What makes the dative-experiencer construction in Modern Hebrew different from its counterparts in European languages (original) (raw)
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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.
Reconsidering the Emergence of Non-core Dative Constructions in Modern Hebrew
This article critically scrutinizes the perceived view that the emergence of non-core dative constructions in Modern Hebrew is due to a Slavic-Yiddish influence. It studies the Biblical and Mishnaic sources, showing that these language strata contain highly similar constructions to the ones in Modern Hebrew. It additionally shows that parallel constructions existed in languages spoken in the Jewish communities at the time of the revival, revealing that this linguistic phenomenon is typologically widely attested. We therefore claim that this could be an example of an internalization of the old grammar in the new spoken language, enhanced by the fact that similar constructions are reflected in the non-Hebrew native languages of the revival era speakers. These speakers, at the same time, imported into their colloquial Hebrew a sub-type of non-core dative—the discursive dative—to which they could not have been exposed through the ancient written texts, since this type of dative construction occurs only in the spoken language.
Presentative datives in Modern Hebrew
Building on Babel’s Rubble, 2022
This paper deals with two presentative dative constructions in Modern Hebrew, characterizing them from two angles: as dative constructions and as presentative constructions. It demonstrates that this dual perspective allows to account for both the syntactic and the semantic differences between them.
The Hebrew dative: Usage patterns as discourse profile constructions
The dative in Hebrew poses a problem for a unified characterization as no single criterion seems to guides its interpretation. The present paper approaches this problem from a usage-based perspective, suggesting a multifactorial account of dative functions in Hebrew. Analyzing a corpus of Hebrew dative clauses with multivariate statistical tools I reveal the usage patterns associated with each dative function, showing that traditional descriptions of dative functions are not reflected in usage. Working within a Usage-Based perspective, in which the meaning of a word is its use in language, I argue that Hebrew has only four distinct dative usage patterns, termed Discourse Profile Constructions: conventional correspondences between a multifactorial usage pattern and a unified conceptualization of the world. The four Discourse Profile Constructions are: (i) the Extended Transitive Discourse Profile Construction, (ii) the Human Endpoint Discourse Profile Construction, (iii) the Extended Intransitive Discourse Profile Construction, and (iv), the Evaluative Reference point Discourse Profile Construction. By revealing such correspondences between usage patterns and conceptualizations, the present paper (i) broadens the Construction Grammar notion of Argument Structure Construction, and (ii), suggests an innovative account for the notion of usage as a factor in the conventional pairing between form and function.
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.
Coreferential Dative Constructions in Syrian Arabic and Modern Hebrew
2010
In this paper we will provide a description of what we term here the Coreferential Dative Construction. The languages under consideration are Syrian Arabic, which has never been studied before from this respect, and Modern Hebrew. We will show that this construction, related to other constructions containing non-selected datives, expresses the speaker's stance or emotional attitude towards the described eventuality by seeing it as having weak relevance. We will also show that the most important grammatical difference between the two languages is that in Syrian Arabic the presence of the Coreferential Dative obligatorily triggers a special type of modification in the VP: it must be modified by an attenuative vague measure. The comparative approach will help to shed new light on previous analyses of Modern Hebrew data.
Dissertation Summary: A Linguistic Reappraisal of the Biblical Hebrew Accusative
2019
This study applies generative linguistics to the Biblical Hebrew (BH) accusative. The standard BH grammars have treated accusative noun phrases under two broad categories, roughly object/complement and adverbial/adjunct. Not only do they disagree about which are objects and which are adverbial, but they have also tended to define subcategories without a clear methodology, usually based on lexical semantics. By contrast, my approach emphasizes syntactic definitions for the major categories, which I argue are three: secondary predicates, arguments, and modifiers. The syntactic and semantic framework of this study depends on the unified approach to predication of Bowers. Under that framework every predicate, whether primary or secondary, is assumed to have a predication phrase (PrP) structure. Secondary predicates are therefore defined very basically to be PrP structures which are somehow subordinate to a primary predication, and thus they may be adjuncts or they may be complements of the verb. Arguments are constituents which are selected by the verb according to one of its recognized valency patterns. There is a limited number of specific syntactic positions for arguments, and the underlying syntax of a verb’s arguments depends on its semantics. In particular, I aim to show that there are four different trivalent structures in BH: prepositional ditransitives, double object constructions, causatives, and complementatives. Modifiers, since they are adjoined, may exist in any number. I assume that modifiers are predicates of one of four conceptual primitives (propositions, situations, events, and manners) and that modifiers attach in the domain which corresponds to the appropriate primitive (CP, TP, PrP, and vP respectively). This study also treats cognate accusatives, where the head noun is formed from the same root as the verb. I argue here that cognateness is not itself relevant for syntax, but rather cognate accusatives may function as arguments, modifiers, or secondary predicates. The analysis of cognate accusatives depends on the transitivity of the verb. This study treats the above categories in turn, providing ample examples from the biblical corpus (Genesis-Deuteronomy). The text of the dissertation is supplemented by a digital appendix of analysed examples from the corpus.
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.