© koninklijke brill nv, leiden,  | doi:./- Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics  () – brill.com/aall Loanword phonology in Modern Hebrew Evan-Gary Cohen Tel-Aviv University evan@tauex.tau.ac.il Abstract The phonology of loanwords often differs from the phonology of native words in var- ious aspects. These differences are evident in the prosodic structure and even the segmental inventory. The differences between the loanword and native phonology, however, are not necessarily stable, and it is often the case that what originated as phonological structures in loanwords which were illicit in the native vocabulary even- tually overrode the native norm, bringing about diachronic change to the phonology of the native words. Hebrew is no exception in this respect.The stress system of loanwords differs from that of native words, with the latter’s system undergoing changes inter alia due to the effect of loanwords (e.g. ante-penultimate stress, immobile stress pat- terns).The licit syllable structure inventory of native Hebrew words has been expanded to include loaned structures (e.g. complex codas, triconsonantal structures), and the phonemic inventory of Hebrew now includes several consonants originating in loan- words (e.g. ʒ and d͡ʒ). Keywords loanwords – Modern Hebrew 1 Introduction Living languages coming into contact with one another may borrow words from each other. These words, loanwords, may be borrowed in order to fill lex- ical gaps in a language, but may also be borrowed for additional reasons, such as stylistic or cultural reasons. Note, for the purpose of this discussion, L2 refers to the source language, while L1 refers to the borrowing language. Over the generations, Hebrew has borrowed words from Akkadian (ta ‘cell’, xemɁá ‘butter’), Sumerian (taʁnegól ‘rooster’, kisé ‘chair’), Persian (dat ‘religion’,