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Resyllabification involves adjustments of syllable structure across morpheme or word boundaries. In Arabic, there are two common reasons for resyllabification. The first is avoidance of clusters of three or more consonants, which typically triggers vowel epenthesis. The second is satisfaction of the Onset Constraint: most Arabic dialects require onsets absolutely, which means that vowel-initial morphemes require either resyl…

Syncope involves the loss of a vowel. In Arabic dialects, syncope is typically driven by metrical constraints. The most common targets of syncope are high vowels and central vowels, which are relatively low in sonority, but there are dialects in which even the highly sonorous [a] syncopates. Two fairly representative dialects are Bedouin Ḥijāzī Arabic and Cairene Arabic.…