Chapter published in:
Usage-Based Studies in Modern Hebrew: Background, Morpho-lexicon, and Syntax
Edited by Ruth A. Berman
[Studies in Language Companion Series 210] 2020
► pp. 507–537

Genitive (smixut) constructions in Modern Hebrew

| Tel Aviv University
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), where a caret indicates the relation between an initial bound head N and its free-form modifier; (ii) free, analytic N(P) šel (N)P constructions with the genitive marker šel ‘of’; and (iii) doubly marked N1pro2 šel N2 genitives. Usage-based analyses of alternations between these three options for expressing possession and other genitive relations reveal conflicting results, leading to the conclusion that text-type (genre, medium of expression, level of usage, and communicative setting) plays a major role in choice of construction. The chapter also considers two other binominal constructions – construct-state Adj^ Noun and Noun + Denominal Adjective phrases – and concludes by noting more general properties of Modern Hebrew reflected in current use of these constructions.
Published online: 18 March 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.210.15ber
References

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