The Phonemic Status of Affricates in Qassimi Arabic

Abstract

This study investigates the phonological status of alveolar affricates in Qassimi Arabic (QA), a variety of Najdi Arabic spoken in central Saudi Arabia. Descriptions of Najdi Arabic typically treat the alveolar affricates [t͡s] and [d͡z] as predictable allophones of the velar stops /k/ and /ɡ/, derived through an affrication process conditioned primarily by front vowels. However, earlier accounts also acknowledge numerous exceptions involving vowel adjacency, consonant clusters, gemination, and lexical origin, raising questions about the productivity and coherence of this proposed rule. Drawing on a dataset of 282 distinct word types collected through wordlist elicitation, natural narration, and silent-film narration from eight native QA speakers, this study re-evaluates the distribution of velar stops and alveolar affricates across a wide range of phonological environments. The analysis examines adjacency to front and non-high vowels, consonant cluster contexts, gemination, and syllable structure, and applies commutation tests to assess phonemic contrast. The results show that alveolar affricates and velar stops occur in overlapping and contrastive environments, including identical phonological contexts where no conditioning rule can predict affrication. Minimal and near-minimal pairs demonstrate direct contrast between /k/ and /t͡s/, as well as between /ɡ/ and /d͡z/, providing clear evidence against an allophonic analysis. Furthermore, affricates are attested in geminate environments and across different syllable structures, indicating that neither gemination nor syllable structure systematically blocks affrication in QA. These findings support analyzing [t͡s] and [d͡z] as independent phonemes in the consonantal inventory of Qassimi Arabic. More broadly, the study underscores the importance of dialect-specific evidence in Arabic phonology and cautions against assuming Classical or Old Arabic segmental inventories as default underlying representations for modern varieties.