I’lāl Rules of Ajwaf Verbs from a Linguistic Perspective

I’lāl rules in Arabic morphology which refer to the pronunciation of mu’tal words (words that have a semivowel as one or two of their three-consonantal roots) linguistically constitute part of the morpho-phonology of Arabic. Traditional grammars refer to letters when expressing rules and as writing does not always reflect pronunciation, understanding and learning such rules becomes difficult. While correct stress placement is as important as the pronunciation of individual consonants and vowels in recitation, stress has also been neglected in traditional grammars as it is not represented in writing. In this study, we have looked at the I’lāl rules of Ajwaf verbs (verbs that have a semivowel as the second root consonant) linguistically in order to show the simplicity of the morpho-phonological processes involved and to show the main role that stress plays in the pronunciation of such verbs. By phonetically transcribing the examples of these rules and analyzing the observed stress patterns within the framework of Metrical Stress Theory (Hayes,1995), we have shown that the I’lāl rules of Ajwaf verbs refer to nothing more than deletion, compensatory lengthening, and lengthening due to stress and that concentrating on sounds rather than on letters prevents the many complexities of traditional grammars.