A Phase-based Account to t-liaison in Jordanian Arabic

Abstract

This paper focuses on a phonological process in Jordanian Arabic, t-liaison. Two previous accounts have been offered to find out its domain of application. Abdulghani (2010) proposed that this process applies in a non-final position within a maximal syntactic projection in Modern Standard Arabic, whereas Yasin (2012) suggested that it applies in a phonological phrase non-final position in Jordanian Arabic. We will show that this prosodic account can predict the (non-application) of t-liaison in Jordanian Arabic; however, it cannot explain why prosodic variability cannot block or trigger the application of t-liaison. In this study, we present a new account based on Phase Theory (Chomsky 2001) to t-liaison. We propose that this process applies only at a spell-out domain non-final position in Jordanian Arabic. This account can actually capture the contexts in which t-liaison applies and explain why prosodic variability cannot reverse the (non-)application of t-liaison.