The Personal Pronoun in Christian Palestinian Aramaic (original) (raw)

The Two First-Person Singular Pronouns in Ancient Hebrew: Distinct Pragmatic Signals

2021

This paper solves the longstanding puzzle of what speakers of ancient Hebrew meant when employing the pronouns אָנֹכִי versus אֲנִי to refer to themselves. After noting the distribution of these two forms in cognate and nearby languages, we consider the basic communicative needs between a speaker and an audience. This leads to the prediction that the long-form pronoun signals that the speaker’s presence in the situation under discussion is somehow at issue. In contrast, the short form treats the speaker’s situatedness within the discourse as a given. We validate this prediction via various tests. The consistency of findings across a wide range of speakers and books confirms that the distinction between the two pronoun forms is meaningful and a feature of the language as a whole. We conclude that our hypothesis fits the biblical data better, and yields a more coherent and informative biblical text, than explanations proposed by Driver, Cassuto, Rosén, and Revell.

An 'I' For an 'I': The First-Person, Common, Singular Pronoun in Biblical Hebrew

2016

This thesis is a holistic approach to understanding the first-person (1), common (c), singular (sg), independent (ind.) pronoun (pro.) in Hebrew. Unlike the second and third-person pronouns that have two forms which are marked for gender, the two forms of 1csg ind. pro. are not marked for gender, making the distinction between the two forms an anomaly. This thesis will seek to understand this anomaly diachronically in the first two chapters and synchronically in the final two chapters. Diachronically, it traces the development of the two forms from proto-Semitic (PS) and provides a postulation on how the two forms developed and why both persisted in Hebrew. It also traces the development of the two forms within in Hebrew providing perspective on the role of the pronoun as a delimiting factor for the different periods of Hebrew. Synchronically, it examines various scholastic efforts to rectify the seemingly indiscriminate usage of the two forms in biblical prose. It also considers the insights that non-traditional grammar offers in determining the difference in usage of the two forms. Ultimately, while the thesis does not set forward a framework for discriminating between the usages of the two forms in biblical prose, it evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of previous methods and explores new avenues of insight.

Personal indices in the verbal system of the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho

The Mental Lexicon 14:2, 2019

The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Zakho is a highly endangered dialect of NorthEastern Neo-Aramaic which was spoken by the Jews of Zakho (northern-Iraq) up to the 1950s, when virtually all of them left Iraq for Israel. Thanks to documentation efforts which started in the ' 40s at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as the interest of native speakers, we possess a rich textual documentation of this dialect today (Cohen, 2012; Y. Sabar, 2002; Avinery, 1988). These resources, together with recently conducted fieldwork, are used in order to analyze the linguistic status of the verbal personal indices in this dialect, following the concepts presented by Bresnan & Mchombo (1987) as well as Corbett (2003). For each person marker, its status as a pronominal affix or as an agreement marker is established. The synchronic situation is compared with the known historic situation in older strata of Aramaic, such as Classical Syriac. The resulting analysis shows that the same apparent person marker may behave differently in different syntactic environments. Another conclusion is that there is no clear-cut dichotomy between pronominal affixes and agreement markers, as transitional cases exist.

Theoretical Approaches to Anaphora and Pronouns in Biblical Hebrew

Journal for Semitics, 2019

Apollonius Dyscolus (second century C.E.) defined the pronoun not merely as a noun substitute but implied that a pronoun may refer to nouns anaphorically. The study of Latin scarcely improved the knowledge of anaphora and pronouns and, for centuries, thinking about anaphora and pronouns was essentially limited to the activity of compiling inventories of grammatical categories and virtually no attention was given to the role of anaphora and pronouns in syntax and discourse as such. New insights into the description and explanation of the distribution of anaphora and pronouns in human language came in the late twentieth century with the advent of Chomsky's generative linguistics. This paper presents the current state of knowledge regarding anaphora and pronouns in Biblical Hebrew as well as the unresolved issues and questions open for further research.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND ACCUSATIVE MARKERS IN ANCIENT SEMITIC LANGUAGES

JSS, 2018

In this comparative study of ancient Semitic languages, I present data on the development of personal pronouns and accusative markers. My meta-analysis combines what is known about the major representative languages from both East and West Semitic languages in order to focus on three gradual, corresponding developments: (1) the erosion of inflected oblique independent personal pronouns; (2) the disappearance of the case-ending system; and (3) the emergence of the independent object marker. A bird's-eye view of the documented evidence on Semitic languages suggests that in West Semitic languages, both the oblique independent personal pronoun and the case-ending system gradually disappeared. In parallel, a set of object markers was introduced into West Semitic. This process will be shown to progress at a different pace for the various languages in this branch, and to be relevant not only to the Northwest Semitic branch, but rather to the span of old West Semitic languages.

A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic

The purpose of this grammar is to cover adequately, yet as concisely as possible, the essential elements of Biblical Aramaic. The goal has been to meet the needs of the typical theological seminary student. To reach this goal the grammar is concentrated on Biblical Aramaic, only touching lightly the vast areas of other Aramaic languages and dialects.

Pronominal theology in translating the Gospels

Bible Translator, 2002

In many of the languages into which the New Testament is being translated or retranslated today, there exists a grammatical distinction between the so-called T and V pronouns (and corresponding verbal and affix forms) of second person address. A simplified description of the difference in social connotation signaled by these pronouns can be given in terms of two main contrasting features: a) the V form (from French vous) signals inequality or distance between the speaker and addressee in terms of social hierarchy or power (and thus is the form used for polite address), while the T form (from French tu) indicates social/power equality. b) the V form signals personal distance (unfamiliarity or coldness), while the T form indicates greater closeness (familiarity or intimacy) between speaker and addressee.

THE PRONOUNS IN HODAYOT (1QH). A STUDY OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

The most distinctive features of the orthography of Hodayot (especially 1QH) include peculiar means of writing certain personal pronouns or oblique forms of pronouns. Hodayot manifests a peculiar application of unabbreviated forms of personal pronouns and oblique forms of pronouns. In the majority of the cases which are presented below, the pronouns are written with an additional he -ה‬ as an affix at the end of a word. Due to this fact researchers are engaged in a debate which lasts some decades about whether the long forms of nouns are exclusively a question of orthography or whether they constitute evidence of a different pronunciation. Due to the lack of unambiguous evidence about phonetic changes, the pronoun is discussed in the part devoted to morphology.

PRONOMINAL REFERENCE AND AGREEMENT IN VOCATIVE EXPRESSIONS IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

JOURNAL OF NORTHWEST SEMITIC LANGUAGES, 2024

Although vocative expressions are pragmatically second person in that they are used to address or call to someone within the speech situation, the internal syntax of vocative expressions in Biblical Hebrew exhibits a puzzling alternation in the use of second person and third-person pronominal reference to refer to the addressee. This article re-examines the issue of pronominal reference within vocative expressions by considering the linguistic features of the head of the vocative expression and the syntax of phrases and/or clauses that modify it. A syntactic explanation of the distribution of second person and third-person pronominal reference is offered based upon the agreement of pronominal elements to their antecedents