An Acoustic Analysis of Singleton and Geminate Emphatic and Non-Emphatic Consonants in Arabic

Authors

  • Mohammed Q. Ruthan

    Department of English Language and Literature, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i2.7943
1 December 2024 | Revised: 30 December 2024 | Accepted: 31 December 2024 | Published Online: 20 January 2025

Abstract

Differences in length between singleton and geminate consonants with the same feature have received considerable attention in the literature. However, little work has been done to analyze differences in duration between singleton and geminate consonants with distinct features. This acoustic study sought to examine the differences in duration between singleton and geminate emphatic and non-emphatic consonants in Standard Arabic. The target consonants consisted of emphatic /sˤ/, /tˤ/, and /ðˤ/ (in singleton and geminate form) and their non-emphatic counterparts: /s/, /t/, and /ð/ (in singleton and geminate form). The stimuli consisted of 12 words, six of which contained a singleton and the other six of which contained a geminate, in order to test the closure/friction duration of those sounds. Seven native-speaking Arabic students from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University were recruited as participants for the study. They were recorded while producing the target words containing intervocalic singleton and geminate consonants in a carrier phrase. The results generally showed a large singleton-to-geminate ratio difference in closure/friction duration. The singleton-to-geminate ratios showed that a geminate consonant was approximately twice the duration of a singleton. However, the results showed no difference between the ratios and means of emphatic and non-emphatic singleton consonants or between the closure/friction durations of emphatic and non-emphatic geminate consonants.

Keywords:

Arabic; Closure; Consonant; Duration; Emphatic; Geminate; Gemination; Singleton

References

[1] Esposito, A., Di Bendetto, M.G., 1999. Acoustical and Perceptual Study of Gemination in Italian Stops. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 106(4), 2051–2062.

[2] Homma, Y., 1981. Durational Relationship between Japanese Stops and Vowels. Journal of Phonetics. 9(3), 273–281.

[3] Kraehenmann, A., Lahiri, A., 2008. Duration Differences in the Articulation and Acoustics of Swiss German Word-Initial Geminate and Singleton Stops. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 123(6), 4446–4455.

[4] Lahiri, A., Hankamer, J., 1988. The Timing of Geminate Consonants. Journal of Phonetics. 16(3), 327–338.

[5] Ohala, M., Solé, M.J., Beddor, P., 2007. Experimental Approaches to Phonology. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. pp. 351–368.

[6] Al-Ani, S.H., 1970. Arabic Phonology: An Acoustical and Physiological Investigation. Mouton: Hague, Netherlands.

[7] Mitchell, T.F., 1990. Pronouncing Arabic. Clarendon Press: New York, USA. pp. 1–184.

[8] Catford, J.C., 1977. Fundamental Problems in Phonetics. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, United Kingdom. pp. 1–278.

[9] Trubetzkoy, N.S., 1969. Principles of Phonology. University of California Press: Berkeley, United States. pp. 1–344.

[10] El Saaran, M., 1951. A Critical Study of the Phonetic Observations of the Arab Grammarians [Ph.D. Thesis]. London, UK: University of London. pp. 1–710.

[11] Muller, J., 2001. The Phonology and Phonetics of Word-Initial Geminates [Ph.D. Thesis]. Columbus, United States: Ohio State University. pp. 1-244.

[12] Thurgood, G., 1993. Geminates: A Cross-Linguistic Examination. In: Nevis, J., McMenamin, G. (eds.). Papers in Honor of Frederick H. Brengelman on the Occasion of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Department of Linguistics, CSU Fresno. California State University: Long Beach, USA. pp. 129–139.

[13] Cowell, M.W., 1964. A Reference Grammar of Syrian Arabic: Based on the Dialect of Damascus. Georgetown University Press: Georgetown, United States. pp. 1–587.

[14] Ghalib, G., 1984. An Experimental Study of Consonant Gemination in Iraqi Colloquial Arabic [PhD Thesis]. Leeds, United Kingdom: University of Leeds. pp. 1–602.

[15] Delattre, P., 1971. Consonant Gemination in Four Languages: An Acoustic, Perceptual, and Radiographic Study. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching. 9, 31–52.

