Discussion of 'Challenges for the size-based parallel analysis of Modern Hebrew vowel deletion'

Abstract

Rasin’s paper discusses three empirical challenges for Bat-El’s (2008) formal interpretation of the process of syncope in Modern Hebrew. Bat-El’s proposal understands Modern Hebrew vowel deletion in inflected forms as a means to keep the number of syllables steady, uniform, across the paradigm constituents. Hence Rasin refers to it as a size-based analysis. To build up the proposal, Bat-El resorts to a particular application of the Transderivational Correspondence Theory (Benua 1997), which, as shown by Rasin’s paper, is visibly challenged by three patterns related to the interaction between vowel deletion and vowel epenthesis in Modern Hebrew. These three challenging patterns include a) epenthesis in the base (which leads to syllable size discrepancies between the constituents under paradigmatic pressure, defying thus the constraint DEPσ-OO, nuclear to Bat-El’s account); b) epenthesis after deletion (which leads to vowel quality changes, inexplicable under the size-based analysis), and c) a case of underapplication of –e deletion (which the size-based analysis overlooks, prompting the wrong deletion of the vowel).