Melodic complexity : evidence from Arabic

Abstract EN

In this paper, a new lenition trajectory and a new element are added to the Element Theory by John Harris 1990 to support its role in the phonological government.

The new trajectory ’Deemphasisation’ proposed by the researcher is used to throw some light upon the internal structure of four emphatic consonant sounds /ŧ/,/dˁ/,/ɚ ˁ/and/ȿ/ to be lenited into /t/,/d/,/ ɚ/and/s/ and the element ’E’ is for the phonological representation of the mentioned sounds.

Since both, the emphasized and deemphasized couple of the four Arabic consonant phonemes, are of the same place of articulation, manner of articulation and the same state of vocal cords, deemphasisation is considered a new phenomenon which is proposed as a new trajectory different from ’debuccalisation’, ’spirantisation’ and ’vocalisation’ by John Harris and ’E’ is a new element different from labial U, palatal I, none V, coronal R, occluded ?, noise h, nasal N, stiff vocal cords H and slack vocal cords L proposed by Kaye , lowenstamm and Vergnaud (1985).