Metathesis in Jazani Arabic

Abstract

This study examines metathesis patterns in Jazani Arabic by examining both adjacent and non-adjacent consonant clusters across three lexical items and their metathesized counterparts. Using acoustic analysis of recordings from a single native speaker, the study evaluates whether these apparent segment reversals reflect categorical phonological reordering or arise from phonetic mechanisms of gestural overlap. Spectrogram inspection, formant tracking, and spectral slicing reveal that, in the metathesized forms, articulatory cues associated with the second consonant in the canonical order frequently appear early, intruding to some degree into the acoustic space of the preceding gesture. This includes premature frication spread, early nasalization, and overlapping velar and rhotic transitions, patterns that are inconsistent with clean, re-sequenced segmental boundaries. These findings suggest that the metathesis observed in both adjacent and non-adjacent clusters in Jazani Arabic is best characterized as a surface phonetic effect resulted from altered gestural timing rather than a true phonological transposition. While the dataset is limited to a small number of tokens from a single speaker, the results provide preliminary evidence supporting a gestural-overlap account of metathesis and highlight the need for broader, multi-speaker investigation to determine the extent and generality of these patterns within the dialect.