Balearic Hebrew
Phonology
Consonants
Balearic Hebrew has 19 consonantal phonemes.
| Labial | Dental | Denti-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | emphatic | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||||
| Stop | voiceless | t | tˤ | k | ʔ | ||||
| voiced | b | d | g | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sˤ2 | ʃ | ħ | h | ||
| voiced | ð1 | ||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Approximant | l | j | |||||||
1 In Balearic Hebrew, /ð/ is considered a phoneme despite having a confusing allophonic relationship with /d/ and /r/.
2The emphatic fricative has various pronunciations due to Iberian influence. Besides the pharyngealized pronunciation, it is most often pronounced as a denti-alveolar voiceless affricate /ts/, as in Modern Hebrew.
Various consonants characteristic of the Biblical era have been lost.
One of the most notable changes in the consonantal system is the complete loss of the /p/ phoneme. Likely due to Berber influence, the stops /b g d p t/ lenite to the fricatives /β γ ð f θ/ intervocalically. /p/ lenited in all positions to /f/, as it was in Proto-Arabic.
Historical sound changes
Balearic Hebrew has undergone various sound changes because of Berber, Punic, and Latin influence. It differs radically from Biblical Hebrew, and Mishnaic Hebrew in terms of pronunciation.
- Like in Levantine Hebrew, the ancient dual pronounciations of het and ayin merged into two possible phonemes: /ħ/ and /ʕ/ respectively.
- As in Samaritan Hebrew, the phoneme /ɬ/ merged with /ʃ/ instead of /s/, as in Tiberian Hebrew.
- BH qoph /q/ merged with either /g/ or /ʔ/.
- BH ayin /ʕ/ merged with /g/ or /h/.
- BH waw /w/ merged with /b/ always. /b/ is also in free variation with /v/ or /β/, a phenomenon known as betacism common in Iberian Romance languages.
- BH zayin /z/ devoiced to /s/.
- BH resh became /r/. Like in Spanish, /r/ is pronounced as a tap within the word, but as a trill beginning one.
- Final /h/ is lost and never pronounced in Balearic Hebrew.
Historical Spirantization and Allophony
Similar to the Hebrew dialects spoken in the Levant, the stops /p t b d g/ underwent spirantization in Balearic Hebrew. /k/ is never spirantized, unlike the Aramaic-influenced speech of the Levant.
| Letter | Stop | Allophone |
|---|---|---|
| pe | p | ɸ ~ f |
| taw | t | θ |
| bet | b | β ~ v |
| dalet | d | ð |
| gimel | g | ɣ ~ ŋ |
While previously allophonic in pronunciation, the /p/ phoneme has completely lenited into /f/. The rest of the stops, /t b d g/ are essentially in free variation with their allophones. The non-stop pronunciation is more typical between vowels, but speakers do not distinguish these sounds from their stop pairings.
Additionally, the /r/ sound can be pronounced /ð/ between vowels, though this is an archaic pronunciation. Generally it is a tap intervocalically, but many speakers confuse the sounds.
Vowels
The vowel system of Balearic Hebrew is much more conservative compared to modern Hebrew pronunciations. Nevertheless, there are significant differences that contrast Balearic Hebrew from its ancestor, Biblical Hebrew.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɪ | u |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Balearic Hebrew nouns and adjectives are declined according to gender, number, and sometimes state. Due to Latin influence, many nouns in Balearic Hebrew are not of Semitic origin. Thus, the emphasis of roots on noun derivations is much less than in Biblical Hebrew.
Nominal morphology
Nouns are marked for gender (masculine or feminine), number (singular, plural, and dual), and state (absolute or construct), and also definiteness.
| Singular | Dual | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Absolute | ∅ | -e | -(h)ī |
| Construct | -(h)e | |||
| Feminine | Absolute | -ū | -(h)ot | |
| Construct | -at |
In nouns that end in a vowel in the singular, the plural form inserts an /h/ for prosodic reasons.
Adjectives match the noun they modify in terms of gender and number (if a noun is dual, the adjective declines for the plural number), Adjectives can also stand alone and functino as a noun rather than only describe a noun.
