In this paper, I point out that mobile stress roots of Modern Hebrew (e.g. kodKOD – kodkoD-IM) are maximally disyllabic, and that roots that are not restricted to a maximum of two syllables have fixed stress (e.g. fonoLOG – fonoLOg-im). I propose an account of this generalization, in which the lexicon is divided into strata, along the lines of Ito and Mester (1999).
Stratum A includes all verbs, some adjectives and some nouns. High ranking FINALSTRESS and ALIGN-SYLL make outputs maximally disyllabic with final stress.
Stratum B includes the rest of the adjectives and more nouns (including most acronym words). High ranking FINALSTRESS and a constrain that demands stress to stay on the root make outputs with final fixed stress on the root. Ranking MAX over ALIGN-SYLL allows outputs of unrestricted size.
Stratum C has only nouns. High ranking of FAITH to STRESS and MAX allow outputs with stress anywhere and with unlimited size.
Since both markedness and faithfulness constraints were shown to be variably ranked in the different strata, which departs from Ito and Mester's assumption, that only faithfulness constraints should be ranked differently in different strata.