THE SYLLABLE SHAPE OF AL-AHSA DIALECT: AN OT PERSPECTIVE

This work discusses the syllable structure of Al-Ahsa dialect of Arabic. Al-Ahsa dialect is a variation of Arabic spoken in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. An OT (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004) framework is adopted and provides a complete analysis of the syllable structure found in the dialect under discussion. It is concluded that Al-Ahsa dialect prohibits initial consonant clusters but allows complex codas. The geminates, however, are allowed medially and finally.