Syncope in Makkan Arabic Fast Speech: A Stratal-OT Analysis

Syncope is a pervasive phenomenon in Arabic, in general. In Makkan Arabic in particular, syncope occurs both in careful speech as well as in fast speech. This paper examines syncope in fast speech where it applies to initial syllables in words giving rise to syllables that contain complex onsets which are otherwise prohibited in the language. It further examines the phonotactic constraints that play a role in the application of syncope as well as the constraints that can block syncope in the same environments. Other Arabic dialects that manifest the same behavior of syncope in fast speech are considered. The analysis of the Makkan data is done within the framework of Stratal-Optimality theory. The paper lends evidence to the fact that postlexical level includes the level of careful speech and that of fast speech each with its own ranking of constraints.


Introduction
Studies on fast speech phenomena disagree as to the nature of these processes and whether they should be considered as phonological or phonetic processes (e.g. obstruents assimilation flanking a sonorant in Russian [1], schwa elision in English [2], [3], [4], and [5]), just to name a few.
Abu Mansour [8] observes that in Makkan Arabic all high vowels in open unstressed syllables are deleted. Syncope is, however, blocked if it yields syllables with complex margins (complex onsets or codas).
Kabrah [10] restricts syncope in Makkan to the high front vowel (i.e. /u/ does not delete). She also adds that syncope underapplies in the broken plurals and loan words from standard Arabic. Both Abu Mansour [8] and Kabrah [10] consider syncope as a postlexical process in the Makkan dialect. Abu Mansour [12] looks at phrasal syncope in MA and maintains that all high vowels are deleted at the phrasal level. This paper aims at examining syncope in Makkan Arabic fast speech to determine whether it is a phonological or a phonetic process, to describe the context in which syncope occurs in a given rate of speech, and to provide an OT analysis of syncope at different rates of speech thus showing the different constraints that conspire to cause deletion at each level.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In section 2, I give a detailed description of the Makkan data. Section 3 outlines the theoretical framework. Section 4 includes analysis of syncope both in normal and fast speech. In section 5, I provide a description of syncope as a fast speech phenomenon in Nħoolah Arabic, a variety of Hadramuti Arabic, and Cairene Arabic. Section 6 concludes the paper.

Data
Syncope is a pervasive phonological process in Arabic such that the Arabic dialects are differentiated on the basis of the vowels they syncopate [13]. Differential dialects, such as Makkan, only delete high vowels that occur in open unstressed syllables [7], [8], [10], and [12]. In contrast, in Non-differential dialects such as Tripolitanian Arabic [14] both high and low vowels in open unstressed syllables are syncopated to avoid a sequence of light syllables.
Makkan Arabic has two rules of syncope. Both rules are postlexical due to the fact that they have no impact on stress and they do not interact with it. The first rule is obligatory and it occurs in medial position where the second vowel in an open syllable gets deleted (e.g., CVVCVCV⇒CVVCCV, and CVCVCV⇒CVCCV). This is typically the case in normal speech. Representative examples are given in (1). The second syncope rule is optional and it occurs in fast speech, where the high vowel in the first syllable is syncopated, and giving rise to a syllable with a complex onset, which is otherwise prohibited in careful speech (e.g. CVCVVC ⇒CCVVC). Syncope in fast speech occurs within words, as shown in (2), as well as across morpheme boundaries, as evident in (3). It should be borne in mind that complex onsets are allowed only in the output of fast speech syncope. In word-medial position, syllables with complex margins (onsets and codas) are categorically banned. This is evident from the examples in (7). As evident from the above examples, in normal speech syncope affects the second syllables in prosodic words but in fast speech the vowel in word-initial syllables is deleted. In what follows, I provide analyses of syncope in both normal and fast speech. The analysis is carried out in Stratal-OT. 24 Syncope in Makkan Arabic Fast Speech: A Stratal-OT Analysis

Optimality Theory
The analysis of syncope as both normal and fast speech phenomenon of Makkan Arabic is done in the framework of Optimality Theory [15], and [16], and its offspring -Correspondence Theory [17]. In this model, a grammar consists of two types of family constraints; markedness constraints and faithfulness constraints. Markedness constraints are universal and violable, but their ranking is parameterized and language specific. Faithfulness constraints, on the other hand, evaluate outputs and ensure faithful mapping between inputs and outputs. Evaluation of candidates over the entire constraints hierarchy is done in parallel fashion.

