Ruth A. Berman

List of John Benjamins publications for which Ruth A. Berman plays a role.

Journals

Book series

Subjects Afro-Asiatic languages | Theoretical linguistics
Subjects Afro-Asiatic languages | Language acquisition | Theoretical linguistics
Subjects Language acquisition
Subjects Discourse studies | Pragmatics | Writing and literacy
Subjects Discourse studies | Pragmatics | Writing and literacy
The chapter concerns the morpho-syntactic structure and usage-based properties of MH constructions involving two nominal constituents, an initial head and following modifier. Focus is on the three smixut ‘adjacency’ or ‘dependency’ constructions: (i) “construct-state” compounds in the form N^ N(P),… read more
Berman, Ruth A. 2020 Chapter 11. NominalizationsUsage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew: Background, Morpho-lexicon, and Syntax, Berman, Ruth A. (ed.), pp. 375–418 | Chapter
The chapter details structural and usage-based properties of three types of verb shifts to nouns in MH: Action Nominals. Gerunds, and Infinitives. It starts by specifying morphological and syntactic criteria for these three constructions as nominalizations: They are fully productive grammatical… read more
Berman, Ruth A. and Elitzur Dattner 2020 IntroductionUsage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew: Background, Morpho-lexicon, and Syntax, Berman, Ruth A. (ed.), pp. 1–16 | Chapter
Parts of speech in Modern Hebrew are analyzed in relation to three categories: Open Class items (Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives), Closed Class paradigmatically organized grammatical items (e.g., Pronouns, Case-Markers, Conjunctions), and Intermediate elements lying between the two (e.g., Prepositions,… read more
The paper deals with word-formation devices in Modern Hebrew as reflecting word-class distinctiveness rather than polycategoriality, defined here as characterizing lexical items that share the same surface morpho-phonological form, yet function in different lexico-grammatical categories. Relevant… read more
Berman, Ruth A. 2017 Chapter 13. Developing construals of a narrative event sequenceSocial Environment and Cognition in Language Development: Studies in honor of Ayhan Aksu-Koç, Ketrez, F. Nihan, Aylin C. Küntay, Şeyda Özçalışkan and Aslı Özyürek (eds.), pp. 199–222 | Chapter
The chapter examines Hebrew-language excerpts relating to a particular episode in the “frog-story” picture book following on from Aksu-Koç and Tekdemir’s (2004) study of “the interplay between narrativity and mindreading.” Verbalizations of Hebrew-speaking preschoolers and school children compared… read more
This introductory chapter presents background on the typology, acquisition, and development of Israeli Hebrew in order to provide a shared frame of reference for readers’ perusal of the eleven chapters that follow. It starts by defining the overall goal of the volume, followed by an overview of… read more
Berman, Ruth A. and Lyle Lustigman 2014 Emergent clause-combining in adult-child interactional contextsLanguage in Interaction: Studies in honor of Eve V. Clark, Arnon, Inbal, Marisa Casillas, Chigusa Kurumada and Bruno Estigarribia (eds.), pp. 281–300 | Article
The study analyzes early clause-combining (CC) complex syntax of three Hebrew-acquiring girls in self-initiated autonomous constructions compared to three types of interlocutor-supported contexts – by means of Affirmations (encouraging comments), Scaffolding (structural prompts), and… read more
Berman, Ruth A. 2011 Revisiting impersonal constructions in Modern Hebrew: Discourse-based perspectivesImpersonal Constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective, Malchukov, Andrej L. and Anna Siewierska (eds.), pp. 323–356 | Article
The study focuses on three impersonal constructions in Modern Hebrew: subjectless sentences with 3rd person plural main verbs, subjectless sentences with modal operators that take a complement clause, and sentences with generic pronoun subjects. Structural and semantic analyses elaborate on earlier… read more
Berman, Ruth A., Ronit Nayditz and Dorit Ravid 2011 Linguistic diagnostics of written texts in two school-age populationsWritten Language & Literacy 14:2, pp. 161–187 | Article
