diff --git a/src/soft_tfidf.c b/src/soft_tfidf.c
index 5bdd8dcf..10c8c45c 100644
--- a/src/soft_tfidf.c
+++ b/src/soft_tfidf.c
@@ -157,8 +157,8 @@ double soft_tfidf_similarity_with_phrases_and_acronyms(size_t num_tokens1, char
     uint32_array **t1_tokens_unicode = NULL;
     uint32_array **t2_tokens_unicode = NULL;
 
-    uint32_array *t1_unicode;
-    uint32_array *t2_unicode;
+    uint32_array *t1_unicode = NULL;
+    uint32_array *t2_unicode = NULL;
 
     int64_array *phrase_memberships_array1 = NULL;
     int64_array *phrase_memberships_array2 = NULL;
@@ -232,8 +232,8 @@ double soft_tfidf_similarity_with_phrases_and_acronyms(size_t num_tokens1, char
         }
     }
 
-    uint32_t *suffixes1;
-    uint32_t *suffixes2;
+    uint32_t *suffixes1 = NULL;
+    uint32_t *suffixes2 = NULL;
 
     if (ordinal_suffixes1 != NULL && ordinal_suffixes2 != NULL) {
         suffixes1 = ordinal_suffixes1->a;
@@ -589,4 +589,4 @@ return_soft_tfidf_score:
 
 double soft_tfidf_similarity(size_t num_tokens1, char **tokens1, double *token_scores1, size_t num_tokens2, char **tokens2, double *token_scores2, soft_tfidf_options_t options, size_t *num_matches) {
     return soft_tfidf_similarity_with_phrases_and_acronyms(num_tokens1, tokens1, token_scores1, NULL, NULL, num_tokens2, tokens2, token_scores2, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, options, num_matches);
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+}