Re: THEORY; Allophones

Vayyikhtov Steg Belsky:
>
> On Tue, 6 Apr 1999 17:01:02 +0200 Adam Raizen <araizen@...>
> writes:
> >In Modern Hebrew, I don't think that [b] and [v], [p] and [f], [k] and
> >[x] are only one phoneme (respectively) anymore, even when they're
> >spelled with the same letter, at least not anymore than [f] and [v]
> >are
> >still one phoneme in Modern English. I'm sure that Israelis think of
> >them as different sounds, and with the loss of dagesh hhazak it's not
> >even very predictable which will occur without going into a lot of
> >very
> >esoteric historical morphology that has little application to the
> >modern
> >language. Not only all that, but also there are a lot of foreign words
> >coming into the language which don't have those as one phoneme. As for
> >minimal pairs, I can think of [Sabat] "Saturday" and [Savat] "struck"
> >(striked?, in the meaning of French "a fait gre`ve") where they used
> >to
> >be the same phoneme. If they're not already separate phonemes, they're
> >well on their way to becoming them.
>
>
> Well, that minimal pair doesn't really work, since _shavat_ is vowelized
> with a _qamatz_ and not a _patahh_ - the [b] in [Sabat] is caused by a
> dagesh-hhazaq from the _patahh_, while the /b/ remains a [v] in [Savat]
> because it's a third-person past in binyan _qal_, pattern
> _C{qamatz}C{patahh}C_. [Sa:vat]....or [SOvas] in Common Ashkenazic.
>
The qamatz-patah distinction is made in Biblical/Tiberian Hebrew.
However, in Modern Hebrew, there's no distiction between qamatz and
patahh, neither in pronunciation nor even in its effect on the rest of
the word. (i.e., everyone says /jEtsivut/, "stability", and not the
technically correct /jatsivut/, with a patahh and a dagesh in the
tsadik). In Modern Hebrew, there's also no distinction between a letter
with a dagesh and one without, except for the letters bet, kaf, and pe,
and in those letters there's no distinction between the dagesh hhazak
and dagesh kal. Therefore, between [Savat] and [Sabat] in Modern Hebrew,
there's no distiction between the first vowel in each word; only the
middle consonant is different, and there it's the quality (not the
length) that's different, with nothing else in the word causing the
distinction.

> Although you do have a point.  A book i read about the history of the
> Hebrew language gave the example of the minimal pair [l@hitxabe:r] "to be
> connected", from the root HhBR, and the Modern word [l@hitxave:r] "to
> make friends (with)" from the word _hhaveir_.  If Israelis spoke
> phonologically correct, both words would be the same, with a [b].
> Also, the minimal pair [b@roS] "in the front", _b-rosh_, and [broS]
> "cyprus tree", with an elided _shva na`_.
>
No doubt that Modern Hebrew is in a state of dramatic change, and
arguments could be made either way. I think, however, that it's pretty
much beyond dispute that Hebrew is at least headed that way, unless
there's a major change.

>
> -Stephen (Steg)
>  "yisraeilkidhm!  uz sudnihkhoorat wa'^lesna^ahya-a wa'waz nga'ush
> ^miplatz^fraa:nkihnstiin!"
>
--
Adam Raizen

araizen@softhome.net