Dissertation - Michael Becker

changes could apply in two different levels of the cycle.Furthermore, vowel changesalone never mark plurality in actual Hebrew. Each and every plural noun in real Hebrew ismarked with either –im or –ot, regardless of any vowel change. This is different from thesituation in Arabic, where vowel changes in the stem and concatenated plural suffixes arein complementary distribution, and each mark plurality separately 22 .If it is agreed that both the vowel change and the plural affix selection must happen atthe same level in the cycle, then the theory of allomorph selection in Paster (2006) makesthe peculiar prediction that it’s the “deep” language that would be the more natural one forspeakers. In this theory, allomorph selection is only allowed to refer to the shape that astem has in the input to the current level in the cycle. In the “deep” langage, then, the pluralallomorphs harmonize with the vowel of the singular, while in the “surface” language, theplural allomorphs are chosen to go against the phonologically preferred pattern.3.6.3 The limited role of phonotacticsMy analysis of the experimental results relies on the activity of two markednessconstraints that are quite specific and typologically-supported: LOCAL(o), which penalizesunstressed [o]’s unless followed by a stressed [o], and *´σ/HIGH, which penalizes stressedhigh vowels. My analysis predicts that the “surface” language would be easier to learnthan the “deep” language. One could argue, however, that the preference for the “surface”language could also be stated in much more general terms, as a simple reflection of Hebrewphonotactics.In this section I show that a simple projection of Hebrew phonotacticspredicts that the “surface” language is actually harder than the “deep” language.Looking at the attested vowel combinations in the singular forms of Hebrew showsa preference for non-identical vowels. The table in (133) shows counts from Bolozky &22 In Arabic paradigms like wazi:r ∼ wuzara:P ‘minister’, it is plausible that -a:P is a suffix, but it nevermarks the plural on its own; it always accompanies a vowel change that marks the plural. In contrast, theplural suffixes -u:na and -a:t, as in ka:tib ∼ ka:tib-u:na ‘writer’, always mark the plural on their own, and arenever accompanied by a vowel change.136