Modern Arabic Scholars on Stress

Gerasimova Arina Andreevna Post-Graduate Student of the Arabic Philology Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University 125009, Russia, Moscow, Mokhovaya str., 11 p. 1, of. p. 1 gerasimovaaa01@my.msu.ru

Introduction

This article examines the works of modern Arabic linguists, in each of which the description of stress occupies at least one separate chapter. In parallel, the terms used are explained and explanations of the phenomena given in the works of Arabic linguists are given. Modern authors rely on the works of Western (European) Arabists and phonetists. Some of them are covered in more detail, which allows the reader to get a general idea of the direction and scope of the research.

Ibrahim Anis

One of the first major works of the modern phonetic school of Arabic dates back to the middle of the last century and is associated with the name of the Egyptian professor Ibrahim Anis.

In his work "'Al-'a?w?t 'al-lu?awiyya""Sounds of language" (1958) the author devotes to stress one of the chapters of the fifth section "Suprasegmental phoneme" (Arabic. 'Al-f?nim fawqa 'at-tarkib) along with phonological duration, syllable, and intonation. The term "stress" has an Arabic counterpart an-nabr and means 'stress, accent'.

We present the translation of the most important fragments of this work into Russian for our research (our comments and translation).

Ibrahim Anis begins the chapter with the definition of stress:

"Stress is the synchronous activity of all articulating organs. When pronouncing a stressed syllable, we notice that all the organs of speech are active to the limit; that is, the muscles of the lungs are active, the movements of the vocal cords are intensified, they approach each other to minimize the volume of air passing through them, which increases the amplitude of vibrations. As a result, the voice becomes high and clear. This is how sonorous sounds are articulated, and as for the deaf, the vocal cords during their articulation move away from each other by a greater distance. Thus, when articulating deaf consonants, more air passes through the ligaments.

When pronouncing a percussive sound, the activity of other speech organs, such as the palate, tongue and lips, is also noted. However, during the articulation of an unstressed sound, relaxation of the speech organs is noted. The distance between the vocal cords increases slightly when pronouncing sonorous, thereby reducing the air pressure during its passage, and reducing the amplitude of vibrations. Note that this distance during the articulation of the deaf cannot be increased enough to allow more air to pass. The rest of the speech organs relax, the palatal curtain does not close the nasal passage tightly, as it happens during the articulation of sonorous sounds. Note also that the position of the tongue becomes less defined and tense, the activity of lip movement weakens. This relaxation of the muscles of the articulatory organs leads to a decrease in the clarity of sound by ear. The sound becomes less intense, it becomes difficult to distinguish it against the background of other sounds ... in contrast to the percussive sound, which is clearly distinguishable against the background of others.

When a speaker says something in his native language, he tends to amplify a certain fragment of the word, highlighting it and making it clearer to the ear than other fragments. This reinforcement is what we call stress" ^{[4, pp. 169-170]}.

In the last two paragraphs, Ibrahim Anis simultaneously with the definition of articulatory-acoustic properties of stress, to use more modern terminology, describes its culminative (vertex-forming) function ^{[2, p. 213]}. In other words, a clearer pronunciation of the percussion element implies a qualitative and/or quantitative reduction of the unstressed environment. Creating vertices in a word allows the interlocutor to determine how many phonetic words are spoken in a phrase.

It should be noted that Ibrahim Anis made similar very detailed conclusions about the nature of Arabic stress based on materials about stress in other languages and his own feelings, since neither he nor other scientists conducted experimental studies of Arabic stress at that time.

Continuing the discussion about the nature of stress, he says:

"Languages usually differ in the place of stress in a word. There are those who obey the special laws of the position of stress in words, like Arabic and French, and there are those who barely obey the rules of stress, such as English. In French, the last segment of a word is usually highlighted. Pronunciation in a language will not be correct if you do not follow the rules of accentuation in it.

When a Frenchman makes a speech in English, he focuses on the last segment of the word under the influence of his language habits. His pronunciation cuts the ear of a native English speaker, which can lead to a violation of understanding. This is because in some English words the place of stress differs. For example, if we consider the functioning of the English words torment ‘torment / torment’ and augment ‘addition / add’, then it is possible to distinguish a verb from a name only by the place of stress.

We do not have a sign that would indicate the position of stress in the Arabic word, from the manuscripts of the first decades of the Islamic period to the present, since none of the ancient authors touched on this issue" ^{[4, pp. 170-171]}.

To this we can add the fact that in the Qur'an and in the poetry of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period, stress was completely replaced by the concept of prosody. It is now impossible to trace the presence of stress in the pronunciation of native speakers of that time, but it would be very interesting to trace the influence of the modern spoken language on the recitation of ‘arud by native Arabic speakers today.

"As for how stress is used by readers in Egypt today, there are rules that everyone obeys and from which there are almost no exceptions. You can generalize these rules by saying that this is the ability to put stress in an Arabic word. First, we consider the last segment of the word, and if it is of the fourth or fifth type, then it is an important segment that takes on stress, and as mentioned above, this is possible only in the case of a pause" ^{[4, p. 171]}.

The description of the types of final syllables that are mentioned in this work is given in Tab. 1. These are Cv, Cvv (=CV), CvC, CvvC (=CVC), CvCC, where C is the consonant component of the mora, v is the vowel component of the mora, vv or V is the geminate of the vowel formed by the merger of the vowel component of the first mora and the vowel component of the second mora in the absence of the second mora consonant component.

