Inflection and Derivation in Hebrew Linear Word Formation

1988

Hebrew, as other ~emitic languages, has a rich morpl1ology, observable in part by the complexity of verb inflections. The primary base of verbs in Hebrew is the past third singular form of tlfe verb. From this base, some twenty eight different inflected forms can be created according to tense, per~on, gender and number. Traditionally, inflection tables were used to describe the various inflected forms derived from the verb 'base. Research done by Oman has managed to describe the verb inflection process using the principles of Generative Grammar. In' this approach, inflCfted verb forms are viewed as constructs of the form preftx+base+sufftx. Verb inflection is described as a s~ries of sequentialpperations. The first stage converts the primary verb base to a secondary'base, when the secondary base is not the same as the primary base. Secondly, the appropriate prefix and/or suffix are concatenated to the base. Thirdly, several morpho-phonemic changes due to the affix concat...

Many Hebrew words are unique depending on their foreign etymology as well as on social and psychological variables like substandard registers, children's game words, and emotional words; they form special word classes in the lexicon. The most common ways for word formation in Modern Hebrew morphology are root and pattern, stem and affix, and two stem combinations. Their inflectional paradigms are very predictable. Other derivational waysacronym and blendsare rarer and display irregular patterns. In this paper, I postulate nine linguistic features to distinguish between the various Hebrew words, and establish the different layers of the Hebrew lexicon. The findings lead to the discussion concerning the structure of the lexicon and the status of nonintegrated words in Hebrew.

2017

In his seminal book A-Morphous Morphology, Anderson provides ample evidence supporting the item-and-process approach to morphology, whereby relations between words, and thus the derivation of one word from another is expressed in terms of processes. Although Anderson excluded Semitic languages from the paradigm, I argue in this paper for the advantage of item-and-process in the analysis of Modern Hebrew word relations. Under this approach, the word/stem is the base, and the putative consonant root is just a residue of phonological elements, which are lexically prominent as are consonants in non-Semitic languages. The empirical basis of the arguments is drawn from natural and experimental data of adult Hebrew as well as child Hebrew.

2012

This paper examines the realization of inflectional paradigms in the Semitic root-and pattern morphological system of Modern Hebrew. In the first part of the paper, a system of realizational statements is proposed, in the spirit of the framework of Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993). Two different, independent positions V1 and V2 are identified and defined relative to a basic discontinuous set of elements, the root. Employing the notion of default status, which is accorded to the vocalization of Type I verbs in the past, this move allows for an optimally economic set of rules for the realization of all active and passive verbs. In the second part of the paper, the account is extended to roots with a final underlying glide /j/. Within the verbal system, such roots give rise to a set of mostly vowel-final verbal stems. It is claimed that the traditional analysis, according to which the different realizations are synchronically the phonological reflex of this final /j/, is untenable, and especially so because these verbs have almost exactly the same realization in all Types. Realization rules are then formalized with the conditioning environment being this underlying final /j/, with [j] as the default realization of this element. Thus, a third element /j/ is both a class-marker-it gives rise to a set of phonologically-arbitrary realizationsand a simple phoneme.

The aim of this paper is to show that the tendency towards linear word formation becomes stronger in Modern Hebrew and it extends to verbs which were traditionally considered as derived discontinuously.

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2014

In the present study we investigated to what extent the morphological facilitation effect induced by the derivational root morpheme in Hebrew is independent of semantic meaning and grammatical information of the part of speech involved. Using the pictureword interference paradigm with auditorily presented distractors, Experiment 1 compared the facilitation effect induced by semantically transparent versus semantically opaque morphologically related distractor words (i.e., a shared root) on the production latency of bare nouns. The results revealed almost the same amount of facilitation for both relatedness conditions. These findings accord with the results of the few studies that have addressed this issue in production in Indo-European languages, as well as previous studies in written word perception in Hebrew. Experiment 2 compared the root's facilitation effect, induced by morphologically related nominal versus verbal distractors, on the production latency of bare nouns. The results revealed a facilitation effect of similar size induced by the shared root, regardless of the distractor's part of speech. It is suggested that the principle that governs lexical organization at the level of morphology, at least for Hebrew roots, is form-driven and independent of semantic meaning. This principle of organization crosses the linguistic domains of production and written word perception, as well as grammatical organization according to part of speech.

Studies in Language Companion Series, 2017

The paper deals with word-formation devices in Modern Hebrew as reflecting word-class distinctiveness rather than polycategoriality, defined here as characterizing lexical items that share the same surface morpho-phonological form, yet function in different lexico-grammatical categories. Relevant typological features of the Modern Hebrew lexicon are outlined in terms of: the two major derivational processes of interdigitation of consonantal roots with affixal patterns and linear affixation to a stem; the relative morpho-phonological distinctiveness of the categories of N, V, and A; and the special status of benoni 'intermediate' participial forms as allowing polycategoriality in the shape of form-function shifts between these three lexical categories. Empirical evidence is then reviewed concerning preferred patterns of new-word formation in current Hebrew usage, and findings from structured elicitations and naturalistic speech samples are detailed for acquisition of word-class distinctions by pre-school Hebrew-speaking children, including the relatively minor role played by benoni polycategoriality in early child language. The concluding section discusses these findings in terms of the impact of linguistic typology and the lengthy developmental route in this, as in other domains, from initial non-analysis via morphological decomposition of lexical items and on to proficient, literacy-based construal of the elements constituting the mental lexicon.