PHONOLOGICAL GROUNDING BETWEEN INSTRUMENT AND TONE: THE INTERROGATIVE HAMZA AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

This research investigates the phenomenon of deleting the interrogative hamzah in ‎Arabic from the perspective of phonological grounding, by analyzing the relationship ‎between the grammatical tool and the prosodic cue (intonation) in achieving interrogative ‎meaning. The research adopts a descriptive-analytical approach, drawing upon ‎Tammam Hassan’s theory of converging clues, and analyzes classical textual evidence ‎where the interrogative hamzah is omitted, particularly the poetic examples of ‘Umar ibn ‎Abī Rabī‘ah and al-Akhtal. The study concludes that intonation plays a fundamental role ‎in transforming declarative sentences into interrogative ones, and that the hamzah can ‎be dispensed with in positive assertive questions when intonation replaces it, whereas ‎omission is impermissible in conceptual or affirmative-interrogative contexts. The ‎research also clarifies the distinction between stress and intonation, emphasizing the ‎importance of differentiating various intonational patterns to determine the permissibility ‎of deletion. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that phonological grounding offers a more ‎coherent scientific explanation of linguistic usage than the traditional grammatical ‎framework of deletion and estimation, thereby opening new perspectives for re-‎examining syntactic phenomena through modern linguistics