Interesting Pausal Forms in the Speech of Muslims and Christians in Kufur-Kanna*

The aim of this paper is to describe the system of vocalic variants in pause pertaining to speakers of Arabic in Kufur-Kanna (AKK) and in this regard to determine the features that characterize the AKK. As in Nazareth, the incidence of pauses in AKK varies and depends on the content, the listener and the speaker’s intentions. In AKK I detected pausal forms in the speech of middle-aged and elderly Muslims and elderly Christians. In addition to changes in consonants and vowel quality in their speech, in pausal position final syllables also undergo other modifications as compared to the contextual forms. Unlike in Nazareth, four further types were identified in AKK: (1) lengthening of short vowels in final position: -Cv > -Cv̄#, -CvC > -Cv̄C#; lengthening of normal and anaptyctic short vowels in final closed syllables: -CvC; (2) devoicing of voiced consonants in word-final position; (3) glottalization after consonants and vowels in word-final position; and (4) aspiration: addition of (h) in pausal position where the word ends in long vowels.


Kufᵘr-Kanna 1
Kufᵘr-Kanna is a village in Lower Galilee, about six kilometers northeast of the city center of Nazareth. In 1968 it was declared a local council. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 2 as of December 2019, 22,751 residents live in .2% of the residents of the village are Muslims, 10.7% are Christian (mainly Greek Catholic and

Fieldwork and informants
The pausal forms in AKK are similar to those that occur in Nazareth: Lowering of short vowels i u e o in final syllable, lengthening of short vowels -Cv > -Cv̄#, 4 -CvC > -Cv̄C# in final position, diphthongization, raising of low vowels in the syllable -Cv̄C# and addition of (h) in pausal position where the word ends in consonant or short vowel. 5 In Nazareth (ZUʿBI 2017) pausal forms occur in the speech of middle-aged and elderly Muslims and elderly Maronites: In addition to changes in vowel quality in their speech, in pausal position final syllables also undergo other modifications relative the form in normal speech (context form). For example, lengthening, diphthongization and aspiration (in cases of vowel changes) occur as a secondary step after a change in the vowel, and they relate with it. 6 It is worth noting that, in the speech of these groups, the closed syllables often undergo only a change of vowel quality, but this may also be accompanied by lengthening. Finaly open syllables have changes in vowel quality and secondary changes such as diphthongization. 7 In Nazareth, in the speech of Muslims and Maronite Christians, words occurring in pausal position may undergo different kinds of change according to syllable type. Five types were identified: (1) lowering of i > e# and u > o#; (2) lengthening of (u >) o > ō#, (i >) e > ē# and (i >) ä > ǟ#; (3) diphthongization: a falling diphthong ī > ī ä #, ū > ū ä #, ō > ō ä # and ē > ē ä #; addition of final w/y : -a > -aw#, -u > -ow# and -i > -ey#, ēy#; (4) raising of vowels ā > ɔ̄#; and (5) aspiration where the word ends in short vowels and consonants: (-i>) -e > -eh#, -C# > -Ch#.
In this paper I intend to describe only further pausal forms which I recorded in Kufᵘr-Kanna and that do not occur in the Arabic of Nazareth. Thus this study is a complement to the other one on Nazareth. To the best of my knowledge the phenomena found here have not been documented anywhere in the area, i.e. in the Palestinian dialects. 8 Thus the present paper is the first to examine this dialect with its documentation of interesting linguistic forms.
I conducted my fieldwork among a Muslim and Christian population in Kufᵘr-Kanna, north of Israel. It consists of live recordings of informants who live in Kufᵘr-Kanna, including especially extended, continuous texts of various types, which give a naturalistic representation of daily speech. The recordings contain stories, jokes, customs, life stories, etc. The informants were of various backgrounds (academics, high school graduates, and illiterate people) varying in age (young 15-25: 5 males and 5 females, middle-age 26-50: 5 males and 5 females, adults 50+: 5 males and 5 females) and gender. The overall length of the tape-recorded material amounts to approximately 5 hours.
It is assumed that the varied recorded texts will constitute an accurate representation of 4 The sign # means pause here. the dialect of the village that comes into daily use by the residents, especially when the recorded are natives of the village along with their parents and grandparents. These people speak the dialect of the village from birth, studied and worked there all the time and were usually not subject to external linguistic influences.