The paper considers the writing abilities of Hebrew-speaking grade school and middle school students from mid-high compared with low SES backgrounds, as reflected in stories and compositions they wrote on the topic of friendship. A range of linguistic means of expression were employed as… read more
Berman, Ruth A. and Bracha Nir 2010 The lexicon in writing–speech-differentiationDevelopmental aspects of written language, Vernon Carter, Sofía A. and Mónica Alvarado (eds.), pp. 183–205 | Article
The study analyzed text-embedded lexical usage as diagnostic of writing-speech-distinctions in stories and discussions produced in the two modalities by English-speaking grade-school children, middle-school pre-adolescents, high-school adolescents, and adults. We assumed that (1) while children… read more
The paper re-appraises accepted classifications of linguistic elements into word-level constructions on the one hand and in terms of Parts-of-Speech systems on the other from the point of view of Construction Grammar (CxG). We focus on a particular adverbial construction in Hebrew, with the… read more
Berman, Ruth A. and Bracha Nir 2009 Cognitive and linguistic factors in evaluating text quality: Global versus local?New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics, Evans, Vyvyan and Stéphanie Pourcel (eds.), pp. 421–440 | Article
Ravid, Dorit and Ruth A. Berman 2009 Developing linguistic register across text types: The case of modern HebrewPragmatics & Cognition 17:1, pp. 108–145 | Article
The study considers the topic of linguistic register by examining how schoolchildren, adolescents, and adults vary the texts that they construct across the dimensions of modality (spoken/written discourse) and genre (narrative/expository discourse). Although register variation is presumably… read more
Berman, Ruth A. 2004 Genre and modality in developing discourse abilitiesDiscourse Across Languages and Cultures, Moder, Carol Lynn and Aida Martinovic-Zic (eds.), pp. 329–356 | Article
The studies reported in this volume of WL&L (5: 1–2, 2002) all derive from a joint project entitled “Developing literacy in different contexts and in different languages”, funded by the Spencer Foundation, Chicago. The study encompasses seven languages — Dutch, English, French, Hebrew, Icelandic,… read more
Berman, Ruth A., Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdóttir and Sven Strömqvist 2002 Discourse stance: Written and spoken languageCross-Linguistic Perspectives on the Development of Text-Production Abilities in Speech and Writing. Part 2, Berman, Ruth A. and Ludo Verhoeven (eds.), pp. 255–289 | Article
The aim of this article is to integrate findings reported in the preceding articles in this collection, employing a global discourse perspective labeled discourse stance. The paper attempts to clarify what is meant by this notion, and how it can contribute to the evaluation of text construction… read more
Reilly, Judy, Elisheva Baruch, Harriet Jisa and Ruth A. Berman 2002 Propositional attitudes in written and spoken languageCross-Linguistic Perspectives on the Development of Text-Production Abilities in Speech and Writing. Part 2, Berman, Ruth A. and Ludo Verhoeven (eds.), pp. 183–218 | Article
This study considers the use of modal expressions (auxiliaries like should , can), semi-modals (e.g. have to, be likely to), and adverbials and complement-taking expressions (maybe, it is possible that ) to convey the attitudes and feelings of speaker/writers about the events they describe… read more
Berman, Ruth A. 2001 16. Narrative development in multilingual contexts: A cross-linguistic perspectiveNarrative Development in a Multilingual Context, Verhoeven, Ludo and Sven Strömqvist (eds.), pp. 419–428 | Chapter
Kupersmitt, Judy and Ruth A. Berman 2001 11. Linguistic features of Spanish-Hebrew children’s narrativesNarrative Development in a Multilingual Context, Verhoeven, Ludo and Sven Strömqvist (eds.), pp. 277–318 | Chapter
Abstract This study addresses some of the multiple factors that play a role in children's developing narrative abilities. It starts by reviewing approaches to narrative analysis that have had an impact on the study of children's narratives since the 1970s. Such analyses are reevaluated from a… read more
Berman, Ruth A. 1995 Aspects of Hebrew/English contrastive RhetoricTendances Récentes en Linguistique Française et Générale: Volume dédié à David Gaatone, Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot, Hava et Lucien Kupferman (dir.), pp. 41–54 | Article