Dr Wasan Alsiraih

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Papers by Dr Wasan Alsiraih

Acoustic Analysis of Iraqi Arabic Stop Consonants

Journal of Basra researches for Human Sciences, 2020

The Prevalence of Voiceless Realisations of /ʕ/ as Produced by Young Iraqi Arabic Speakers

ADAB AL-BASRAH, 2019

Voice quality features in the production of pharyngeal consonants by Iraqi Arabic speakers

This study investigates nasalisation and laryngealisation in the production of pharyngeal consona... more This study investigates nasalisation and laryngealisation in the production of pharyngeal consonants in Iraqi Arabic (IA) and as potential voice quality (VQ) settings of IA speakers in general. Pharyngeal consonants have been the subject of investigation in many studies on Arabic, primarily due to the wide range of variation in their realisation across dialects, including approximant, fricative, and stop variants. This is the first quantitative study of its kind to extend these findings to IA and to investigate whether any of the variants and/or VQ features are dialectspecific. The study offers a detailed auditory and acoustic account of the realisations of pharyngeal consonants as produced by nine male speakers of three Iraqi dialects: Baghdad (representing Central gelet), Basra (representing Southern gelet) and Mosul (representing Northern qeltu) (Blanc, 1964; Ingham, 1997). Acoustic cues of nasalisation and phonation types are investigated in isolated vowels, oral, nasal, and pharyngeal environments in order to unravel the source of the nasalised and laryngealised VQ percept and to establish whether their manifestations are categorical or particular to certain contexts. Results suggest a range of realisations for the pharyngeals that are conditioned by word position and dialect. Regardless of realisation, VQ measurements suggest that: 1-nasalisation increases when pharyngeals are adjacent to nasals, beyond what is expected of a nasal environment; 2vowels neighbouring pharyngeals show more nasalisation than in oral environments; 3-vowels in pharyngeal contexts and isolation show more laryngealisation compared with nasal and oral contexts; 4-both nasals and pharyngeals show progressive effect of nasalisation, and pharyngeals show a progressive effect of laryngealisation; 5-/ħ/ shows more nasalisation but less laryngealisation effect on neighbouring vowels than /ʕ/; and 6-Baghdad speech is the most nasalised and laryngealised and Basra speech the least. These results coincide with observations on Muslim Baghdadi gelet having a guttural quality (Bellem, 2007). The study reveals that the overall percept of a nasalised and laryngealised VQ in IA is a local feature rather than a general vocal setting.

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Nasalisation in the Production of Iraqi Arabic Pharyngeals

Phonetica, 2018

Aim:This paper presents the auditory and acoustic investigations of pharyngeal consonants in Iraq... more Aim:This paper presents the auditory and acoustic investigations of pharyngeal consonants in Iraqi Arabic (IA). While the contested place and manner of articulation of these sounds have been the subject of investigation in many studies, the focus here is novel: we set out to investigate the extent to which pharyngeals in IA are accompanied by auditory nasalisation and how widespread the effect is across oral and nasal contexts.Methods:Auditory and acoustic properties of nasalization, as produced by nine male speakers of IA, were investigated in target words with oral, nasal, and pharyngeal environments.Results:When combined with oral consonants, pharyngeals exhibit little or no nasalisation; however, when pharyngeal are combined with nasals, they exhibit various degrees of nasalisation, sometimes beyond what is found for a nasal environment alone. This is especially so for voiced pharyngeals, which display more nasalisation than their voiceless counterparts. A principle component an...