American International Journal of Social Science

Word Stress in Saudi Najdi Arabic
Mohammad Al Amro

Abstract
Word stress patterns in Najdi Arabic have not received a great deal of attention even though Najdi Arabic could play a central role in the development of metrical theory. This study will provide a brief description of stress in Najdi Arabic dialect as well as Modern Standard Arabic. Beyond the analysis of word stress patterns, this paper will also attempt to deal with three important phenomena that affect stress, namely epenthesis/insertion, vowel shortening and consonant (the glottal stop) deletion. This paper shows that word stress in Najdi Arabic is predictable and heavy syllable carries stress.

Full Text: PDF