This paper reports the results of experiments in complex Arabic phonetic features identification using a rulebased system (SARPH) and modular connectionist architectures. The first technique we present, operates in the field of analytic approaches and intends to implement a relevant system for automatic segmentation and labeling through the use of finite state networks (FSN). For this task, an original ear model is used to calculate indicative features according to the phonetic and phonological matrix of standard Arabic we have established in earlier studies. The second method deals with a set of a simplified version of sub-neural-networks (SNN). A binary sub-task is assigned to these networks with the objective to recognize features as subtle as emphasis, gemination and semantically pertinent lengthening of vowels. This is proposed to be done at two different levels: at the gross level, by identifying the macro-classes, at the finer level, by detecting pertinent temporal distortion a...