Journal Article

The Use of the Second Person Feminine Singular Suffix in Qasimi Dialect

Al Azraqi, Munira Ali, Alharbi, Amal Abdullah

2023

Overview

Affrication is a phonological process that is commonly found in many Arabic dialects, especially in Gulf dialects, including most Saudi dialects. This study investigated how female Qasimi speakers vary in using the affricate [ts] as a realization of/k/, the second-person singular feminine suffix, in their formal and informal styles. There are two different assumptions mentioned in previous studies about the use of this suffix in this dialect, but separately in different styles of speech. Thus, this study collected data in both formal and informal styles by the same speakers. The participants in the current study were 20 women from Al-Qasim. The data were collected through observations, taking notes, and WhatsApp voice notes, and analyzed quantitively using Microsoft Excel (2022). The results showed that female Qasimi speakers used [ts] and [k] differently when speaking formally and informally. The local variant [ts] was used 64.03% of the time when the participants spoke informally, while it was used 35.97% of the time when they spoke formally. At least two exceptions were found: some participants maintained the local variant [ts] in both their formal and informal speech, and some speakers used the supralocal variant [k] 100% of the time.

• Publisher: جامعة الإمام عبدالرحمن بن فيصل
• Subject: التحليل الصوتي / الضمير المخاطب / اللهجات العربية / منطقة القصيم