[16] Ball, M., Rahilly, J., 1999. Phonetics: The Science of Speech. Arnold: San Diego, USA.

[17] Ladefoged, P., Maddieson, I., 1996. The Sounds of the World's Languages. Blackwell Publishing: Oxford, UK. pp. 1–448.

[18] Han, M.S., 1992. The Timing Control of Geminate and Single Stop Consonants in Japanese: A Challenge for Nonnative Speakers. Phonetica. 49(2), 102–127.

[19] Hayes-Harb, R., Masuda, K., 2008. Development of the Ability to Lexically Encode Novel Second Language Phonemic Contrasts. Second Language Research. 24(1), 5–33.

[20] Tserdanelis, G., Arvaniti, A., 2001. The Acoustic Characteristics of Geminate Consonants in Cypriot Greek. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Greek Linguistics; September, 2001; Thessaloniki, Greece. pp. 29–36.

[21] Aoyama, K., Reid, L.A., 2006. Cross-Linguistic Tendencies and Durational Contrasts in Geminate Consonants: An Examination of Guinaang Bontok Geminates. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 36(2), 145–157. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100306002520

[22] Sato, Y., 1998. The Phonetic Reality of the Mora in Japanese [Ph.D. Thesis]. Honolulu, United States: University of Hawaii at Manoa. pp. 1–206.

[23] McKay, G.R., 1980. Medial Stop Gemination in Rembarrnga: A Spectrographic Study. Journal of Phonetics. 8, 343–352.

[24] Ridouane, R., 2003. Suites de Consonnes en Berbère: Phonétique et Phonologie [Consonant Sequences in Berber: Phonetics and Phonology] [PhD Thesis]. Paris, France: Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle. pp. 1–379.

[25] Al-Tamimi, F.Y., 2004. An Experimental Phonetic Study of Intervocalic Singleton and Geminate Sonorants in Jordanian Arabic. Al-Arabiyya. 29, 37–52.

[26] Stevens, M., Hajek, J., 2004. Comparing Voiced and Voiceless Geminates in Sienese Italian: What Role Does Preaspiration Play? Proceedings of the 10th Australian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology; December 8-December 10, 2004; Sydney, Australia. pp. 340–345.

[27] Cohn, A.C., Ham, W.H., Podesva, R.J., 1999. The Phonetic Realization of Singleton-Geminate Contrasts in Three Languages of Indonesia. Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences; 1–7 August 1999; San Francisco, United States. pp. 587–590.

[28] Ridouane, R., 2007. Gemination in Tashlhiyt Berber: An Acoustic and Articulatory Study. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 37(2), 119–142.

[29] Shrotriya, N., Siva Sarma, A.S., Verma, R., et al., 1995. Acoustic and Perceptual Characteristics of Geminate Hindi Stop Consonants. Proceedings of the 13th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences; 14–19 August 1995; Stockholm, Sweden. pp. 132–135.

[30] Maddieson, I., 1985. Phonetic Cues to Syllabification. In: Fromkin, V. (ed.). Phonetic Linguistics: Essays in Honor of Peter Ladefoged. Academic Press: Orlando, USA. pp. 203–221.

[31] Podesva, R.J., 2000. Constraints on Geminates in Buginese and Selayarese. Proceedings of the 19th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics; 4–6 February 2000; Los Angeles, USA. pp. 343–355.

[32] Hassan, Z.M., 2002. Gemination in Swedish and Arabic with a Particular Reference to the Preceding Vowel Duration: An Instrumental and Comparative Approach. Proceedings of Fonetik. Speech Transmission Laboratory Quarterly Progress and Status Report. 44(1), 81–85.

Downloads

How to Cite

Ruthan, M. Q. (2025). An Acoustic Analysis of Singleton and Geminate Emphatic and Non-Emphatic Consonants in Arabic. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(2), 83–93. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i2.7943

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 2 (February 2025): In Progress

Article Type

Article

License

Copyright © 2025 Mohammed Q. Ruthan

Creative Commons License

This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.