The Perceptual Keystones of Phonological Alteration in Arabic

Abstract

Arabic language has a rich phonological textile which motivates several phonological processes involving phonetic alterations such as assimilation, substitution, and deletion. These processes have been tackled from different perspectives, yet, the process involving substitution or turning in Arabic which is called iqlab has never been tackled from a perceptual perspective.  Accordingly, this study voices an interest in revealing the perceptual footings of iqlab using Gestalt Theory. Considering this objective, the main thrust of this study is to reveal the abidance of the rule of iqlab by the perceptual preferences of human perceptual system mirrored in Gestalt principles and to reveal the reflections of such preferences. After a thorough investigation, the results show that an inseparable relation exists between iqlab rules and the human perceptual preferences.