Evolución de la OCM vino y contexto jurídico

Traditional Arabic grammarians differentiated between two types of “hamza” word initially;

these are “hamzatul-qatʕi” ‘non-connecting hamza’ and “hamzatul-wasˤli”

‘connecting/elidable hamza’ henceforth, HQ and HW respectively). Hamza is a term used to differentiate between two types of the ‘alif’ letter, one is written “hamzated” (hence, having the orthographic symbol for hamza on the alif letter; that is HQ) and, followed by a vowel, whereas the other one is written without the hamza symbol and is indicated by a vowel; as in HW. In MSA, the difference is not only orthographic, but the behaviour of each lends a different utterance-initially or medially. Both types can be ascertained in some forms of verbs, as will be mentioned soon. However, the occurrence of HW in nouns is restricted to only a limited number of nouns (only ten which will be listed below). Let us for now give in to the idea that HW, similar to HQ, starts with a glottal stop (i.e. hamzated). The following table reveals the different behaviour of both types consistent with their position in an utterance.

We can note from the table that while HW lost its glottal stop, and consequently the following vowel, in phrase-medial positions, the glottal stop in HQ is retained in the same environment.

This comparison raises the question of what makes the glottal stop behave differently in almost identical environments and why the glottal stop performs in a different way from the rest of the consonants in the language. That is to say, why

/wa-ʔɪntɪʃɑːr/ loses its second-word-initial consonant: /wantɪʃɑːr/ while, for example, /wa-tahæniː/ ‘and Tahani’ does not: /watahæniː/.

As mentioned previously, a native speaker would easily utter the glottal stop differently in the two situations given that the UG would sound stronger than an EG.²⁷ This suggests that there is a phonetic difference. Considering the morphemes that are added to the verbs, the claim that can be made here is that the glottal stop in the HQ prefix is underlying: /ʔ-/ whilst it is not in the HW and constitutes only a vowel with the option of glottal stop insertion in careful

27 This was not taken as a proof or a claim for the difference between HW and HQ. It is only mentioned as a note. The claim would obviously benefit from an experiment to investigate the case.

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speech: /v-/ with the v being any short epenthetic vowel.

For nouns, a similar case can be noticed, where both HQ and HW behave in exactly the same way as those in the verbs. For the purpose of the current study, the ones that exist in nouns are named differently from those added to the verbs. Hence, HQ and HW that are attached to nouns will be called “hamzated” and “non-hamzated “alif” respectively. The reason for this will be discussed shortly. Thus, the examples below should be considered:

Table 2.14: Hamzated vs. Non-hamzated alif in MSA

non-hamzated alif hamzated alif

The main difference between the HQ and HW verbs and the hamzated and the non-hamzated alif nouns is a question of word formation. It is part of the root in nouns, while it is added at a later stage to word formation in the verbs.

The identity of both types is evident now since it is not only orthographic, as we saw from the difference in the phonological behaviour of both. In verbs, both HQ and HW are insertions that are attached to verbs to add extra meaning; hence, morphemes. While HQ is a glottal stop that is followed by an epenthetic vowel, HW, on the contrary, is a vowel that is inserted in to verbs with an optional glottal stop that is inserted to satisfy the universal preference against initial vowels. Traditional grammarians listed the cases where HW and HQ (for both nouns and verbs) occur in MSA. These are stated below:

- In ten nouns: /ɪbn/ ‘son’, /ɪbnah/ ‘daughter’, /ɪθnæn/ ‘two, M’, /ɪθnatæn/ ‘two, F.’, /ɪmrʊʔ/ ‘man’, /ɪmrʌʔʌ/ ‘woman’, /ʔɪsm/ ‘name’, /ɪst/ ‘anus’, /ɪbnɪm/

‘son’, /ʔaymʊn/ ‘swearing by’.

- The definite article /al/: /ʔalkɪtæb/ ‘the book’, / ʔalwalad/ ‘the boy’, /ʔalqʌlam/ ‘the pencil’.

- The imperative form I triliteral verbs: /ʔʊktʊb/ ‘write!’, /ʔɪqrʌʔ/ ‘read!’, /ʔɪmʃiː/ ‘walk!’ ,from /katab/, /qʌrʌʔ/ and /maʃa/.

- Form VII triliteral verbs: /ɪmtaħan/ ‘to examine’, /ɪnbasʌtˤ/ ‘to be spread out’, /ɪrtafaʕ/ ‘to rise’, /ɪltafat/ ‘to turn round’.

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- The imperative form VII triliteral verbs: /ɪmtaħɪn/!, /ɪnbʌsɪtˤ/!, [ɪrtafɪʕ/!, /ɪltafɪt/!

- The infinitive of VII triliteral verbs: /ɪmtiːħæn/, /ɪnbiːsɑːtˤ/, /ɪrtiːfæʕ/, /ɪltiːfæt/.

- The past form of the triliteral verbs: /ɪstafham/ ‘sought explanation’, /ɪstaktab/

‘sought writing’, /ɪstarʃad/ ‘sought guidance’.

