by David Tene – Ariel vol. 25 (1969) pp. 48-63
Reprinted by David Steinberg with permission of
copyright holders
Dr. David Tene is a Senior
Lecturer in the Department of Hebrew Linguistics of the Hebrew University,
The Main Components of Native Israeli Hebrew
The Renovation of
Hebrew Vocabulary
Verbal
Patterns (Vp) and Verbal Bases (RVp)
Nominal
Patterns (Np) and Nominal Bases
It has been noted that contemporary Hebrew is “the most extraordinary example
of a linguistic revival.” For hundreds
of years before its revival, it was almost exclusively used for writing and
reading: in synagogue, in school, in some kinds of belles lettres, sometimes in official Jewish documents and in
commercial correspondence[2]. Today Hebrew
is a normal living language, spoken as well as written. The Hebrew-speaking community embraces all groups
in society and all the social roles enacted in communication, such as: originators – philosophers, scientists,
political leaders; purveyors of
information – journalists, radio and television announcers, teachers; censors – lawyers, rabbis; receivers – the listening and reading
public, etc. It is the common language
of work, home, school and the street.
An essential feature of the
revival of Hebrew has been the revival of Hebrew speech. The question soon arose, however, which of
the variety of pronunciations should be considered the exemplary one. Yellin (1905) supported the introduction of
the pronunciation called “Oriental” or “Sephardic,” this was in fact the one
used by the Sephardic community in reading the Bible and in prayers. In 1913 Yellin convinced the Hebrew Language
Committee to adopt his position: which
was, grosso modo, the pronunciation
of Hebrew graphemes according to the pronunciation of the equivalent graphemes
in Arabic except for ב, פ, צ.
The Committee assumed that this was the Hebrew pronunciation before Hebrew
ceased to be a spoken language, and probably considered their decision to be
sufficient for this pronunciation to materialize.
What in fact happened was this:
the newcomers who decided to speak Hebrew brought with them, from a traditional
Hebrew education, a knowledge of the Hebrew graphemes according to the Tiberian
vocalization. On the other hand, all
members of the same linguistic
community brought with them the phonemic stock of their vernacular. Therefore, the Hebrew pronunciation of each
different group established itself as a result of two factors (Blanc, 1968): a
set of spelling-pronunciation rules that established grapheme-to-phoneme
equivalences, and the allophonic and distributional mechanisms of the spoken
vernacular. None of the spoken
vernaculars had a phoenemic stock equivalent to the graphemic stock of the
Biblical masoretic text. The communities
differed one from the other in the actual establishment of the phoenemic
distinctions equivalent to the graphemic ones.
As a result, one of the main characteristics of spoken Hebrew at the end
of the last (19th) century was the variety of pronunciations.
In the census carried out in
May, 1961, 2,200,000 persons gave
Group B, its primary language
neither Hebrew nor Palestinian Arabic, numbered 1,500,000 (74.7% of the Jewish
population) and fell into two distinct sub-groups. The first sub-group consisted primarily of
post-1946 adult immigrants who spoke other languages than Hebrew as their main
form of expression and communication, Hebrew being spoken only when the hearer
did not understand their first or main language. Their Hebrew pronunciation bore a heavy
foreign “accent,” which was felt also in syntax and semantics. Their number was not considerable nor their
social status prominent. The second
sub-group consisted either of pre-1948 youth or adolescent immigrants, or Israelis
born of immigrants who did not yet speak Hebrew. They used Hebrew as their main vehicle of
communication and expression although, as mentioned before, Hebrew was not
their first language. And, indeed,
their speech showed the foreign intonations of their first language. This
sub-group was larger and more socially prominent, but, being older, was a
diminishing factor.
Group C was made up of about
500,000 inhabitants who gave Hebrew as their first and main language,
constituting 25.3% of the Jewish population. The census showed that 37.8% of
the Jewish population of that year were
Israeli born. So that 66.8% of Group C were Israeli born Jews and
principally people who, in 1961, were under 45-50 years of age. Their number
was rising from year to year as well as their relative proportion within the
population and their status in society.
