A computational approach to the variations in Arabic verbal orthography

This paper introduces a finite-state computational approach to four main types of orthographic variations in Arabic which are: the variations in the writing of verb-initial glottal stop, verb-medial glottal stop, verb-final glottal stop, and verb-final weak letters. This approach is based on a linguistically motivated account for 42 types of variations. This account captures generalizations governing such variations, and it is based on syllabification.