1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Arabic Linguistics
  4. Volume 1, Issue 2
  5. Article
Volume 1 Number 2
  • ISSN 2950-1806
  • E-ISSN: 2950-1792
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the variable patterns of regressive sibilant harmony in Moroccan Arabic. This process is triggered by the palatal fricative [ʒ], and targets the alveolar fricatives [z] and [s], changing them to [ʒ] and [ʃ] respectively (Harrell, 1962; Heath, 1987, 2002). This paper examines how factors such as the distance between harmonizing segments, voicing of the target segment, and morphological complexity influence the likelihood of harmonization. The findings from an experimental study reveal that the distance between the two harmonizing sibilants significantly influences harmonization, with a shorter distance indicating a higher likelihood of harmonization. Moreover, while voicing of the target sound appears to affect harmonization, a closer examination of the experimental results attributes this effect to the exceptional behavior of some words whose harmonizing sound happens to be [s]. The study uses Maximum Entropy grammar (Goldwater & Johnson, 2003) to learn the variability in applying harmonization. The analysis incorporates Agreement-by-Correspondence constraints (Rose & Walker, 2000, 2004) to account for the observed distance effects and lexically-indexed constraints (Pater, 2000, 2009) to capture the exceptional behavior of certain lexical items that do not follow the general trends.

© 2025 John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/arli.00011.nir
2026-02-27
2026-03-06

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/arli.00011.nir
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Al Ghadi, Abdellatif
    (1990) Moroccan Arabic Plurals and the Organization of the Lexicon. Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Mohammed V University.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Anttila, Arto
    (2008) Gradient phonotactics and the Complexity Hypothesis. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 26(4), 695–729. 10.1007/s11049‑008‑9052‑2
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-008-9052-2 [Google Scholar]
  3. Archangeli, Diana. B., Mielke, Jeff., & Pulleyblank, Douglas. G.
    (2012) From sequence frequencies to conditions in Bantu vowel harmony: Building a grammar from the ground up. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Al Ghadi, Abdellatif
    (1994) An OT Account of Moroccan Arabic Prosody. PhD thesis, Delaware University and Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Mohammed V University.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bakovic, Eric
    (2000) Harmony, dominance and control. Ph.D., Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies, United States — New Jersey.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Benhallam, Abderrafi
    (1980) Syllable Structure and Rule Types in Arabic. PhD thesis, University of Florida.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Bensoukas, Karim
    (2004) Markedness, faithfulness and consonant place in Tashlhiyt roots and affixes. Langues et Littératures, 181, 115–153.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Boersma, Paul
    (1997) How we learn variation, optionality, and probability. InProceedings of the Institute of Phonetic Sciences of the University of Amsterdam, volume211 (pp.43–58).
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Boersma, Paul & Hayes, Bruce
    (2001) Empirical tests of the gradual learning algorithm. Linguistic inquiry, 32(1), 45–86. 10.1162/002438901554586
     https://doi.org/10.1162/002438901554586 [Google Scholar]
  10. Boersma, Paul & Pater, Joe
    (2016) Convergence properties of a gradual learning algorithm for harmonic grammar. Harmonic grammar and harmonic serialism, (pp.389–434).
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Boudlal, Abdelaziz
    (2001) The Prosody and Morphology of a Moroccan Arabic Dialect: An Optimality-Theoretic Account. Rabat: VDM Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Brown, Jason
    (2008) Theoretical aspects of Gitksan phonology. Doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Brown, Jason, and Gunnar Ólafur Hansson
    (2008) Gradient phonotactics in the Gitksan lexicon. Poster presented at the11th Laboratory Phonology conference, Wellington, New Zealand, June–July 2008.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Coetzee, Andries. W., & Pater, Joe
    (2008) Weighted constraints and gradient restrictions on place co-occurrence in Muna and Arabic. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 26(2), 289–337. 10.1007/s11049‑008‑9039‑z
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-008-9039-z [Google Scholar]
  15. Dell, François & Elmedlaoui, Mohamed
    (2002) Syllables in Tashlhiyt Berber and in Moroccan Arabic, volume 2 of Kluwer International Handbooks in Linguistics. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Elmedlaoui, Mohamed
    (1995) Aspects des representations phonologiques dans certains langues chamito-semitiques. Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Frisch, Stefan. A., Large, Nathan. R., & Pisoni, David. B.
