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Phonological analysis of Arabic diphthongs in defective verbs.


Citation

Mohamad Isa, Abdul Azim and Nordin, Fitri Nurul’ain and Zakaria, Muhamad Zaidi and Amat Suparia, Fariz Azzuan and Mohamed Raffi, Muhammad Syaffiq and Hassan, Abd Rauf (2024) Phonological analysis of Arabic diphthongs in defective verbs. Ijaz Arabi Journal of Arabic Learning, 7 (3). pp. 1064-1078. ISSN 2620-5947; eISSN: 2620-5912

Abstract

The Arabic diphthongs have two sounds, which are /aɪ/ and /aʊ/, each in its nouns and weak verbs. This study aims to analyse phonological rules related to Arabic diphthongs and syllable segmentation among Arabic diphthongs. Qualitative methods are applied in this research wherein content analysis is conducted using Chomsky and Halle’s phonological rules (1968) and Crowley (1987) theory to analyse all data. The data are collected from the Arabic dictionary called Mu’jam Taşrīf al-`af’āl al-‘arabiyyah and the data are then divided into two categories, namely sound /w/ and /y/. The study observes that the Arabic diphthong sounds are found in in the forms of nouns and defective verbs with suffixes other than /a/, /t/ and /w/. The study finds that in Arabic, diphthong sounds are deleted in defective verbs when the suffix consists of two phonemes, and these sounds transform into long vowel sounds upon the addition of /a/, indicating the third-person singular male in the past tense. The suffixes /t/ and /w/ similarly convert the diphthong to a basic vowel. This study concludes that phonological changes occur more frequently in Arabic defective verbs than in nouns, following certain rules. Additionally, syllable segments change as well when the glide sounds forming diphthongs are deleted.


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Additional Metadata

Item Type: Article
Divisions: Faculty of Modern Language and Communication
DOI Number: https://doi.org/10.18860/ijazarabi.v7i3.28270
Publisher: Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University
Keywords: Arabic; Diphthongs; Phonology; Rules; Syllable
Depositing User: Ms. Azian Edawati Zakaria
Date Deposited: 01 Oct 2025 03:17
Last Modified: 01 Oct 2025 03:17
Altmetrics: http://www.altmetric.com/details.php?domain=psasir.upm.edu.my&doi=10.18860/ijazarabi.v7i3.28270
URI: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/120372
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