Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Variation And Preferences In Modern Hebrew Nonce Verbs, Michal Martinez

Michal Temkin Martinez

This paper reports a production experiment examining variation in Modern Hebrew spirantization. Modern Hebrew spirantization is characterized by the alternation of the stops [p], [b], and [k] with their fricative counterparts [f], [v], and [χ], respectively. Typically, fricatives occur post-vocalically, and stops elsewhere, as in (1). (1) Root Infinitive Uninflected Gloss /p/~[f] /pgʃ/ [lifgoʃ] [pagaʃ] ‘to meet’ /b/~[v] /bgd/ [livgod] [bagad] ‘to betray’ /k/~[χ] /ktb/ [liχtov] [katav] ‘to write’ Due to historical mergers and recent borrowings, there are segments that are acoustically identical to those in (1) but that do not alternate, thus potentially forming exceptions (i.e. post-vocalic stops or …