La notion de syllabe et la théorie cinético-impulsionnelle des phonéticiens Arabes

Abstract EN

The syllable, as viewed by the ancient Greek, was known by the Arabs through translations of ancient studies.

But much prior to this contact between Greek and Arab thought, a conception of speech dynamics already existed ; it was thoroughly original, and based on the conccpts of « harf » and « haraka ».

Harf is the minimal segment of the speech continuum.

A1 Halil (8 th century) ascerta:ns that it has two qualities : sound colour (gars) and strength of motion (sarf).

The latter word is explained by the word « haraka ».

According to many authors, that is the acoustico-physiological motion which is required both for sequentially producing harf and for gliding to the following articulation.

Confirmation is given by rythm conceived by Arab musicologs and metricists.

They have retained « sabab » as the smallest articular molecule ; however sabab bears the meaning of « long syllable ».

In fact, a normally uttured speech sequence does not contain syllabic divisions, as is shown by instrumental observation, and the only item which may be presented as a syllable is the speech sequence whi,ch can actually be isolated, that is to say that which may be limited between two « sukun-s » (opposite to « haraka »).

The author brings forward the idea of translating « haraka » by « kinem », the state of a speech segment endowed with haraka, by « kinesis », and its opposite by « akinesis » The concepts expressed by the words « kineised » and « ak ne^ed » seem to him more adequate than the Saussurian concepts : « explosive » and « implosive ».