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In:Language Contact, Continuity and Change in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew
Edited by Edit Doron, Malka Rappaport Hovav, Yael Reshef and Moshe Taube
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 256] 2019
► pp. 55–94

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Existential possessive modality in the emergence of Modern Hebrew

 | Department of Hebrew Language and Department of Linguistics | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Published online: 18 September 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.256.03rub
This paper documents the evolution of existential possessive modals in a literary corpus of Emergent Modern Hebrew (EMH). Modal uses of the existential element yeš are shown to have changed their form and their meaning during this period. Morphosyntactically, the possessive variant declined, and it became impossible to inflect modal yeš. Semantically, a special meaning of ability that was available in the classical Hebrew variants of the construction was lost, and modal yeš turned into an expression that exclusively conveys impersonal deontic necessity. Language contact, primarily with Russian, is suggested to have shaped the morphosyntax of existential possessive modals in EMH, whereas internally-motivated processes based on the inherited semantics may explain the meaning modal yeš ultimately developed. On this view, the grammar of Modern Hebrew exhibits recombination of features from languages in contact at the time of language revival.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Existential possessive modality in EMH: A construction in flux
    • 2.1Research questions
    • 2.2Procedure
    • 2.3Corpus findings
      • 2.3.1Frequencies of the constructions
      • 2.3.2Modal force
      • 2.3.3Modality type
  • 3.Continuity and forces of change
    • 3.1Existential possessive modality in classical Hebrew
    • 3.2The role of contact
    • 3.3The exceptionality of modern Hebrew
  • 4.Theoretical implications
    • 4.1Theoretical implications: Meaning
    • 4.2Theoretical implications: Form
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (97)
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Izre'el, Shlomo
2022. The syntax of existential constructions. Journal of Speech Sciences 11 ► pp. e022001 ff. DOI logo
Taube, Moshe
2019. The limits of multiple-source contact influence. In Language Contact, Continuity and Change in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 256], ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo

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