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In this paper, we present a case study of an atypically developing Hebrew-acquiring boy (YV), in comparison with three typically developing boys. Drawing on data from longitudinal studies, we examined the development of two verbal suffixes

The literature on what we call AB constructions (freezes, irreversible binomials), such as odds and ends and copy paste, attributes the fixed word order to both phonological and non-phonological, mostly semantic constraints. However, some researchers attribute a prominent role to phonology, while others view semantics as the major contributor to word order of AB constructions. In this paper we evaluate the role of phonology in Hebrew AB constructions with reference to a harmonic grammar with weighted constraints, where constraint weight is calculated on the basis of its effect in our corpus. The grammar reveals that semantic constraints weigh more than phonological constraints in both the cumulative weight and the average weight. Nevertheless, phonology affects a great number of data items, in particular those where semantic constraints are mute. We thus conclude that although syntax and semantics are responsible for word order, phonology determines word order when the other modules do not have a say.

Does knowledge of language transfer spontaneously across language modalities? For example, do English speakers, who have had no command of a sign language, spontaneously project grammatical constraints from English to linguistic signs? Here, we address this question by examining the constraints on doubling. We first demonstrate that doubling (e.g.panana; generally: ABB) is amenable to two conflicting parses (identity vs. reduplication), depending on the level of analysis (phonology vs. morphology). We next show that speakers with no command of a sign language spontaneously project these two parses to novel ABB signs in American Sign Language. Moreover, the chosen parse (for signs) is constrained by the morphology ofspokenlanguage. Hebrew speakers can project the morphological parse when doubling indicates diminution, but English speakers only do so when doubling indicates plurality, in line with the distinct morphological properties of their spoken languages. These observations suggest that doubling in speech and signs is constrained by a common set of linguistic principles that are algebraic, amodal and abstract.

Most studies agree that the input (i.e. the base) of a segholate paradigm in Biblical Hebrew is prosodically CVCC. However, such an input leads to an analysis that does not comply with universal typology of vowel strength, an analysis where vowel alternation not only affects a strong (stressed) position but also triggered by a (weak) epenthetic vowel. In this paper, we provide an alternative analysis, which postulates the surface singular form as the input of the paradigm and eliminates the unnatural nature of the morphophonology of segholates.

Modern Hebrew allows for a diverse variety of syllable structures, allowing syllables with codas, onsetless syllables, and complex syllable margins. Syllables with a complex onset are found in word initial position, mostly in nouns, and syllables with a complex coda are less common. In this paper, we provide the distribution of syllable types in Modern Hebrew, noting differences between verbs and nouns, native words and loanwords, as well as differences among positions within the word. Special attention is given to word initial complex onsets, with details regarding the restrictions governing consonant combinations.

The paper provides a comprehensive description of the phonology and phonetics of Hebrew stress. The distribution of the stress patterns draws a categorial distinction between verbs and nouns, and enhances the typologically uncommon disparity between the most common pattern (final stress) and the default pattern (penultimate stress). As the acoustic studies reveal, the main cue for Hebrew stress is duration, though the duration contrast is eliminated between a phrase final unstressed syllable and the preceding stressed syllable. A second important result of the acoustic studies is that there is no evidence for secondary stress.

Across languages, certain linguistic forms are systematically preferred to others (e.g. bla > lba). But whether these preferences concern abstract constraints on language structure, generally, or whether these restrictions only apply to speech is unknown. To address this question, here we ask whether linguistic constraints previously identified in spoken languages apply to signs. One such constraint, ANCHORING, restricts the structure of reduplicated forms (AB → ABB, not ABA). In two experiments, native ASL signers rated the acceptability of novel reduplicated forms that either violated ANCHORING (ABA) or obeyed it (ABB). In Experiment 1, signers made a forced choice between ABB and ABA forms; in Experiment 2, signers rated signs individually. Results showed that signers prefer signs that obey ANCHORING over ANCHORING violations (ABB > ABA). These findings show for the first time that ANCHORING is operative in ASL signers. These results suggest that some linguistic constraints are amodal, applying to both speech and signs.