These
figures are rather outdated today (1969). At the end of 1968 the Jewish
population of
The
Hebrew speech of Group B varies greatly but has certain distinct
characteristics. It is heard through the phonological "sieve" of the
member's primary language. On the one hand, they are "deaf" to the
distinctive oppositions in Hebrew, if these distinctions are not relevant in
their primary language, and, on the other, they impose irrelevant distinctions
on Hebrew only because they are relevant in their primary language and its
rules of free variation. It is estimated that about two dozen primary languages
are spoken by Group B. Add this to the dialects of those primary
languages and one begins to realize how heterogeneous Hebrew speech is in this
group.
Group C, by contrast, consists of
native speakers of Hebrew, for whom the revival of the language is something in
the "distant" past. For them, it is a genuine primary language
(mother-tongue), through which they learn the mechanism of speech and the world
is "revealed." Their speech is now showing signs of growing
stabilization and standardization, and becoming dominant in society. It has
some features of, pronunciation learned from their bilingual parents or
grandparents but the status of these features has changed. Amongst the
bilinguals, the features are like "sand carried by a stream"; amongst
the native speakers they are "sedimented sand deposited on the bottom of a
lake." When newcomers are confronted with the Hebrew speech of Group C,
they are influenced by it and as a rule try to imitate it deliberately. It is
in comparison to Group C that the speech of non-natives bears the mark
of foreign "accents."
In
other words, the essential sociolinguistic feature of contemporary Hebrew is
the emergence of native speech, and its growing stabilization.
The Main Components of Native Israeli Hebrew
According to Blanc, native Israeli Hebrew is made
up of three essential components:
(a) The basic grammar and vocabulary of the Hebrew
Classics (the Old Testament and the post-Biblical literature);
(b) The
non-Hebrew influence of the divergent backgrounds of the direct predecessors of
native Israelis;
(c) The new
forms created by the native speakers without reference to the Classics.
The complex interweaving of the three components is
to be discerned in each part of the structure of the language, and the relative
weight of each component may vary throughout. In phonology, the influence of the vernaculars of the bilingual
predecessors is decisive (component b). Speech innovations created by
the native speakers themselves (component c) can also be discerned. In
morphology, however, component a is alone of decisive weight, which is
also visible in syntax[3]
in its basic element. As far as vocabulary is concerned, the non-Hebrew
linguistic background left its mark in the form of noun loans. But in the
inventory of roots - which is the skeleton of Hebrew vocabulary - these loans
are very few in number on the expression plane (in the inventory of signifiers),
although very numerous on the content plane (in the inventory of signifieds),
which means that the number of loan translations is overwhelming. So it can be stated that the root inventory
of native Israeli Hebrew is, in its largest part, Classical Hebrew signifiers
combined with non-Classical Hebrew signifieds. The share of the two varieties of Classical
Hebrew - Biblical and Mishnaic - is not equal in all areas. In the morphology
of native Israeli Hebrew, it is that of Biblical Hebrew which is conspicuous.
In the syntax of native Israeli Hebrew, it is the syntactical features common
to both Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew that are prominent. This is also true of
the specific features – of Mishnaic syntax whereas the specific features of
Biblical syntax are almost unrepresented.
Although, at first glance, native Israeli Hebrew
appears to be a mechanical mixture of components, which would be in flagrant
opposition to the very idea of linguistic structure, closer scrutiny shows that
this is not the case. The essential unconscious creation of the native speakers
has effected its own reorganization of the system, causing the productivization
of some inherited elements and the fossilization of others, and introducing
innovations by analogy which have in turn simplified the system and added new
distinctions between free variants, either inherited or new, and so on.
