Mohammad Al-Anani
ABSTRACT
For most Arabic varieties, the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of Arabic vowels have so far received little attention. For example, the precise number of vocalic units operating in the phonological systems in most varieties of spoken Arabic is still unknown. Important acoustic knowledge about the formant pattern of vocalic units, especially acoustic data relevant for the first two formants is not available. The purpose of this study has therefore been targeted to collection of acoustic data that would provide reliable evidence for scholars and practitioners when describing and comparing formant frequencies of vocalic units. The material of investigation consisted of 64 contrastive CV (V) C words which represent instances containing each of the ten Arabic monophthongs. Paired words were read out onto a bidirectional microphone connected to Micron computer. The software computer programme used was "Dr Speech, Tiger
Electronics, Inc.".
Formant frequencies (Fo, F1, F2, F3) were measued by LPC analysis.
1. INTRODUCTION
Most research workers who dealt with the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of Arabic vowels have focussed attention on Arabic vowel sounds in relation to consonantal environment, (Cf. Lehn, Walter, Harrel, R.S.).
Although some attention has been given to the study of the articulatory and prosodic aspects of the complex features of
"emphasis" (cf. EL-dalee, 1984), factors that contribute to the phonetic identities of vowel sounds and their acoustic correlates have not been given sufficient consideration.
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to collect articulatory and acoustic data that would provide reliable evidence for practitioners in communicative skills when describing or comparing vocalic units. As variation of formant frequency is closely linked to the widely reported basic dichotomy of "emphasis":"nonemphasis", differences between the average frequency values for vowels occurring in "emphatic" and "non-emphatic" contexts will be highlighted.
3. PROCEDURE
3.1.
Material. The material of investigation consisted of
64 contrastive CV (V) C words which represent instances containing each of the ten Arabic monophthongs. The test words were chosen so that they exhibit the contrastive relationships between "emphatic" and "non-emphatic" unitary complexes of C+V. The ten monophthongs, which are subject to a first two-fold division between front series [
ι
:, i, e:, a, a: ], and a back series [
Α
:, o:, u, u:] and a threefold division: close [i: i , u: u, ] Mid [e:,o: ] and Open [
α
:, a,
Α
:,
Α
,
] are illustrated by the following commutations:
/a/: /a:/, /dam/ 'blood': /da:ml 'lasted'; /tam/: 'completed', /ta:m/
'complete'; /bat/ 'decided': /ba:t/ 'became'; /
Α
/: /
Α
:/, /Dal/ 'lost way': /D
Α
:l/ 'one who loses way', /S
Α m/ 'memorized' : /S
Α
:m/
'fasted', /a/: /
Α
/, /dam/: 'blood', /D
Α m/ 'included', /bat/
'decided': /b
Α
T/ 'ducks', /fa
∆
/ 'genius': /f
Α∆
/ 'rough person' /a:/
: /o:/ /la:n/ 'softened': /lo:n/ 'colour', /ma:t/ 'died': /mo:t/ 'death',
/
Α
:/ : /o:/, /q
Α
:s/ 'measured' : /qo:s/ 'arrow', /T
Α
:r/ 'flew': /To:r/
'phase', /
ΦΑ
:S/ 'dived': /
Φ o:S/ 'diving', /i:/ : /u:l, /fi:l/ 'elephant':
/fu:l/ 'beans', /
ℵ i:d/ 'feast', /
ℵ u:d/ 'match', /i/: /a/, /sin/ 'tooth':
/san/ 'legislated' /min/ 'from', :/man/ 'who', /
Α
/: /i/, /r
ΑΣ
/
'sprayed': /ru
Σ
/ 'spray', /r
Α d/ 'an answer', /rud/ 'give an answer'.
The minimal pairs were incorporated in the carrier phrase
"la:…… wala: ….." judged to have the least effect on vowel quality as it ties and "rhymes" with the following test-words and marked by high frequency of occurrence in spoken
Arabic. The words themselves were selected so that they provide clear evidence of steady state positions making it possible for identification and extraction of formant values.
3.2. Informants. Three female and three male first year students from the University of Jordan, (19-20) years old, informally assessed as having normal speaking and hearing ability participated in the experiment.
3.3 Recordings. Paired words in the carrier phrase laa….
wala…..were read out onto a bi-directional 'Sony' microphone connected to Micron computer. The software used was " Dr
Speech, Tiger Electronics, Inc". The number of recorded words totaled (64) pairs. Formant frequencies (Fo, F1, F2, F3 ) were measured by LPC analysis. In the analysis, a more or less stable central segment was determined and framed as being characteristic of each vowel including differences between formant frequencies of vowels occurring in "emphatic" and
"non-emphatic' contexts.
4.
RESULTS
4.1. Fundamental frequency. Table 1 shows the summary statistics of (Fo) data of female-male group. The female group has a higher average (Fo) than the male group. There is marked difference in the values of fundamental frequency in relation to the presence of a preceding or following "emphatic" consonants.
4.2. Formant frequencies. Table 2 gives the average values for the frequency of F1, F2 and F3 for the (10) Arabic pure vowels. The average values reflect the systematic relationship between formant frequency and articulatory configuration in that the first four vowel sounds form a progression from a close front to an open front articulation. The progression from open to back produces a gradual reduction in the frequency of (F1), similar to results obtained elsewhere (Cf. Ladefoged, 1962).
The results show clearly the formant patterns in which F1 is consistently lower during "emphatic" articulation than the
"Non-emphatic". There is good correlation between the coarticulatory effect of "emphatic" consonants and the distance between the first two formants which are far apart in front vowels and close together in back vowels. In relation to F2, the figures show some variation correlated with "emphatic" sulcal articulation vs. "emphatic" plosive articulation. Whereas the frequency of F2 is higher for the "emphatic" plosive page 2117 ICPhS99 San Francisco

consonant /T/, the frequency of F2 is lower for the dentialveolar sulcal fricatives /S/ and /
∆
/.
