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. 659–676

Chapter 18
A usage-based typology of Modern Hebrew syntax

How Semitic?

| University of Haifa
The chapter considers how findings from Modern Hebrew syntax shed light on the usage-based domain of contemporary linguistic typology, defined as concerned with the synchronic and diachronic interrelations between function and grammar. To do so, it provides illustrations from well-discussed syntactic features marking inter-clausal relations, and compares these features with those found in Biblical Hebrew prose, with special emphasis on bi-clausal constructions. The conclusion is that Hebrew syntax to this day reflects constructions that are attested at earlier periods in the history of the language, including early as well as late Biblical Hebrew, accompanied by functional and frequency distributions that have changed in current usage.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Bi-clausal constructions: Clauses and their combination
    • 2.1Inter-clausal relations in modern Hebrew
    • 2.2Inter-clausal relations: Examples from Biblical Hebrew prose
  • 3.Concluding comments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 March 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.210.19nir
References
Abadi, Adina
1988 taħbir hasiaħ šel haʕivrit haħadašah (The Syntax of Modern Hebrew Discourse). Jerusalem: Magness Press.Google Scholar
Andersen, Francis I.
1980 The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew. Berlin: De Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Hayyim, Ze’ ev
1992 lašon ʕatiqah bmciʔut ħadašah (An ancient language in a new reality). In The Struggle for a Language, 36–85. Jerusalem: Academy of Hebrew Language. (Original work published in Leshonenu La’am 4: 62–63 [1956])Google Scholar
Berman, Ruth A.
1978 Modern Hebrew Structure. Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects.Google Scholar
1995 Narrative competence and storytelling performance: How children tell stories in different contexts. Journal of Narrative and Life History 5(4): 285–313. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1996 Form and function in developing narrative abilities: The case of ‘and’. In Social Interaction, Context, and Language: Essays in Honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp, Dan I. Slobin, Julie Gerhardt, Amy Kyratzis & Jiansheng Guo (eds), 243–268. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
2003 Genre and modality in developing discourse abilities. In Discourse Across Languages and Cultures [Studies in Language Companion 68], Carol Lynn Moder & Aida Martinovic-Ziv (eds), 329–356. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2011 Revisiting impersonal constructions in Hebrew: Corpus-based perspectives. In The Typology of Impersonal Constructions [Studies in Language Companion Series 124], Andrej Malchukov & Anna Sierwieska (eds), 323–355. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2018 From pre-grammaticality to proficiency in L1: Acquiring and developing Hebrew infinitives. Psychology of Language and Communication 22 (1): 557–580.Google Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. & Nir-Sagiv, Bracha
2004 Linguistic indicators of inter-genre differentiation in later language development. Journal of Child Language 31: 339–380. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. & Nir, Bracha
2009 Clause-packaging in narratives: A crosslinguistic developmental study. In Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Psychology of Language: Research in the Tradition of Dan I. Slobin, Jiansheng Guo, Elena Lieven, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Nancy Budwig, Keiko Nakamura & Seyda Özçalişkan (eds), 149–162. New York NY: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. & Slobin, Dan I.
1994 Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study. Hillsdale NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. & Verhoeven, Ludo
2002 Cross-linguistic perspectives on the development of text-production abilities: Speech and writing. Written Language & Literacy 5 (1): 1–43. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Biber Douglas, Johansson Stig, Leech Geoffrey Conrad Susan & Finegan Edward
1999 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Brown, Gillian & Yule, George
1983 Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan
2009 Language universals and usage-based theory. In Language Universals, Morten H. Christiansen, Chris Collins & Shimon Edelman (eds), 17–39. Oxford: OUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace
1994 Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Ohad
2017 The sequential forms in Biblical Hebrew: An illustration from the marginal. Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 32 (1): 31–49.Google Scholar
Cristofaro, Sonia
2003 Subordination. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Croft, William
2001 Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: OUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Culicover, Peter W. & Jackendoff, Ray
1997 Semantic subordination despite syntactic coordination. Linguistic Inquiry 28 (2): 195–217.Google Scholar
Even-Shoshan, Abraham
1989 A New Concordance of the Old Testament: Using the Hebrew and Aramaic Text. Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer.Google Scholar
Fernandez Miguel Perez
1997 An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew. Leiden: Brill Academic.Google Scholar
Gensler, Orin D.
1993 A Typological Evaluation of Celtic/Hamito-Semitic Syntactic Parallels. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy
1991 The evolution of dependent-clause syntax in Biblical Hebrew. In Approaches to Grammaticalization, Vol. II [Typological Studies in Language 19], Elizabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine (eds), 257–310. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 The drift from VSO to SVO in Biblical Hebrew: The pragmatics of tense-aspect. In The Diachrony of Grammar, 197–244. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Glinert, Lewis
2004 The Grammar of Modern Hebrew. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, Gideon
