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The Functions of the Conjugations in Colloquial israeli Hebrew
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
The main purpose of this article is to show that the conjugations (binyanim) in Colloquial Israeli Hebrew, looked at from the point of view of their syntactic and semantic functions, form together a coherent, tightly organized system, in which each conjugation is characterized by a fixed configuration of semantic and syntactic properties. These properties are represented in terms of three concepts, defined and explained in §4: semantic value, semantic tie-up, and syntactic tie-up. There are many deviations from the regular pattern of the system, but relatively few of these are true exceptions. In the majority of cases either there is a rule which explains the apparent deviation, or the deviation should be considered unimportant in some definite sense.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , October 1972 , pp. 514 - 530
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1972
References
1 The term Colloquial Israeli Hebrew (CIH) will represent here the variety of Hebrew spoken by Israel-born Jews of Occidental origin. For list of references, see p. 530.
2 Note that forms with systematically related conjugations (e.g. Ihifaxev—lifkav, jajav—hofiv, etc.) are those which traditional Hebrew lexicography would usually regard as variants of the same lexical verb, whereas forms of which the conjugations are unrelated (e.g. Ihe'ader—la'dor, halam—hehlim) are those lexicographers describe as homonyms. In the former case the forms have in common u single root-meaning. In the latter case the roots differ in meaning.
3 This and other definitions of semantic features in this paper are intended merely to give the reader a rough and general idea of the sense attributed to each term. They are not to be taken as precise characterizations.
There are other semantic values which certain conjugations have. However, these are minor in the sense that the conjugations in question possess these values in the environment of only a very small number of roots. To take an example: Hithpa'el has the value ‘movement to and fro’ with certain roots that express motion and can be construed also with Qal: rac (Qal) ‘he was running’ versus hitrocec (Hithpa'el) ‘he was running to and fro’; ‘af (Qal) 'it was flying' versus hit'ofef (Hithpa'el) ‘it was flying to and fro’, etc; However, there are very few such roots. With most roots of motion Hithpa'el does not occur at all and if it does it has either a different value or no value at all.
4 For a discussion of these concepts of. Goldenberg, 1968, 88–95, and Rundgren, 1959, 1–100.
5 There is a small class of roots with which the marked ingressive is expressed by Hiph'il. Most of these denote colours. For example: he'fir ‘it turned grey’, hifhir ‘it turned black’, hi'dim ‘it turned red’, etc.
6 With some roots it is Hiph'il (with Huph'al as its passive) rather than Pi'ei.
7 The choice between hjj and 'sj is restricted to the past tense Mishkalim. With all the other Mishkalim only 'sj can be used.
8 The view that the copula verb is semantically empty is suggested and argued for in Lyons, 1968, 346.
9 Here again I follow Lyons's proposal—1968, 345 f. (cf. p. 523, n. 8).
10 This sentence is ambiguous. The sense relevant here is ‘Joseph loved Rinah and Daliah loved Eitan’.
11 The terms ‘generalizations’ and ‘exceptions’ are used here in a purely numerical sense. The great majority of conjugation-instances in CIH fall into the patterns described above and it is only a small minority that does not. My judgements in this matter are based on a sample of about 1,300 verbs. For full lists of regular and irregular conjugation-instances cf. my Ph.D. thesis (Ariel, 1969).