A durational analysis of compounds and phrases in Maltese

Abstract

This dissertation examines the phonetic and phonological properties of compounds and phrases in Maltese as pronounced by two different groups of speakers. The dissertation begins with an outline of the phenomenon of compounding, the means whereby compounds are distinguished from phrases in Maltese and English are also discussed from both the structural and the phonological point of view. The matter of linguistic stress as a distinguishing feature of compounds and phrases in English in comparison to Maltese is given particular attention. Fabri’s (2009) claim that some sort of prosodic break may be present in Maltese N(oun) + A(djective) constructions but not in A(djective) + N(oun) phrases is also discussed. In an attempt at setting a baseline for the choice of participants, a brief outline of the linguistic context of Malta as a bilingual country is provided. Four bilingual speakers of Maltese were involved in this study. Two are Dominant Maltese (DM) and two others are Dominant English (DE). A comparison of their differences in pronunciation of Maltese compounds and phrases was carried out. Two main tasks were used as a means of collecting the data: a carrier sentence task and a read-a-text task. The target A+N compounds chosen as the material for these two tasks are of two types: colour or non- colour, based on the adjective of the first element in the compound e.g. abjad silġ ‘white- snow’, more literally ‘as white as snow’ vs kerha saħta ‘curse-ugly’, more literally ‘as ugly as a curse’. Each compound is matched by parallel N+A phrases such as silġ abjad ‘white snow’ or saħta kerha ‘an ugly curse’. It was decided that the reverse-order version of the compound corresponding to the relevant equivalent phrase, together with one other gender or number version of the same compound would be included (the adjective in N-A phrases always agrees with the preceding noun in Maltese) in the data collection exercise. The results of this study show that although some type of prosodic break was sometimes observed in both compounds and phrases in different speakers, this was relatively infrequent. By contrast, a study of durational differences between the compounds and phrases, in the different speaker groups gave some interesting, even if rather unexpected findings. Overall, phrases tended to be shorter than compounds, which was not expected. The longest duration in compounds was noted in the DM group while the longest duration in phrases was noted in one member of the DE group. The other participant in the DE group, a more balanced bilingual, demonstrated characteristics of both groups.