Acoustic Factors In Forming Arabic Structure

Abstract

This paper is a study of the sound factors, which control the mechanism of sound changes, affecting Arabic sounds, when they hold adjacent positions, in certain morphological structural formations. It becomes clear to us, through linguistic patterns and examples in this paper, which are more influential than other adjacent sounds, that those sounds are characterized by certain features which make them dominant in the process of structural formation, most important among them are features of sibilant, velarization, voicedness, plosion, nasalization, being rolled, length of place of articulation, and the vowel characteristics called, in Arabic, (madd and liin). Moreover, it becomes evident that the position of a sound in the linguistics formation, and also the position of the sound in the vocal apparatus, are important factors influencing and being influenced as well as the process of sound production in morphological formations. It is not worthy to mention here that ancient scholars of Arabic, headed by Sibawayh , have noticed and given short comments on some of the above – mentioned factors, but their notes haven’t reached the level of theoretical formulation which we hope this paper will do .