The Stress Assignment in Najrani Arabic: An OT Perspective

Hassan Obeid Alfadly, Faraj Ahmed Alhamami

Abstract: In this paper, it is shown that syllable weight plays a significant role in the assignment of stress in Najrani Arabic, NA, a variety of Arabic spoken in the southern province of Saudi Arabia. After first presenting the Najrani data that highlights the syllable structure, an optimality-theoretic analysis, (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004), of Najrani is developed to provide a complete analysis of the stress assignment and vowel deletion found in NA. Stress is examined in monosyllablic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic words separately. and concluded that syllable weight is the driving force behind the assignment of stress in NA. It is also found that vowel deletion occurs only on an initial open syllable of certain environments.

Keywords: syllable weight, Najrani Arabic, OT, stress