Pausal forms in AKK
In AKK pausal forms are common in the speech of middle-aged and elderly Muslims and elderly Christians similar to what is happening in Nazareth. 9 The existence of the phenomenon among this age group is subject to various speculations. It can be assumed that the immigrants from Lebanon who came to the place brought with them this phenomenon in the past, which is also common in Lebanon (ZUʿBI 2017: 167-168). This phenomenon has been preserved among the elderly to this day. Another possibility is the existence of the phenomenon originally in the village itself (ibid.) especially among the middle-aged and elderly whose language has started to have little effect over time on the young people who sometimes prefer the 'prestigious' forms. As is well known, young people are always subject to linguistic change as a result of their studies and work, especially outside the village (see details in § 4 below).
In the speech of people in AKK words occurring in pausal position may undergo different kinds of changes according to the type of the final syllable. 10 In AKK, we can distinguish two types of pauses: minor pause (short pause) in which one alternation occurs: changes in vowel quality such as lowering of short vowels, and a major pause (long pause) in which two alternations occur such as diphthongization where changes in vowel quality and the addition of a final consonant occurs.    In this article I only describe the phenomena that exist in the village. This article does not intend to discuss the source of the phenomena but some explanations are provided below. This topic will be reserved for future research.
As mentioned above, this phenomenon has been documented among Bedouin in the Negev and in the north. As mentioned above, part of the population of the village is Bedouin immigrants living in their neighborhood. A logical explanation of the phenomenon is the effect of the Bedouin dialect on the dialect of the village elders. Moreover, the most logical is the explanation that only the elderly will be affected by this dialect which is considered non-prestige among the young people. We therefore find this phenomenon only among this age group. The shift of r to x may be an influence of Hebrew, in which Hebrew speakers articulate ġ or x instead of r. According to KREITMAN (2008: 121-122) in her experiment/study on Modern Hebrew: "initially r was used as the voiced counterpart of x; r and x are used for convenience for what is assumed to be uvular segments: [x] being the uvular voiceless fricative and [r] being a uvular segment. There is some evidence from child language acquisition that r may be the voiced counterpart of x, based on confusion of the two phonemes. Moreover, based on evidence from Biblical Hebrew, it has been claimed that x is a voiceless velar fricative and r in MH is its voiced velar counterpart (BLANC 1964, CHAYEN 1972. Others claim that both x and r in MH are uvular (BERMAN 1997, BOLOZKY 1972, 1978. In other words, both the place and manner of articulation of these two segments are disputed. While there is no debate that x is a fricative, the nature of r is not so straightforward. BOLOZKY (1972BOLOZKY ( , 1978 claims that r is a uvular fricative while Berman (1997) claim that the MH r is a uvular trill. In either case, r behaves as a sonorant phonologically and therefore, cannot be used as the voiced counterpart of the uvular voiceless fricative x".
In light of the disagreement regarding the r, it is possible in our case to assume a Hebrew influence, since the informants are in daily contact with Hebrew speakers in all areas of life such as, work, studies, cultural life and more.

Glottalization in word final position
Glottalization after vowels and consonants in pausal positions in word final position: 15

Origin of the pausal forms in AKK
In Palestine some pausal forms are unique to Galilee. 18 As stated in the paper about Nazareth, 19 one possibility is that this phenomenon originated in the rural areas which surround Nazareth (such as Kufᵘr-Kanna). 20 Another interesting possibility is that this phenomenon may have originated in Lebanon and reached Galilee (especially Nazareth and the surrounding villages) by immigrants who settled there. 21 A third possibility is that this phenomenon originated in the Arabian Peninsula and reached Kufᵘr-Kanna, Nazareth and other places by Bedouins who moved to Palestine and settled there. 22 Another explanation may be that this phenomenon has always existed in the speech of the inhabitants of the region regardless of external influences, but no researcher has discovered it or written about it before. Thus, it may be that other regions and other groups are characterized by this phenomenon and therefore it is worth expanding the study of this phenomenon. I assume that this last option is the most logical in this context, but additional possibilities can also be raised for the spread of this phenomenon.
From the research I conduct in different areas of Israel, I meet different people from different areas. I found, for example, this phenomenon among some of my informants in the city of Acre whose dialect has not yet been studied. In my opinion, if a particular phenomenon has not been documented and/or a particular area has not been studied, it does not mean that the same phenomenon does not exist. Despite the many studies conducted in the past, there is still a lack of research in various parts of Israel. It is possible that in the areas studied so far no one noticed this interesting phenomenon and/or this phenomenon did not interest those researchers.
And to the question: why has this phenomenon been documented only among the elderly? It may be that at the time the entire population was influenced by the new dialect of the new inhabitants/immigrants. Apparently over time it is preserved only in the dialect of the old people, as the young people are prone to linguistic changes and are influenced by innovations in the field, they may prefer the 'prestige' of the language and it is not considered 'prestige' compared to different areas where this phenomenon does not exist.

