Dominance in Coronal Nasal Place Assimilation: The Case of Classical Arabic

The aim of this study is to investigate place assimilation processes of coronal nasal in classical Arabic. I hypothesise that coronal nasal behaves differently in different assimilatory situations in classical Arabic. Data of the study were collected from the Holy Quran. It was referred to Quran.com for the pronunciations and translations of the data. Data of the study were analysed from the perspective of Mohanan’s dominance in assimilation model. Findings of the study have revealed that coronal nasal shows different assimilatory behaviours when it occurs in different syllable positions. Coronal nasal onset seems to fail to assimilate a whole or a portion of the matrix of a preceding obstruent or sonorant coda within a phonological word. However, coronal nasal in the coda position shows different phonological behaviours.


Introduction
An assimilatory situation in natural languages has two elements in which one element dominates the other. Nasal place assimilation occurs when a nasal phoneme takes on place features of an adjacent consonant. This study aims at investigating place assimilation processes of coronal nasal in classical Arabic (CA, henceforth). I hypothesise that coronal nasal behaves differently in different assimilatory situations in CA. Data of the study will be collected from the Holy Quran, as it is written in classical Arabic. Quran.com (2016) will be used as a reference for pronunciations and translations of the data. Data of the study will be analysed in the framework of Mohanan's (1993) notion of dominance in assimilation model. In section 2, I outline the phonological features assumed for the underlying specifications of the CA consonants (see appendix A for the phonetic description of CA phonemes). In section 3, I summarise the main aspects of Mohanan's (1993) dominance in assimilation model. I analyse coronal nasal place assimilation processes in CA in section 4. A conclusion is provided in section 5.

Dominance in Assimilation
The notion of dominance in assimilation was first introduced to autosegmental phonology by Mohanan in 1993. The view of this model is that in any assimilatory situation there are two units of different conflicting specifications in which the specification of one unit dominates that of the other. The main aspects of this model are summed up as: (1) certain phonological features are more dominant than others and thus they override other features, (2) the position of a trigger and an undergoer in an assimilatory situation plays a key role in dominance; the onset is dominant with respect to the coda and the following element is dominant with respect to the preceding element, (3) assimilation is more likely to occur in smaller prosodic domains, (4) the scale of dominance is as follows: velar > palatal and labial > alveolar.

Coronal Nasal Place Assimilation in CA
In this section I analyse coronal nasal place assimilation processes in different assimilatory situations in CA.

[+nas, +cor] coda + [+c.g.] onset
The coronal nasal /n/ in the coda position does not assimilate to the following onset which has the phonological feature [+constricted glottis] word-internally or across a word boundary in CA, as shown in (3).

[+nas, +cor] coda + [+son] onset
Coronal nasal coda does not assimilate to a following sonorant in the onset position word-internally, see (5 a). When coronal nasal occurs in the coda position of a preceding word and is followed by an onset with the phonological feature [+sonorant] in the following word, the coronal nasal assimilates completely to a sonorant in CA, as shown in (5 b). However, when an obligatory pause occurs between the coronal nasal coda of a preceding word and a sonorant onset of a following word, no assimilation takes place, see (5 c). As represented in (6), assimilation is motivated by the dominance of the trigger vis-à -vis the undergoer (cf. Mohanan, 1993). Apart from being an alveolar -the least dominant in Mohanan's scale of dominance, coronal nasal occurs in a coda position, and this in turn makes it a weak element in this assimilatory situation. Accordingly, the place feature [dorsal] of the following palatal /j/the onset of the following syllable, is more dominant and thus it overrides the [coronal] feature of the nasal consonant. Since the coronal nasal assimilates a whole of the matrix of the following dorsal consonant, the [nasal] feature is delinked, as well.

[+nas, +cor] coda + [-son, +voi, +lab] onset
Coronal nasal assimilation is obligatory within the phonological word and across a word boundary in CA when [+cor] nasal in the coda position is followed immediately by [-son, +voi, +lab] onset in the following word. In this case, the nasal assimilates a portion of the matrix of the following onset, as shown in (7)

[+nas, +cor] coda + [-son, -lab] onset
Coronal nasal in the coda position assimilates a portion of the matrix of a following onset which has the features [-son, -lab] in CA. This occurs across syllables within a single word or across a word boundary, as shown in (9) The representation of the coronal nasal place assimilation in the underlying CA phrase /ʔanʃaʔakum/ 'He (Allah) produced you' is shown in (10).
(10) (a) Ɂ a n ʃ a Ɂ a k u m The violation of the obligatory contour principle on the place tier in (10)  When coronal nasal onset is preceded by [-son] coda within a single word, coronal nasal seems to fail to assimilate a whole or a portion of the matrix of a preceding coda even in the case when the coda is labial, which is more dominant than alveolar in Mohanan's scale of dominance, as shown in (12).

Conclusion
In this article I studied the phonological behaviour of coronal nasal in different assimilatory situations in CA. The plan of the study was to investigate place assimilation processes of coronal nasal in CA. I hypothesised that coronal nasal behaves differently in different assimilatory situations in CA. Data of the study were collected from the Holy Quran. It was referred to Quran.com (2016) for the pronunciations and translations of the data. Data of the study were analysed from the perspective of Mohanan's (1993) dominance in assimilation model. Findings of the study revealed that coronal nasal shows different assimilatory behaviours when it occurs in different syllable positions.
Findings showed that the coronal nasal /n/ in the coda position does not assimilate to the [+c.g.] onset nor to the [+cont, -ant, -cor] obstruent onset of the following syllable word-internally or across a word boundary in CA. It was also found that coronal nasal in the coda position does not assimilate to a following [+son] onset word-internally. When coronal nasal occurs in the coda position of a preceding word and is followed by [+son] onset in the following word, the nasal assimilates a whole of the matrix of a sonorant in CA. However, when coronal nasal in the same position is followed by an obligatory pause which in turn is followed by [+son] onset in a following word, no assimilation takes place. When coronal nasal coda is followed by [-son, +voi, +lab] onset in the following word, the nasal assimilates a portion of the matrix of the following onset within the phonological word and across a word boundary. Coronal nasal in the coda position assimilates a portion of the matrix of a following [-son, -lab] onset within a single word or across a word boundary in CA. However, findings revealed that coronal nasal in the onset position does not assimilate a whole or a portion of the matrix of a preceding [+son] coda or [-son] coda within a phonological word, even in the case of [+labial] coda which dominates alveolar in Mohanan's scale of dominance.