Speaker: Si Berrebi (MIT)
Title: Absolute neutralization in Modern Hebrew? An experimental study
Time: Monday, May 12th, 5pm – 6:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Abstract: In a controversial analysis, Chomsky and Halle (1968) proposed that the underlying representation of the English word “nightingale” contains /x/, a velar fricative that never surfaces in the language. This state of affairs, where an underlying segment is never pronounced, is referred to as “Absolute Neutralization”, and the possibility of such neutralization has been under debate at least since Kiparsky’s 1968 “How abstract is phonology?”. In this presentation, I will discuss a phonological case study from Modern Hebrew for which the simplest analysis assumes an abstract pharyngeal consonant that never surfaces. I will present two experiments that aim to probe Hebrew speakers’ phonological knowledge in order to distinguish between an absolute-neutralization analysis and competing accounts.