The Three Rhotic Phonemes in Tyare Neo-Aramaic

Hezy Mutzafi*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Whereas many North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (nena) dialects exhibit two rhotic (R-) phonemes, mostly an alveolar /r/ as opposed to an emphatic alveolar /r/, a striking feature related to rhotic differentiation, hitherto attested only in the Christian nena dialect of Baritle, is a threefold distinction of retroflex, alveolar and emphatic alveolar R-phonemes. This article demonstrates that such a distinction exists also in the Christian nena dialect-cluster of Tyare, discusses the nature and distribution of each of the three R-phonemes in Tyare, and suggests a diachronic account of the threefold split of r in this dialect-cluster.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)168-184
Number of pages17
JournalAramaic Studies
Volume12
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2014

Funding

FundersFunder number
Israel Science Foundation339/11

    Keywords

    • Akkadian substrate words
    • North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (nena)
    • Tyare Neo-Aramaic
    • classicisms
    • inherited nena lexicon
    • retroflex rhotic phoneme
    • rhotic phoneme

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