Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:26:37.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Raising, inversion and agreement in modern Hebrew1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2015

NURIT MELNIK
NURIT MELNIK*
Affiliation:
The Open University of Israel
*
Author’s address: The Open University of Israel, Department of Literature, Language and the Arts, Raanana,4353701, Israel [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper focuses on the interaction between raising, subject–verb inversion and agreement in Modern Hebrew. It identifies, alongside ‘standard’ (i.e., English-like) subject-to-subject raising, two additional patterns where the embedded subject appears post-verbally. In one, the raising predicate exhibits long-distance agreement with the embedded subject, while in the other, a colloquial variant, it is marked with impersonal (3sm) agreement. The choice between the three raising constructions in the language is shown to be solely dependent on properties of the embedded clause. The data are discussed and analyzed against a background of typological and theoretical work on raising. The analysis, cast in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), builds on research on raising, selectional locality, agreement, subjecthood and information structure, as well as verb-initial constructions in Modern Hebrew.

Keywords

agreementHPSGinversionmodalsModern Hebrewraisingsubjecthood
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , 01 February 2017 , pp. 147 - 179
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexiadou, Artemis & Anagnostopoulou, Elena. 1999. Raising without infinitives and the nature of agreement. In Haugen, Jason D., Bird, Sonya, Carnie, Andrew & Norquest, Peter (eds.), West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 18), 14–26. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis, Anagnostopoulou, Elena, Iordachioaia, Gianina & Marchis, Mihaela. 2012. In support of long distance agree. In Müller, Gereon, Alexiadou, Artemis & Kiss, Tibor (eds.), Local modeling of non-local dependencies, 55–81. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Baroni, Marco, Bernardini, Silvia, Ferraresi, Adriano & Zanchetta, Eros. 2009. The WaCky wide web: A collection of very large linguistically processed web-crawled corpora. Language Resources and Evaluation 43.3, 209–226; http://www.springerlink.com/index/10.1007/s10579-009-9081-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, Emily M. 2008. Radical non-configurationality without shuffle operators: An analysis of Wambaya. In Müller, Stefan (ed.), 15th International Conference on HPSG, 6–24. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications; http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/HPSG/9/.Google Scholar
Bender, Emily & Flickinger, Dan. 1999. Peripheral constructions and core phenomena: Agreement in tag questions. In Webelhuth, Gert, Koenig, Jean-Pierre & Kathol, Andreas (eds.), Lexical and constructional aspects of linguistic explanation, 199–214. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Berman, Ruth A. 1980. The case of an (S)VO language: Subjectless constructions in Modern Hebrew. Language 56.4, 759–776.Google Scholar
Borsley, Robert D. 1995. On some similarities and differences between Welsh and Syrian Arabic. Linguistics 33, 99–122.Google Scholar
Butt, Miriam. 2014. Control vs. complex predication: Identifying non-finite complements. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 32, 165–190.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Michaels, David, Martin, Roger, Uriagereka, Juan & Keyser, Samuel Jay (eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Davies, William D. & Dubinsky, Stanley. 2004. The grammar of raising and control: A course in syntactic argumentation. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Jonathan & Sag, Ivan A.. 2000. Interrogative investigations: The form, meaning, and use of English interrogatives. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Haddad, Youssef A. 2012. Raising in Standard Arabic: Forward, backward, and none. In Bassiouney, Reem & Katz, E. Graham (eds.), Arabic language and linguistics, 61–78. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Hazout, Ilan. 1994. The Hebrew pronoun ze and the syntax of sentential subjects. Lingua 93.4, 265–282.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Pauline. 1990. Raising as function composition. Linguistics and Philosophy 13.4, 423–476.Google Scholar
Kathol, Andreas. 1999. Agreement and the syntax–morphology interface in HPSG. In Levine, Robert & Green, Georgia (eds.), Studies in contemporary phrase structure grammar, 223–274. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. 1976. Towards a universal definition of ‘subject’. In Li, Charles N. (ed.), Subject and topic, 303–333. New York: Academic Press, Inc.Google Scholar
