Inter-paradigm leveling in Hebrew verbal system

Abstract

Paradigm leveling, whereby the number of surface allomorphs within a paradigm is reduced, is often accompanied by the loss of contrast between paradigms (analogy). Since these two are independent of each other, we distinguish between intra- and inter-paradigm leveling. In this paper, we study inter-paradigm leveling in the verb system of Hebrew, manifested by on-going change-oriented variation. In this context, we respond to two questions often addressed in studies on paradigm leveling: (i) Why do some paradigms interact in inter-paradigm leveling and others do not? (ii) What determines the direction of leveling? With regard to the first question, we argue that inter-paradigm leveling is triggered by similarity between whole paradigms, and propose a model that quantifies similarity and predicts the relative chance for two paradigms to undergo inter-paradigm leveling. With regard to the second question, we identify two types of directionality, uni- and bidirectional leveling, and show that the selection between these two is determined by the size of the inflectional classes. Class size determines the direction in unidirectional leveling (the larger is the winner) and class size ratio distinguishes between uni- and bidirectional leveling (the higher the ratio the greater the chance for unidirectional leveling).