In this paper, I have presented a cycle of change in the stress system of He-brew (skipping some steps in between): Biblical HeHe-brew (script-based)⇒ contemporary Hebrew (attested) ⇒ post-Hebrew (predicted). The start-ing point was contemporary Hebrew with its unsystematic and unnatural stress system, i.e., a system that is not only inconsistent but also does not comply with universal principles. I assume that languages strive for regularity and naturalness, which thus constitute major forces in language change (though not the only ones). Therefore, I contended that contempo-rary Hebrew stress system cannot persist for too long, and the seeds of the change are already evident: words change their stress pattern (difference among generations) and the experimental results suggest that speakers prefer final stress in C-final words and penultimate stress in V-final words.
Note that such a future system, although predicted to be more sys-tematic, is not common in the sense that only final consonants are moraic.
However, it is possible that the dependency in the final segment is just a necessary step in the development, which must accommodate the great
number of words with final stress (mostly with C-final). The subsequent stage will probably be penultimate across the board, as was the case in the reconstructed pre-Hebrew (Florentin 2002; 2015; Blau 2010). This predic-tion is supported by Fainleib’s (2008) experiment, where the preference for penultimate stress in general was higher in nonce words with low frequency vocalic patterns (7b) than with high frequency vocalic patterns (7a). That is, when the interference of the lexicon is reduced, the preference for penul-timate stress increases.
The entire U-shaped path is summarized below, with || indicating similar stress systems. In this paper I attended to three stages only: Biblical Hebrew ⇒ contemporary Hebrew ⇒ post-Hebrew I, but post-Hebrew II, and its similarity to pre-Hebrew are a further natural development.
(19) Back to the future
Pre-Hebrew Biblical Hebrew Contemporary Hebrew Reconstructed Script-based 1100 Attested 19
|| ||
Post-Hebrew-II Post-Hebrew-I
Predicted Predicted
The similarity between the past and the future systems is attributed to the strive for a regular system complying with universal principles.
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper gained valuable input from the participants of OCP 13 (Win-ter 2016; Budapest), BHL 1 (Win(Win-ter 2017; Bar-Ilan University), and the students in the
“Biblical Hebrew Phonology and Morphology” course (Spring 2016; Tel-Aviv University).
I appreciate Daniel Ahserov’s invaluable contribution to the experimental study and the anonymous reviewers’ helpful comments. The usual disclaimers apply.
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