The paper addresses historical changes in the stress system of Hebrew, attending to the difference between Biblical Hebrew (script-based) and contemporary Hebrew (attested), and predicting the system of post-Hebrew; on the basis of experimental evidence and words from the periphery of the lexicon, it is predicted that the stress system of post-Hebrew will be similar to that of Biblical Hebrew. The predicted change from contemporary Hebrew to post-Hebrew is attributed to a combination of two factors: the inconsistency of the present system, and its incompliance with universal principles. The changes are addressed in terms of constraint reranking within the framework of Optimality Theory.

Cet article explore les conditions qui résultent du positionnement variable du terme source dans les amalgames anglais, dans lesquels les mêmes termes sources ont un ordre variable, créant ainsi deux amalgames différents, c’est-à-dire des doublets d’amalgames. Pour les doublets d’amalgames non synonymiques, tels que (egg × prégnant >) éggnant ‘pregnant with egg’ et prégegg ‘egg that counts down pregnancy’, le facteur principal est que dans les amalgames endocentriques, le terme source qui constitue la tête sémantique se place à droite. Pour les doublets d’amalgames synonymiques, tels que plúmpricot ~ ápriplum ‘plum‑apricot hybrid’ (< plum × ápricot), le positionnement variable du terme source dépend d’au moins quatre facteurs qui se combinent : (i) la fidélité segmentale – qui permet l’optimalisation de la similarité segmentale ; (ii) la loi de Pāṇini – qui consiste à placer le terme source le plus court devant le terme source le plus long ; (iii) l’intégrité monosyllabique – c’est-à-dire la conservation du terme source monosyllabique dans la même syllable ; et (iv) la fidélité syntagmatique – qui ajuste l’ordre linéaire des termes sources selon l’ordre qu’ils auraient dans un constituant syntaxique potentiel. In this paper, we explore the conditions that result in variable base‑word positioning in English blends, where the same base words have variable order, yielding two blends, i.e. blend doublets. In non‑synonymous doublets, such as (egg × prégnant >) éggnant ‘pregnant with egg’ and prégegg ‘egg that counts down pregnancy’, the main factor is that in endocentric blends, the base word that contributes the semantic head is right‑aligned. In synonymous blend doublets, such as plúmpricot ~ ápriplum ‘plum‑apricot hybrid’ (< plum × ápricot), variable base‑word positioning results from at least four factors interacting: (i) segmental faithfulness – maximizing segmental similarity; (ii) Pāṇini’s law – positioning the short base word before the long one; (iii) monosyllabic integrity – keeping the monosyllabic base word in the same syllable; and (iv) syntagmatic faithfulness – matching the linear order of the base words to their order in a would‑be syntactic constituent.

Does knowledge of language transfer across language modalities? For example, can speakers who have had no sign language experience spontaneously project grammatical principles of English to American Sign Language (ASL) signs? To address this question, here, we explore a grammatical illusion. Using spoken language, we first show that a single word with doubling (e.g., trafraf) can elicit conflicting linguistic responses, depending on the level of linguistic analysis (phonology vs. morphology). We next show that speakers with no command of a sign language extend these same principles to novel ASL signs. Remarkably, the morphological analysis of ASL signs depends on the morphology of participants' spoken language. Speakers of Malayalam (a language with rich reduplicative morphology) prefer XX signs when doubling signals morphological plurality, whereas no such preference is seen in speakers of Mandarin (a language with no productive plural morphology). Our conclusions open up the possibility that some linguistic principles are amodal and abstract.

