Emphasis Spread in Hā’ili Arabic

This article sheds light on the phonological phenomenon of emphasis spread in Ḥā’ili Arabic (HA), a variety of Arabic spoken in the region of Ḥā’il, within the framework of Autosegmental Theory. It mainly focuses on the behavior of emphasis spread, its directionality, and whether emphasis exhibits any preference for one direction over the other across the prosodic word, domain, and the interaction of emphasis spread with opaque segments. The data are elicited by using a digital recording device and an Aduix OM2 dynamic microphone from twenty native speakers of HA. It reveals that the primary emphatic phonemes occur in different vocalic environments and all word positions. The scope of emphasis spread is minimally over the syllable if there is an opaque segment that blocks emphasis spread, and maximally over the entire word if there is no blocker. The results manifest that emphasis spread is not limited to one direction, but it can operate regressively, progressively, or bidirectionally without any restrictions. However, in some cases, it is assumed that opacity appears if a phoneme blocks the emphatic feature. The paper concludes that certain segments can block the spread of emphasis within the phonological word, depending on the position of the emphatic trigger.