Number
The singular form refers to a single item. Masculine singular nounds have no suffixes. Feminine nouns do. For example, the word sū is the masculine singular form for horse (stallion), while sūhū is the feminine form (mare).
The plural form of a term refers to two or more of that item. In Balearic Hebrew, the plural form generally refers to multiple people or objects. However, idiomatic uses of the plural form of a word express different meanings about a single entity. Balearic Hebrew has only regular plurals (i.e, no broken plurals).
The common plural expresses more than one of a person or thing. In the case of words such as ʔilohī, "god," Balearic Hebrew utilizes a majestic plural. This plural use is likely related to the abstract plural also common in Balearic Hebrew. These nouns, while plural grammatically, are translated as singular. In English, these nouns have endings like -ness, -hood, or -ship. One example is "blindness," which in Balearic Hebrew is bahanbirī. No singular form exists. Adjectives that modify these nouns are often singular, matching the implied number rather than the apparent form.
The Dual
The dual form is usable on most nouns. On nouns which come in pairs, such as body parts (two legs) or expressions with time or numbers (twice: two times), the dual is required. While in Biblical Hebrew the dual might cause some vowel changes, it has been reduced to a suffix in Balearic Hebrew. Dual nouns agree with the plural form of a verb.
While in Biblical Hebrew a "pseudo-dual" developed with body parts that come in pairs (such as eyes), Balearic Hebrew has reanalyzed this number agreement. Therefore, while in Biblical Hebrew a spider might be described as having eight eyes, "eyes" not being plural but "pseudo-dual," speakers of Balearic Hebrew would describe the spider as having four pairs of eyes, using the dual and the cardinal number "four."
Sound changes have made the dual absolute indistinguishable from the dual construct.
Gender
Gender is often visible from the noun. Most nouns without a specific suffix are likely masculine, and these nouns with no unique ending are the standard dictionary ending of a form. The most common feminine endings are -ū and -t. Nouns agree with verbs in gender as well as in number.
Certain nouns, while appearing masculine or feminine, are actually the other gender. As a general rule, feminine nouns deal with the following topics: place names, cities, directions, instruments, tools, body parts, elements, powers, forces, abstract nouns, and women. Animate nouns, such as those referring to people or animals, have the grammatical gender corresponding to their natural gender. For example, the noun sū is a male horse (a stallion), while a female horse is sūhū, or a male horse with the feminine ending -hū.
State
Nouns can appear in either the absolute state or the construct state. The absolute state is the standard form of a noun. Adjectives, participles, and infinitives, while in Biblical Hebrew could be in either state, can only be in the absolute state in Balearic Hebrew.
The construct state is used when a word takes a suffix to connect to another term in a construct chain. These chains indicate a unique grammatical link, but do not indicate possession. These links have to do with familial relations (the son of), materials (pot of gold), unique items (the king of kings), and loaned compound nouns. For example, the feminine words kehū (cheese) and hūgū (cake) compounded together form hūgat kehū or "cheescake." A gloss for this construct chain is cake-of cheese.
Often, the absolute noun that has the linked relationship with the construct noun has a definite article.
Definiteness
Unmarked nouns are in the indefinite state. There are three main ways to define a noun: one, with the definite article ha prefixing the noun, two, with a pronominal suffix possessing a noun, and three, with a demonstrative pronoun.
While in Biblical Hebrew the definite prefix /ha-/ caused gemination of the initial consonant of the noun, no such process occurs in Balearic Hebrew. However, after prepositions and conjunctions, the initial consonant /h/ drops, just as in Biblical Hebrew.
For nouns which start with /ʔ/ or /h/, the definite article causes this consonant to drop. For example, the word ʔabū, meaning "father", becomes labū, meaning "the father." Also visible is the insertion of /l/, an import from Latin demonstratives or the Arabic definite article.
Like in Spanish, nouns taken in a generic sense require definition. It is ungrammatical in Balearic Hebrew to say "milk is good" with no definite article, as one would say it in English. However, poetic Balearic Hebrew makes little use of the definite article, and so this rule has an exception.
