A detective story: emphatics in Mehri

Watson, JCE; Bellem, A

Abstract

Until 1970, Ethio-Semitic was believed to be the only Semitic language sub-family in which the main correlate of “emphasis” is
glottalization, a feature said at the time to be due to Cushitic influence. Since the work of T.M. Johnstone, however, it has been
argued that glottalization is a South Semitic feature, attested not only in Ethio-Semitic, but also in the Modern South Arabian
languages. Two statements in the literature on Modern South Arabian, however, suggested to us that the original evidence needed
to be re-investigated: first, some of the “ejectives” are described as at least partially voiced, not a phonetic impossibility, but so
far unheard of in the phonological system of any language; and secondly, the degree of glottalization is frequently described
as dependent on the phonological environment, although details of the environment in which emphatics are always realized as
ejectives are not given. In this paper, we consider acoustic data from Mahriyōt (a Mehri dialect spoken in the easternmost province
of Yemen), we examine descriptions of emphatics in other dialects of Mehri and other Modern South Arabian languages, we look at
phonological environments in which emphatics are realized as ejectives and those in which they are not, and we conclude that the
file on emphasis in these languages needs to be re-opened to fresh judgement.

Citation

Watson, J., & Bellem, A. (2010). A detective story: emphatics in Mehri. In J. Starkey (Ed.), Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies : Papers from the forty-third meeting, London, 23–25 July 2009 (345-356). Archaeopress

• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Aug 9, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Pages: 345-356
• Series Title: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies
• Series Number: 40
• Book Title: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies : Papers from the forty-third meeting, London, 23–25 July 2009
• ISBN: 9781905739332-(print);-9781784913274-(ebook)
• Publisher URL: https://www.archaeopress.com/product/Proceedings-of-the-Seminar-for-Arabian-Studies-Volume-40-2010
• Related Public URLs: https://www.theiasa.com/publications/proceedings-of-the-seminar-for-arabian-studies/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference; Projects : Grammar of Mehri