This study aims at investigatingthe manner of articulation of the emphatic /dˁ/ sound in both the Saudi and Palestinian dialects. The subjects' sound recordings have been digitized on a PC and analyzed via Praat.The results reveal that the Saudis produce /dˁ/ as an emphatic fricative, whereas the Palestinians as an emphatic plosive. The implications of this study suggest that /ðˁ/ (the fricative emphatic sound) and /dˁ/ (the plosive emphatic sound) merge into /ðˁ/ in Saudi Arabic, whereas they

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... abic, whereas they are distinct from one another in Palestinian Arabic. This is similar to Alani's (1970: 46) finding that the /dˁ/ sound is pronounced as /ðˁ/ (emphatic fricative), but not as /dˁ/ (pharyngealized plosive) in Iraqi dialects except in the dialects of Iraqi Christians despite its orthographical representation as /dˁ/ in the writing system.