The role of prosody in morphological change: The case of Hebrew bound numerals

Meir, Irit

doi:10.1017/s0954394508000070

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…In this way, my arguments for animate reference parallel claims made for certain inanimate constituent types (e.g., Meir, 2008;Ravid, 1995). In this way, my arguments for animate reference parallel claims made for certain inanimate constituent types (e.g., Meir, 2008;Ravid, 1995).…”

Section: O R P H O L O G I C a L Va R I A T I O N A N D P R E S C Rmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Ravid (1995) and Meir (2008), for example, both attempted to experimentally assess whether gender distinctions exist in the grammars of native Hebrew speakers for the free (i.e., indefinite) and bound (i.e., definite) forms of Hebrew cardinal numerals. Ravid (1995) and Meir (2008), for example, both attempted to experimentally assess whether gender distinctions exist in the grammars of native Hebrew speakers for the free (i.e., indefinite) and bound (i.e., definite) forms of Hebrew cardinal numerals.…”

Section: G E N D E R N E U T R a L I Z A T I O N I N H E B R E Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholarly work on Hebrew has tended to adopt an analogous perspective, though it has focused for the most part on gender morphology in cases of inanimate reference (so-called grammatical gender). Ravid (1995) and Meir (2008), for example, both attempted to experimentally assess whether gender distinctions exist in the grammars of native Hebrew speakers for the free (i.e., indefinite) and bound (i.e., definite) forms of Hebrew cardinal numerals. Ravid focused exclusively on native-speaking children, and investigated the effects on their production of age (comparing an older group of 12- to 13-year-olds to a younger group of 9- 10-year-olds) and attention (comparing an “unmonitored” task, in which speaker attention is not drawn to the production of prescriptively correct gendered numeral forms, with a “monitored” task, in which it is).…”

Section: Gender Neutralization In Hebrewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, the only situation in which Ravid's subjects' production was significantly better than chance was when the older children were instructed to speak “correct Hebrew.” Ravid took this finding to indicate that prescriptive gender distinctions do not exist in the grammars of younger Hebrew speakers and are instead only learned beginning in pre-adolescence via a combination of rote instruction and increased levels of literacy. Building on Ravid's work, Meir (2008) examined gender marking on Hebrew bound numerals across children and adults of varying ages (ranging from 14 to 65 years). Using an unmonitored production task, Meir, like Ravid, found that her subjects were not consistent producers of prescriptively correct gendered forms.…”

Section: Gender Neutralization In Hebrewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender, prescriptivism, and language change: Morphological variation in Hebrew animate reference

Levon

2012

Lang Var Change

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A B S T R A C TBeliefs about a language rarely correspond to how it is used. This is especially true for Hebrew, a language that has been subject to continued ideological "preservation" efforts ever since its (re)vernacularization in the early 20th century. Recently, attention has turned to the maintenance of Hebrew gender morphology, which is perceived in both scholarly and popular opinion as threatened by a process of leveling to gender syncretized forms across a range of word classes and inflectional paradigms. In this article, I investigate the extent to which sociolinguistic evidence supports this perception in cases of animate reference. I argue that while the claim of widespread gender neutralization of these forms is descriptively valid, its characterization as a change-in-progress is inaccurate. Rather, I suggest that Hebrew is already fully syncretized for gender in certain relevant morphological contexts and that the perception of an ongoing process of change reflects a prescriptive belief about how Hebrew should be, not how it actually is.One of the foundational principles of variationist sociolinguistics is that language change proceeds systematically (Weinreich, Labov, & Herzog, 1968). The combination of this systematicity with an understanding of the abstract structure of language is what allows us to infer processes of change from the examination of synchronic patterns of variation and to predict the path we would expect that change to follow. In this article, I apply this methodological precept to an investigation of a type of gender morphology variation in spoken Israeli Hebrewvariation that both scholarly and popular accounts have treated as a change-in-progress. I argue that while it is undeniable that there exists widespread gender neutralization across the language, the sociolinguistic conditioning of the neutralization that I consider is inconsistent with language change. Rather, I propose that a close examination of the linguistic and, to a certain extent, social factors that constrain the appearance of gender morphology in the relevant

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Section: O R P H O L O G I C a L Va R I A T I O N A N D P R E S C Rmentioning

confidence: 79%

Section: G E N D E R N E U T R a L I Z A T I O N I N H E B R E Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender Neutralization In Hebrewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender Neutralization In Hebrewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gender, prescriptivism, and language change: Morphological variation in Hebrew animate reference

Levon

2012

Lang Var Change

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“…Selective Neutralization In a different study, Meir (2008) analyzed the use of the compound form of the numeral, through assigning production and judgment tasks (see explanation infra). The production test results showed that only two numerals reflected a clear preference for the masculine form regardless of whether the forms were masculine or feminine: 3 (šlošet) and 6 (šešet).…”

Section: 232mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Neutralization in Hebrew

Gonen

Rubinstein²

2015

J Afroasiatic Lang Linguist

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Classical Hebrew, as well as Modern Hebrew, distinguishes between the genders of nouns, and every noun, whether or not it is animate, is characterized as masculine or feminine. However in colloquial Modern Hebrew we witness a process of neutralization. In this paper we address one aspect of gender neutralization in Hebrew: the case of the numerals in colloquial Hebrew. The use of numerals in spoken Modern Hebrew is varied, and many speakers do not regularly distinguish numerals according to the grammatical gender of the modified noun, but rather use the unmarked ‘neutral’ form of the numeral, which in Hebrew is typically the feminine form. The object of this paper is to study gender agreement between Modern Hebrew numerals and the nouns they modify in a corpus of casual spoken Hebrew discourse. Previous studies have argued, within a variety of methodologies and frameworks, for a gradual ongoing neutralization of the gender distinction of numerals in this environment. In our research, we will explore the conditions and the scope of this neutralization. This study is based on the collection of recordings in the CoSIH “Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew”, and it analyzes the various usages of the numerals in this corpus. It presents the scope and nature of the neutralization process in colloquial Hebrew and shows that although there is a bias towards neutralization, this bias is not absolute and depends on particular circumstances.

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Trying to change a gender-marked language

Muchnik¹

2016

Pragmatics &Amp; Beyond New Series

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Classical and Modern Hebrew are gender-marked in all morphological forms, and the rules of Hebrew syntax require gender agreement. Consequently, it is next to impossible to find a sentence without gender determination. Masculine content words are unmarked, while feminine words are derived from them. Masculine forms are also used generically, making them more visible than the feminine. Feminine function words, mainly pronouns, were used in classical periods for the masculine as well, leaving less specific features for the feminine. We could expect that feminist speakers would try to change this practice in Modern Hebrew despite the rigid linguistic structure. However, there have been only a few gender changes, mostly in one direction: using masculine, but not feminine forms, for both sexes. This article provides examples of this sociolinguistic change and explains why it has taken this direction.

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The role of prosody in morphological change: The case of Hebrew bound numerals

Cited by 7 publications

References 15 publications

Gender, prescriptivism, and language change: Morphological variation in Hebrew animate reference

Gender, prescriptivism, and language change: Morphological variation in Hebrew animate reference

Gender Neutralization in Hebrew

Trying to change a gender-marked language

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