Stratal-OT
Stratal-OT [18] is a revival of Lexical Phonology theory [19], recast in a set of constraints. In Lexical Phonology theory [20], and [21] phonological rules are of two types; lexical and postlexical rules. At the lexical level, morphological information is important to the application of these cyclic rules. Furthermore, different rules apply at a given stratum. At the postlexical level, morphological information is no longer needed. As far as the postlexical level is concerned, two levels are assumed [3], each with different rules occurring at each level. These rules also apply word-internally as well as between words, provided that their structural description is met [3]. In Kaisse's [3] revised model of Lexical phonology, there are two postlexical level rules: rules of external sandhi (level 1), and rules of fast speech (level 2), which in turn feed into connected speech. In other words, connected speech rules are derived from fast speech rules [18], [19], and [3]. According to Kaisse and Shaw, [22: 5] postlexical rules can create new structures and segment sequences but lexical rules are structure preserving. Furthermore, "postlexical rules can be optional and subject to variation due to rate of speech" [22:6].

Motivating the Levels
Two arguments prompt invoking two postlexical levels in Makkan Arabic (i.e., normal speech -level 1, and fast speech -level 2). First, syncope at each level occurs in different environments where at level 1 it occurs in word-medial position, but at level 2 it affects word-initial syllables. Second, syncope at postlexical level 1 targets /i/, but at level 2, both /i/ and /u/ are syncopated. Third, syncope in fast speech is an optional rule, however, in careful speech, it is obligatory and categorical. Furthermore, these arguments suggest that syncope in normal speech is phonological while it is phonetic in fast speech based on the fact that syncope as a phonetic process is not subject to the phonotactic constraints that are evident in normal speech.

The Analysis
Several analyses of Makkan syncope in normal speech have been carried out in an OT framework, for instance [9], [10], [11], and [12]. In this paper, only Kabrah [10] is incorporated because it is carried out in Stratal-OT. However, the paper will employ Gouskova's constraints [9] that account for syncope in MA. According to Gouskova [9], and based on Prince and Smolensky [15], the most harmonic peaks of syllables is the low vowel a > u > i. This is phonetically grounded in the fact that the low vowel is the most sonorant and therefore makes the best nucleus. As a result, when a low vowel occurs in open unstressed syllable it does not get deleted. The high vowels are not as sonorant and are therefore subject to deletion in open unstressed syllables.
Makkan syllable inventory includes CV, CVV, CVC, CVVC, and CVCC. The first three syllables can occur anywhere in the word but the superheavy syllables are restricted to word-final position [8]. In derived environments (at the postlexical level), only CVVC can occur medially, as a result of syncope. Words with underlying complex onsets are prohibited and are therefore repaired using epenthesis [8], and [10].
The stress generalizations are as follows: stress lodges on an ultimate syllable when it is superheavy (CVVC and CVCC) or CVV [8], [10]). In the absence of a superheavy syllable, the rightmost heavy syllable (CVV or CVC) is stressed. In odd number of light syllables, the antepenultimate syllable is stressed. However, in even number of light syllables the penultimate syllable is the stress bearer. Furthermore, Makkan observes a trisyllabic window restriction when stress is assigned [10]. Representative examples are given in (8 Kabrah [10] observes that syncope in Makkan Arabic is a postlexical process following stress assignment -which happens at the lexical level. Syllables that occupy the weak node of a foot are deleted. At postlexical 1, only the high

Syncope in Normal Speech
I begin with analysis of syncope in normal speech then I proceed to fast speech. In normal speech the site of deletion is the second syllable in prosodic words. Note that a medial CVVC is derived as a result of deletion. The following constraints are needed.

(10) MAX-IO (V) [17]
Deletion of vowels is prohibited. Since it is more important to avoid a nucleus /i/ than to delete a vowel, then the markedness constraint must dominate the faithfulness constraint.   Table 1, deletion of the high vowel leaves /ħ/ as a stray consonant. Assigning the /ħ/ a mora thus allowing it to act as coda to the first syllable yields an ill-formed syllable stemming from the fact that syllables in Makkan are maximally bimoraic. Syllabifying /ħ/ as part of the second syllable forming a complex onset is also undesired because of a ban on syllables containing complex onsets. Shortening the vowel or inserting a vowel is also not allowed. The only way to syllabify /ħ/ is to adjoin it to the first syllable without assigning it a mora. This scenario is ultimately chosen if *TRIMORAIC SYLLABLE (which penalizes syllables with three moras) and COMPLEX ONSET are ranked higher than the metrical constraint WBYP (14). These scenarios are borne out in Table 2.

(13) *COMPLEX ONSET [15]
Complex onsets are prohibited. Epenthesizing a vowel after /ħ/ allows it to act as onset to the newly created syllable, however, this is undesired if the constraint responsible for insertion is ranked higher than the metrical constraint as in (15). The interaction of the constraints is shown in Table 3. The ranking in (11) also accounts for syncope in a sequence of light syllables. In Table 4, the winning candidates are (b) and (d). However, in patterns of the broken plurals, syncope is blocked in CVCVCV words due to the highly ranked constraint TEMPLATE (proposed by Gafos [24]) which requires faithful mapping of templates. This is in line with research on the other Arabic dialects (e.g. in Egyptian Arabic syncope also underapplies in the broken plural such as tukusa 'taxis' [25].

(15) DEP-IO (V) » WBYP
Since TEMPLATE is satisfied at the cost of not deleting the high vowel, then TEMPLATE must dominate the markedness constraint as can be seen by the constraint ranking in (16).  Table 5, candidate (a) bests it rival output (b) due to satisfaction of TEMPLATE rendering candidate (a) optimal despite incurring three violations of the markedness constraint.

(16) TEMPLATE » *NUC i/u >> MAX-IO (V)
Furthermore, high vowels are not deleted if they yield a syllable that contains either a complex onset or a complex coda in word-medial position, which are prohibited categorically at both lexical and postlexical levels, by the constraint in (17) and their ranking in (18).

(17) *Word-Medial-COMPLEX
Syllables that contain either complex onsets or codas are prohibited in word-medial position.   Table 6, candidates (b) and (e), (c), and (f) are ruled out due to having either a complex onset or a complex coda in word-medial position, respectively. Candidate (a) wins despite having three marks of violations for *NUC i/u. Output (d) bests its rival (e) by incurring three violations of *NUC i/u.

Syncope in Fast Speech
Syncope in fast speech is an optional process such that an input can have different outputs depending on the rate of speech; normal vs. fast. For instance, an input such as /bigaala/ 'supermarket' is realized as [bigaala] in careful speech but as [bgaala] in fast speech. Constraint ranking of normal speech is given first, followed by that of fast speech. Consider the constraint ranking in (19) followed by constraint interaction in Table 7. In normal speech (i.e., postlexical level 1) (Table 7), the constraint that prohibits complex onsets outranks *NUC/i, thus selecting candidates (a) and (c) as optimal.

(19) *COMPLEX ONSET » *NUC i/u » MAX-IO (V)
However, in fast speech, *COMPLEX ONSET is demoted to a dominated status as the constraint ranking in (20) demonstrates . Table 8 shows that the opposite ranking holds rendering candidates (b) and (d) as winners. It is noted that in fast speech, inputs containing high vowels in initial syllables are protected from deletion if the vowel occurring in the initial syllable is stressed in CVCVC-V patterns. The constraint that militates against underparsing of stressed syllables is given in (21).
The ranking of (21) with the other constraints in shown in (22) Table 9, output (a) is chosen over (b) due to a fatal violation of the faithfulness constraint MAX-STRESS.

