Vowel reduction in Modern Hebrew: Traces of the past and current variation

The aim of this paper was to find out the scope and boundaries of a-reduction in Modern Hebrew. In Classical Hebrew, vowel reduction was a regular, obligatory process. In Modern Hebrew, it has restricted scope and operates under opaque conditions. The only reliable trace of the historical motivation for the rule is the Hebrew vocalization system (nikud). 100 participants in four age groups were asked to read aloud the same words under three conditions – twice without vocalization marks, and once more with vocalization marks. Results showed that all study groups read the non-vocalized words with poor adherence to the historical rules on the first two conditions. On the third condition, the two older groups improved, while the two younger groups did not. We conclude that a-deletion is no longer governed by prosodic and phonological context in Modern Hebrew. Older, more literate Hebrew users were better able to elicit phonological information from nikud, and also better able to handle forms which go counter the everyday, standard morphophonological representations. Vowel reduction in Hebrew 3