Machine summary:
"Keywords: Natural Phonological Processes, Sonority Hierarchy, Assimilation, Dissimilation, Epenthesis, Metathesis, Syllable Structure, Sistani Persian Received: March 2009; Accepted: December 2009 1.
Introduction The purpose of the present study is to provide an overview of natural phonological processes in the dialect of Sistani Persian spoken in Iranian Sistan and to review the theoretical implications of these processes.
The study concludes with a review of theoretical implications of these natural processes, giving special attention to data where, because of interference from Standard Persian, the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) is violated in Sistani Persian.
Other phonological processes are conditioned by syllable structure: for example, elision (deletion), epenthesis (insertion), metathesis (reversal), coalescence (merging), and changes in syllabicity.
However, many of the natural processes exhibited by Sistani are lacking in Standard Persian, which resists phonological innovation because of its adherence to orthographic forms which date back about a thousand years to Early New Persian (Hashabeiky 2005: 59-61).
Using both synchronic and diachronic data, we have shown that natural phonological processes are motivated by segmental context as well as syllable structure requirements.
As has been shown in other studies, assimilation and dissimilation are motivated by segmental context, and processes such as deletion, epenthesis and metathesis are motivated by syllable structure requirements.
The application of metathesis is particularly interesting in Sistani, since it suggests that the application of the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) in the language has been compromised by the internalization and generalization of SSP-violating structures in a dominant neighbouring language, Standard Persian."