(22) MAX-STRESS » *NUC i/u » MAX-IO (V)
In the remaining section of the analysis we consider two principles that play a role in the application of fast speech syncope depending on the type of cluster that deletion might result in. These include the sonority principle (SSP), and the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP).
As we can see from the set of data given in (23), the consonant cluster at the onset contains consonants that do not adhere to the Sonority Sequencing Principle [27] thus suggesting that sonority does not have any bearing on fast speech syncope. Representative examples are given in (23), and the sonority constraint is expressed in (24).
Since it is evident from the above examples that forms that violate SSP do surface as such then this markedness constraint must rank lower than the markedness constraint banning syllables containing high vowels. This ranking is shown in (25) and its interaction with *NUCi/u is given in Table 10.  The second principle in our discussion of fast speech syncope and the type of consonant cluster it creates is the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP). The set of data in (5) shows that adjacent stridents are prohibited as well as stops that share the place of articulation. These facts are expressed by the conjoined constraints in (26) and (27), respectively. Local conjunction is a mechanism used in OT that allows the construction of a complex constraint that combines two simpler ones. The combined constraints are given in (26), and (27).

(27) [ OCP [+COR] & OCP [-d.r] ]
Adjacent alveolar stops are prohibited. The high ranking of (26) and (27) is evident in (28) and the place of the two in the overall constraint hierarchy is shown in Table 11.  (26) and (27), respectively, rendering (a) and (c) as optimal with minimal violations of the lowest ranked constraints. Differences between fast speech syncope and that of careful speech are captured by the the ranking in (29). What causes syllables in word-initial position to surface with complex onsets in fast speech is that the markedness constraint *COMPLEX ONSET is outranked by the other markedness constraint *NUCi/u, whereas in careful speech *COMPLEX ONSET is undominated resulting in categorical prohibition against syllables with complex onsets. Note that in fast speech, as shown in (29c) the only other constraints that outrank *Nuci/u, are MAX-STRESS and the OCP conjoined constraints, which are obeyed throughout the grammar.

Discussion
The analysis of syncope in both normal and fast speech has shown differences between the two. While complex onsets are banned categorically in normal speech they are tolerated in fast speech. This stems from the fact that they result from different types of processes, one phonological while the other phonetic. Furthermore, there is an asymmetry in the types of syllables that appear in speech depending on the rate one is using. CVCC syllables are only allowed in word-final position and this remains the same throughout the grammar, however, in fast speech, a complex onset is tolerated. So the question that poses itself here is: what causes such disparity between complex onsets and complex codas to the extent that the former are allowed in postlexical level 2 while the latter are banned throughout the grammar? A possible answer to this question lies in the fact that when consonants stand in coda position they are counted towards syllable weight and the syllable in MA is maximally bimoraic with final consonant extrametricality. Complex onsets, on the other hand, do not count in syllable weight and so they do not pose the same problem for a quantity sensitive language such as Makkan Arabic. Because of the difference in the nature of syncope in normal speech being phonological while in fast speech it is phonetic makes a complex coda subject to the sonority principle while complex onsets are not (i.e. at the phonetic level, the complex onset is not subject to phonotactic constraints). This is in line with findings in fast speech phenomena in other languages [22] where fast speech processes give rise to new structure that are otherwise not attested in the language.

Evidence from other Arabic Dialects
In normal speech, the Arabic dialects are divided into obeyed at all levels, such as the OCP and MAX-STRESS. The paper has also considered syncope as a fast speech phenomenon in dialects that are similar to Makkan Arabic, namely Cairene Arabic and Hadramoti Arabic and found that these dialects display the same behavior with respect to syncope in fast speech. Another finding of the paper is that syncope in normal speech deletes only the vowel /i/ but in fast speech both /i/ and /u/are syncopated.