We now see that native Hebrew speech contains a
considerable sediment of features stemming from the primary languages of the renovators
of Hebrew. For this reason it is now generally admitted, at least in linguistic
circles, that the outstanding feature of native Israeli phonology is its
(partial) desemitization.
There are two varieties of native speech. One of
them has the following phonemic inventory[4]:
p f t s c (ć) s k x ḥ ' h
b v d z - (ģ ź) g - ` -- m n r l y a e i o u
The second actualizes the following phonemic
inventory:
p f t s c (ć ś) k x ' h
b v d z - (ģ ź) g R -- m n l y a e i o u
The main difference between them concerns the part
played by the pharynx in articulation: the pharynx is used as a place of
articulation in one and not in the other. Furthermore, the first variety has
two phonemes, ḥ (pharyngal, unvoiced)
and `
(pharyngal, voiced), both fricative phonetically; in the second
these do not exist. In the first variety, maḥar "tomorrow" is a
different phonological form from maxar "(he) sold" and the
opposition between ḥ (pharyngal, unvoiced)
and x (palated, fricative) keeps the two words distinct from each
other; in the second maxaR "tomorrow" and maxaR
"(he) sold" are two occurrences of one and the same form and, from
the pronunciation of either word hors contexte one cannot know if the
speaker meant to say "tomorrow" or "(he) sold." The same
applies to `. In the first variety, hu me`ir oto "he awakens him" is opposed to hu
meir oto "he sheds light on him," whereas in the second hu
meiR oto is one phonological form semantically ambiguous, meaning equally
"he awakens him" and "he sheds light on him." In the first
variety the opposition between ` (pharyngal, voiced) and the absence of any
phonemic consonant keeps these two forms distinct from each other. In the
second variety such an opposition is unattested. For the sake of convenience we
shall call the first variety-variety ḥ and the second-variety x.
This divergence in the inventories of phonemic
features and of phonemes results in numerous differences in the areas of the
linguistic structure of the two varieties: the distribution of the phonemes and
their frequency, the phonemic shape of the morphs and their distribution, the
amount of homophony and the measure of departure of the spoken word from the
written.
It goes without saying that this division of native
Hebrew speech into two varieties is not connected with a regional division of
As is well known, the ability to use the pharynx in
articulation is one of the major differences between Arabic speech (as well as
the presumed pronunciation of the greater part of ancient Semitic languages
unaffected in their early stages by the influence of some non-Semitic language)
and the Indo-European languages. With the loss of this ability, variety x
indeed lost a prominent Semitic feature, and one is entitled to say that it
became partially desemitized, to attribute this process to its foreign
non-Semitic sediment. The foreign sediment of variety ḥ is Semitic, namely Arabic, and here the ability to
articulate in the area of the pharynx in this variety was maintained. And,
there is, therefore, a partial restraint from desemitization. But this
restraint, too, is a result of the foreign sediment of this variety. In any
case the foreign sediments (Semitic in variety ḥ, non-Semitic in variety x) constituted the factors which were
active in the phonological restructuring of native Hebrew.
Variety x lost another Semitic
feature too, namely emphaticality (the opposition between articulation
by pushing back the mass of the tongue towards the rear wall of the pharynx and
articulation without that movement). Thereafter, the distinction between ţ (ט) and t (ת), between q (ק) and k (כּ) disappeared and likewise the
opposition between ṣ (צ) and s (ס) has
changed. These developments are also to be considered as signs of partial
desemitization of variety x as a result off its
foreign non-Semitic sediment. The same applies to the reorganization of initial
consonantal clusters and all that flows from it concerning the structure of
syllables. But it should be noted that the loss of emphaticality and the
formation of initial consonantal clusters are now an integral part of the
structure of variety ḥ as well. But, in this
case, one cannot explain the features developed in variety ḥ as opposed to the foreign Semitic sediment, namely
as a part of the stabilization of native speech as a whole. Therefore, in
dealing with variety ḥ, they must be regarded as
the buds of processes taking place in native Hebrew proper, and they are indeed
the ones which give native Hebrew speech on the whole its desemitized
character, as opposed to the presumed speech of Classical Hebrew.
