Syllabification rules for Pashto

This paper proposes rules for the syllabification of the Pashto language. Countless permutations exist for the arrangement of syllables in Pashto; however, there are also some constraints on this language, so that certain syllables cannot be used to start words. This paper discusses, in detail, the patterns that can follow certain consonant-vowel patterns, and why some patterns cannot occur consecutively. Pashto is one of the East Iranian group of languages, which includes, for example, Ossete (North Ossetian, South Ossetian, Caucasus Russian Republic) and Yaghnobi (Tajikistan). Rules and algorithms for the Pashto language are proposed in this paper, which deals both with the syllabification of Pashto, as well as syllabification in general.