- The imperative form of X triliteral verb: /ɪstafhɪm/!, /ɪstaktɪb/!, /ɪstarʃɪd/!.

- The infinitive form X triliteral verb: /ɪstɪfhæm/, /ɪstektæb/, /ɪstɪrʃæd/.

The positions where HQ occurs are listed below:

- Nouns pronouns and adjectives other than the ten nouns listed above: /ʔamal/

‘hope’, /ʔɪslæm/ ‘Islam’ and /ʔamiːn/ ‘honest’, /ʔant/ ‘you’, /ʔana/ ‘I’.

- Form I triliteral verbs: /ʔakal/ 'ate, M. SG.’, /ʔalɪf/ ‘familiarised, M. SG.’, /ʔamar/ ‘ordered’.

- The infinitive form of I triliteral verbs: /ʔakl/ ‘eating’, /ʔʊlf/ ‘familiarity’, /ʔʌmr/ ‘order’.

- The past form of IV triliteral verbs: /ʔantaʒ/ ‘produced, M. SG.’, /ʔarʃad/

‘guided, M. SG.’, /ʔʌqnaʕ/ ‘convinced, M. SG.’.

- The imperative form of IV triliteral verbs: /ʔantɪʒ/ ‘produce!’, /ʔarʃɪd/

‘guide!’, /ʔaqnɪʕ/ ‘convince!’.

- The infinitive of form IV triliteral verb: /ʔɪntæʒ/, ‘producing’, /ʔɪrʃæd/ ‘guiding’, /ʔɪnnæʕ/ ‘convincing’.

- The present tense form of I triliteral verb: /ʔarkab/ ‘I ride’, /ʔalʕab/ ‘I play’, /ʔadxʊl/ ‘I enter’.

Although in the first list (regarding HW) the glottal stop is not indicated, in normal

production, some kind of glottalisation can be heard. A careful native speaker’s ear can tell the difference between that in /ʔʊmm/ ‘mother’ and that in /ʊktʊk/ ‘write!’ which are

different. Therefore, they would state that it is weaker and less obvious in the second than in the first. Moreover it might be claimed that it is a /h/ sound rather than being a glottal stop.

Such a difference between a phonemic glottal stop and a grammatical epenthetic one is also noticed in other languages. Recent phonetic analysis of non-underlying glottal stop supports this native intuition revealing a similar case for the optional epenthetic glottal stop in

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initial syllables in English, (Bissiri et al, 2011), in Dutch (Jongenburger and Heuven, 1991), German and Polish (Malisz et al, 2012) and many others.

Another reason for the confusion between both types in Arabic came from the fact that

nowadays, the glottal stop in HQ is lost most of the time in most Arabic dialects in non-initial positions. Thus, the examples of medial HQ in Table 2.13 above would be pronounced

without the glottal stop: /wʌrɪðˤ/, /wʊnʃʊr/, /wʊʃkʊr/, /wankaħ/ for the MSA phrases: /wʌ + ʔʌrðˤ/, /wʌ + ʔanʃʊr/, /wʌ + ʔaʃkʊr/, /wʌ + ʔankɪħ/, respectively.

The difference between HW and HQ is both phonological and phonetic. The basic argument, for the existence of vowel-initial syllables in ALA in this and the next chapter, is that while HW is a vowel that might surface with an optional epenthetic consonant in careful speech, HQ is a consonant that must always be attached to the onset position of an epenthetic vowel.

More precisely, HW can be one of the short vowels: /a/, /ɪ/ or /ʊ/ (depending on the vowel in the stem; ‘vowel harmony’) that might be preceded by some kind of gesture (probably a weak form of glottal stop /ʔ/ or even a /h/ sound) in careful or intensified speech at the beginning of speech. HQ, in contrast, is a glottal stop ‘ʔ’ that must always be followed by one of the vowels /a/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/, /æ/, /iː/, /eː/ or /uː/. Additionally, the glottal stop that might be noticed in the pronunciation of HW speech-initially never exists in the middle of speech in MSA, whilst HQ never loses its glottal stop in normal speech.

As mentioned before, although a native ear would hear the difference between initial glottal stop and initial “glottalised” vowel, a phonological confirmation needs the support of acoustic analysis to set the difference for the dialect because, as can be concluded from the previous discussion, the behaviour of the underlying glottal stop and the epenthetic one is less problematic in Standard Arabic than in Arabic dialects.

To sum up, from the behaviour of both HQ and HW, we can now say that whilst the glottal stop in HQ is underlying, it is epenthetic in HW. Similar too many languages such as English, vowel initial syllables that might exist have some sort of optional glottalisation (Bissiri et al., ibid). Although such glottalisation might not be of complete closure, its existence is proven not to be controversial in an acoustic analysis. However, in such a language as English, where the glottal stop is not a phoneme, vowel initial syllables word-initially are not problematic, being described as onsetless. In contrast, in Arabic, such an issue is challenging with the absence of awareness of the underlying versus epenthetic glottals word-initially.

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We have discussed the glottal stop in one position only; that is word-initially. In the subsequent section we will be discussing the loss of glottal stop in different positions in current Arabic dialects, by illustrating data from ALA.