Grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification as independent processes producing two variants of the same construction: The example of Modern Hebrew and Neo-Aramaic GRAMIS 2010, Brussels 2010 | conference-paper (original) (raw)
Impersonal and Pseudo-Impersonal Constructions in Modern Hebrew
The domain of impersonal constructions in is highly complex and heterogeneous in Hebrew as in other languages. It includes sentences that lack an overt constituent bearing the properties of a referential and identifiable subject or are altogether lacking in canonical subject properties. The aim of the present chapter is to present an up-to-date classification of the major impersonal and generalized or impersonalized constructions especially in spoken Modern Hebrew, primarily spoken Hebrew. To this end the coding properties of such constructions are analyzed, based on the typological characterization of Modern Hebrew as a non-subject-oriented and non-configurational language characterized by synthetic inflectional morphology with marking of personal in finite verbs, hence not requiring an expletive or 'dummy subject'. Functional properties of impersonal and generalized constructions in Modern Hebrew are noted in relation to pragmatic underpinnings of their patterning and use. person", "null-subject", "zero subject", "empty subject", "expletive", "dummy subject", are employed in the literature to refer to various phenomena in which the expression of the predicate lacks an overt lexical constituent bearing the grammatical function of a subject, or else to a construction relating to an action or state operating upon an entity lacking in a referential subject (characterized by Izreˈel [2018] as a "unipartite clause" anchored or unanchored in the hic et nunc of the discourse. 1 For example, there is a difference between a proposition like It's raining as not anchored in any actual information in the surrounding discourse, compared with the same assertion performed when the speaker is looking out of the window, in which case it is clear from the extra-linguistic context that he or she is asserting this proposition to be true. Suppression of the agent in impersonal constructions may be due to various reasons: because (i) the speaker is unaware of the identity of the agent; (ii) the speaker knows who or what the agent is but does not wish to reveal his/her identity; (iii) both speaker and hearer are aware of the agent's identity, so that overt expression is redundant; and (iv) the speaker is aware of its identity but considers it unimportant; (v) the proposition is centered on the process in itself, without need for referring to a noun phrase indicating a thematic subject. The question of possible correlations between the coding of a non-specified subject, the anaphoric use of null-subject constructions, and the presence or absence of a subject indexation has been widely debated in generative linguistics (Borer 1989; Shlonsky 2009, among others). Siewierska (2008), instead, suggested that a distinction be drawn between semantic, syntactic, morphological, and communicativefunctional perspectives in characterizing impersonal constructions. As regards Modern Hebrew (MH), Rosén (1967; 1977) coined the term xagam as an acronym of xasrey guf u-mispar 'lacking person, and number' for bare impersonal constructions in which the (3 rd person) masculine singular incorporated subject morpheme (zero morpheme in Hebrew) is devoid of referential content. 2 This acronym corresponds to uninflected verbal, adjectival, or nominal constructions that take a verbal complement, most typically infinitival or a finite še-'that' clause, like efšar '(it's) possible', keday '(it's) worthwhile', asur '(it's) forbidden', mutar '(it's) allowed', xaval '(it's a) pity', mutav '(it's) better', etc. Kuzar (1993, 2002, 2012) classifies the "xagam pattern" in terms of what he views as its two basic functionsthe existential and the modal-evaluative. 1 On the basis of their prosodic structure, Izre'el (2018) proposes a classification of untipartite clauses beyond the sentence level, depending on their referential status as anchored in the discourse or as unanchored, the latter typically presentational constructions-in Hebrew, for example, ones with the existential particle yeš 'there is'. 2 The Hebrew benoni ('intermediate') participial and also present tense form does not mark person distinctions, although like nouns and adjectives it is marked for gender and number. Consequently, an overt subject is generally required in the present tense, although this may be omitted depending on its coreferential status in the discourse (see Chapter 8 on Inflection, and Chapter 12 on Agreement Alternations in MH). In the literature, the term "impersonal" commonly refers to sentences with various types of nonpersonal or generalized subjects (e.g., French on, German and Scandinavian man, Italian si/se) as well as ones that lack a constituent displaying the canonical behavior and coding properties of a subject (Keenan 1976). Different types of non-prototypical subjects include non-agents, non-topics, partially referential subjects, inherently