1996 haʕivrit klašon šemit ħayah (Hebrew as a living Semitic language). In Evolution and Renewal: Trends in the Development of the Hebrew Language, Zofia Lasman (ed.), 148–190. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.Google Scholar
Halevy, Rivka
2013 Syntax: Modern Hebrew. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Vol. III, Geoffrey Khan (ed.), 702–722. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K.
1989 Spoken and Written Language. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2004 An Introduction to Functional Grammar, revised by Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar
Isaksson, Bo
2014 ‘Subordination’: Some reflections on Matthiesen and Thompson’s article “The structure of discourse and ‘subordination” and its bearing on the idea of circumstantial clause in Arabic and Hebrew. In Festschrift Jan Retsö, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Lutz Edzard (ed.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
2015 The verbal system of Biblical Hebrew. A clause combining approach. In Clause Combining in Semitic: The Circumstantial Clause and Beyond, Bo Isaksson & Maria Persson (eds), 169–268. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Jisa, Harriet, Reilly, Judy S., Verhoeven, Ludo, Baruch, Elisheva & Rosado, Elisa
2002 Passive voice constructions in written texts: A crosslinguistic developmental study. Written Language & Literacy 5 (2): 163–184. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kastovsky, Dieter
2006 Historical morphology from a typological point of view: Examples from English. In Types of Variation: Diachronic, Dialectal and Typological Interfaces [Studies in Language Companion Series 76], Terttu Nevalainen, Juhani Klemola & Mikko Laitinen (eds), 53–80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, Edward L.
1985 Relative clauses. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. II, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 141–170. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian
1988 Towards a typology of clause linkage. In Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse [Typological Studies in Language 18], John Haiman & Sandra A. Thompson (eds), 181–225. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Livnat, Zohar & Sela, Meir
1995 haʔopoziciyah – hayaħas hašliši? (Apposition – the third relation?). Lešonenu 59: 57–70.Google Scholar
Malchukov, Andrej & Siewierska, Anna
2011 Impersonal Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective [Studies in Language Companion 124]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Muchnik, Malka
1989 habħirah bmilot hašiʕabud uvemilot haʔiħuy bʕitonut (The choice of subordinating and coordinating conjunctions in the Israeli press). In Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, World Union of Jewish Studies 4(1): 157–163.Google Scholar
Niccacci, Alviero
1990 The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
1996 Basic facts and theory of the Biblical Hebrew verb system in prose. In Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible: Papers of the Tilburg Conference, Ellen van Wolde (ed.), 167–202. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Nir, Bracha
2008 Clause Packages as Constructions in Developing Narrative Discourse. PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University.Google Scholar
2013 Complementizer. In Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Geoffrey Khan (ed.). Leiden: Brill Online. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 Frames for clause combining. Constructions and Frames 7 (2): 348–379.Google Scholar
Nir, Bracha & Berman, Ruth
2010 Complex syntax as a window on contrastive rhetoric. Journal of Pragmatics 42: 744–765. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Noonan, Michael
1985 Complementation. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. II, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 42–140. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Ravid, Dorit, & Vered, Lizzy
2017 Hebrew verbal passives in Later Language Development: The interface of register and verb morphology. Journal of child language 44(6): 1309–1336. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rönnerdal, Göran
2017 Temporal Subordinators and Clauses in Early Modern English: Stability and Change. PhD dissertation, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah
1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I.
1977 Language change in childhood and in history. In Language Learning and Thought, John T. Macnamara (ed.), 185–214. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
1994 Talking perfectly: Discourse origins of the present perfect. In Perspectives on Grammaticalization, William Pagliuca (ed.), 119–133. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Steiner, Richard C.
2000 Does the Biblical Hebrew conjunction-ו have many meanings, one meaning, or no meaning at all? Journal of Biblical Literature 119(2): 249–267. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A. & Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
2005 The clause as a locus of grammar and interaction. Discourse Studies 7 (4–5): 481–505. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Sandra A., Longacre, Robert E. & Hwang, Shin Ja J.
2007 Adverbial Clauses. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. II, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 237–269. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van Lier, Eva
2006 Parts-of-speech systems and dependent clauses: A typological study. Folia Linguistica 40 (3–4): 239–304.Google Scholar
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe
2007 Rethinking the Coordinate-Subordinate Dichotomy: Interpersonal Grammar and the Analysis of Adverbial Clauses in English. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zeldes, Amir
2013 Is Modern Hebrew standard average European? The view from European. Linguistic Typology 17(3): 439–470. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zewi, Tamar
2008 mišptey toxen bʕivrit (Content clauses in Hebrew). Lešonenu. 70: 627–657.Google Scholar