Table 1. Types of final syllables according to ^[4]

"The stress in the Arabic word is placed on the last syllable only in the pausal form^[1], and when the last syllable belongs to the fourth – CVC – or fifth – CvCC –type (see Table 1). For example:

Consonant component of mora (resting harf) + long vowel sound (vowel geminate) + consonant component of mora (resting harf);

or

the consonant component of mora (resting harf) + a short vowel component of mora + two consonant components of mora (resting harf) without the presence of a vowel component of mora with them" ^{[4, p. 171]}.

We have intentionally preserved in the translation of the paragraph the concept of the syllable – Arabic. maq?'atun. The word "mora" itself is also found in the works of Arabic linguists, although much later – already in the studies of 2019. Arabic linguists use the transliteration ‘njuj of a concept taken from the European tradition – m?r?, in particular, in the work of Professor Dr. Muhammad Javwad al-Nuri (2019). Here is a translation of an excerpt from the chapter "Classification of syllables", where the concept of "pestilence" is used:

"We can classify the various types of syllables mentioned above, dividing them into groups according to some grounds and criteria that linguists usually use.

These grounds and criteria are as follows: there is a strong syllable and there is a weak syllable. The classification of syllables into strong and weak depends on the type of syllable carrier formed. A syllable is considered weak if the syllable carrier is realized in the form of a short haraka (short vowel sound), followed by no more than one short pause, for example, three syllables in the following structure: "you have studied: da + ras + tum". The time required to pronounce such a passage – [each] syllable is called "mora" ^{[5, p. 240]} (our translation).

"As for the strong syllable, it means a syllable that is pronounced longer than the mora, and the syllable carrier is realized in one of the following forms:

1. A long haraka (a long vowel sound), followed by an ending (syllable – consonant component), or not followed, for example, by m?l ‘money’, the particle m? ‘what'.

2. A short haraka (short vowel sound), followed by two or more consonant sounds without vowel components, for example, bint ‘girl’ (in Arabic), sixes ‘sixth’ (in English).

3. A short haraka (short vowel sound), followed by at least a long ending [that is, a long ending of a syllable due to a doubled consonant component; in this case, we are talking about the geminate of a consonant sound], for example: ?add ‘tension’ (in Arabic). This means a long consonant sound, a doubled or amplified consonant sound. Here is another example where a short vowel is realized longer than in the previous word, but stands before a short consonant sound, meaning one consonant component, not doubled: ?a' 'put'" ^{[5, p. 240]}.

Later in the text, Muhammad al-Nuri uses precisely the concept of "syllable", using the concept of "mora" as a measure of the duration of pronouncing a short syllable. Here we can conclude that the modern Arabic phonetic school uses the concept of a syllable that does not run counter to the traditional Arabic grammatical theory, since it describes the phenomena of the phonetic level, where up to three harfs can fit into one syllable. It should also be noted that in the question of the correlation of syllable and mora, Muhammad an-Nuri's reasoning also does not contradict the provisions expressed by N.S. Trubetskoy [1960: 205].

Let's return to the presentation of the judgments of Ibrahim Anis:

"In the pausal form of the word 'na'budu'we worship' in the phrase 'iyya-ka na'budu wa- 'iyya-ka nasta'un 'You alone we worship and You alone we pray for help' [Quran 2007, 1:5];’or in 'al-mustaqarru ‘the return’ in the phrase 'ilaa rabbi-ka yawma'zin 'al-mustaqarru ‘On that day the return will be to your Lord' [Quran 2007, 75:12] we see that the stress falls on the syllables "'" and "qarr" ^{[4, p. 171]}.

It is worth noting that here Ibrahim Anis mixes the concept of harf and syllable, since in the original we see the word maq?a'atun, which corresponds to the second syllable "qarr", but the first syllable is designated by the name of harf "'ayn", which in the Quranic text goes without a vowel component, respectively, without a syllable carrier. One could assume that even the consonant component of harf "'ayn" is perceived by native speakers as a syllable carrier (like Slavic sonorous consonants), however, in the last example of Muhammad an-Nuri we see his classification of the consonant component of harf "'ayn" as a closing syllable consonant sound.

"And if a word does not have such an ending as in these two types of syllables, the stress is placed on the penultimate syllable, provided that this syllable does not belong to the first type or is not preceding the syllable of the first type" ^{[4, p. 171]}.

Recall that here we are talking about a syllable of the CVV type (see Table 1). In Arabic, the open syllable at the end of the word – mora CV – is realized with the reduction of a short vowel, shortening to the consonant component C. At the same time, in verbs, especially in the past tense, most often even the final vowel component of mora is realized as a short vowel sound. Therefore, in order to understand this phenomenon, it is possible to approximate the structure of a syllable of the first type to an open syllable.

"The stress position in the vast majority of Arabic words is on the penultimate syllable, for example: 'istafh A ma 'to request', or yun A d? 'he calls', or 'q?t A la' 'to fight', or yakt U bu 'he writes'. In the last two examples, despite the fact that the penultimate syllable belongs to the first type, it is not preceded by a similar syllable of the first type" ^{[4, p. 172]} (see types of syllables in Table 1).

As for the past tense verb of the three harfs, like kataba 'to write', fara?a 'to rejoice', ?a'uba 'to be heavy', the stress in them is placed on the third syllable from the end of the word, that is, on "ka", "fa", "?a". And also in words like 'i?tima‘ ‘assembly’, 'inkisar‘breakdown’ or according to the model of masdar (verbal noun) la‘ bun ’game‘, fara?un ’joy', or nouns; ‘inabun ‘grapes’, bala?un ‘dates' we find the stress on the third syllable from the end.