Kiss, Tibor. 1994. Obligatory coherence: The structure of German modal verb constructions. In Nerbonne et al. (eds.), 71–107. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Kiss, Tibor. 1995. Infinite komplementation. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 2000. When subjects behave like objects: An analysis of the merging of S and O in sentence-focus constructions. Studies in Language 24.3, 611–682.Google Scholar
Landau, Idan. 2011. Predication vs. aboutness in copy raising. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 29.3, 779–813.Google Scholar
Manning, Chris & Sag, Ivan A.. 1998. Argument structure, valence, and binding. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 21, 107–144.Google Scholar
Maschler, Yael. 2004. The Haifa Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew. http://lecturers.haifa.ac.il/he/hcc/ymaschler/Pages/default.aspx.Google Scholar
Melnik, Nurit. 2002. Verb-initial constructions in Modern Hebrew. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Melnik, Nurit. 2006. A constructional approach to verb-initial constructions in Modern Hebrew. Cognitive Linguistics 17.2, 153–198.Google Scholar
Melnik, Nurit. 2014. Language change in spoken Hebrew: Existence and possession. Hebrew Linguistics: A Journal for Hebrew Descriptive, Computational and Applied Linguistics[in Hebrew].Google Scholar
Meurers, Walt Detmar. 1999. Raising spirits (and assigning them case). Groninger Arbeiten zur Germanistischen Linguistik (GAGL) 43, 173–226; http://purl.org/dm/papers/gagl-raising-spirits.html.Google Scholar
Müller, Stefan. 2008. Depictive secondary predicates in German and English. In Schroeder, Christoph, Hentschel, Gerd & Boeder, Winfried (eds.), Secondary predicates in Eastern European languages and beyond (Studia Slavica Oldenburgensia 16), 255–273. Oldenburg: BIS-Verlag; http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/∼stefan/Pub/depiktiv-2006.html.Google Scholar
Müller, Stefan. 2009. On predication. 16th International Conference on HPSG, 213–233. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications; http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/∼stefan/Pub/predication-hpsg.html.Google Scholar
Nerbonne, John, Netter, Klaus & Pollard, Carl J. (eds.). 1994. German in head-driven phrase structure grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, David M. 1970. The two verbs begin. In Jacobs, Roderick A. & Rosenbaum, Peter S. (eds.), Readings in English transformational grammar, 107–119. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell.Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria. 2013. Raising and control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria & Potsdam, Eric. 2006. Expanding the scope of control and raising. Syntax 9.2, 171–192.Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria & Potsdam, Eric. 2012. Backward raising. Syntax 15.1, 75–108.Google Scholar
Pollard, Carl J. 1994. Toward a unified account of passive in German. In Nerbonne et al. (eds.), 273–296. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Pollard, Carl J. 1996. On head non-movement. In Bunt, Harry C. & van Horck, Arthur (eds.), Discontinuous constituency, 279–305. Berlin/New York, NY: Mouton de Gruyter. Published version of a Ms. dated January 1990.Google Scholar
Pollard, Carl J. & Sag, Ivan A.. 1994. Head-driven phrase structure grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul. 1974. On raising. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax, vol. 11. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbaum, Peter. 1967. The grammar of English predicate complement constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sag, Ivan A. 2007. Remarks on locality. In Müller, Stefan (ed.), The 14th International Conference on HPSG. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Sag, Ivan A. 2010. Feature geometry and predictions of locality. In Corbett, Greville & Kibort, Anna (eds.), Proceedings of the workshop on features, 236–271. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sag, Ivan A. 2012. Sign-based construction grammar: An informal synopsis. In Boas, Hans & Sag, Ivan A. (eds.), Sign-based construction grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Sag, Ivan A., Wasow, Thomas & Bender, Emily M.. 2003. Syntactic theory: A formal introduction, 2nd edn. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Shlonsky, Ur. 1987. Null and displaced subjects. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Shlonsky, Ur & Doron, Edit. 1992. Verb second in Hebrew. In Bates, Dawn (ed.), 10th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 10), 431–446.Google Scholar
Szabolcsi, Anna. 2009. Overt nominative subjects in infinitival complements cross-linguistically: Data, diagnostics, and preliminary analyses. In Irwin, Patricia & Maldonado, Violeta Vázquez Rojas (eds.), NYU working papers in linguistics, vol. 2: Papers in syntax. New York, NY: New York University.Google Scholar
Zubizarreta, Maria Luisa. 1982. On the relationship of the lexicon to syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar