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Article published In: Selected Papers from the 37th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics
Edited by Reem Khamis and Mira Goral
[Arabic Linguistics 1:2] 2025
► pp. 216–239

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When prosody meets syntax in Hijazi Arabic gapping

 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
 | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Published online: 27 February 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/arli.00012.fud
Abstract
This study is the first to examine how speakers deal with structural ambiguity arising from elliptical gapping constructions like Shahad saw Aahad at the library and Samar at the mall, which may be interpreted with a gapping structure (both Shahad and Samar saw Aahad) or a non-gapping structure (Shahad saw both Aahad and Samar). The central question of this study explores the role that prosody plays in resolving such ambiguity in Hijazi Arabic. Analysis of productions from 24 native speakers reveals that various prosodic cues, such as mean F0, max F0, intensity, and excursion size, are used for unambiguous sentences, while pause occurrence, pause duration, and pitch accents are additionally utilised as disambiguation cues when ambiguity is recognised. The study reveals that speakers phonetically reflect syntactic structural differences in ambiguous sentences, particularly in relation to gapping. This distinction becomes more apparent when speakers are aware of ambiguity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Materials
    • 2.3Procedure
    • 2.4Data analysis
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (34)
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