A Production Study of Spirantization in Modern Hebrew Verbs

In this talk, we report the results of an experiment examining variation in the production of Modern Hebrew Spirantization (MHS). MHS is characterized by the alternation of the stops [p], [b], and [k] with [f], [v], and [χ], respectively. Fricatives generally occur in post-vocalic position and stops occur elsewhere. This alternation is especially noticeable in verbal paradigms where a specific segment within a root may occur in different syllable positions, as in [lifgoʃ] ‘to meet’ and [pagaʃ] ‘he met’. However, there are exceptions to MHS. Exceptional segments are non-alternating [p], [b], [k], [f], [v], and [χ] which, for historical reasons, can surface as stops in post-vocalic position or as fricatives elsewhere. Some exceptional segments are represented differently from their alternating counterparts (i.e. alternating [k]/[χ] is represented by one grapheme, non-alternating [k] is represented with another, and non-alternating [χ] by yet another). The frequency of exceptions to MHS in the modern lexicon has led to the acceptability of non-alternation in segments that ought to alternate (Adam 2002, Temkin Martinez 2010). In a perception experiment, Temkin Martinez (2010) found that variation was more acceptable in post-consonantal position than in other positions. In the current experiment, 48 native speakers of Modern Hebrew participated in a sentence-completion task containing both real and nonce verbs. Variation patterns in the production of both real and nonce verbs matched those reported in Temkin Martinez (2010), with post-consonantal position driving the effect of word position. Additionally, patterns for nonce verbs indicated higher instances of non-alternation for segments for which there are different orthographic representations for alternating and exceptional segments.