This article introduces two phenomena that are studied within the domain of templatic morphology—clippings and word-and-pattern morphology, where the latter is usually associated with Semitic morphology. In both cases, the words are of invariant shape, sharing a prosodic structure defined in terms of number of syllables. This prosodic template, being the core of the word structure, is often accompanied with one or more of the following properties: syllable structure, vocalic pattern, and an affix. The data in this article, drawn from different languages, display the various ways in which these structural properties are combined to determine the surface structure of the word. The invariant shape of Japanese clippings (e.g., suto ← sutoraiki ‘strike’) consists of a prosodic template alone, while that of English hypocoristics (e.g., Trudy ← Gertrude) consists of a prosodic template plus the suffix -i. The Arabic verb classes, such as class-I (e.g., sakan ‘to live’) and class-II (e.g., misek ‘to hold’), display a prosodic template plus a vocalic pattern, and the Hebrew verb class-III (e.g., hivdil ‘to distinguish’) displays a prosodic template, a vocalic pattern and a prefix. Given these structural properties, the relation between a base and its derived form is expressed in terms of stem modification, which involves truncation (for the prosodic template) and melodic overwriting (for the vocalic pattern). The discussion in this article suggests that templatic morphology is not limited to a particular lexicon type – core or periphery, but it displays different degrees of restrictiveness.

Does knowledge of language consist of abstract principles, or is it fully embodied in the sensorimotor system? To address this question, we investigate the double identity of doubling (e.g., slaflaf, or generally, XX; where X stands for a phonological constituent). Across languages, doubling is known to elicit conflicting preferences at different levels of linguistic analysis (phonology vs. morphology). Here, we show that these preferences are active in the brains of individual speakers, and they are demonstrably distinct from sensorimotor pressures. We first demonstrate that doubling in novel English words elicits divergent percepts: Viewed as meaningless (phonological) forms, doubling is disliked (e.g., slaflaf < slafmak), but once doubling in form is systematically linked to meaning (e.g., slaf = ball, slaflaf = balls), the doubling aversion shifts into a reliable (morphological) preference. We next show that sign-naive speakers spontaneously project these principles to novel signs in American Sign Language, and their capacity to do so depends on the structure of their spoken language (English vs. Hebrew). These results demonstrate that linguistic preferences doubly dissociate from sensorimotor demands: A single stimulus can elicit diverse percepts, yet these percepts are invariant across stimulus modality––for speech and signs. These conclusions are in line with the possibility that some linguistic principles are abstract, and they apply broadly across language modality.

In this paper, we study the distribution of the feminine singular suffixes -et and -a in the present tense of Hebrew verb paradigms. The question we ask is which of these two suffixes is the default allomorph. The answer is not trivial. In terms of distribution, -a appears with limited environments and -et is clearly the elsewhere case, and thus the default. In terms of order, however, -et is the feminine singular suffix associated with the present tense, while -a emerges only when -et is blocked. We thus argue for multiple defaults, distinguishing between local and global default; -et is the local default, uniquely associated with feminine singular verbs in the present tense, while -a is the global default, associated with feminine singular but not specified for the present tense. We provide a formal analysis for the distribution of these suffixes within the framework of Optimality Theory, which allows the interaction of phonological constraints with constraints on morpho-syntactic feature mapping. We further study the partially unpredictable distribution of -et and -a in vowel final verbs, and present the results of an experiment where speakers employed unique strategies in order to assign the local default -et.

Paradigm leveling, whereby the number of surface allomorphs within a paradigm is reduced, is often accompanied by the loss of contrast between paradigms (analogy). Since these two are independent of each other, we distinguish between intra- and inter-paradigm leveling. In this paper, we study inter-paradigm leveling in the verb system of Hebrew, manifested by on-going change-oriented variation. In this context, we respond to two questions often addressed in studies on paradigm leveling: (i) Why do some paradigms interact in inter-paradigm leveling and others do not? (ii) What determines the direction of leveling? With regard to the first question, we argue that inter-paradigm leveling is triggered by similarity between whole paradigms, and propose a model that quantifies similarity and predicts the relative chance for two paradigms to undergo inter-paradigm leveling. With regard to the second question, we identify two types of directionality, uni- and bidirectional leveling, and show that the selection between these two is determined by the size of the inflectional classes. Class size determines the direction in unidirectional leveling (the larger is the winner) and class size ratio distinguishes between uni- and bidirectional leveling (the higher the ratio the greater the chance for unidirectional leveling).