It may be maintained that in Israeli Hebrew
phonology, the foreign and the largely unconscious activity of the native
speakers themselves has been decisive. Similarly, the main characteristic of
native Hebrew phonology is its (partial) desemitization.
Can
it be said that either variety carries prestige with it? In this sense, as
related to social advancement, the answer must be in the negative. No speaker
of Hebrew is asked to improve his pronunciation so as to fulfill a particular
task or occupy a prestigious position in Israeli society.
Blanc
affirms variety x to be in constant progress and communally
undifferentiated, variety H to be in constant decline, and, as a rule,
communally marked. On this basis, in 1968, he suggested that "general
Israeli' (our variety x) in two of its "styles," "average
informal" and average formal," may be considered as a de facto
double standard of native Hebrew.
The Renovation of Hebrew
Vocabulary[5]
The restorers of the language were aware of the
designative inadequacy of its vocabulary as existing in classical texts. Even
such words as newspaper, watch, kitchen, now part of basic Hebrew, were unknown
before the revival. For this reason they paid great attention to the problem of
"how to fill the gap," as they put it, and their efforts were
directed towards planned innovation. In cases where they did not find the
sought-for word, they would derive a new word from an existing root
"according to the rules of derivation and on the basis of analogy,"
and, to be more exact, they created "artificially a formal-grammatical
analogy." At any rate the new words created in this manner were so similar
in form to the inherited ones that one could not realize that they were
innovations. If this method was ineffective, Aramaic or Arabic[6]
words were adapted by extracting their roots and by “Hebraicizing” according to
the rules of agreement governing the constituents of ancient Semitic
tongues. This meant that the new roots
did not deviate from the structure of the inherited Hebrew roots. When these new roots were staggered with
Hebrew grammatical patterns, they supplied Hebrew words which were
indistinguishable from the inherited ones.
If neither method worked the technique was applied to non-Semitic
words. That is how the word mivRešet “brush” (noun) and its verb hivRiš, “(he) brushed,” were formed from the
corresponding words in non-Semitic languages, (German – bürste; French – brose;
Yiddish – baršt, found also in
Arabic – furša a loan word from Turkish (Rosen, 1955-56). The word
mivRešet “brush” is, therefore, a loan only in the
root, but not in the grammatical pattern, which is mi--e-et, found in identically inherited
words, for example, misgeRet (a biblical word meaning, in modern Hebrew,
“frame”). So much for simple foreign
words. Respecting
compound ones, such as kindergarten or skyscraper, a loan translation was
made. In this process, the Hebrew
construct state was used as a conversion
formula of the foreign compound noun, and care was taken that the new Hebrew
nouns derived as construct states should be progressive
and not regressive compounds, that
is, not yladim-gan but gan-yladim (lit. “garden (of) children”)
“kindergarten”, not šxakim-mgaRed but
mgaRed-šxakim (lit. scraper (of)
skies) “skyscraper.”[7]
The new compound noun is, therefore, borrowed only
through the semantic process of its genesis, but in form is no different from
inherited ones such as beyt kneset (lit. house (of) gathering)
“synagogue.” Here too, the formal Hebrew
grammatical character was kept. In the
last resort, the innovators borrowed a foreign word and decided its gender
according to its original ending: lira “pound” – feminine, tRaktoR
“tractor” – masculine. Thee borrowed
nouns are not integrated, either phonologically (place of stress, consonantal
clusters) or morphologically. The
non-integration indicates their foreign origin.
