Word Stress Patterns in MSA: A Metrical-Based Analysis

Abstract

Word stress in phonological theory has been received much attention in Arabic than any other language specificallythe topic itself. One of these theories is the metrical phonology theory (henceforth MPT) which is proposed by Hayes(1995) and it has an important role in determining the stress placement of the word level in any language. For thisreason, the current study attempts to analyze the primary stress patterns in Modern Standard Arabic (henceforthMSA) specifically the monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic lexical words in the light of the principles andparameters of MPT like syllable quantity, foot inventory, directionally, and extrametricality and to see how thistheory can account and predict about the correct stress placement in the word. There are some studies whichinvestigate the metrical structure of primary word stress in MSA mainly in some of the Arabic variants but there isno such study analyzes and outlines in more in-depth the primary stress patterns of MSA particularly monosyllabic,disyllabic, and trisyllabic lexical words by using two metrical models: the tree and grid model. Hence, the presentstudy tries to accomplish this gap and the data of this study are taken from a master thesis of Al-Sulaimaan (1986)"A Study of Stress Patterns in English and Modern Standard Arabic". This study is value for those whospecialists in phonetics and phonology specifically EFL/ESL learners since this study can help the learners todetermine the correct placement of the word stress by applying the principles and parameters of MPT.