This paper studies the effect of phonological development on the acquisition of Hebrew verb inflectional suffixes, comparing between two monolingual typically developing children (SR and RM). Examination of the order at which the suffixes appeared in the children’s speech reveals one distinction; SR produced the number (plural) suffix -im before the person (1st singular) suffix -ti, while RM produced these suffixes in the opposite order. All other suffixes were produced in the same order. As these suffixes differ in the presence vs. absence of a coda, I attribute the distinction between the children to the development of word final codas, which was faster in SR’s speech than in RM’s. This interaction between phonology and morphology is known as prosodic licensing, whereby the prosodic structure hosting a grammatical morpheme is a prerequisite for the production of this morpheme.

When children have to select one of two structures, do they start with the universally unmarked structure or with the one preferred by the ambient language? Th is question is directly relevant to metrical systems, which often employ either iambs or the universally unmarked trochees. We argue that children start with the universally unmarked trochaic foot, unless their ambient language provides them with suffi cient data to arrive at the language-specifi c preferred foot prior to the onset of speech. We show that Hebrew-acquiring children, unlike French ones, are exposed to ambiguous data, which do not allow them to determine the type of foot the language’s stress system employs. Our quantitative data provide evidence that in such a case, children adhere to the trochaic foot during the very early stage of acquisition (in the case study presented here, the early stage of acquisition refers to the fi rst 100 cumulative target words). Later on, children follow the frequency-based preference in Hebrew, where fi nal stress, and thus the iambic foot is employed in about 75% of the nouns.

This paper presents a comparative study of typical and atypical consonant harmony (onset–onset place harmony), with emphasis on (i) the size of the harmonic domain, (ii) the position of the harmonic domain within the prosodic word, and (iii) the maximal size of the prosodic word that exhibits consonant harmony. The data, drawn from typically and atypically developing Hebrew-speaking children, reveal the following characteristics: (i) The harmonic domain is usually limited to two consonants in typical harmony, but may span to up to four consonants in atypical harmony. (ii) The harmonic domain usually aligns with the left edge of the prosodic word in typical harmony, but may also align with the right edge of the prosodic word in atypical harmony. (iii) Typical consonant harmony is usually limited to maximally trisyllabic productions, while atypical harmony is also found in quadrisyllabic productions. In addition, the sporadic variation characterizing early typical speech appears in advanced stages in atypical speech. With reference to the hierarchical structure of the word, these distinctions are analyzed here in terms of (a-)synchronization between the development of the prosodic word layer (number of syllables) and the segmental layer. The formal analysis is couched within the framework of Optimal Domains Theory (Cole, J., Kisseberth, C., 1994. An optimal domain theory of harmony. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 24, 1–13, ROA-22; Cole, J., Kisseberth, C., 1995a. Paradoxical strength conditions in harmony systems, ROA-48; Cole, J., Kisseberth, C., 1995b. Nasal harmony in optimal domain theory, ROA-49; Cole, J., Kisseberth, C., 1996. Restricting multi-level constraint evaluation: opaque rule interaction in Yawelmani vowel harmony, ROA-98; Cassimjee, F., Kisseberth, C., 1997. Optimal domain theory and Bantu tonology: a case study from Isixhosa and Shingazidja, ROA-176; Cassimjee, F., Kisseberth, C., 1998. Tonal variation across Emakhuwa dialects, ROA-289; Cassimjee, F., Kisseberth C., 1999. A conspiracy argument for optimality theory: Emakhuwa dialectoloy, ROA-331), a branch of optimality theory (Prince, A., Smolensky, P., 1993. Optimality theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Ms. Rutgers University and University of Colorado, Boulder).

