Published Paper Details:

Many dialects of Arabic apply affrication to their velar stops. This phenomenon has been the focus of substantial research for over a century now. The focus of this paper is to examine the optional, selective affrication in Qassimi Arabic and attempt to account for the factors that seem to be involved in enabling or preventing the process. Although there has not been research, particularly on affrication in Qassimi Arabic, there is a substantial body of literature on affrication in various Arabic dialects, which is relevant after all. The literature indicates some factors that are examined in the current paper to see their applicability in Qassimi Arabic. I also develop an Optimality-theoretic analysis for this phenomenon to attempt to capture the variation in a principled fashion. While developing the analysis, some unpredicted facts are observed and taken into account. Finally, the analysis introduced in this paper intersects with other phenomena like co-articulation and emphatic spread.