Against the class of liquids: Evidence from English and Arabic

This paper aims at studying some of the problems associated with the class of sounds called liquids, with focus on the /l/ and /r/ . The data primarily comes from English and Arabic. The objective of this study is to question the validity of this class by showing that there is not enough phonetic ground to group /l/ and /r/ together in the class of liquids. Evidence from several phonological processes in English such as metathesis, t/d deletion, vowel insertion and other processes will be presented to show the different phonological behaviors of these two phonemes. A number of linguistic phenomena in Arabic will be explored to support the argument of this paper that /l/ and /r/ function differently and should consequently be members of different classes. To the same end, some of the phonotactic rules of English and Arabic regarding /l/ and /r/ will be discussed.