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In Modern Israeli Hebrew the phonemes /?/ and /؟/, which are both phonetic [?], are often absent in all positions in the worl. In some verb paradigms, [?] is the only mark for the feminine, and when lost, the masculine and feminine forms are homophonous. The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to determine whether [?] was phonetically present in conversational Hebrew, and (2) to determine whether native speakers could tell when a form was masculine or feminine in the absence of [?]. In 11 out of 21 productions of feminine verb forms, [?] was completely absent. In five productions although there was no [?], a period of laryngealization was present, and in five productions [?] was present. The results of the perception test showed high listener agreement as to the gender of the verb. In most cases, absence of [?] resulted in judgments of “masculine”. There also appears to be a phonetic process in Hebrew: compensatory shortening of a consonant before [?], a process that sometimes applied even when [?] is absent. Thus, in some cases, even lack of [?] gave responses of “feminine” and where the preceding consonant was intermediate in length, random guessing resulted. A hypothesis is suggested that, in Hebrew, the perception of duration may be related to the manner of articulation of the consonant.