An Analysis of Phonetic Harmony in Juz 16 and Juz 17 of the Holy Quran Based on Maurice Grammont's Theory

Sometimes repeating morphemes and syllables correlates with author's intended thoughts and concepts hence augmenting prominence and distinction in literary discourse and texts, and capturing the audience. Repeating consonants and vowels under phonetic harmony has the power of inducing certain meanings. The French linguist Maurice Grammont, who studied this subject, stated that poets and writers who use words that are made up of similar phonemes, adequately, and without providing extra details, impart their mental images. The present study, drawing on formalist criticism and Maurice Grammont's theory, analyzed Juz' 16 and Juz' 17 of the Holy Quran, and found that phonetic harmony is a way that can help authors in conveying meaning through literary form and structure, while avoiding prolixity. The results suggest that the Holy Quran also enjoys this feature where conveying intentions and meaning via repeating vowels and consonants has had a deep impact on the readership, directing them to meaning discovery. In addition, our analysis show that bright vowels are the most frequent ones to express the glory of Allah, the High and the most frequent consonants are fricatives, used to evoke anxiety and worry on the part of the infidels and the polytheists.