AN ACOUSTIC ANALYSIS OF RHYTHM IN BAHDINI KURDISH

Aveen Mohammed Hasan, PhD, Assistant ProfessorDepartment of the English LanguageCollege of LanguagesUniversity of Duhok, Kurdistan Region-Iraqe-mail: [email protected]://orcid.org/0000-0002-9974-9665 ABSTRACT Based on their common rhythmic characteristics, languages have been divided into different classes: stressed-, syllable- and moratimed languages. A variety of studies have examined the acoustic correlates of rhythm in various world languages. However, there has not yet been any experimental work analysing the rhythmic properties of Kurdish, nor is it clear to which rhythmic class it belongs. This study examines the acoustic correlates of rhythm in one of the sub-dialects of Kurdish, namely Bahdini Kurdish (BK). It represents the first attempt to study BK rhythmic patterns using the methods proposed by Ramus et al. (1999) to analyse rhythm metrics. The study is based on the reading of 10 BK sentences and the spontaneous speech of 10 BK native speakers. The data was segmented using the speech analysis program Praat and the duration of the vowel and consonant intervals was derived. The rhythm class of BK was determined by examining the patterns of duration, variability and segmental properties, and then the effects of speakers and speaking styles on the variation of the rhythm metrics were examined. The results show that the rhythmic quantitative features of BK are associated with syllable-timed languages in both read and spontaneous speech. Both the speaker and speaking style were observed to have an effect on the values of %V. The study contributes to filling a gap in phonological studies of BK by examining the segmental-prosodic profile of the language to determine whether it correlates with a stress-timed or syllabletimed rhythm-metric composition. Providing BK’s rhythm-metric computations also expands the existing repository of languages already explored using this framework. Keywords: Bahdini Kurdish, rhythm, stressed-timed, syllabletimed, segmental intervals, speaking styles PDF How to cite:Hasan, A. M. (2024). “An Acoustic Analysis of Rhythm in Bahdini Kurdish.” Journal of Comparative Studies 17 (46), 134-155. https://doi.org/10.59893/jcs.17(46).005