All this innovation activity has given Israeli
Hebrew vocabulary a considerable number of new words. Even an ordinary concise dictionary with a
strong conservative tendency (Even-Shoshan, 1955) contains 30% of words invented
during the last hundred years (ibid. – volume of Addenda, 1961), but it
stands to reason that the actual number of innovations is even greater, because
the planned innovation did not satisfy the needs of communication and
expression, or keep pace with their development. There are many fields in which
the vocabulary was filled not only with loan translations but also with words
borrowed from the Jewish vernaculars, from the Arabic and from European
languages. This applies to realia, to the emotive and appellative
vocabulary (interjections, orders, requests. greetings, curses and the like)
and especially familiar usage in endearing expressions or pet names.
Those who took part in coining the innovations
looked upon their work as a means of closing the gap between Classical Hebrew
vocabulary and contemporary needs. What really happened,
however, in the process of language revival can be described linguistically as
follows. The immigrants brought with them the content inventory of their
primary languages. These lexical contents were stored in their primary
language competence as signifieds
which maintained solidarity relation with signifiers; for instance, the
content "book" maintains a solidarity relation with the expression buk.
When the restorers started to renovate the language, they did not intend to --
and, even if they did, could not--escape from the content inventory of
their primary languages. Therefore they used the ready-made contents and
did not try to classify and describe things afresh. And so it came about that
each one of them became the locus of inter-lingual identification of contents
of words of his primary language with contents of Hebrew words. In this
manner, the nature of the linguistic sign was changed. In the primary
language, the sign (e.g., words) had been a solidarity relation between content
and expression. With one's decision to abandon the primary language and to
acquire Hebrew, all the signs became compound ones. These compound signs
had one signified, resulting from the inter-lingual identification, and
it was this that maintained solidarity relation with two signifiers: the
first in one's primary language (non-Hebrew) and the other in one's second
language (Hebrew). At any rate what kept the two signifiers of the
compound sign together was the replica function: the Hebrew signifier
was a replica to the non-Hebrew signifier after the respective signifieds
had been identified.
This stage of compound signs left its impress on
the Hebrew content inventory even when it became the main language.
Accordingly, on the content plane we do not have mere addition but a
complete restructuring of the content inventory according to the foreign
linguistic background. This restructuring affected not only the innovations but
also the inherited vocabulary. In matters linguistic-as a contemporary linguist
has said-the expression is the means, whereas the content the
aim. The mere necessity (or lack of necessity) to innovate was due to the content
inventory of the primary languages. This inventory determined which words they
would restore to use and which they would leave unused. As the primary
languages were European it is clear that the content plane of Hebrew
vocabulary became highly Europeanized. Even in such fields of basic
vocabulary such as family relationship, physical and character qualities,
social relations. utensils, clothing, names of plants and animals and seasons
of the year, there were Biblical and/or Mishnaic nouns, which no longer
functioned in their original meaning in the generation of revival. Moreover, in
that generation, all the vocabulary-both the innovations and the renovated old
words-was made up of replicas of non-Hebrew words. So, the renovators could not
escape from their tendency to impose, on each Hebrew word, the full meaning of
the non-Hebrew word which was its source. Likewise, they imposed on
Hebrew words the rules of collocation of non-Hebrew words, i.e., the sum
of lexical contexts, possible and impossible, frequent and rare, both in free
lexical expressions as well as in idiomatic ones. Rosen (1955/56) illustrated
this phenomenon by the word sherut
which was introduced into Hebrew as a replica of the English word
"service."
Together with the normalization of the nature of
the lexical sign, normal systematic relations began to be active in the
inventory of lexical signs of native Hebrew. Words started to maintain
associative relations according either to their expression or their content
(Rosen 1955/56). The various semantic miniature systems ("the semantic
fields") began to reorganize themselves, the border lines between them
were drawn and the degrees of difference between words in the same field were
re-formulated. Complete synonyms began to the differentiated either by content
specialization or by their reorganization within the frame of the “style
scale”, or by their different collocation. A process of elimination of
pernicious homonymy commenced and polysemy, too; that is to say the gradual
extension of meaning began to take place such as, for instance, the
secularization of words taken from the vocabulary of holy worship. This restructuring of the content plane of
native Hebrew vocabulary has hardly been dealt with in descriptive studies,
urgent though such a description is, in my opinion.
