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The Morphological Development of the 3 M. Sg. Pronominal Suffix on Plural Nouns in Classical Hebrew: Part 2

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Kurtz, Paul Michael  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0900-1654

Abstract

This article continues a study begun in the preceding volume of Hebrew Studies. The 3 m. sg. pronominal suffix on plural nouns is realized in several allomorphs in Classical Hebrew: in early Hebrew inscriptions, the suffix appears as <-W> and perhaps as <-YH>; in Biblical Hebrew, it usually appears as <-YW> (sometimes emended from <-W> in instances of Masoretic Qere readings), and occasionally as <-YHW> in poetic texts. In this study, we provide a unified and principled linguistic account of these textual data, tracing the various phonological developments of the third masculine singular genitive suffix on plural nouns, and relating these phonological developments to the phonetic causes underlying them. After analyzing the phonological realizations of the high vocoids *U (/w/ and /u/) and *Y (/y/ and /i/) and of *H (found in the third-person pronominal morphemes), we identify three stages of development that produced the <-Y-> in Biblical Hebrew: (1) the linkage of the number-gender morpheme to a single slot in the skeletal tier (effectively yielding an early diphthong contraction *-aI > ē); (2) the deletion of *H in selected environments defined by accent and the surrounding vowels; and (3) the phonetically-motivated insertion of the glide *y in the hiatus environment [-e:w:].

Description

Keywords

47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4703 Language Studies, 4704 Linguistics

Journal Title

Hebrew Studies

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0146-4094
2158-1681

Volume Title

60

Publisher

National Association of Professors of Hebrew in American Institutions of Higher Learning