This book presents an acoustical and physiological Investigation of contemporary standard Arabic as spoken in Iraq. Spectrograms and X-ray sound films are used to perform the analysis for the study. With this equipment, the author considers the vowels, consonants, pharyngealized consonants, pharyngeals and glottals, duration, gemination, and consonant clusters. He also studies syllables, stress, and intonation. All these phenomena are discussed in acoustic and physiological terms. Spectrographic displays, drawings depicting the physiology of a particular sound, diagrams, and charts are all used to illustrate the physical characteristics and relationships of the sounds. (VM)