There is also a fourth position of the Arabic accent, although it is quite rare. To define it, you need to find three syllables that precede the last syllable of the first type in the word, for example: bala?a(tun) ‘date’, ‘araba(tun) ‘wagon’, ?araka(tun) ‘movement'. In this case, the stress falls on the fourth syllable from the end of the word, that is, on "ba", "'a", "?a".

Arabic stress has four positions, of which the most common and frequent is on the penultimate syllable. These provisions can be summarized in the algorithm as follows:

to find out the position of stress in an Arabic word, first you need to consider the last syllable. If it belongs to the fourth or fifth types, then the emphasis should be placed on it. And if the penultimate syllable belongs to the second or third type, then we consider it stressed. If the syllable turns out to be of the first type, then you need to look at the previous syllable, and if it is similar to it, that is, of the first type, then the stress is placed on this third syllable from the end. The stress cannot stand on the fourth syllable from the end, except in one case when all three syllables before the last belong to the first type.

These are the provisions of the Arabic accent, which are followed by skilful readers of the Koran in Cairo.

As for the position of stress in other modern dialects, they obey other rules that it makes no sense to mention here. For example, we note that the inhabitants of Upper Egypt sometimes differ from the Cairians in the emphasis. Even when reading the holy Quran, they tend to stress the third syllable from the end, when the penultimate syllable belongs to the first type. The difference between them and the Cairians is evident, for example, in rabba-n? 'our Lord' and 'amala-hum' their deeds', since we see that the Cairians and most of the inhabitants of lower Egypt emphasize the penultimate syllable "ba" in the first word and "a" in the second. And as for the inhabitants of upper Egypt, they emphasize the syllable "rab" in the first word and the syllable "ma" in the second.

For greater clarity, we note that a resident of upper Egypt, when a word does not end with a syllable of the fourth or fifth type, and at the same time its penultimate syllable is of the first type, immediately puts the stress on the third syllable from the end, not paying attention to anything else.

And as for the Cairians and the like, they carry the stress only when two syllables (the penultimate and preceding it) belong to the first type. A resident of upper Egypt will hardly refuse to stress the third syllable from the end, but the Cairian in the example of bala?a(tun) 'date' will put the stress, counting from the end of the word, until he reaches the fourth syllable "ba".

Do not think that such a process is involved during speech. This is just one of the language patterns that has become common and thus has become a precedent. Fortunately, the meanings of Arabic words and their word forms do not differ in stress" ^{[4, pp. 172-174]}.

After the above arguments about stress in the classical version of the Arabic language, it can be added that in dialects there is an additional reduction of the vowel components of the mor. Speaking about dialects, A.G. Belova notes that "the restructuring of the syllabic structure of the word is aimed at avoiding the formation of a short open unstressed syllable as much as possible and creating closed syllables if the first rule contradicts the prohibition on consonant clusters in the initials and finals of the word" ^{[1, pp. 46-47]}. Nevertheless, we find this material applicable to our research, since, despite the influence of dialects on the generation of speech in the classical version of the Arabic literary language, our informants read the text in a pure literary language, observing the norms of this particular version of the language.

Next, Ibrahim Anis proceeds to describe the stress in the sentence, which in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary is called phrasal or logical stress. This section is less applicable to our study, so we will immediately move on to another part of the section on suprasegmental units – "Stress transfer".

"The implementation of the word form is based on linguistic norms, which may require the transfer of stress from its current position to the preceding or subsequent syllables in this word.

Inflection, as well as word formation, can lead to a change in the position of stress. The past tense verb kataba 'to write' is characterized by the stress on the syllable "ka". If we form from it the present tense form yaktubu 'he writes', then we will notice that the stress has moved one syllable in the direction of the end of the word (it began to fall on "tu"). Similarly, if we form from masdar 'inkis?r ‘breakage’ the past tense form 'inkasara ‘he broke’, we will see that the stress has moved one syllable towards the beginning of the word. In the first word it fell on the syllable "s?", and in the second word it appears on the syllable "ka".

The word may be affected by linguistic factors, which may also require the transfer of stress from its original position. This is noted, in particular, in the case of particles that cause the truncated mood of the verb form. Stress in the word yaktubu ‘he writes’ it stands on the syllable "tu", and if the verb is truncated, the stress is transferred from this syllable to the previous syllable "yak".

Stress transfer is also observed when the verb is connected with pronouns or when it is connected with a pronominal word in the accusative or genitive case, provided that this changes the original word. The stress in the past tense verb kataba 'to write' is on the syllable "ka", and when the verb is combined with most of the merged pronouns of the nominative case, the stress is transferred to the syllable following it. In the word forms katabtu 'I wrote' or katabna 'we wrote', the stress moves to the syllable "tab". But it will remain in its place in the case of a connection with the harf (morpheme) "waw", an indicator of the plural, for example, katab? 'they wrote'. Similarly, if masdar 'istifh?m 'request' is combined with the pronoun "n?" (first person dual and plural), and takes the form of 'istifh?mun? 'our request', the stress is transferred from the syllable "h?" to the syllable "mu".

As a rule, the distance to which the stress is transferred does not exceed one syllable. However, sometimes it can be transferred to two syllables or more. For example, when forming the form mn. ch. zh. r. sami'atunna 'they heard' (zh. r.) from the verb of the past tense sami'a 'to hear', the stress is transferred from the syllable "sa" to "tun", which exceeds the distance of two syllables. The distance of stress transfer rarely exceeds two syllables – this is the rule by which we learn the position of stress and which applies to all cases, regardless of whether the word is subject to a change in its original version or not" ^{[4, pp. 176-177]}.

