This study examines the perceptual mechanisms involved in the processing of words without vowels, a lexical form that is common in Tashlhiyt but highly dispreferred cross-linguistically. We find that vowelless words containing different types of sonority profiles are generally discriminable by both native and naive listeners. Yet, nonword ratings indicate that native-language experience governs wellformedness of new words. Our results can inform understandings of the relationship between language-specific phonetic variation and phonotactic patterns, as well as how auditory processing mechanisms shape phonological typology.