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Article
Colloquial Hebrew imperatives revisited
Language Sciences (2009)
  • Shmuel Bolozky, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
Abstract

In revisiting Bolozky's [Bolozky, Shmuel, 1979. "On the new imperative in colloquial Hebrew." "Hebrew Annual Review" 3, 17-24] and Bat-El's [Bat-El, Outi, 2002. "True truncation in colloquial Hebrew imperatives." "Language" 78(4), 651-683] analyses of colloquial Hebrew imperatives, the article argues for restricting Imperative Truncation to the morphologically-triggered process of #tV prefix elision (or even to just #t prefixes). Elision of "e" and "i" in imperatives is claimed to be effected by the general, phonetically-motivated elision of the same vowels in casual speech. The prominence and sonority of the vowel a protects it from elision in imperatives, and short forms like kum "get up!" are not derived from their takum counterparts, but rather borrowed from the normative register.

Publication Date
2009
Citation Information
Shmuel Bolozky. "Colloquial Hebrew imperatives revisited" Language Sciences Vol. 31 (2009)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/shmuel_bolozky/4/