Lengthening and deletion

Hi everyone!

In the last few posts we have looked at various aspects of Syrian phonology (its sound system, its stress system) and how these aspects correspond to fuS7a. Before moving on to various other bits of grammar, we need to briefly consider how sounds interact with grammar more broadly (morphophonology). Specifically, I’m going to talk about two very commonly applied rules that you will encounter all the time when dealing with suffixes: lengthening of final vowels and deletion of almost-final vowels.

Lengthening

The first rule should be relatively familiar to you. When a suffix beginning with a consonant is attached to a word ending in a final vowel, that vowel is lengthened. This also triggers a stress shift in line with the usual rules:

اشتري shtiri buy [something]	BUT	اشتريها shtirii-ha buy it
خلايا khalaaya cells	BUT	خليانا khalayaa-na our cells
نسيو nisyu they forgot	BUT	نسيوهن nisyuu-hon they forgot them

 

The suffix ـه ‘him’/’his’ causes this same lengthening and stress shift. Although it is written with an -h, however, this suffix is not usually pronounced with a consonant at all. The only sign that it is present is the stress and length shift:

اشتري shtiri buy [something]

BUT

اشتريه shtirii buy it

 

The most common pronunciations of fuS7a have this feature. Even if you have been taught that final ـي ـو ـا are ‘long’ (they are usually transliterated –ī -ū -ā, for example), you will probably already be pronouncing them shorter than their stressed counterparts. There is a long debate over exactly how to analyse this process, which happens in almost all dialects, but for our purposes ‘lengthening’ seems as good an explanation as any.

Vowel deletion

When a suffix beginning with a vowel is added, an unstressed e or o in the preceding syllable will be deleted:

كاتب kaateb writer (m.)	BUT	كاتبة kaatb-e writer (f.)
بتدرب bitdarreb you (m.) train	BUT	بتدربي bitdarrb-i you (f.) train

In some cases the e or o is already preceded by a consonant cluster. In these cases, deletion still occurs, but a helping vowel often has to be inserted to break up the new cluster:

بتكتب btiktob you (m.) write	BUT	بتكتبي btikitb-i you (f.) write
مبجبج mbajbej bleary (m.)	BUT	مبجبجة mbajibj-e bleary (f.)

Note that this process does not apply to fuS7a nouns and adjectives. Consider this ‘inherited’ and ‘borrowed’ pair:

مختلفة mikhtilf-e different (f.)	BUT	مختلفة mukhtalif-e different (f.)
متغيرة mitghayyr-a has changed (f.)	BUT	متغيرة mutaghayyir-a variable (f.)

Nor does it apply when it would result in a string of three identical consonants:

قرر qarrer decide (m.)!

BUT

قرري qarrir-i decide (f.)!

 

That’s all for now. If you want to keep up with this and other translation/Arabic-related content, follow me on Twitter at Chris Hitchcock (@chm3na).