vowel at the beginning, such as the definite article al- or words such as 'he bought', 'meeting'. When actually pronounced, one of three things happens: If the word occurs after another word ending in a consonant, there is a smooth transition from final consonant to initial vowel, e.g., 'meeting' . If the word occurs after another word ending in a vowel, the initial vowel of the word is elided, e.g., 'house of the director' . If the word occurs at the beginning of an utterance, a glottal stop is added onto the beginning, e.g., 'The house is ...' . Stress Word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic. It bears a strong relationship to vowel length. The basic rules for Modern Standard Arabic are: A final vowel, long or short, may not be stressed. Only one of the last three syllables may be stressed. Given this restriction, the last heavy syllable (containing a long vowel or ending in a consonant) is stressed, if it is not the final syllable. If the final syllable is super heavy and closed (of the form CVVC or CVCC) it receives stress. If no syllable is heavy or super heavy, the first possible syllable (i.e. third from end) is stressed. As a special exception, in Form VII and VIII verb forms stress may not be on the first syllable, despite the above rules: Hence 'he subscribed' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced), 'he subscribes' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced), 'he should subscribe (juss.)'. Likewise Form VIII 'he bought', 'he buys'. Levels of pronunciation Full pronunciation with pausa Final short vowels are not pronounced. (But possibly an exception is made for feminine plural -na and shortened vowels in the jussive/imperative of defective verbs, e.g., irmi! 'throw!'".) The entire indefinite noun endings -in and -un (with nunation) are left off. The ending -an is left off of nouns preceded by a tāʾ marbūṭah ة (i.e. the -t in the ending -at- that typically marks feminine nouns), but pronounced as -ā in other nouns (hence its writing in this fashion in the Arabic script). The tāʼ marbūṭah itself (typically of feminine nouns) is pronounced as h. (At least, this is the case in extremely formal pronunciation, e.g., some Quranic recitations. In practice, this h is usually omitted.) Formal short pronunciation Most final short vowels are not pronounced. However, the following