Phonotactic Parameters of Final Consonant Clusters in South Iraqi Arabic and Kuwaiti Arabic: Some Contrastive Points

Setting a comparison of the dialects of arab gulf with those of the outer arab peninsula, namely kuwaiti arabic and iraqi one, reveals a marked generalization. however, it has been observed that the process of linguistic contrast produces a somewhat idiosyncratic phonological system. there are more features distinguishing some dialects from the various neighbouring ones than there are distinguishing dialects from each other. non-reductional as they are, these features may constitute mergers of distinct items. moreover, they can, in most cases, be characterized as analogical in nature, i.e. resulting from the phonological pressure within the language or variety, and this, in turn, leads to a substantial increase in complexity.