Main research questions:
Main research questions:
Main research questions:
This paper investigates the morpheme-specific phonological behavior of the Moroccan Arabic definite article [l-] and its variable assimilation process with nouns that begin with the palatal fricative [ʒ]. By analyzing of a corpus of these nouns, I identify one major factor that influences this variability: the context following [ʒ].
The results of a nonce word experiment I conducted show that speakers follow the lexical tendencies when generalizing to [ʒ]-initial nonce words,which does not align with the assumptions proposed in the literature (Harrell, 1962; Heath, 1987, 1989; Freeman, 2016).
I show that a learnability approach that uses Maximum Entropy Grammar (Goldwater and Johnson, 2003) with Lexically-indexed Constraints (Pater, 2000, 2009) successfully accounts for both the categorical behavior of known [ʒ]-initial words as well as the variability predicted for nonce words.
In this paper, I investigate the variable patterns of regressive sibilant harmony in Moroccan Arabic, focusing on the influence of distance between harmonizing segments. Specifically, the palatal fricative [ʒ] triggers harmony in the alveolar fricatives [s] and [z], transforming them into [ʃ] and [ʒ], respectively. Through experimental analysis, I identify one major factor that affects the likelihood of harmonization: the number of intervening segments between the sibilants.
The results of an experimental study I conducted demonstrate that harmony occurs more likely when there is only one intervening segment between the harmonizing fricatives, with harmonization occurring 52% of the time, compared to 26% when there are two or more intervening segments. However, factors like the voicing of the target sound and morphological complexity had minimal impact on harmony rates.
I propose an analysis using Maximum Entropy Grammar (Goldwater and Johnson, 2003) alongside Agreement-by-Correspondence (Rose and Walker, 2000, 2004), which successfully accounts for both the observed variation and distance effect, respectively. Additionally, lexically-indexed constraints (Pater, 2000, 2009) help capture the exceptional behavior of certain lexical items.
In this project, I developed an interactive Shiny application, MaxEnt with Hidden Structure in R, designed to assist linguists in generating phonological grammars (weights) using a Maximum Entropy model. The app was built based on the existing HGR model developed by Staubs (2014). HGR finds solutions for learning problems (with or without hidden structure), generate distributions over forms, and performs online learning simulations.
In addition to creating the shiny app interface for the HGR model, I added two main features:
The source code is available on Github.
The previous accounts of broken plural formation are successful in accounting for some broken plural patterns in Classical Arabic, but I show that they are insufficient to account for broken plural formation in Moroccan Arabic. I show that a Stratal OT (Kiparsky, 2000; Bermúdez-Otero, 2003; Rubach, 2003; among others) analysis of this phenomenon is needed as an alternative account. I adopt the representational assumptions made by Al Ghadi (1990) regarding the syllable template of Moroccan Arabic. The analysis proposed assumes that there are two main levels to broken plural formation: the stem level and the word level. At the stem level, the infixation of the broken plural morpheme takes place, while syllabification and epenthesis occur at the word level. The analysis I propose accounts for the major broken plural patterns in Moroccan Arabic, i.e. CCVC, CCVCa, and CCVCeC.
The thesis is available here.