Obviously, the theoretical descriptions of stress in the work of Ibrahim Anis were based on the perception of Arabic speech and reading the Koran by ear. Despite the fact that all the rules of stress placement in Ibrahim Anis are painted quite clearly, with a quick reading, the stress positions can shift, as we have seen by recording the speech of informants for modern research.

Tamam Hassan

A student of Ibrahim Anis was a talented linguist Tamam Hassan. In his work "Man?hi? al-ba fi-l-lu?a" 'Methods of language learning' ^[1990] it describes the stress, placing it in the category of "Manha?'at-ta?k?l'a?-?awtiyy" 'Method of acoustic modulation', which is also called the short'al-f?n?liy? 'phonology'. Along with the emphasis, the chapter deals with questions about the historical classification of harfs from a pronouncing point of view, about the duration of sound and quantitative parameters of sound, about sound processes in the Arabic language and suprasegmental units, such as intonemes. The text of this work has not been published in Russian, so it seems appropriate for us to translate it and describe the chapter we are interested in in as much detail as possible.

"It is well known that the words we pronounce consist of consecutive sounds sliding one after another. And these sounds in the word do not have the same intensity, but differ in strength or weakness depending on their position. The greater intensity of one sound, unlike the other sounds in a word, is called stress."

In other words, here the author considers the intensity factor to be the acoustic correlate of stress. As is known, the acoustic stage of speech formation follows the articulatory one. Continuing his reasoning, the author comes to the conclusion:

"So, the emphasis on location and form is related to the position in a word or phrase. It is determined by the relative distinctness of one sound or passage in comparison with the rest of the sounds or passages in the word."

Here we consider another stage of speech formation – the stage of perception. At this stage, the accent correlate is considered to be the distinctness of the sound. This can be interpreted so that the percussive sound differs from the unstressed by a special spectrum. Then the author returns to the initial stage of speech formation – articulatory:

"This is the result of one or more quantitative factors, effort and toning. Effort is not called stress, but it is considered one of its factors, and one of the main factors. Perhaps this is because stress is determined by the degree of effort when pronouncing a sound to a greater extent than by any other factor, or because effort has two characteristics: intensity and tone, which expands the area of its influence on stress more than the action of other factors."

In other words, at the articulatory stage of speech formation, stress is largely associated with effort. Thus, from the work of Tamam Hassan, it can be understood that in the sequence of stages: at the articulatory stage, the stressed syllable stands out with great effort, which corresponds to higher tone and intensity at the acoustic stage, as well as a special spectrum, and at the stage of perception (perception) – higher distinctness. In continuation of his reasoning , the author writes:

"X. Sweet considers the effort to be related to the synthesis of sounds, and not to their analysis, because it is always relative… From the point of view of muscle work, pressure is the force by which air is removed from the lungs. For this reason, this action is accompanied by muscular sensations, and from the point of view of the role of the voice, an effect is produced that is determined by the frequency range of vibrations of the vocal cords, which together leads to the perception of the voice. Using X. The use of the word "synthesis" leads us to understand the meaning of his position on this issue" ^{[11, p. 160]}.

In this regard , we also quote from the work of H. Suite "A Primer of Phonetics" 'Phonetics Primer':

"Effort, like quantity, essentially belongs to the synthesis of sounds, since it is always relative, always implies a comparison, either of two different sounds, or of different parts of the same sound that we are dealing with here. Physically, this is a synonym for the word force, with which exhaled air is removed from the lungs, which is affected by the upward pressure of the diaphragm, so each pulse of force is accompanied by a distinct muscular sensation. Acoustically, this produces an effect known as "loudness", which depends on the size of the vibration waves that produce the sensation of sound. Therefore, when we say that one sound, or a group of sounds, is produced with greater force than another, then when comparing the first with the second syllable, one of them turns out to be "heavy". Here we mean that when it is implemented, the air leaves the lungs with great muscular effort, which as a result increases the amplitude of the sound waves that arise, producing a louder effect on the ear" ^{[10, p. 44]} (our translation).

Let's return to the presentation of the results of Tamam Hassan's research:

"Words are constructions of sound components that have their own accent system, independent of the larger system (syntagm carriers) of stress (sentences and phrases). Indeed, stress in Arabic words has the function of a grammatical yardstick, and not the function of a model. If we look at the word f a'ala (the third derivative form of the verb 'to do'), we will find that "fa" (the first mora) is a more distinct element of this word, due to the fact that it is stressed. And considering this form as a grammatical model, we will find that in all words constructed according to this model, the stress is placed in the same way, for example, q a tala ‘to fight’, ? a lasa ‘to sit’, n a qala ‘to exchange’, r aabaaba ‘to be deployed’, ‘a zala ‘to isolate', a ?ala ‘to give occupation', a? zana ‘to keep'. And even in the form of f a'il (the model of the participle of the real voice from the verbs of the first breed), and related to this model of construction of the word ? a hid 'litter', s a fir 'traveler', the emphasis falls on "f?" (the first pestilence) in the word, and like this in the form of maf'l and all words constructed according to this model, the stress falls on ‘ayn (that is, on a syllable that includes the second root). In words constructed according to the mustaf'al model, the emphasis is placed on "ta" and so on. And therefore, we will not exaggerate if we say that the stress in Arabic words has the characteristics of position, form and grammar at the same time. And as for large syntactic units (contexts or, in other words, sentences and phrases (syntagmas-stress carriers), the ratio of accents does not correspond to purely grammatical requirements, but, on the contrary, it turns out to be unrelated to them. However, we will also focus on this phenomenon. This contextual stress really has a function of general meaning, that is, it is an indicative stress. This means that in Arabic there are two kinds of stress positions in grammatical form:

1. Grammatical stress

2. Index stress

Grammatical stress has two gradations depending on the intensity of pronunciation and the degree of air ejection: it can be primary and secondary. The primary was so named for two reasons:

firstly, because it is stronger than the secondary; the use of the word "primary" in this sense necessarily requires the use of the word "secondary",

secondly, because it determines the remoteness of the secondary stress in syllables in relation to the primary stress.