Duality of patterning, is, by hypothesis, a universal design feature of language. Every language constructs words from meaningful units (morphemes), which, in turn, are comprised of meaningless phonological elements (e.g., segments, syllables). But whether the language faculty does, in fact, include a separate morphological level, distinct from the phonology, is a matter of controversy. To elucidate the role of morphology, here we ask whether morphological forms are constrained by putatively universal combinatorial principles, distinct from those applying to phonological patterns. Our research exploits the structural ambiguity of doubling. Doubling (e.g., trafraf) is open to two competing interpretations-as either a purely phonological form, or as a complex morphological structure that is systematically linked to meaning (e.g., trafraf is the diminutive of traf). Our experiments show that responses to doubling (trafraf) shift radically, depending on its level of analysis. Viewed as a meaningless phonological form, doubling is dispreferred irrespective of its kind (i.e., trafraf is as bad as traftaf, even though the latter violates a morphological constraint on contiguity). But once doubling is systematically linked to meaning (i.e., as a morphological structure), the doubling dislike shifts into a reliable preference, and an additional constraint on its contiguity arises (i.e., trafraf>traftaf). Remarkably, the dissociation between morphological and phonological doubling emerges regardless of whether morphological reduplication is abundant in participants' language (in Hebrew) or relatively rare (in English). These results suggest the existence of distinct linguistic constraints that preferentially target the morphological vs. phonological levels. We discuss various explanations for the origins of these restrictions.

The article addresses two issues regarding Hebrew reduplication: (a) the distinction between reduplicated and nonreduplicated stems with identical consonants (e.g., minen ‘to apportion’ vs. mimen ‘to finance’), and (b) the patterns of reduplication (C1VC2VC2C, C1VC2C3VC3C,C1VC2C1CVC2C, and C1C2VC3C2CVC3C). These issues are studied from a surface point of view, accounting for speakers’ capacity to parse forms with identical consonants regardless of their base. It is argued that the grammar constructed by the learner on the basis of structural relations (base – output) can also serve for parsing surface forms without reference to a base.

The paper provides an analysis of the development of the prosodic word in the speech of a Hebrew-speaking, hearing impaired child using a cochlear implant device. The data were collected during 38 sessions, from the age of 1;5 years (three months after the operation) till 3;4, using spontaneous speech and picture naming. The analysis is couched within the theoretical framework of Prosodic Phonology, and compared with that of normally hearing Hebrew-speaking children. The comparison reveals that the development of the prosodic word in the speech of the implanted child is within the normal range, in terms of both developmental path and age. There were, however, two phenomena in the speech of the implanted child that were not reported in the studies on normally hearing children. The implanted child's vocabulary included mono- and disyllabic words consisting of vowels only, and his vocalic inventory included long vowels. The clinical implications of our findings are discussed.

Cet article propose une analyse de la morphologie non-concatenative en hebreu moderne dans le cadre de la Theorie de l'Optimalite. Il est soutenu que le mot est la base de la derivation, modifiee par des contraintes assignant une structure prosodique, une melodie vocalique et des affixes, le cas echeant. La notion de gabarit est vue comme une configuration des structures assignees par ces contraintes. La racine consonantique est entierement eliminee de la grammaire. Ce dernier point est defendu sur la base d'arguments provenant du changement diachronique et de l'apprentissage.

There are two types of truncation that yield shortening of a morphological constituent, FAKE TRUNCATION (templatic) and TRUE TRUNCATION (a-templatic, subtractive). This article provides an analysis of true truncation in colloquial Hebrew imperatives. It is shown that true truncation cannot target a designated phonological unit, since in some forms CV is truncated and in others only V. In addition, there are cases where truncation is blocked. The framework of optimality theory adopted here allows a unified account of the data in terms of constraint interaction. It is argued that an antifaithfulness truncation constraint, which must be morphological, interacts with both faithfulness and markedness constraints. Truncation is minimized to one segment by a general antideletion faithfulness constraint, but markedness constraints may impose truncation of more than one segment. There are cases where truncation is blocked, which suggests that the truncation constraint is violable. The discussion includes regular and irregular verbs and instances of free variation.

