STATIC AND DYNAMIC CUES IN VOWEL PRODUCTION IN HIJAZI ARABIC

Résumé En

Static cues such as formant measurements obtained at vowel midpoint are regularly taken as the main correlates for the identification of monophthong vowels. However, dynamic cues have been shown to yield better separation of vowels in some languages. This study aims to evaluate the role of static vs dynamic cues in Hijazi Arabic (HA) vowel classification, with vowel duration and F3 as additional cues. Data from 12 male HA speakers producing eight HA vowels in /hVd/ syllables were obtained and evaluated using discriminant analysis. Results show that dynamic cues, particularly the three-point model, had higher classification rates (+98%) than the remaining models. Vowel duration had a significant role in classification accuracy (+11%). Our results are in line with dynamic approaches to vowel classification but also highlight the relative importance of cues across languages; here, the primacy of vowel duration was stark, potentially reflecting the role of length in Arabic phonology.