And if you apply the rule of the distance between the primary and secondary to several syllables, then a special language rhythm appears. The rule of grammatical stress is as follows:

1. Primary stress:

(a) The stress is placed on the last syllable in the word if it belongs to the type (? ? ? ? ?) [CvvC or CVC, that is, with the geminate of the vowel sound between the two consonant components of the mora] and (? ? ? ?)) [CvCC], that is, to the longitude type, for example: q a la ‘to say ’, 'istaq a la‘to ask for dismissal’, q a lla ‘to be small’, 'istaq a lla ‘to become independent’, as well as the middle type in words with one syllable, such as the imperative mood from the verb q a la ‘to say’, its form of the imperative mood sounds like q u l" ^{[11, pp. 160-161]}.

It is worth noting that in this passage, the final syllable is perceived as the penultimate syllable (without the vowel component of the last mora) or as the last root harf from the end (as it was with Ibrahim Anis), since the stress in all these examples falls on the vowel sound – geminate or short – after the consonant component of the first root harf "q", thus: q a la, 'istaq a la, q a lla, 'istaq a lla.

In view of the syllable gradation used by Tamam Hassan in terminology – short, medium, long (or long) – we draw attention to the fact that a short syllable is considered to be a combination of a consonant and a vowel component of the mora or only a consonant (or only a vowel) [Cv], [C], [v], he calls a syllable consisting of three components medium for example, consonant + vowel + vowel or consonant + vowel + consonant [Cvv=CV], [CvC], longitude is a combination of consonant + vowel + vowel + consonant or consonant + vowel + consonant + consonant [CvCC], [CvvC=CVC].

"(b) Stress is placed on the penultimate syllable if the penultimate and last syllables are both syllables of the middle type, regardless of whether the middle one belongs to the type (? ? ?)) [CvC] or (? ? ? ?) [Cvv=CV], for example: 'a llama 'to teach', s a llama ‘welcome', ‘a bduka‘Your slave’, yataw a ffakum ‘He puts you to sleep’, q a tala ‘to fight’, iw a rin ‘next door'.

If the penultimate syllable belongs to the short type (? ?) [Cv], then the stress is on the syllable with which the word begins, or on the syllable preceded by the junction of the [root with an additional harf], for example: k a taba ‘to write’, ?a saba ‘to count’, ?a ruma ‘to be reservedym’, mu?t a ram ‘dear’, in?a saba ‘to be counted'.

(c) Stress is placed on a syllable that precedes another if it is related to the previous one according to one of the following models:

(1) (? ?) + (? ? ?) [Cv + CvC], for example: ‘a lamuk ‘your flag’, sibuk ‘your computer'.

(2) (? ?) + (? ? ?) [Cv + Cvv = Cv + CV], for example: ‘a lim? ‘they knew’ (M. R.), sab? ‘they paid off’ (M. R.), ?a rbuk ‘your blow'.

2. Secondary stress.

The area of secondary stress in a word is narrower than in a sentence or phrase, and at the same time, secondary stress can be found in words with two or more syllables. A stressed syllable with secondary stress can be located in areas limited by primary stress, for example:

(1) the secondary stress is placed on the syllable that stands before the stressed syllable with primary stress, if it has a longitudinal secondary stress, like ... a t ‘pilgrims’, mudh a mm a t 'dark green’ (w.r.).

(2) is placed on a syllable if there is another syllable between it and the highlighted primary stress, if the syllable highlighted by the secondary stress is one of the following structures separating it from the highlighted primary stress:

(a) the middle syllable + the other middle (? ? ?)) + (? ? ? ?) [CvC + Cvv = CvC + CV], for example: ‘ulam a ' ‘scientists', mustabaq a n ‘hurrying' (M.R.), yasta?if a n ‘hiding’, 'a?arna hum ‘we cohabited with them'.

(b) middle syllable + short syllable, for example: mustaq ‘m ’straight‘, musta'i dda ’ready', 'a ?ab ' hum ‘they were friends with them’.

(3) is on the third syllable before the highlighted primary stress, if the three preceding this primary stressed syllable form a chain of medium + short + short or medium, for example: musta?amm?n ‘taking a bath’ (M.R.), yastaf ‘ d?na ’they benefit‘, m? ‘arafn ' hum 'we did not know andx’, mu?tamal ? hum ‘their potential'.

Secondary stress is not placed on the fourth syllable preceding the primary stress in the word" ^{[11, pp. 161-163]}.

