Deriving surface opacity from serial interactions: the case of Arabic epenthesis

Abstract

Vowel epenthesis and stress patterns in Arabic dialects vary widely; understanding their interaction is crucial for phonological theory. This study investigates how different Arabic dialects handle medial CCC clusters and how stress assignment interacts with epenthesis. Specifically, we compare four dialects, Cairene (Egyptian), Hijazi, Lebanese and Iraqi, that exhibit distinct epenthesis placements. Using Optimality Theory with Harmonic Serialism, we analyze data from these dialects. Data were drawn from published descriptions. We model syllabification and epenthesis as ordered processes, testing hypotheses about rule ordering. We find that Cairene and Hijazi Arabic insert the epenthetic vowel after the second consonant (C1C2.VC3), whereas Lebanese and Iraqi insert it after the first consonant (C1V.C2C3). Moreover, in Cairene, the epenthetic vowel can bear stress (yielding transparent interactions), while in the other dialects it is invisible to stress (yielding opacity). Critically, these patterns emerge naturally in HS: when stress is assigned before epenthesis, the epenthetic vowel does not participate in stress, but when epenthesis precedes stress, it is treated like a regular vowel. The analysis captures the cross-dialectal facts without positing ad hoc invisibility constraints.

Keywords

• Stress assignment
• vowel epenthesis
• harmonic Serialism
• Arabic dialects
• opacity
• Cognitive Science