The Status of Schwa in the Chaoui Dialect: A Non-Linear Analysis

One of the most complex problems in Berber phonology is the issue of the schwa vowel. Its status, behavior, and representation remain, in most cases, a source of debate (Hammane, 2010). This study attempts to make a further contribution to this issue, specifically in Chaoui, a Berber dialect spoken in Algeria. The examined data are primarily elicited from audio-typed recordings of twenty-two gender-balanced Algerian adults speaking Chaoui during natural, ongoing speeches. To increase data reliability, seventy-four videos and sixty-two recordings containing several Chaoui conversations were also selected from YouTube and Google. A systematic analysis of the data using the non-linear approach (X-skeleton and moraic models) yields the following results. First, in Chaoui, a syllable is maximally (C) (C) V (C) (C) and minimally (V). Second, Chaoui obeys both the sonority sequencing principle and syllable contact law to a lesser degree than many of the world’s languages. Third, schwa is an epenthetic vowel that is required for syllabic purposes as well as to repair ill-formed consonant clusters. Finally, geminates and affixes are not subject to epenthesis.