These are the rules of verbal stress placement described by Tamam Hassan. Further in the chapter we are talking about phrasal and logical accents, which we omit for the time being due to the irrelevance for our research. Here, however, is one more final quote from the author's work regarding the study and analysis of stress in Arabic:

"And I cannot fail to mention here that the study of stress and prosody in literary Arabic is fraught with some risk, because literary Arabic did not know such studies in antiquity, and ancient scholars have not recorded anything in this area. Most likely, we forget that literary Arabic is influenced by colloquial dialects, because every speaker of literary Arabic in our time imposes on him his habits of colloquial pronunciation. I think the reader knows that the holy Quran itself differs in pronunciation, stress and tonality (in particular, in the pronunciation of the harfs ?, ?, ?, d, ?, q, k) from one Arab country to another. This difference indicates the existence of contrasts between spoken dialects in various Arab countries" ^{[11, p. 163]}.

These words only once again emphasize the relevance of this study, since we see that the author did not use the methods of experimental phonetics, which means that all the theoretical data described by him need experimental confirmation.

Ahmad Mukhtar Umar

A year after the publication of Tamam Hassan's book, another Egyptian researcher Ahmad Mukhtar Umar published his work "Dir?sat 'a?-?awt 'al-lu?awiyya" 'The Study of Language Sounds' (1991).

In this work, the author highlights the chapter "'Al-F?n?m?t fawqa 'at-tark?biyya" 'Suprasegmental phonetics', in which he describes suprasegmental and plurisegmental phonemes, prosodic phonemes and prosodemes, which are marked by special features, there are also chapters on intonation, duration and connection of phonemes.

Speaking about the peculiarities of suprasegmental units of the language, Ahmad Mukhtar Umar writes that "since these signs distinguish the meanings of language messages in the same way as it happens at the junction of sukuns (mor, consisting of one component, consonant or vowel, in this case consonants are meant) and insufficient harfs (?ur?f 'al-madd wa-l-l?n, described in the first chapter), then these signs are also called phonemes. There are many such indicators, but the most important are:

1.         Accent

2. Tone

3.         Intonation

4. Morpheme joint or morpheme seam

5. Duration" ^{[3, p. 220]}

Ahmad Mukhtar Umar places the stress on the first place in the list of indicators of suprasegmental units of the Arabic language and begins with the definition of the term. The paper presents English analogs of concepts in parallel with Arabic, which we have preserved for the convenience of comparing them with the European linguistic tradition. The phenomena described in the analysis of previous sources are not described again.

"There are two English terms corresponding to the Arabic "an-nabr" – stress (stress) and accent (accent). As P. Ladefoged said^[2]: "It is not easy to determine the meaning of stress" ^{[9, p. 83]}. Let's try to deduce some definitions according to his reasoning.

1.         Stress is the addition of a certain amount of physiological energy to organize the production of speech distributed through the pulmonary, vocal and articulatory channels.

2.         This is the result of the action of additional energy in the lungs when pronouncing a stressed syllable, which leads to the fact that the syllable becomes brighter and longer than other syllables in the word.

3.         This is the name for the strongest muscular effort that we can feel when pronouncing some syllables compared to others.

4.         This is a selection given to a single syllable, inside an integral unit, which in most languages corresponds to what is called a word.

All these definitions in one form or another contain an indication that stress requires additional energy and additional muscular effort. The famous phonetist D. Jones said: "The stressed syllable pronounced by the speaker exceeds in strength the adjacent syllables in a word or sentence." Thus, stress is the individual activity of the speaker, as a result of which a kind of prominence is formed, inherent in one of the sounds or syllables in relation to his environment ^{[8, p. 137]}. As for the sound effect associated with stress, it is called loudness, and the degrees of stress that we will mention later will be loudness degrees for the listener.

Sometimes it is very difficult or almost impossible for the listener to locate the stress. All this happens because pitch is an integral part of the sound. A strong percussive sound may be less loud than another weak percussive sound.

Stress does not play a meaningful role in all languages. Therefore, it is not a suprasegmental phoneme in all languages. Languages that use stress as a phoneme are called accent languages, while others are anacentric. Languages with associated stress differ in that in them the stress is assigned to a certain place. It is well known that in Finnish and Czech the stress falls on the first syllable. And in Polish – on the penultimate. Among the languages in which the place of stress is also determined are French, Hungarian and Swahili.

As for languages that use stress as a phoneme, the stress position is free there. It is used to distinguish meanings/meanings or to distinguish word forms by changing the place of stress.

English is a good example of a language with free stress. If we put the stress on the first syllable in the word import, then we get a noun, and if on the second syllable, then a verb. Similarly, in the words concert ‘consent /negotiate’, subject ‘subject/subordinate’, present ‘gift /present’, permit ‘permission /allow’, contract ‘contract /conclude a contract’, increase ‘increase/increase’, insult ‘insult/insult'.

The role of stress in English is limited not only by the fact that it distinguishes the forms of names and verbs. Stress is also the only factor in distinguishing two words, and therefore two meanings. In the word August/August (the name of the month or the name of a person) is stressed on the first syllable. And in the word august ‘dear, majestic’, the greatest emphasis falls on the second syllable. This also applies to the duality of the following words:

Below ‘under’ and billow ‘wave, avalanche’,

Insight ‘in plain sight’ and incite ‘incite’

But not every stress shift in English distinguishes meanings. In most English words, changing the stress position does not lead to a change in meaning. But it leads to the fact that the listener discovers a deviation from the language norm in the perception by ear. For example, in English, the stress on the first syllable is placed in the words pillow ‘pillow’, sensitive ‘sensitive’, on the second syllable – in the word polite ‘polite’, and on the third syllable – in the words congregation ‘assembly’, international ‘international’, sensitivity ‘sensitivity'. If a foreigner changes the place of stress in such words under the influence of his native language, the understanding may remain.