In this paper I argue that word-internal morphological features can be visible. I present a case from Hebrew, where plural formation of feminine diminutive nouns is blocked due to features associated with an internal suffix. The feminine diminutive form yaldonet (little girl) consists of a base yeled (boy), a diminutive suffix -on, and a feminine suffix -et ; -on is specified for [-Fem] and -et for [+Fem]. The plural suffixes in Hebrew are subcategorized for gender, -ot for [+Fem] and -im for [-Fem]. I argue that diminutive forms such as yaldonet cannot be pluralized because -im conflicts with the gender of -et, and -ot with the gender of -on. While the conflict with -et is expectable, the one with -on can be explained only if the gender of the internal suffix is visible. There are, however, cases where word-internal suffixes are not visible. These suffixes, unlike the visible suffix -on, are noncompositional. I thus propose to view words as consisting of compositional and noncompositional morphological domains; only suffixes in a compositional domain can be visible word-internally

Blends, also called portmanteau words, are formed by fusing two words into one new word, where internal portions of the base words are often subtracted (one segmental string from the right part of the first word and another from the left part of the second word). For example, the English blendnixonomicshas been formed by combiningnixonandeconomicsand subtracting the stringneco. (For clarity of exposition, blends will be usually represented asnixonomics, where the subtracted material is enclosed in angled brackets and the boundary between the base elements is indicated by ⋅).

In the formation of Modern Hebrew denominative verbs, two structural properties are transferred from the base to the derived form: the consonantal root and the consonant cluster. While the model of Root-to-Template Association (McCarthy 1981) is largely based on root transfer, it fails to account for cluster transfer. In this paper I argue that the model which can actually account for cluster transfer as well as root transfer is what I will term here Stem Modification (Steriade 1988). Within this model, segmental and prosodic adjustments are made on the base itself and not on some designated material extracted from the base. This approach to stem formation also eliminates the notion of the consonantal root from the grammar of Modern Hebrew.

Hebrew speakers can parse forms with identical consonants on the right periphery as reduplicated, as well as forms with identical consonants in other positions as non-reduplicated, without reference to a base form. It was argued that this parsing is not based on similarity to reduplicated forms that have a base (i.e. analogy), but rather on surface constraints; one that requires correspondence between identical segments (Surface Correspondence by Identity) and a higher-ranked one that restricts correspondence to the right periphery (Surface Correspondence by Position). Both constraints are also grounded outside the grammar, i.e. they have a functional motivation. Surface Correspondence by Identity systematically reduces the number of bases in the lexicon, and Surface Correspondence by Position facilitates processing. Given these two ranked constraints, and the theoretical assumption that constraints are ranked and violable under competition, all forms with identical consonants on the right periphery are parsed as reduplicated regardless of their source. One vivid example is the recently coined blend ∫iltet ‘to zap’, which was formed as a blend from ∫alat ‘remote control’ plus ∫otet ‘to wander around’; speakers who are not aware of this source (and there are quite a few) parse ∫iltet as the reduplicated counterpart of ∫alat.

L'article fournit une analyse de l'accent du nom en hebreu moderne dans le cadre de la theorie de la grille metrique. Deux propositions nouvelles sont avancees, elles concernent le concept de la metrification parasite, capable de predire le placement de l'accent deplace, et la regle supplementaire s'appliquant a la distribution de l'accent secondaire. Ces propositions etant necessaires pour une explication de l'accent en hebreu moderne, l'auteur souhaite les incorporer dans la theorie de la grille metrique.