We
have seen that Israeli Hebrew differs from Classical both in phonology and in
the semantics of vocabulary. The phonology is (partially) desemitized, the semantics highly Europeanized[8]. Nevertheless, Israeli Hebrew has kept its
identity as a Semitic language in the grammatical structure of words. The derivation of the word and especially its
inflections have proved to be highly resistant to the interference of foreign
linguistic background of bi-lingual predecessors.
As
to the internal structure of the word, Semitic languages, including Classical Hebrew,
are totally different form non-Semitic, e.g., European languages. In English, for example, the non-compound
word is either a minimal unit carrying meaning (i.e. moneme) (e.g., act), or a
linguistic form of more than one moneme (e.g., unacceptable, inactivates). The first one has three monemes:
un-accept-able, the second has five: in-act-iv-ate-s. As to the signifiers
of these five monemes: the fifth has one
phoneme, the other four have more than one; the second has three phonemes and
the other three have two each. Observe
that the phonemes of the signifiers
are contiguous. This is the rule in
English. Therefore, a sentence like “The
boys walked slowly up the hill,” which is composed of ten monemes, as far as
its monemic structure goes, is a sequence of signifiers made up of
contiguous phonemes, as can be seen also from the written representation of the
sentence: the
boy-s-walk-ed-slow-ly-up-the-hill. This
is not the case in Semitic languages. A
Hebrew verb like šalátnu “we
dominated” has three monemes š-l-t “the
idea of domination”; -a-a- “non-passive past”; -nu “we.” The last moneme has a signifier consisting of contiguous phonemes, whereas the first two
have signifiers consisting of
non-contiguous ones. The phonemes of the
first signifier are staggered with
the phonemes of the second and hence are called “staggered monemes.” The first signifier
can never consist of vowels alone, but consists wholly, or at least partially,
of consonants. The second one can never
consist of consonants alone, but consists wholly or partially of vowels. The first moneme is a lexical one, i.e., it
is a member of a virtually open set of alternatives, and actually of a set of
some thousands of members. These lexical
monemes are called Roots
(hence: R). The second moneme is
a grammatical one, i.e., it is a member of a closed and narrow set of
alternatives. These monemes are called Patterns (hence: P). When found in verbal forms the name is Verbal Pattern (hence: Vp), and when found in a nominal form Nominal Pattern (hence: Np).
Now the following rule can be established: all verbal forms in Semitic
language have necessarily a base which has the structure RVp. All simple nominal
forms have actually, or at least virtually, a base which has the structure RNp.
This golden rule of word structure in Semitic languages, which, of
course, existed in Classical Hebrew, stands unaltered in Israeli Hebrew, so
that it can be claimed that, in this aspect, Israeli Hebrew has kept its
Semitic character.
Thus,
too, Israeli Hebrew did not borrow foreign verbs in their original form as it
did foreign nouns. Since each verbal
base necessarily has the structure RVp, Hebrew has to analyze the foreign
verb and extract an R from its
original form and stagger its signifier with
a Hebrew Vp signifier . Thus, when Hebrew borrowed the noun telefon “telephone,” it just could not
borrow the corresponding foreign verb “to telephone,” but had to extract an R from this foreign verbal form and
stagger its signifier, namely t-lf-n with one of the Hebrew Vp signifiers to form the Hebrew verbal
base tilfen “(he) telephoned.” This form is therefore borrowed only as far
as its R is concerned, but, as
concerns its Vp, it is autochthonous
Hebrew. As R is the lexical part and Vp
the grammatical one, such verbs are lexically
borrowed and grammatically
autochthonous. As far as nouns are
concerned, Hebrew could borrow foreign nouns in their original form as it
possessed nouns which synchronically were unanalysable in RNp, such as šulxan “table”, kise “chair”, sefel “cup,” yom “day,” yam “sea’” etc. The borrowed nouns
aligned themselves to these, and their foreign origin is evident in a lack of
integration, both phonologically and morphologically.
