On Interdental Fricatives in the First-Layer Dialects of Maghrebi Arabic

Jairo Guerrero (1)

1 IREMAM - Institut de Recherches et d'Etudes sur les Mondes Arabes et Musulmans

The present paper aims at revisiting the question of fricative interdentals in the so-called pre-Hilali Arabic dialects, that is the descendants of the first stage of Arabicization in North Africa. It attempts to challenge, from a diachronic and comparative approach, the view that the absence of interdental fricatives-and their merger with dental stops-is a hallmark of pre-Hilali Arabic. On the basis of neglected data, we will provide evidence suggesting that interdental phonemes occur or did occur in some of the Arabic dialects which resulted from the early Muslim conquest of North Africa.

Mots clés: Phonetics; interdental fricatives; pre-Hilali dialects; Maghrebi Arabic; diachrony

Domaines: Linguistique

Jairo Guerrero. On Interdental Fricatives in the First-Layer Dialects of Maghrebi Arabic. Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, 2021, 13 (288-308). ⟨hal-03465827⟩