'Masʾalatun or Mas'ʾalatun? That Is the Question!

Abstract

Word stress in Classical Arabic (ClAr) is usually reconstructed through cross-dialectal and diachronic analyses of a number of varieties of Arabic and other Semitic languages. However, this paper introduces a new source of data on ClAr stress—namely, the traditional recitation of metra in metrical sequences by Persian prosodists. It shows that the reconstructed pattern of ClAr stress is also observed in such traditional recitation. This stress pattern has nothing to do with Persian phonological or metrical rules, and it should rather be considered an artificial performance practice whose purpose was to imitate the original pronunciation of the metra in Arabic metrics. In view of the oral nature of this practice, I suggest that it has persisted in Persian over a long period (maybe over centuries), and it can therefore be a reliable source of data on ClAr word stress. I also provide some supporting evidence for my hypothesis from medieval Persian texts. On the basis of this new source, I propose that in words with a final heavy syllable preceded by two or more light syllables, the antepenultimate stress pattern was common in many varieties of early Islamic Arabic, including ClAr, and that it was perhaps even more prestigious than the initial stress pattern. This hypothesis may allow us to trace the antepenultimate stress in this syllable structure back to the Proto-Arabic stage.