Abstract

It is shown that in Israeli Hebrew, as well as in biblical Hebrew, the location of stress may have a "phonemic" function, in that it distinguishes between otherwise identical morpho-phonological patterns. Stress location can determine syntactic, temporal, and similar categorial differences as well as semantic nuances.

This study presents a general description of 'mobile' versus 'fixed' stress in Israeli Hebrew followed by a brief discussion of stress as tense marker in biblical Hebrew, and by a more detailed examination of three instances in Israeli Hebrew in which stress has a phonemic function: the maCCuC pattern versus the identical native Hebrew pattern; the non-ultimately-stressed 'Yiddish/ English type' +er versus ultimately-stressed 'French type' +ér/ +(y)onér; and +i versus related +ai among gentilic nouns and residents of geographical places.

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