How to choose a prosodic template. On verb innovation and variation in Hebrew
AbstractThis paper examines the factors that play a role in blocking and non-blocking in verb formation in Modern Hebrew. Hebrew verbs are formed in prosodic templates (so-called binyanim) that consist of a vocalic template and affixes in some of them. I address the criteria for the selection of such templates with regard to verb innovation, relation between existing forms and variation of forms. I will show that the selection of a particular binyan is the result of an interaction between markedness and faithfulness constraints on the one hand and thematic-syntactic considerations on the other hand. While certain constraints block the formation of verbs in some binyanim, there are cases of non-crucial ranking of constraints that gives rise to free variation of existing forms.