    (2000) Perception of wordlikeness: Effects of segment probability and length on the processing of nonwords. Journal of memory and language, 42(4), 481–496. 10.1006/jmla.1999.2692
     https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1999.2692 [Google Scholar]
  18. Frisch, Stefan A. and Bushra A. Zawaydeh
    (2001) The psychological reality of OCP-Place in Arabic. Language771: 91–106. 10.1353/lan.2001.0014
     https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2001.0014 [Google Scholar]
  19. Frisch, Stefan A, Janet Pierrehumbert, and Michael Broe
    (2004) Similarity Avoidance and the OCP. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory221, 179-228. 10.1023/B:NALA.0000005557.78535.3c
     https://doi.org/10.1023/B:NALA.0000005557.78535.3c [Google Scholar]
  20. Futrell, Richard., Albright, Adam., Graff, Peter., & O’Donnell, Timothy. J.
    (2017) A generative model of phonotactics. Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 51, 73-86. 10.1162/tacl_a_00047
     https://doi.org/10.1162/tacl_a_00047 [Google Scholar]
  21. Gębski, Wiktor
    (2023) The development of sibilant harmony in maghrebi arabic from the perspective of language contact in pre-islamic africa. Mediterranean Language Review, 30(1), 155–180. 10.13173/MLR.30.1.155
     https://doi.org/10.13173/MLR.30.1.155 [Google Scholar]
  22. Goldsmith, John
    (1976) Autosegmental Phonology. PhD thesis, MIT.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Goldwater, Sharon & Johnson, Mark
    (2003) Learning OT constraint rankings using a Maximum Entropy model. InProceedings of the Workshop on Variation Within Optimality Theory: Stockholm University (pp.111–120).
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Guzzo, Natália B. & Garcia, Guilherme D.
    (2021) Gradience in prosodic representation: vowel reduction and neoclassical elements in Brazilian Portuguese.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Greenberg, J.H. and J. Jenkins
    (1964) Studies in the Psychological Correlates of Sound System of American English. Word201, 157-177. 10.1080/00437956.1966.11435451
     https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1966.11435451 [Google Scholar]
  26. Hammond, Michael
    (2004) Gradience, Phonotactics, and the Lexicon in English Phonology. International Journal of English Studies41, 1-24.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Hayes, Bruce, and Colin Wilson
    2008 A maximum entropy model of phonotactics and phonotactic learning. Linguistic Inquiry391: 379–440. 10.1162/ling.2008.39.3.379
     https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2008.39.3.379 [Google Scholar]
  28. Hall, Nancy
    (2013) Acoustic differences between lexical and epenthetic vowels in Lebanese Arabic. Journal of Phonetics, 41(2), 133–143. 10.1016/j.wocn.2012.12.001
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2012.12.001 [Google Scholar]
  29. Hansson, Gunnar
    (2001a) The phonologization of production constraints evidence from consonant harmony. InPapers from the 37th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society: Chicago, IL (pp.187–200).
     [Google Scholar]
  30. (2001b) Theoretical and Typological Issues in Consonant Harmony. Ph.d. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
  31. (2010) Consonant harmony: Long-distance interactions in phonology, volume 145. Univ of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Harrell, Richard
    (1962) A Short Reference Grammar of Moroccan Arabic. Georgetown University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Hayes, Bruce & Londe, Zsuzsa
    (2006) Stochastic Phonological Knowledge: The Case of Hungarian Vowel Harmony. Phonology, 23(1), 59–104. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Heath, Jeffrey
    (1987) Ablaut and Ambiguity: Phonology of a Moroccan Arabic dialect. Albany: State University of New York Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. (2002) Jewish and Muslim Dialects of Moroccan Arabic. Psychology Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Jebbour, Adelkrim
    (1996) Morphologie et Contraintes Prosodiques en Berbère: Analyse linguistique et Traitement Automatique. PhD thesis, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Mohammed V University.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Kochetov, Alexei
    (2007) Phonetics and phonology of Komi-Permyak coronals: root co-occurrence restrictions. Paper presented at theCoronals Workshop, University of Toronto, November 2007.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Leben, William
    (1973) Suprasegmental Phonology, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Luce, Paul. A., & Pisoni, David. B.
