Medieval Maltese inherited a set of three contrastive ‘emphatic’ obstruents from Arabic: ṭ, ḍ, ṣ, completed by sonorant ṛ. It also inherited a set of ‘gutturals’: plosive q, fricatives χ and ħ, sonorants ɣ and ʕ, and laryngeal h. In late medieval Maltese, the contrast between emphatic and plain consonants was lost, while stem vowels took over relevant lexical contrasts. In the eighteenth century, Maltese grammarians took note of ongoing changes in gutturals: weakness of h, loss of χ merged with ħ, and of ɣ merged with ʕ. In the nineteenth century, the set of distinctive gutturals was reduced to three consonants in most dialects: voiceless stop q, or its modern reflex ʔ, voiceless fricative ħ, and sonorant ʕ. The latter triggered complex processes of vowel diphthongization and pharyngealization. In modern Maltese, ʕ and vowel pharyngealization were lost. In contemporary Maltese, the allophonic realization [h], without pharyngeal constriction, gains ground over [ħ]. In Element Theory ...

As is well known Modern Maltese no longer has interdental fricatives, which have been replaced with the dental stops /t/ and /d/. The loss of the interdental fricatives is believed by some (e.g. Cohen 1966, Vanhove 2000) to have taken place in the so-called "pre-Maltese" stage, i.e. before the separation of Maltese from the Arab world. The present paper examines sources on earlier Maltese, including: Caxaro's (c. 1450) Cantilena (Wettinger & Fsadni 1968)-the first extant text in Maltese; Megiser's (1610) wordlist-collected in 1588; Thezan's (c. 1647) Maltese-Italian dictionary; records of place-names (Abela 1647); Marquis de Sentmenat's (1750) Catalan-Maltese vocabulary; de Soldanis' dictionaries (1750, 1750-1767); de Soldanis' dialogues (Id-Djalogi ta' de Soldanis. n.d.); Vassalli's comments in his Maltese-Latin-Italian dictionary (Vassalli 1796). The data presented, the analysis of the orthography used in the sources, and observations made by various authors all converge in testifying to the existence of the interdental fricatives /ṯ/ and /ḏ/ in Maltese until the end of the 18 th century (see also Vella 2013, Avram 2014, 2016, 2017b). Diachronically, while earlier Maltese /ṯ/ corresponds to Arabic *ṯ, its voiced counterpart /ḏ/ is the reflex of three etymological interdentals, *ḏ, *ḍ and *ẓ. It is also shown that the replacement of the earlier Maltese interdental fricatives /ṯ/ and /ḏ/ with the dental stops /t/ and /d/ appears to have proceeded gradually, both through the lexicon and within the Maltese speech community. On this analysis, the loss of the interdental fricatives in Maltese is an illustration of lexical diffusion (in the sense of e.g. McMahon 1994, Bybee 2016).

It is well known that Modern Maltese no longer has interdental fricatives, which have been replaced with stops. The loss of the interdental fricatives is believed by some (e.g. Cohen 1964, 1967, Vanhoeve 1991, 1994, 2000) to have taken place in the so-called “pre-Maltese” stage, i.e. before the separation of Maltese from the Arab world. Instances of interdental fricatives in Caxaro’s Cantilena (c. 1450) or in Megiser’s wordlist (collected in 1588) have been dismissed as archaic, irrelevant or debatable (given the possibility of faulty transcriptions). The present paper re-examines the currently available textual evidence, including Thezan (c. 1640), Abela (1647) and de Soldanis (1750, 1750-1767). It is shown that varieties of Maltese appear to have preserved the interdental fricatives until the second half of the 18th century (cf. Avram 1999, 2012 and 2013, Vella 2013). Therefore, the loss of the fricative interdentals is a much more recent phenomenon than has hitherto been assumed. Also discussed are some of the implications of these findings.

This paper examines the developments of the Proto-Arabic short vowel system as it develops up to its reflexes in modern Maltese. The analysis focuses on establishing regular correspondence from underived primary nouns. From there it is shown that several developments in the verbal system cannot be the result of regular sound change, and instead have undergone analogical developments. Finally, through these regular sound correspondences, it becomes clear that the alternation of jeHCeC and jahCeC verbs in Maltese must reflect a continuation of the ancient alternation in the verbal prefix of Proto-Arabic which was lost in Classical Arabic.

This thesis presents a formal characterisation of prosodic structure and intonation in Maltese. It also examines selected structures of Maltese English, specifically structures having an interrogative function, in order to determine areas of influence of Maltese on Maltese English. Apart from accent-related rising and falling nuclear tunes, Maltese possesses two accentrelated post-nuclear tunes. A tonal entity specific to structures such as vocatives, imperatives and tags is also identified. This vocative contour is similar to the postnuclear tunes in many respects. In order to account for the fact that the specific choice of post-nuclear tune depends on that of the preceding nuclear tune, a distinction between independent and dependent domains is postulated. A proposal to deal with post-nuclear entities as being extrametrical to the phonological phrase (P-phrase) containing the nuclear tune, but crucially occurring within the same intonational phrase (I-phrase), successfully incorp...

The handout of the paper that I gave at GĦILM6 (8-9 June 2017, Bratislava). A link to the google doc of both the presentation and handout can be found in this document as well.

Maltese is a peripheral dialect of Arabic heavily inflenced by Sicilian and Italian (see e.g. Krier 1976). Maltese is believed by some to be an offshoot of Sicilian Arabic, but this is subject to debate in the literature (see Isserlin 1977; Brincat 1995; Agius 1996; La Rosa 2014; Avram forthcoming). A characteristic of Maltese phonology is the devoicing of obstruents in word-final position (Cohen 1966; Borg 1975, 1997b). The present paper looks into the possible origins of this phonological rule, i.e. whether it may have been inherited from Sicilian Arabic, whether it is the outcome of an internal development or whether it is a change triggered by contact with Sicilian and Italian. The evidence examined includes transcriptions of personal names and place-names in Greek and Latin documents (see e.g. Cusa 1868; Caracausi 1983; Avram 2012, 2016, forthcoming), the earliest texts in Maltese, and early Arabic loanwords in Sicilian (De Gregorio & Seybold 1903). Also discussed are insights provided by research on language contacts (see e.g. Thomason & Kaufman 1988) and on second language phonology (see e.g. Flege & Davidian 1984; Fullana & Mora 2009). It is suggested that, as in other peripheral dialects of Arabic, word-final obstruent devoicing in Maltese is a contact-induced change.

Maltese is usually classified as a North African Arabic variety. Yet some researchers have remarked “some curious similarities with the Eastern dialects”. Investigations of these tend to concentrate upon the phonology and lexicon, with slight attention paid to morphology and syntax. We report on a long-term project in documenting some of those, including polar interrogation with a reflex of /š/; the prohibitive/dehortative system, also exhibiting reflexes of /š/; double object marking with reflexes of /l-/; and pronominal circumstantial clauses. None of these is excusive to Maltese and the Levant alone. Polar interrogation with /š/ is found in the Levantine, and North African, and Andalusi Arabic. The Maltese prohibitive is largely southern Levantine in form, but its dehortative is common to eastern Mediterranean dialects of Arabic. Double object marking with reflexes of /l-/ appears in Andalusi, Levantine, and Mesopotamian varieties. The Maltese pronominal circumstantial clause is similar to Syro-Lebanese Arabic, the Beʿēri Arabic of Upper Egypt, and some dialects of the United Arabic Emirates.