La entonación en el árabe clásico: historia y aplicación

Abstract

Intonation is characterized by its shift and transformation since it is part of language development, intonation in Standard Arabic is no exception. The core objective of this work is to study intonation in Standard Arabic from two perspectives: history and application. That is, we aim to trace the historical development of intonation, and how it has changed over time. We also explore the authentic use of intonation in oral speech to locate intonation and its shift. In doing so, we set out with the aim of answering three vital questions that are pertinent to our study: Has intonation been studied phonetically in classical and modern standard Arabic? How has it been investigated and what sorts of methodologies used for studying intonation? And how could it be researched in a systematic way? In the first part of this study we tried to review classical and modern literature on the topic to figure out how much attention intonation received in Arabic phonetic and phonological studies, looking particularly into how it was categorized. In the second part, we shed light on sound segments (vowels and consonants) and suprasegmental features (stress, juncture, and syllabification) which have great importance in understanding and analyzing intonation and its gradual shift and/or development. Finally, in the third part of our study we attempted to apply some essential terms to the study of Arabic intonation such as (pitch, phonic group, pausing, etc.) for the purpose of delving into intonation structures and functions.