Abstract
The aim of this paper is to shed light on the phenomenon of monophthongization, whereby a diphthong is changed into a long monophthong. As established by Yoda (2005), Gaber (2012), Elramli (2013), and Hwaidi (2016) in Libyan Arabic, especially in the varieties spoken in the western part of Libya, the diphthongs /aw/ and /aj/ surface as [oo] and [ee] respectively. The former monophthong is a combination of/a/ and J/ while the latter is an amalgam of/a/ and /w/. The constraint COMBINE {A, I} guarantees that /aj/ is realized as /ee/. By the same token, COMBINE {A, U} guarantees that /aw/ surfaces as /oo/. Given the fact that COMBINE {A, I} and COMBINE {A, U} have analogous tasks, and taking linguistic parsimony into consideration, we can unify these two constraints, ending up with the constraint COMBINE {FEATURE}. The same is true of the constraints MAX-(A} and MAX-(U}, which can be merged to yield MAX-FEATURE.
It will be shown that the constraint responsible for the alternation is the markedness constraint NO-DIPH. This constraint, however, is at work only when the diphthong is in a non-final position. By contrast, when the diphthong is word-final no monophthongization takes place.
The analyses in this paper will be cast within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993/2004). The relevant OT constraints will be introduced and the ranking of these confiicting constraints will be accounted for.
YousefMokhtar Elramli. (2019) An Optimality Theoretic Analysis of Monophtongization in Libyan Arabic, KASHMIR JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE RESEARCH (KJLR) , Volume 21 , Issue 1.
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