Summary and Conclusion
The aim of this paper has been to describe the system of vocalic and consonantal variants in pausal positions pertaining to speakers of AKK and to determine the features that characterize the AKK in this regard.
In AKK, pausal forms occur in the speech of middle-aged and elderly Muslims and elderly Christians. In addition to changes in consonants and vowel quality in their speech, we have seen that in pausal position final syllables also undergo other modifications relative the form in contextual form. As stated earlier (see § 3 above), common phenomena with the dialect of Nazareth were found here; these phenomena were mentioned in this article without detail (for details see ZUʿBI 2017), e.g. the closed syllables often undergo only a change of vowel quality, but this may also be accompanied by lengthening (see § 3 above); final open syllables have changes in vowel quality and secondary changes such as diphthongization (see § 3 above). 23 In the speech of Muslims and Christians, words occurring in pausal position may undergo different kinds of change according to syllable type.
The pausal forms described above are quite rare in Palestine. Till now only pausal final imāla a > i > e had been attested in central Palestinian dialects. Glottalization and devoicing of consonants have been attested in Bedouin dialects in Negev. Lowering of short vowels, lengthening of sort vowels, diphthongization and aspiration have been attested lately in the Arabic of Nazareth, 24 while other pausal forms that are documented in the current paper (such as of voiced consonants and glottalization) were hitherto unattested in Nazarene Arabic. Such forms which had been attested in Nazareth and Kufᵘr-Kanna were hitherto unattested in other Palestinian places/dialects. I believe that these issues are worth investigating in further places in Galilee rather than Nazareth and Kufᵘr-Kanna. It would be also interesting to find out whether these features can be confirmed for other Arabic dialects in Palestine.

Sample text 25
The informant is a Muslim, who was born in 1942 in Kufᵘr-Kanna. He visited the elementary school in Kufᵘr-Kanna. He is married and has many children. He cultivates his land. He is a kind and tactful spokesman who welcomed me at his house with great hospitality.  There is a slave who was <i.e., served> the prince, he presented a pot of food to three children, and the three children renewed the family of Amāra. And one went to the Zayādne <family> in the east of Jordan which <then> expanded. Kufᵘr-Kanna had hundreds <of people>; today <it contains> about twenty five thousand. It is headed by a council and we hope that it will become a municipality and we hope that they will .. we hope <that> the current head <of the council> will be successful and continue his good and blessed way.

Sample Translation
Kanna bi-l-māḏ ̣ ey kānu yišrab(!)   her. <When> I came to take her brother <with me in order> to invite <people to the wedding>, her second brother said to her, "that <one> is your bridegroom". She set down a pail of water and then ran away. And it was like this. <In the past> they did not know <or> were not introduced to each other and anything. <It was> based on the renown of the mother, the father and the family, the family. When there is an address, 41 then it would not be difficult. Today they introduce themselves by the telephone and the internet and this is unacceptable. And <the thing> which... and this creates the problems and the divorce and the separation even before <the marriage, i.e.> during the engagement period, these are the things <today>.
The bride did not say, "no". Yes, <sometimes> she said "no". Yes, but it was so rare that she refused and said, "no", that "I do not want this wedding". No, in respect of fathers. In the past they <used to> force her, and this was wrong. I admit that it was wrong. Why? because everything <that comes> by force will not succeed. I do not love my cousin, why must I marry her, why? If there is an interest <for me to marry my cousin>, it is ok. But no, they were... there is a saying, "the cousin drops her off the horse". But this is wrong.
I admit that it is wrong. <I think she should> choose, choose <the one> who fits her. 41 I.e., established family.