Revisiting impersonal constructions in Modern Hebrew

Discourse-based perspectives

Ruth A. Berman | Tel Aviv University

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 studies in a discourse-embedded functional perspective based on authentic adult-child conversational interchanges and extended texts elicited from schoolchildren, adolescents, and adults in Hebrew and other languages. These serve to demonstrate the effects of such usage-based factors as genre, age-schooling development, as well as target language typology. The study concludes by arguing for a confluence of structural devices that combine to form a cline of impersonalization in the expression of a more or less depersonalized discourse stance. Keywords: discourse; genre; Hebrew; impersonals; language development; subjectless

Published online: 20 July 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.124.12ber

Cited by

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2016. In Acquisition and Development of Hebrew [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 19], ► pp. 1 ff.

Berman, Ruth A.

2016. In Written and Spoken Language Development across the Lifespan [Literacy Studies, 11], ► pp. 181 ff.

Berman, Ruth A.

2017. In Social Environment and Cognition in Language Development [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 21], ► pp. 199 ff.

Berman, Ruth A.

2020. In Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew [Studies in Language Companion Series, 210], ► pp. 375 ff.

Bolozky, Shmuel & Ruth A. Berman

2020. In Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew [Studies in Language Companion Series, 210], ► pp. 265 ff.

Halevy, Rivka

2020. In Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew [Studies in Language Companion Series, 210], ► pp. 539 ff.

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2021. Noisy is better than rare: Comprehenders compromise subject-verb agreement to form more probable linguistic structures. Cognitive Psychology 124 ► pp. 101359 ff.

LUSTIGMAN, LYLE & RUTH A. BERMAN

2016. Form and function in early clause-combining. Journal of Child Language 43:1 ► pp. 157 ff.

Nir, Bracha

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Reshef, Yael

2019. In Language Contact, Continuity and Change in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 256], ► pp. 179 ff.

Rubinstein, Aynat

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Seroussi, Batia

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Taube, Dana

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