How do Fijian and Polynesian languages develop vowel-final words?

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Austronesian languages Major divisions of the Austronesian languages.

In many Oceanic languages, including Fijian and the Polynesian languages, words end in a vowel due to specific historical phonological developments.

For Fijian and the Polynesian languages, this open-syllable structure is the result of the loss of final consonants that were present in earlier stages of the language family. This differs from other Austronesian languages, such as Malagasy or Mussau, which achieve open final syllables through the addition of an "echo" vowel or an invariant "supporting" vowel.1