There are gradations of stress, and the most commonly used of them are:

strong stress (main);

middle stress (secondary);

weak stress.

All types of stress are collected in the example: motor-car designer ‘car constructor'. The main stress here is on the first syllable, the secondary stress is on the second syllable in the word designer ‘constructor’, and the weak stress is on the word car ‘car’.

Stress has another function that takes place in all languages, whether it is a language with pronounced or unexpressed verbal stress. These are additional meanings for the expression of confirmation – emphatic stress, or for the expression of emotions – emotional stress. If an English-speaking person pronounces the sentence come here ‘come here’ with a greater accent than with normal stress, then this means a greater degree of imperative, compulsion. And if he says the same thing with a weakened accent, it will indicate his desire to settle the matter.

In different languages, there is a difference in the strength with which a stressed syllable is pronounced compared to a non-stressed one. In French, there is a slight difference between such syllables. And in Germanic languages, the stressed syllable is very strong, and the non–stressed syllable is very weak.

There is a connection between stress and syllable duration. So, the syllable in in the word incite ‘to urge’ is not stressed, but the same syllable will be shorter in the word insight ‘insight’, in which it is stressed. In addition, the stressed phoneme in a syllable affects the rest of the phonemes. In addition, phonemes in the stressed syllable are pronounced with greater force, which makes them more sonorous and audible" ^{[3, pp. 221-225]}.

The example given by D. Jones is of interest for our work. Indeed, in the word qalam ‘pencil, pen’, the first syllable carrier – the vowel component [a] of mora has an accent in comparison with the second syllable carrier [a], where the first [a] is realized with a shorter duration, and the second [a], as it were, makes up for its weakened intensity due to duration. However, this situation is quite rare. It cannot be called regularly manifested in the Arabic language, since the duration is often a sign of the accentuation of the moron.

"And finally, Daniel Jones introduced such a term as strone 'strone', as a designation for the existence of an accent variant (as opposed to an allophone), and the term stroneme 'stroneme' (phoneme carrier of stress, along with the concepts of chroneme and toneme introduced by him, as carriers of tone and duration) to denote an integral syntagma, which includes two accents or more. He said: "It is possible to combine types of stress in the same way as groups of sounds are combined into phonemes." Therefore, we see how he used the concept of phoneme in relation to differences in accents" ^{[3, p. 225]}.

Here we see once again that Ahmad Mukhtar Umar's theoretical reflections on stress in Arabic are based only on the materials of foreign linguists who have conducted studies of stress in other languages. It should be noted that so far none of the Arab authors mentioned above has addressed an experimental study, which means that their conclusions cannot yet be considered final.

Muhammad Javwad Al-Nuri

Next, we will consider the work that was already mentioned earlier in connection with the concept of "harf", "Min'al-lisaniyat 'al-lu?ati 'al'arabiyati ('ilm al'a?w?t)" [An-Nuri 2019] by Professor Dr. Muhammad Javwad an-Nuri, but from the point of view of considering stress. The work was published in 2019, which means it contains the latest theoretical developments regarding the Arabic language. Due to the lack of publications of this study in Russian, we provide the most detailed translation of the passage we are interested in. It is also based on the works of D. Jones, but the author puts it in his own words:

"Stress is defined as the effort made to highlight one part of a segment compared to another. This makes it more distinguished (more prominence). The stressed syllable is associated with an enhanced chest pulse, which is accompanied by the application of additional energy. The famous English linguist Daniel Jones defined it as "the degree of strength inherent in one of the syllables of a word" ^{[8, p. 245]}. One of the provisions that should be known when we stop on stress is that the organs of speech, or at least some of them, are revealed during the stress setting; this is simultaneous sudden activity. When pronouncing a stressed syllable, the diaphragm is very active, as well as the muscles of the lungs. And, in addition, the movement of the vocal cords is also amplified, which can be observed through the convergence of the vocal cords with each other, so that only a small amount of air is allowed to leak, which increases their level of tension, increases the frequency of vocal vibrations, thereby increasing the volume of the percussive sound. The described refers to ringing sounds. When they articulate, the vocal cords move away from each other by a distance greater than in the case of deaf sounds. And thus a larger volume of air is pumped, causing friction or explosion, making the syllable stronger and louder (more sonorous)."

Here, the views of Muhammad Javwad al-Nuri directly contradict the opinion of Ibrahim Anis, who believed that, on the contrary, when articulating the sonorous, the vocal cords converge more than when articulating the deaf, and that more air sways when articulating the deaf than the sonorous (see above). Muhammad Javwad Al-Nuri continues:

"It is also noticed that during the realization of a pronounced syllable, there is activity in other speech organs, such as the back of the hard palate, tongue, lips, and the opposite phenomena are observed in the case of the realization of an unstressed syllable. D. Krystal believes that stressed syllables differ from unstressed syllables by greater emphasis ^[6]. This is also indicated by the fact that stressed syllables on the letter are marked with a slash (akut) above the syllable carrier. The selection usually occurs due to an increase in loudness (loudness), most often, or duration (length), and also often pitch (pitch). All these factors can contribute to the overall impression of a distinct syllable. From what has been said, it is clear to us that some of the concepts that were presented in the definition of stress were focused on the auditory aspect. Obviously, in the aforementioned definition by D. Krystal, some of these definitions were limited only to the loudness aspect, while others focused on the articulatory aspect. Other aspects of syllable extraction – acoustic and auditory – are of secondary importance.

