An Optimality - Theoretic Account of Coda Degemination of Arabic Loan words in Persian

There are some words in Arabic with geminate codas. These words have been adopted by Persian. However, since Persian does not allow coda geminates they undergo coda degemination in isolation and in environments preceding morphemes/ words with an initial consonant or vowel. This paper aimed at coming up with an inclusive ranking of constraints which can explain this process in all three environments within the frame work of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2004). At first, gemination and its different types are defined to prepare the ground for explaining degemination. Then, it is argued that these words are geminate in the input and that they consist of a sequence of two identical consonants rather than one long consonant. In analyzing processes dealing with gemination and degemination, OT phonologists often adopt moraic theory or x-slot theory. This paper argues that both theories are not efficient enough in analyzing coda degemination in Persian.