Vowel
[i:]
[e:]
[a:]
[
Α
:]
[o:]
[u:]
Speaker 1(fem)
Mean SD
Fo (Hz)
235
207
(Hz)
2.18
2.96
Speaker 2 (fem)
Mean SD
Fo (Hz)
252
240
(Hz)
4.28
4.41
Speaker 3 (fem)
Mean SD
Fo (Hz)
239
212
(Hz)
4.86
2.46
Speaker 4 (male)
Mean SD
Fo (Hz)
132
137
(Hz)
1.93
2.96
219
203
214
228
3.34
2.45
7.57
13.36
243
240
241
254
5.12
4.16
3.87
3.77
212
213
216
218
2.44
2.70
2.78
3.23
151
140
146
143
Table 1. Fundamental Frequency of Arabic vowels, sustained production
4.63
4.73
22.79
4.37
Word
[Si:d]
[si:d]
[sa:d]
[S
Α
:d]
[Se:d]
[ta:b]
[T
Α
:b]
[tu:b]
[Tu:b}
[to:b]
[be:D]
[b
Α
:D]
Speaker 1(fem)
Mean
Fo (Hz)
SD
(Hz)
208
234
235
192
31.43
12.79
32.53
34.12
204
219
198
27.25
11.59
27.40
Speaker 2 (fem)
Mean
Fo (Hz)
220
241
234
217
237
228
221
SD
(Hz)
2.85
4.71
4.99
4.62
5.72
10.39
1.56
Speaker 3 (fem)
Mean
Fo (Hz)
227
223
223
217
219
224
215
SD
(Hz)
2.82
5.93
6.38
3.50
5.02
6.86
1.89
254
229
214
243
15.74
32.55
24.22
23.75
249
215
210
237
2.30
1.56
2.80
8.47
226
230
223
221
2.45
2.75
5.49
3.70
147
157
141
128
189 1135 223 30.06
218 6.26
134
Table 2. Fundamental Frequency of Arabic vowels within C1VVC2 domain
Speaker 4 (male)
Mean
Fo (Hz)
SD
(Hz)
145
149
137
136
23.87
11.59
4.49
13.09
141
134
143
13.46
19.20
19.20
12.73
19.92
28.09
3.71
21.92
Vowel
[i:]
[i]
S1
Fo
S2 S3 S1
F1
S2 S3 S1
F2
S2 S3 S1
F3
S2 S3
240 261 218 268 468 232 3206 2613 2789 3537 3285 3311
248 265 220 399 368 232 2199 2091 2789 3163 3211 3311
[e:]
[a:]
[a]
[
Α
:]
[
Α
]
[o:]
[u]
220
225
227
223
209
258
249
256
244
246
219
216
213
204
203
402
295
256
233
318
429
728
559
737
750
445
297
347
444
412
2394
1095
720
911
833
2269
1980
1714
2934
2637
2235
904
1364
1746
1904
3130
2391
2264
2997
2417
3015
3063
3234
3435
3488
1839
2904
2220
3972
844
215 248 207 286 358 407 2582 1570 1934 3951 3518 3716
236 256 210 429 316 342 2013 3239 2423 3380 4317 3642
[u:] 212 258 205 214 311 285 1389 3030 2037 2513 4558 3446
Table 3. Average formant frequencies for the CV (V)C contexts for the female speakers (S1, S2, S3).
Vowel
S4
Fo
S5 S6 S4
F1
S5 S6 S4
F2
S5 S6 S4
F3
S5 S6
[i:]
[i]
[e:]
[a:]
[a]
[
Α
:]
[
Α
]
173
168
168
165
168
149
156
148
137
160
137
139
135
127
164
150
147
145
149
144
142
287
390
435
676
636
679
603
207
312
242
709
368
754
703
260
278
392
528
515
646
572
908
1922
2137
1535
1639
1425
995
2416
1836
2069
2001
1336
2301
2502
2459
1911
2070
1503
1508
1463
1149
2956
2782
2784
2532
2706
2654
3322
2989
2712
2908
3229
2739
3659
3395
2912
2776
2811
2977
2678
3080
2933
[o:]
[u]
148 126 127 519 312 309 1564 1596 1683 3446 3344 3061
158 142 144 357 296 443 1202 2096 1346 2499 3276 3031
[u:] 154 143 161 307 271 287 2237 2197 2553 3687 3400 3523
Table 4. Average formant frequencies for the CV (V) C contexts for the male speakers (S4, S5, S6).
NOTES 1. Brief reading conventions for the symbols used in the transcription are as follows: page 2118 ICPhS99 San Francisco

T: voiceless "emphatic" denti-alveolar plosive.
D: voiced "emphatic" denti-alveolar plosive.
S: voiceless "emphatic" sulcal denti-alveolar fricative.
∆
: voiced "emphatic" non-sulcal inter-dental fricative.
/i:/ close front spread.
/e:/ mid to half-close front spread.
/a:/ open front unrounded.
/
Α
:/ back open neutrally rounded.
/o:/ mid to half-close back rounded.
/w:/ back rounded vowel.
2. The "emphatic" consonants /D/, /T/, /
∆
/, /S/ are distinguished from the "non-emphatic" counterparts /d/, /t/, /
∆
/, /s/ by lateral expansion of the whole body of tongue accompanied by faucal and pharyngeal constriction; the back of the tongue is raised towards the velum. The
"non-emphatic" consonants, on the other hand, are pronounced with contraction of the whole body of tongue.
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