Effects of semantic versus syntactic constraints on resolution of Hebrew heterophonic-homographic words were examined at three reading skill levels. Fourth-and sixth-grade students and a group of adults read aloud sentences containing two types of heterophonic-homographs: noun–noun (e.g., BYCH ביצה is read as beitsa ‘egg’ and bitsa ‘swamp’) and noun–verb (e.g., GZR גזר is read as gezer ‘carrot’ and gazar ‘(he) cut’). Dominant and less-dominant alternatives were identified for each homograph and the alternatives were embedded in two sentences biased semantically towards noun–noun homographs and syntactically towards noun–verb homograph. The reading accuracy and correction results clearly showed a greater effect for syntactic context than for semantic context. For noun–noun words, the dominance effect appeared among the three study groups, though accuracy of reading the less-dominant meaning increased with age, indicating greater reliance on context. For noun–verb words, a small difference between the two meanings was found in the younger group only. We concluded that in resolving Hebrew heterophonic-homographic words, syntactic constraints are sufficient for accurate reading while semantic information is less efficient. The results are discussed in the context of other languages and the unique typology of the Hebrew orthography.

语义和句法约束对希伯来异音同形异义词的分辨力的影响在三个阅读技能级别上进行了检验。四年级和六年级的学生和一群成年人大声朗读句子，其中包含两种类型的异音同形异义词：名词-名词（例如，BYCHביisה被读为beitsa'egg'和bita'swamp'）和名词-动词（例如，GZRגזר读为基色“胡萝卜”和加萨尔“（他）切”）。每个同形异义词都被识别为主要和次要的替代词，这些替代词被嵌入到语义上偏向名词-名词同形词和句法上偏向名词-动词同形词的两个句子中。阅读准确性和纠正结果显然表明，句法语境比语义语境具有更大的影响。对于名词名词词，在三个研究组中出现了优势作用，尽管随着年龄的增长，阅读次要意义的准确性有所提高，表明对上下文的依赖性更大。对于名词-动词，这两个含义之间的细微差别仅出现在较年轻的人群中。我们得出的结论是，在解析希伯来语异音同形词时，句法约束足以进行准确的阅读，而语义信息的效率较低。