Stop Epenthesis in Arabic

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate the production and the perception of epenthetic stops in Arabic, if any. To do this, a list of four Arabic words written in Arabic orthography with a nasal sound /m/ at coda position of a syllable, on one hand, and obstruents /b, t, k, s/ at onset position of the next syllable on the other hand. Furthermore /m/ should be produced with "taskeen". This indicates the environment we propose for epenthetic segment to occur. The results show that epenthetic segment does occur if the duration between the two sounds is long, however, when the place of articulation of both sounds is similar, epenthesis process is not likely to occur. Frequent cluster proves an influential factor in the perception of these segments too.