Consonant Mutation - Hebrew

Hebrew

Modern Hebrew shows a limited set of mutation alternations, involving spirantization only. The consonants affected may be stem-initial, stem-medial, or stem-final.

Radical Spirantized
p f
k x
b v

For example, some verbs show mutation between tenses and conjugation classes:

  • "he wrote", "he will write"
  • "he sank" (transitive), "he sank" (intransitive)

Some nouns show mutation between masculine and feminine, between singular and plural, or after prepositions:

  • "a king", "a queen", "kings", (spoken Hebrew, )
  • "a bear" (masc.), "a bear" (fem.), "bears" (masc.), "bears" (fem.)
  • "a house", "in a house" (in spoken Modern Hebrew:

But some words do not have alternations:

  • "he hacked", "he will hack"
  • "good", ~ "goods"
  • "a kibbutz", "in a kibbutz"

In some limited cases, initial mutation can signal adverbial status in spoken Modern Hebrew:

  • "a request", "please" (spoken or written, "בבקשה"), "please" (spoken, informal).

Read more about this topic:  Consonant Mutation

Famous quotes containing the word hebrew:

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