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In:Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXV: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Washington, D.C., 2022
Edited by Ahmad Al-Qassas
[Studies in Arabic Linguistics 14] 2025
► pp. 29–54

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Chapter 2
Two cases of dissimilation in Palestinian Arabic and their theoretical implications

 | Indiana University
 | Indiana University
Published online: 3 March 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sal.14.02dav
Abstract
In-depth analyses of specific cases of consonantal dissimilation are rare in the literature on Arabic phonology. This chapter examines two instances of consonantal dissimilation that occur in two different Palestinian varieties: the depharyngealization of emphatic fricatives when occurring before back velars in a rural variety and the dissimilation of a prefixal glottal stop to [h] when it precedes a root glottal stop in an urban variety. Our examination focuses on the detailed descriptive patterns and offers an analysis referencing feature geometry and rule ordering. Theoretical implications concern the general nature of dissimilation (Bennett 2013; Payne 2017) and the role of abstract features in Arabic dialectal phonology especially regarding the historic uvular *q that can merge with [k] in rural Palestinian and with [ʔ] in urban Palestinian Arabic while still having a phonology that is distinct from the sounds with which they merge.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The depharyngealization of emphatic fricatives in PA-TA
    • The context of depharyngealization: Data and feature representation
    • Analysis of depharyngealization
    • Various issues and implications
  • 3.Glottal stop dissimilation in Northern Urban Palestinian Arabic (NUPA)
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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