non-referential subjects, and zero-subjects, with some analyses claiming that impersonal constructions have an overt or zero proform that takes over the function of a clausal argument (Perlmutter 1983), while Berman's (1980) analysis of MH terms them "strictly subjectless" hence non-referential. Clearly, predications that lack a referential argument fail to say something about an entity, yet, as discussed below, not all instances of a non-overt subject are necessarily impersonal. Besides, impersonal constructions interact with TAM and voice features of the predicate, often being identified with timeless or habitual present tense or hypothetical irrealis mood conveying a generalized impersonal perspective as against use of past perfective forms expressing a more specific and involved discourse stance (Berman 2011). With respect to information structure, "genuine" or totally impersonal constructions such as meteoenvironmental sentences, sentences expressing existence of states and eventualities-that is, (dis)appearance/occurrence, or beginning or end of a state involving some referent-are regarded as a special case of a more inclusive category known as thetic (Sasse 1987, 2006). The hallmark of thetic sentences is the absence of the basic relation between subject as expressing (topic/theme) and predicate (comment/rheme). The information structure of such constructions is equal to a predication block, with no topical subject, so that all parts of the construction are integrated in as a wide-focus sentence-type (Lambrecht 2000). In other words, such constructions contain a non-topic zero (in Standard Average European filled by an expletive). In such constructions agreement mismatches are common, as functional demands conflict with the syntactic default rules (see Chapter 12 on Agreement). In cognitive linguistics, the perspectival center in "genuine" impersonals (notably, meteoenvironmentals and existential) is perceived as the ground (the event as a whole), whereas the figure (the notional subject, or the entity responsible for the action) is left implicit, or if overtly expressed is perceived as part of the predication as an entirely rhematic informational block (Croft & Cruse 2004). Gast and Haas (2011) distinguish between two types of languages: Type A-"thetic-XV" languages that have an obligatory preverbal slot which must be filled by a "dummy-subject" (e.g., English it/there, French il, German es, Swedish det); as against Type B-"thetic-V1" languages including Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic that do not require an overt proform or expletive. Hence, as a "thetic-V1" language MH does not need to encode an overt proform/expletive as a subject place-holder. This is illustrated in the existential construction in (1) and further below, where the empty subject position is marked in the glosses by the zero mark. (1) be-nása betuxim še-yeš xayim be-ma'adim in NASA sure.BENPTCP.M.PL that EXT life.M.PL in-Mars 'At NASA they are sure that there is life on Mars' https://www.mako.co.il The impersonalness of an existential construction like (1) derives from the fact that the event is not construed as an interaction between participants but as a kind of abstract setting (Langacker 1991). Similarly, the meteo-environmental in (2), and the deontic modal construction in (3) both illustrate semantically empty-subject constructions. (2) histakalti 'ex maxšix va-'afilu lo hidlákti 'et ha-'or look.PST.1SG how darken.BENPRS.M.SG and-even not turn.on.PST.1SG ACC DEF-light 'I watched how it was getting dark and I didn't even turn on the light' (lit. how 0-darkens…) https://www.cafemedia.co.il (3) yaxol lihyot nexmad lagur beyáxad ve-likróa yáxad t'a-olam can to-be nice to-live together and-tear together ACC.-DEF-world 'It could be nice to live together and "rip up" the world together' (lit. 0-can be nice) http://laaz.co.il In what follows, a distinction is drawn between (i) totally impersonal constructions representing uncontrolled events; (ii) impersonal constructions that represent controlled events, in active or passive voice; and (iii) constructions with an overt generic subject noun. Uncontrolled events are of two kinds, ones that occur independently of individuals (e.g., meteorological and environmental) and those that relate to perceptional, affective, or physiological experiences, or occurrences happening to an individual. Controlled events are divided below between ones where the agent is left unspecifiedi.e., generic constructions-and those referring to an agent, in the form of an impersonal construction. Morphologically impersonalized constructions that refer to an external referential and agentive subject that is presupposed but indeterminate (or generalized) are treated here, following the term coined by Bloomfield (1933: 254ff.), as "pseudo-impersonals", corresponding to what Siewierska (2011) terms 'Rimpersonals' to refer to lack or reduced referentiality. Underlying this study is the assumption in Construction Grammar (CxG) that a construction is a unit that combines form-meaning-function (e.g.,
Grammaticalization and intersubjectification
