Challenges for the size-based parallel analysis of Modern Hebrew vowel deletion
Ezer Rasin
(reviewers: David Gil, Clàudia Pons-Mol)
Abstract: This paper evaluates the size-based parallel analysis of vowel deletion in Modern Hebrew (Bat-El 2008). According to this analysis, vowels are deleted in suffixed words as a result of a trans-
derivational faithfulness constraint that requires the suffixed word to have the same number of syllables as its base. To evaluate this analysis, the paper examines data from adjectives and participles
that involve vowel epenthesis in addition to deletion. Epenthesis changes the number of syllables and interacts with deletion in non-trivial ways, allowing the predictions of the size-based parallel analysis to be compared with a traditional rule-based analysis of Modern Hebrew vowel deletion. The data pose several challenges to the size-based parallel analysis, suggesting that trans-derivational considerations of word size do not play a role in generating Modern Hebrew vowel deletion.
Rasin, Ezer. 2022. “Challenges for the size-based parallel analysis of Modern Hebrew vowel deletion”. Radical: A Journal of Phonology, 4, 9-43.