Histling-l Digest, Vol 68, Issue 2

[Lameen Souag]

In many modern Arabic varieties, final short vowels are preserved only
in personal pronouns.  For example, in Algerian Arabic (compared to
Classical):

'anta > nta "you m. sg."
'anti > nti "you f. sg."
huwa > huwwa "he"
hiya > hiyya "she"

vs.

kataba > ktəb "he wrote"
'ayna > win "where"
'amsi > yaməs "yesterday".

(Most final short vowels were case/mood markers, but in all three of
these examples they were invariant and obligatory in Classical
Arabic.)

I'm not aware of any work on this, but I assume it relates to
frequency and functional load.

Regards
Lameen Souag

> On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 12:34 AM, Nathan Hill <nathanwhill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Historical Linguists,
>
> In a paper about Tibetan I
>   am criticizing someone for proposing that
> the same segment became one thing
>   in nouns and another thing in verbs.
> My neogrammarian heart tells me that
>   sound changes are aware of
> phonetic environments only and not part of
>   speech categories. Such a
> thing is thus only possible if verbs are
>   phonetically different than
> nouns in a systematic way (which is of course
>   possible).
>
> Anyhow, a reviewer tells me that proto-Uto-Aztecan initial
>   *p becomes
> zero in Nahuatl nouns but is preserved in verbs and cites the
>   pair
> (.-tl "water" vs -p.ca "to
>   wash"). The reviewer does not cite a
> discussion of this and I am totally at
>   sea in the Uto-Aztecan
> literature. But, if this is an uncontroversial part
>   of Uto-Aztecan
> historical phonology surely it has given rise to the
>   same
> methodological concerns that I raise (sound change should
>   apply
> blindly).
>
> I would be very grateful for any discussion of this
>   or advice on
> treatments of this question in literature.
>
> with
>   gratitude,
> Nathan
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