On The Special Status of the Vowels a and e In Israeli Hebrew
As the "minimal" vowel of Israeli Hebrew, e is the vowel most likely to break unpronounceable consonant clusters, and to be affected by casual vowel deletion. Both e-insertion and casual deletion are automatic, which suggests that e may be characterized as phonetically unmarked. In contras...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
The National Association of Professors of Hebrew
1999
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| In: |
Hebrew studies
Year: 1999, Volume: 40, Issue: 1, Pages: 233-250 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | As the "minimal" vowel of Israeli Hebrew, e is the vowel most likely to break unpronounceable consonant clusters, and to be affected by casual vowel deletion. Both e-insertion and casual deletion are automatic, which suggests that e may be characterized as phonetically unmarked. In contrast, a is the most prominent vowel in Israeli Hebrew. It has the highest sonority, is the least marked phoneme in the five-vowel system, and is the most frequent vowel in the language by far. Consequently, a functions as the default choice in acronym formation, which is a conscious, non-automatic process. It is thus the natural, most expected vowel of Israeli Hebrew from a phonological point of view that is not automatic-phonetic, but rather "psychologically-based." Its status and frequency have at least one important application to the teaching of reading to beginners and to vowel marking in glossaries and dictionaries. |
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| ISSN: | 2158-1681 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Hebrew studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/hbr.1999.0033 |