Nonword Repetition Skills in Gulf Arabic–Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose This study examined the performance of Gulf Arabic–speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) on a Gulf Arabic nonword repetition (GA-NWR) test and compared it to their age- and language-matched groups. We also investigated the role of syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity in light of NWR theories. Method A new GA-NWR test was conducted with three groups of Gulf Arabic–speaking children: school-age children with DLD, language-matched controls (LCs), and age-matched controls (ACs). The test consisted of two- and three-syllable words that either had no clusters, medial clusters, final clusters, or medial + final clusters. Results The GA-NWR distinguished between the performance of children with DLD and the LC and AC groups. Results showed significant syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity effects. Differences between the DLD and typically developing groups were seen in two- and three-syllable nonwords; however, when compared on nonwords with no clusters, children with DLD were not significantly different from the LC group. Conclusions The GA-NWR test differentiated between children with DLD and their ACs and LCs. Findings, therefore, support its clinical utility in this variety of Arabic. Results showed that phonological processing factors, such as phonological complexity, may have stronger effects when compared to syllable length effects. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12996812

From locative existential construction fi(ih) to a TMA/progressive marker

The grammaticalization framework has been suggested as a predictive power for language change. This paper considers the grammatical functions of the locative construction fi(ih) in the Gulf Arabic Pidgin (a variety spoken by workers from the Indian subcontinent and south Asian countries working in the Arabian/Persian Gulf States). In Gulf Arabic, there are (1) the preposition fi ‘in; into; inside’ and (2) the locative construction fi(ih) ‘there is/are’, which only has an existential function. In Gulf Arabic Pidgin, the locative construction fi(ih), however, has several grammatical functions, including (1) a possessive marker (i.e., have-constructions), (2) an equative/predicative copula, and (3) a preverbal predicative marker. The aim in this paper is two-fold: first, to show how a grammaticalization framework can possibly account for the grammatical innovations of fi(ih) in the Gulf Arabic Pidgin; and second, to suggest that these grammatical innovations might be the results of an ongoing grammaticalization process of LOCATIVE>TMA/PROGRESSIVE. Earlier studies conducted on this pidgin serve as data sources for this project.

Pidginization in Abha, Saudi Arabia

This study focuses on a pidgin predominantly used by Asian immigrants in the city of Abha in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia, examining multifunctionality as it appears in three grammatical categories, definiteness, predication, and pronouns. Whereas previous studies on Gulf Arabic Pidgin have described the variety in terms of multifunctionality (e.g. Avram 2004; Bakir 2014, and Potsdam and Alanazi 2014), the current study focuses on the different pathways that bring it about. Three types of multifunctionality are described in terms of refunctionalization, generalization and neutralization. hada (< *haaða ‘this’) is refunctionalized to mark definiteness and as a deictic marker fills the function of the demonstrative. fī, (< *fi ‘at, exist’) has multiple functions being used as a preposition, an existential marker in the meaning of ‘there is/are’, a generalized predicate marker when occurring before adjectival, nominal and verbal predicates. The pronominal system shows simplification from ten to five pronouns only. The study is based on data collected in interviews with a random sample of twenty-four Asian participants of both sexes. Their ages ranged from 26 to 45 years old and their length of stay in Saudi Arabia ranged from four to nine years. They occupied different jobs. A total of twenty nine hours of audio-visual interview data were analysed.

Effect of emphasis spread on coronal stop articulation in Qatari Arabic

Emphasis (contrastive uvularisation) in Arabic spreads from an emphatic consonant to neighboring segments (Davis 1995). The effect of emphasis spread on a consonant is manifested as lowering of its spectral mean (Jongman et al. 2011). Although stop consonants reveal a strong effect of emphasis, it is not known how emphasis spread affects other acoustic properties of stops, e.g. voice onset time (VOT). Previous studies (Kulikov 2018) showed that VOT and emphasis are linked in speech production: plain /t/ in Gulf Arabic is aspirated; emphatic /ṭ/ has short-lag VOT. Phonological theory predicts that plain /t/ should become more emphatic in emphatic context, which might reduce stop VOT as well. The current study investigates the effect of emphasis spread on VOT in word-initial coronal stops in Qatari Arabic. The stimuli, produced by sixteen native speakers of Qatari Arabic, contained target plain and emphatic stops /t/, /ṭ/ followed by short or long low vowel, and plain coronal obstruents /t, s, ð/ or their emphatic counterparts /ṭ, ṣ, ð̣/. The acoustic analysis included measurements of VOT and spectral mean of burst in the stop, and F1, F2, F3 frequencies at the vowel beginning, middle and end. The results showed that final emphatic obstruent triggered emphasis spread across the syllable. The effect of emphasis on the vowel was stronger next to the emphatic obstruent (p < .01). Spectral mean of burst in plain /t/ was lower in the emphatic context (D = 276 Hz, p = .05). VOT, however, was not affected by emphasis spread. Plain /t/ had long-lag VOT averaging 52 ms; emphatic /ṭ/ had short-lag VOT averaging 17 ms. These values were not different in emphatic context (p = .743). The findings demonstrate that emphasis spread within a syllable affects only spectral characteristics of a coronal stop. Emphaticness of plain /t/ did not affect its VOT and did not result in complete transformation of the stop category

The Arabic dialects of the Gulf

The vocabulary of the modern Gulf Arabic dialects contains many items of ancient Mesopotamian origin; there is also evidence of early south Arabian influences. Historically, three dialect types existed in the region: Najdi, coastal (these two are ‘A dialects’), and Baḥārna (‘B’ dialects). There must long have been contact between these three, but the main interface was between the Najdi and the coastal type. The (Shīˁī) Baḥārna lived in separate settlements, pursued livelihoods specific to them, and did not marry with the other two groups. All of this preserved their dialect. This sociolinguistic division was most evident in the state of Bahrain. In recent decades, changes in employment and increased urbanization have brought about increased interdialectal contact, resulting in the loss of B dialect features and a homogenization of the A dialects to the point that one can now speak of the emergence of a Gulf koine.