However, we exclude the possibility of extracting one of the three phonemic aspects from the definition. We consider all the different aspects of the phenomenon of stress in the aggregate, because when a percussive sound or syllable is realized, more effort is applied to exhale, accompanied by a stronger air outlet, greater activity of the larynx and other organs of speech. Of course, sound waves will differ in frequency, intensity and similar factors in other cases. All this will lead to a corresponding difference in pitch (pitch) and marking when listening to a speech segment. Based on this, we can define a stressed syllable as follows: this is a fragment, the implementation of which, on the one hand, differs from other fragments in the speech segment by an increase in the activity of muscles that work to push out the flow of air producing sound, and an increase in the activity of various speech organs, which gives the fragment a special prominence. On the other hand, it can be represented in such parameters as: tone frequency (pitch) and duration" ^{[5, pp. 264-265]}.

We set ourselves the task to consider the applicability of all the described factors in conducting this study. At this stage of the work, progress in understanding the phenomenon of stress in the modern Arabic phonetic school becomes obvious.

Ibn Manzur Al-Ansari

Further, Muhammad al-Nuri quotes the statement of Ibn Manzur al-Ansari from the consolidated work "Lis?nu-l-'arab" 'The language of the Arabs' (2013), which is one of the most complete explanatory dictionaries of the Arabic language. He gives an interpretation of a number of words based on the fact that the Arabic word nabr ‘stress, accent’ goes back to the verb n a bara ‘raise your voice, shout'.

"Ancient Arabic linguists noticed one remarkable side of the modern concept of stress. Ibn Manzur in "Lis?nu-l-'arab" pointed out that "the stress of the Arabs is the raising of the voice. It is said that a person made an accent if he pronounced a word in which there is a rise in tone... And the accent of the singer is the "increase" of his voice over the "decrease".

Ibn Manzur al-Ansari also gives a figurative comparison of stress with minbar:

"Minbar 'pulpit' is an elevation in the space from which a speech is delivered. It is called minbar for its "elevation" and "upliftment". The Emir ascended the minbar: so he ascended the pulpit" [An-Nuri 2019: 338].

Conclusion

Studies of verbal stress are currently becoming popular among Arabic linguists. If earlier the consideration of stress was replaced by descriptions of the prosodic level of the language due to the fact that prosody is considered the basis for the construction and implementation of Arabic speech in traditional Arabic grammatical theory, now whole chapters of phonetic monographs are devoted to stress. Initially, Arabic linguists took theoretical materials on stress from the works of foreign colleagues, but as this trend develops, discussions with authors from Western phonetic schools appear in the texts of Arabic linguists.

Terminology is being updated in the works of Arabic linguists: from harf as the minimum unit of language in phonetic descriptions, they are shifting to the concept of a syllable, which is used in the European tradition. The term mora appears as a designation of the duration of a short syllable.

Arabic stress is represented in the works of Arabic linguists as polytonic (polyacental) due to the presence of primary and secondary accents. It also obeys certain rules of stress placement in words, depending on the type of syllables included in it. However, Arabic stress is characterized by mobility due to the rules of inflection. An example of this is single-root words with different stressed syllables used in different forms.

Briefly summarizing the main points of view of Arab linguists regarding the correlates of Arabic verbal stress, we note:

1.         The stressed syllable differs from the unstressed syllables by a great effort (Ibrahim Anis, Tamam Hassan, Ahmad Mukhtar Umar, Muhammad Javwad al-Nuri).

2.         The stressed syllable has a higher intensity (Tamam Hassan).

3.         The stressed syllable has a higher tone (Tamam Hassan, Ahmad Mukhtar Umar, Muhammad Javwad al-Nuri, Ibn Manzur al-Ansari).

4.         The stressed syllable has a long duration (Ahmad Mukhtar Umar, Muhammad Javvad an-Nuri).

5.         The stressed syllable is more distinct (clarity) compared to the rest of the sounds in the word (Ibrahim Anis, Tamam Hassan)

The central concept in most descriptions of stress is the concept of effort, i.e. the Arab authors base most of their research on the expiratory theory of stress. In the chain of stages of speech communication described by Arab authors (articulatory, acoustic, perceptual), effort takes the first place. They consider it a source of stress characteristics in subsequent stages. However, from a pragmatic point of view, the effort is less than other parameters available for measurement.

At the next acoustic stage, the stressed syllable is attributed to the strengthening of the main acoustic characteristics – the intensity, duration and frequency of the main tone (F0), which are causally related to the effort at the articulatory stage. The parameter F0 in the studies considered is simply called tone.

There is also a greater distinctness or clarity of the stressed syllable. More precisely, this means special spectra of stressed vowels, which are opposed to the spectra of the same vowels, but in an unstressed position. It is obvious that this spectral correlate is thought to act on both the acoustic and perceptual levels.

Since the Arab authors came to all the described conclusions speculatively, without measurements, and in some cases the estimates of different authors contradict each other, the task of conducting an experimental study becomes very urgent, which, firstly, would allow testing the hypotheses expressed, and, secondly, to determine the quantitative ratios of stress parameters.

^[1] The pausal form is the implementation of the form in oral speech with the reduction of the final vowel inflection and nunciation, if any: [waladun – walad]

^[2] Peter Ladefoged (eng. Peter Nielsen Ladefoged; 1925-2006) is an American linguist, a specialist in the field of phonetics. The source uses his works: [Ladefoged 1962], [Ladefoged 1967], [Ladefoged 1971].

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