The Grammaticalization 'Chains' of the Subject-Coreferential Dative in Semitic and Elsewhere 'thing'-came into use only in post-Biblical Hebrew). This fluidity of function displayed by the dative expression has implications in terms of the ability to establish clear boundaries between the categories represented on its grammaticalization 'chains', as will be shown below. For purely formal reasons, the Subject-coreferential lpronoun under discussion will be referred to as a 'Subject-coreferential dative' (SCD), though, as we shall see, it is in fact a Caseless affix (i.e. a dative form which does not indicate abstract dative Case). The following are examples of the construction in both Biblical and Contemporary Hebrew: 4 (1) le l∞ m-≤arş∞ u-mi-molad∞t (Gen 12:1) go SCD-2SG.M from your-country and-from-your-mother-land 'Leave your country and your homeland' 'Va t'en hors de ton pays, et de ta parenté' (LS Bible) (2) kaxa stam šotatnu lanu bi-sderot qaqal (Kaxa Stam, a popular Israeli song by A. Hillel) so just we-were-walking-around SCD-1PL in-boulevard qaqal 'We were just hanging around on Qaqal Boulevard' This construction is occasionally found in Spoken Modern Arabic as well, 5 as shown in (3); however, it is quite rare in comparison to its Modern Hebrew counterpart. 10 Borer & Grodzinsky (1986: 185 ff) refer to the Hebrew SCD, for purely morpho-syntactic reasons, as a "reflexive dative". Berman (1982: 51ff) uses the rather loose term "reflexive or coreferential dative".
Impersonal Verbal Constructions in Biblical Hebrew: Active, Stative, and Passive
Journal for Semitics, 2021
In this paper I focus on the syntactic properties of subjects in impersonal verbal constructions in Biblical Hebrew. It is claimed that four types of subjectless verbal clauses-active finite and participial plural, active finite singular, passive, and stative-feature three types of impersonal subject: covert indefinite pronoun, inflectional morpheme, and zero-subject. It will be demonstrated that these subjects have different, only partly overlapping syntactic properties: • The covert indefinite pronoun implies an animate subject that does not necessitate "collective interpretation" and can have generic scope; the subject can be topicalised, negated, and relativised, the verbal predicate is temporally vague. • The 3rd masculine plural inflectional morpheme implies an animate collective subject; it can be controlled from the matrix clause and be used for participant tracking and anaphora; the verbal predicate is quite precisely anchored in time. • The dummy zero-subject has no explicit subject properties; it can be theorised that the syntactic slot of a subject is taken by an overt cognate argument (Cause or Theme) of stative or passive verbs, but practically such a subject leaves no syntactic traces.
De Gruyter, 2023
This paper sheds light on the alignment of Existential, Possessive and Dative-Experiencer constructions prevalent in Modern Hebrew that involve ambiguity of syntactic relations. Data-driven and employing a strictly typological approach, the study argues that the constructions in question are fundamentally related, and that they do not conform to the typological criteria of 'subject-oriented' languages, like most Indo-European languages. It is suggested that an inner relationship holds between the constructions in question. As a non-subject oriented language that does not require entities of referential prominence to be encoded as subjects or topics, Hebrew tends to configure non-volitional events as happening, or coming from outsideexisting with reference to the entity experiencing them or who is involved in them as Benefactive or Possessor.
Chapter 13: Transitivity and valence alternations in Modern Hebrew
In: Ruth Berman (ed.), Usage -Based Studies in Modern Hebrew. Amsterdam: John Benjamins., 2020
The study explores a range of transitive constructions of varying prototypicality in Modern Hebrew (MH) referring to causal and non-causal events, including complex predicates, semi-transitive and lexicalized constructions, with transitivity analyzed as a morpho-syntactic category rather than a semantic concept. The chapter describes various types of alternations and variations in case-frame and argument structure in MH transitive constructions, noting the growing tendency towards labile alternation (ambitransitivity), particularly in the prototypical causative morphological pattern of the hif ˈil verb-template (e.g., hilbin 'whiten' serves both as causative 'make white' and inchoative 'become white'). In such cases, a change in the valence-frame of the verb does not necessarily involve change in the verb-morphology, yielding the claim that transitivity in MH does not depend exclusively on the semantic frame or morpho-phonological nature of the verb-pattern, but instead on the overall syntactic properties of the construction, which in turn is dependent on discourse requirements. Avoidance in discourse of the core O (object) argument is shown to occur even in highly transitive constructions, in which reader-hearers resolve the unrealized argument by context-based inferences and/or based on their communicative competence in conversational discourse.