Vowel Hiatus Resolution in Arabic

Te prohibition on consonant clusters in many Arabic varieties has long been the object of examination in the literature. In contrast, few atempts have been made to provide a comprehensive and systematic account of vowel sequencing or hiatus phenomena in Arabic. Tis article contributes to flling this gap by reviewing several cases of vowel hiatus and resolution in Egyptian and Levantine. Te article further explores correlations between hiatus strategy and other linguistic variables such as vowel quality, morphemic status, and prominence while testing the degree to which universals proposed for other languages hold true for Arabic—for example, retention of category-initial over category-fnal vowel, retention of root over afx vowel, and low vowels over high vowels. Facts about vowel hiatus and strategies are situated within an optimality-theoretic framework, showing how the interaction of faithfulness and markedness constraints accurately and economically account for diverse hiatus situations.