Additionally, proper names are often introduced with the definite article, untranslateable in English but common in languages such as Catalan. For example, "Moses," would be hamoši in Balearic Hebrew.
Attributive adjectives are linked to nouns through the definite article, so that both the noun and its modifier have the definite article. This rule applies to participles as well.
Numerals
Numerals tend to be irregular adjectives, though they follow a pattern very similar to the general adjective. Of the cardinal numbers from 1-10, 1 is an adjective, 2 is a noun in the dual number, and the rest are nouns that do not change according to number, but that distinguish gender. Balearic Hebrew distinguishes cardinal and ordinal numbers.
Cardinal Numbers
Like Classical Arabic, Balearic Hebrew exhibits gender polarity in numeral agreement, but only for numbers after 20. Multiples of 10 do not decline according to the gender of the counted noun.
| One | Two | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | ʔaħūd | šne |
| Feminine | ʔaħat | šte |
| Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | šūloš | šilošū |
| 4 | ʔarban | ʔarbūgū |
| 5 | ħūmiš | ħamīšū |
| 6 | šiš | šīšū |
| 7 | šivan | šīvnū |
| 8 | šimoni | šimonū |
| 9 | tišan | tišnū |
| 10 | hišir | hašūrū |
The numbers 11-19 are formed by writing the number 10 followed by the number 1-9. In this way, Hebrew reverses English "seven-ten" with something more similar to Spanish "diez-y-siete." However, the masculine form of 10 is hūšūr, and the feminine is hišri. Therefore, "seventeen" would be hūšūr šivan for 17 masculine nouns, and hišri šīvnū for 17 feminine nouns.
| Number | |
|---|---|
| 20 | hišre |
| 30 | šlošī |
| 40 | ʔarbūgī |
| 50 | ħamīšī |
| 60 | šīšī |
| 70 | šīvnī |
| 80 | šmonī |
| 90 | tīšnī |
These numbers are applicable to nouns of either gender.
Multiples of 10 plus units are written with the same rules as the number 11-19. For example, "thirty three" is written as šlošī bišūloš, or "thirty and-three." The only thing notable about these numbers is that they exhibit gender polarity, so šlošī bišūloš refers to 33 feminine nouns, because šūloš is the masculine form of the numeral 3.
| Number | |
|---|---|
| 100 | miʔū |
| 200 | mūte |
| 1,000 | ʔilif |
| 2,000 | ʔalfe |
Multiples of 100 are expressed with the cardinal number 3-9 and the word miʔū. For example, 934 is tišan miʔū šlošī biʔarban. Since it ends with "34," this number describes 930 feminine nouns, still exhibiting gender polarity.
Ordinal Numbers and Demonyms
Ordinal numbers express a rank or order of items in a series, or a fraction.
| Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | raʔšon | raʔšonū |
| 2nd | šinī | šinīū |
Only 1st and 2nd decline for gender. Other ordinal numbers apply to either gender, and are formed by adding the suffix -ī to the end of a masculine cardinal number 3-10. For numbers larger than 10, cardinal numbers are used.
The ordinal form of a numeral is identical to the form used to describe the part of a whole, so "third," šūlošī, also means 1/3.
The same suffix used to form ordinal numbers, -ī for masculine singular and plural, -īt for feminine singular, and -ūt for the plural, is used to form demonyms for peoples or languages. The word for the language spoken in Canaan, "Hebrew," is kīnaganīt.
Nominal word order
Adjectives and modifying nouns function either attributively or as a predicate. Generally, the attributive adjectives will immediately follow the noun it modifies and decline like the preceding noun. The only exception to this positioning is number adjectives, which can come before the noun.
Predicative adjectives describe nouns using an implied linking verb. Predicative nouns can also precede the noun the modify. Unlike attributive adjectives, a predicative adjective can be indefinite even if it describes a definite noun. To distinguish between an attributive and predicative adjective, here are two phrases.
- ha-domno nūgīn = "the landlord is good"
- ha-domno ha-nūgīn= "the good landlord"