kama l-jīm bi-l-ʕarabī wa-taḥthā θalāθa nugaṭ tarmīz hāðā kama ttafagnā ʕalayh fī ’almāniyā iθnā tadrīsnā fī almāniyā maʕ al-jānib al-almāni / wa-hī tunṭug miθl al-jīm al-maṣrīyah aθ-θagīlah wa-l-ʕayn / č̣āʕ / č̣āʕ č̣āʕ / yaʕnī law bayn-axað maθāl maθalan al-ḥarf ṣād / maθalan / ana xað amθilah bi-xtiṣār / ṣā’ / ṣā’ maθalan ṣayd / ṣā’ ṣayd / ṣā’ ṣayd ṣayd / maθalan ṣā’ bi-ḥarf ṣā kīnaḥ maθalan / ṣift / ṣift / ṣift / maθal .../

18. Mahriyōt evidence: fieldwork • Native-speaker judgements: • Rejection by native speakers of ejective tokens of /ṣ/, /č̣/, /ṭ/, /ź/, /θ̣/ • …except in pre-pausal position • Let’s look more closely at the Mahriyōt emphatics and consider the acoustic evidence…

19. w-tarnīk ‘and tarnīk [type of fish]’

20. w-wīḳad ‘and wīḳad [type of fish]’

21. ḳannatt ‘small’

22. w-ō-ð-alhōḳ ‘and I am chasing’

23. śīwōṭ ‘fire’

24. ћaṭṭōt ‘a bean / grain’

25. Mahriyōt evidence: conclusion I • Of the ‘emphatic’ stops: • only ḳ turns out to be ejective in all positions • ṭ is ejective only in final and prepausal position • otherwise, ṭ is similar to (the local) Arabic ṭ • non-prepausally, ṭ is ‘backed’ and unaspirated • This ‘backing’ is also the main correlate of ‘emphatic’ in the other (fricative) emphatics…

26. /ś/ and /ź/ F2 F2

27. śātū ‘winter’ źābal ‘cold’

28. bā nwās ‘Abu Nuwas’ F2

29. xalāṣ ‘that’s it!’ F2

30. marwōź ‘sick [m.pl.]’

31. krōṣ ‘fleas’

32. č̣aʕrīr ‘back of the neck’

33. yā šadd ‘oh what trouble!’

34. Importance of environment!Pre-pausal glottalisation • Voiced and emphatic obstruents: • ġayj > ġayč’# ‘man’ • yanhōč̣ > yanhōč’# ‘he shouts to s.o.’ • ṭād > ṭāt’# ‘one’ • śīwōṭ > śīwōt’# ‘fire’ • ṣwārāb > ṣwārāp’# ‘harvest period [dim.]’ • mōnaġ > mōnax’# [place name] • Liquids (after long vowel): • syōr > syōr’ # ‘he went’, b-ḥāwēl > b-ḥāwēl’ # ‘firstly’ • …but: • šīt > šītʰ # ‘penis’ and yaṣkūk > yaṣkūkʰ # ‘he closes’

35. ṣwārāb ‘harvest period [diminutive]’

36. b-ħāwāl’ ‘at first’

37. Pre-pausal glottalisation • With the exception of ḳ, the emphatics are only clearly glottalised prepausally, otherwise they are ‘backed’ • This glottalisation seems to be part of a wider process of prepausal glottalisation, which affects certain segment types: • voiced obstruents • emphatics • liquids in the environment VVL#

38. Pre-pausal glottalisation • Areal feature • Feature of many Yemeni Arabic dialects • In prepausal position in Ṣan’āni Arabic: • all voiced consonants are devoiced • all voiced stops and emphatics are realised as ejectives • all (non-nasal) sonorants are devoiced and glottalised

39. Yemen

40. Ṣan’ānidajāj ‘chicken’ Glottal release

41. Ṣan’ānidagīg ‘flour’ Glottal release

42. Ṣan’ānimubargaṭ ‘lumpy’ Glottal release

43. Ṣan’āni nār ‘flame’

44. Mehri emphatics: phonological patterning • Mehri emphatics pattern with pharyngeals and uvulars when it comes to vowel allophones • Mahriyōt ay and aw may occur to the exclusion of ī and ū following an emphatic, uvular or pharyngeal: ba-ḥḥays ‘with energy’ ḳayṯ̣ ‘hot/pre-monsoon period’ ʕayd ‘sardines’ ʕaylūj ‘camel calf’ ḥayḏān ‘ear’ mṣawġat ‘jewellery shop’ śaṭrayr ‘cloth’ (strict adjacency not necessary)

45. Mehri emphatics: phonological patterning • Allomorphy • feminine nominal, adjectival and numeral ending: normally -īt, but -ayt in certain words: ṣarʕayt ‘smell under the armpits’ (cf. šabdīt ‘liver’) bīźayt ‘egg’ (cf. rēśīt ‘snake’) habʕayt ‘seven’ (cf. ṯamnīt ‘eight’) ṣalḥayt ‘fat f.s.’ (cf. xaṯmīt ‘thin f.s.’)

46. Mehri emphatics: phonological patterning • Allomorphy • nominal feminine suffix: -āt after an emphatic, uvular or pharyngeal, but -ēt after other segments (except nasals): ḳaṣṣāt ‘story’ barzēt ‘small hole in boat to let water out’ mṭarḳāt ‘hammer’ raḥbēt ‘village; town’ ṣafḥāt ‘hinge’ mbaxrēt ‘iron frame for incensing clothes’ xabzēt ‘piece of bread’ ḳaśrēt ‘naughtiness’

47. Summary I • Emphatics: • /ḳ/ = ejective • All other emphatics = non-ejective • There is a process of prepausal glottalisation that affects (among other segments) the emphatics • Why the inconsistency in the reporting of Mehri (possibly MSAL) emphatics? • The perception of ejective emphatics in one position (pre-pausally) • Presence of one ejective – /ḳ/ – in all positions • Assumption that ‘emphasis’ had one main phonetic correlate • = assumption that emphatics as a class were ejectives

48. Summary II • With the exception of ḳ, Mahriyōt emphatics are phonologically (‘underlyingly’) of the (local) Arabic type: • ‘backed’ • unaspirated (in the case of voiceless emphatics) • (…although the Mahriyōt emphatics are less ‘backed’ than Arabic emphatics tend to be)

49. Implications and further work I • What about other MSAL? • Our data is from Mahriyōt, but we believe that the situation may be similar in other MSAL • First impressions are: • that other MSAL varieties may also have some degree of prepausal glottalisation (not just either ‘ejective emphatics’ or freely varying emphatics) • the degree of any prepausal glottalisation may vary across the individual varieties, and that aside from the possibly varying prepausal phenomena, the phonetic correlates of /ṭ/ may also vary

50. Implications and further work II • It seems that there is a move across MSAL from ejective emphatics > pharyngealised emphatics • For Soqotri, two types of ‘emphasis’ are described: • ejective stops • pharyngealised fricatives and occasionally stops (Naumkin & Porkhomovskij 1981: 12–13)