Current Issues in Generative Hebrew Linguistics (Linguistik Aktuell Linguistics Today)

408 Pages·2008·3.84 MB·English

by  Sharon Armon-Lotem

Current Issues in Generative Hebrew Linguistics
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA)
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph
studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical
and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics,
morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust
empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective.
General Editors
Werner Abraham Elly van Gelderen
University of Vienna / Rijksuniversiteit Arizona State University
Groningen
Advisory Editorial Board
Cedric Boeckx Christer Platzack
Harvard University University of Lund
Guglielmo Cinque Ian Roberts
University of Venice Cambridge University
Günther Grewendorf Lisa deMena Travis
J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt McGill University
Liliane Haegeman Sten Vikner
University of Lille, France University of Aarhus
Hubert Haider C. Jan-Wouter Zwart
University of Salzburg University of Groningen
Volume 134
Current Issues in Generative Hebrew Linguistics
Edited by Sharon Armon-Lotem, Gabi Danon and Susan Rothstein
Current Issues
in Generative Hebrew Linguistics
Edited by
Sharon Armon-Lotem
Gabi Danon
Susan Rothstein
Bar-Ilan University
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Current issues in generative Hebrew linguistics / edited by Sharon Armon-Lotem, Gabi
Danon, Susan Rothstein.
p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166-0829 ; v. 134)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Hebrew language--Syntax. 2. Hebrew language--Grammar, Generative. I. Armon-
Lotem, Sharon. II. Danon, Gabi. III. Rothstein, Susan Deborah.
PJ4707C87 2008
492.4'5--dc22 2008032721
isbn 978 90 272 5517 4 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Acknowledgement vii
Current issues in generative Hebrew linguistics 1
Sharon Armon-Lotem, Gabi Danon and Susan Rothstein
part i. The structure of the lexicon
Morphologically conditioned V–Ø alternation in Hebrew:
Distinction among nouns, adjectives and participles, and verbs 27
Outi Bat-El
The special status of nif’al in Hebrew 61
Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald
Object gap constructions: Externalization and operator movement 77
Irena Botwinik-Rotem
Active lexicon: Adjectival and verbal passives 105
Julia Horvath and Tal Siloni
part ii. Grammatical features and inflectional morphology
Definiteness agreement with PP modifiers 137
Gabi Danon
Predication and equation in Hebrew (nonpseudocleft) copular sentences 161
Yael Greenberg
Morphological knowledge without morphological structure:
Morphology-prosody interface in the first Hebrew verbs 197
Galit Adam and Outi Bat-El
The interaction between question formation and verbal morphology in the
acquisition of Hebrew: A minimalist perspective 223
Sharon Armon-Lotem
On child subjects in a partially pro-drop language 245
Jeannette Schaeffer and Dorit Ben-Shalom
vi Table of contents
Resumptive pronouns as a last resort when movement is impaired:
Relative clauses in hearing impairment 267
Naama Friedmann, Rama Novogrodsky, Ronit
Szterman & Omer Preminger
part iii. Semantics, pragmatics and discourse
Bare minimizers 293
Yael Sharvit
Hebrew Negative polarity items – šum and af 313
Alissa Levy
A two-layered analysis of the Hebrew exceptive xuc mi 337
Aldo Sevi
Codifying apparent inconsistencies in discourse: The case of Hebrew ma 353
Yael Ziv
Index 389
Acknowledgement
The original idea for this volume came from Werner Abraham, and the editors would
like to thank him for this, and for his help and encouragement along the way. They
would also like to thank the reviewers of the papers, who must of necessity remain
anonymous, and the production team at John Benjamins.

Current issues in generative Hebrew linguistics
Sharon Armon-Lotem, Gabi Danon & Susan Rothstein
1.  Overview
Historically, Modern Hebrew has had an important role in the development of
the generative approach to linguistics. Chomsky’s (1951) Master’s thesis, “Mor-
phophonemics of Modern Hebrew”, which laid the foundations for generative
linguistics, analysed and proposed rules to describe Hebrew syntax and morpho-
phonemics. Nearly 30 years later, Berman (1978), in her book “Modern Hebrew
Structure”, offered a comprehensive analysis of Modern Hebrew within the genera-
tive transformational grammar framework. Nevertheless, it was still in 1995 that
a post at the Linguist List said: “Information about current research on Modern
Hebrew linguistics is practically inaccessible for those living outside Israel”. There
had been a number of influential works on particular features of Modern Hebrew
syntax, in particular Borer (1986), Doron (1983) and Ritter (1991) (and of course
Prince 1975 and McCarthy 1979 had brought the phonology and morphophonol-
ogy of Bibilical Hebrew into the forefront of interest), but there was little more
general research. In the last 12 years, a number of books and a significant number
of articles have appeared, all presenting a generative approach to various aspects
of Modern Hebrew. Almost as an immediate response to the request in the Lin-
guist List, NLLT published in 1995 a volume devoted to Modern Hebrew syntax;
Shlonsky’s (1997) book and Siloni’s (1997) book which followed were among the
first to focus on more specific aspects of Modern Hebrew grammar such as clause
structure, word order, and the syntax and argument structure of DPs. A number
of books, including Ouhalla & Shlonsky (2002) and Arad (2005), continued this
line of research, providing further insight into the syntax and morphosyntax of
Modern Hebrew. As a result, Modern Hebrew has become better known in the
linguistics world, often characterised by a number of phenomena, in particular
pronominal copulars, construct state nominals and resumptive pronouns. We will
talk more about these below.
The present volume makes an attempt to broaden this picture by presenting a col-
lection of papers which are fairly representative of some of the major topics in recent
generative research on Modern Hebrew. Any volume concentrating on a single lan-
guage is interesting and important. While there is enormous value in focussing research
on a particular phenomenon such as nominal structure or copular constructions,