The reinvention of the construction of verb + non-lexical subject-coreferential L-pronoun in Modern Hebrew

Halevy Rivka*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A construction of verb + non-lexical (non-selected) subject-coreferential dative pronoun (SCD) is found in classical Hebrew on a limited scale, but widely used in Modern Hebrew (MH), crucially in the spoken register. The paper suggests that although the classical construction and the modern one look superficially similar, interpretatively they seem to be distinct. It is argued that the modern construction changed into a speaker-oriented construction resolved on the higher level of discourse. The paper aims to trace the emergence of the modern construction and the motivation for its change. It is suggested that the construction acquired pragmatic inferences as part of the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language and that the inspiration for that was a comparable construction prevalent in Slavic and Yiddish, the contact-languages of Hebrew at that time.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)399-429
Number of pages31
JournalJournal of Semitic Studies
Volume60
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester. All rights reserved.

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