    (1998) Recognizing spoken words: The neighborhood activation model. Ear and hearing, 19(1), 1–36.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Legendre, Géraldine, Miyata, Yoshiro, & Smolensky, Paul
    (1990a) Harmonic grammar — a formal multi-level connectionist theory of linguistic well-formedness: An application. In12th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society: Psychology Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. (1990b) Harmonic grammar — a formal multi-level connectionist theory of linguistic well-formedness: Theoretical foundations. InProceedings of the 12th Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Legendre, Géraldine & Smolensky, Paul
    (2006) The harmonic mind: from neural computation to optimality-theoretic grammar. MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. McCarthy, John J.
    (1986) OCP effects: gemination and antigemination. Linguistic Inquiry171: 207–263.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Ohala, John J. and Manjari Ohala
    (1986) Testing Hypotheses Regarding the Psychological Manifestation of Morpheme Structure Constraints. inJohn J. Ohala, and Jerri Jaeger (eds.), Experimental Phonology, Academic Press, Orlando, pp.239-252.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Odden, David
    (1994) Adjacency Parameters in Phonology. Language, 10.21, 289–330. 10.2307/415830
     https://doi.org/10.2307/415830 [Google Scholar]
  46. Pater, Joe
    (2000) Non-uniformity in English secondary stress: the role of ranked and lexically specific constraints. Phonology, 17(2), 237–274. Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. (2009) Morpheme-Specific Phonology: Constraint Indexation and Inconsistency Resolution. Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Piggott, Glyne
    (1996) Implications of Consonant Nasalization for a Theory of Harmony. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 41.21, 141–174. 10.1017/S0008413100016303
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008413100016303 [Google Scholar]
  49. R Core Team
    R Core Team (2024) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Rose, Sharon, and Lisa King
    (2007) Speech error elicitation and cooccurrence restrictions in two Ethiopian Semitic languages. Language and Speech501: 451–504. 10.1177/00238309070500040101
     https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309070500040101 [Google Scholar]
  51. Rose, Sharon & Walker, Rachel
    (2000) Consonant agreement at a distance. In Paper presented atNELS 31: Georgetown University.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. (2004) A typology of consonant agreement as correspondence. Language, (pp.475–531). 10.1353/lan.2004.0144
     https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2004.0144 [Google Scholar]
  53. Shaw, Jason, Gafos, Adamantios I., Hoole, Philip, & Zeroual, Chakir
    (2009) Syllabification in Moroccan Arabic: evidence from patterns of temporal stability in articulation. Phonology, 26(1), 187–215. 10.1017/S0952675709001754
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952675709001754 [Google Scholar]
  54. Staubs, Robert
    (2011) Harmonic grammar in R. Software package for studying Harmonic Grammar and Maximum Entropy Grammar in R, including features for hidden structure learning. Available at: https://websites.umass.edu/hgr/
  55. Suzuki, Keiichiro
    (1998) A Typological Investigation of Dissimilation. PhD thesis, University of Arizona.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Walter, Mary. A.
    (2010) Harmony versus the OCP: Vowel and Consonant Cooccurrence in the Lexicon. Laboratory Phonology, 1(2). 10.1515/LABPHON.2010.020
     https://doi.org/10.1515/LABPHON.2010.020 [Google Scholar]
  57. Walker, Rachel
    (2000) Yaka nasal harmony: Spreading or segmental correspondence?InAnnual meeting of the berkeley linguistics society (pp.321–332).
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Weissman, Georgia
    (2007) Moroccan Arabic consonant harmony. InCU Y Phonology Conference on Precedence Relations, New York, January (pp.25–26).
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Zellou, Georgia
    (2010) Moroccan Arabic Consonant Harmony: A Multiple Causation Hypothesis. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 331.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/arli.00011.nir
Loading
Modeling distance-based variable sibilant harmony in Moroccan Arabic with a MaxEnt grammar
Arabic Linguistics 1, 188 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1075/arli.00011.nir
/content/journals/10.1075/arli.00011.nir
/content/journals/10.1075/arli.00011.nir
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Agreement-by-Correspondence; exceptionality; lexically-indexed constraints; Maximum Entropy; Moroccan Arabic; sibilant harmony; variability

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error