Inflectional
monemes (i.e., those minimal units bearing meaning which figure for instance,
in the oppositions between English words such as boy – boys; take – takes; sing – sang – sung), have revealed
themselves in Israeli Hebrew as the almost unaffected part of grammatical
structure. Indeed, Hebrew seems to be
impenetrable to foreign influence as far as the conjugation of verbs and the
declension of nouns are concerned. The
sets of inflectional morphemes, the possibilities of choice within the sets,
the structure of the signifiers and
their amalgams, the structure of the signifieds (such as the opposition of “tense,” “person,” “gender,” “number”), all
were untouched by foreign influence.
Naturally, the actual shape of the signifiers
changed, but this was a direct consequence of the restructuring of the
phoenemic inventory, while their paradigmatic
relations (i.e. the relation “either” - “or”) and their syntagmic relations (i.e. the relation “and” -
“and”) did not. Inflection is the
domain where Israeli Hebrew kept its Semitic character almost intact.
One
of the main problems of the revival of Hebrew was how to adapt it to the
expression of the needs of a modern society.
The real difficulty was not in supplying the noun, because nouns could
be borrowed and used without full grammatical integration; it lay in describing
the actions, processes and states of modern life. This required verbs. And, since the signifier of the Hebrew verb is of
necessity RVp, the borrowing of verbs
is impossible without full grammatical integration. Hence the imperious need to supply new R’s to derive new RVp’s. Indeed, the renovation of the R inventory is one of the main
characteristics of Israeli Hebrew as far as its word-structure is
concerned. It was done in two ways: massive polysemicization of Hebrew inherited R’s; extraction of new R’s from the consonantal part of signifiers of nouns, adverbs and even of
compound nouns, either autochthonous or borrowed.
At
the source of the first of these processes we
find the linguistic background of the restorers of Hebrew. This generation provided many polysemic R’s so that today one can hardly find a
monosemic R in Hebrew. To illustrate, Hebrew inherited the R, z-R-k “the idea of throwing,” which
was and still is used with two Vp’s. We have, therefore, zaRak “he threw” opposed to nizRak
“he was thrown.” The nomen action, i.e., zRika “throwing” became polysemic some time during the period of
revival. Following a semantic process
which did not take place in Hebrew
but did occur in some European languages, zRika
began to mean “injection.” Now speakers
of Hebrew extracted an R from this
word z-r-k “the idea of giving
injections.”
The second
means by which Hebrew succeeded in dealing with modern processes and actions
was the derivation of new R’s from
existing Hebrew words such as nouns and adverbs. Sometimes the new R’s were derived from a noun that was a
moneme. Such is x-šm-l “the idea connected with electricity.” With this R
we have a newly derived verbal base, such as xišmel “he electrified,” xušmal
“he was electrified,” taken from the biblical etymologically uncertain ḥašmal, which is generally interpreted as meaning “a mixture of gold and
silver.” The use of this biblical word
in its modern sense illustrates one of the planned innovations dealt with
above. At any rate, before extracting
the new R this word was a moneme and
we have seen that all Hebrew nouns are virtually
analyzable into R’s and P’s.
Sometimes the new R’s are
derived from a noun whose base is RNp. Such an R is m-k-m
“the idea of locating,” used in such verbal forms as mikem “he located,” mukam
“was located,” hitmakem “he located
himself.” It was derived from the noun makom “place,” which is in itself a RNp.
In the new R, the first m is part of the signifier of an RNp,
whereas k-m come from the signifier of an inherited R.
The
actual shape of the R
signifier was remodled according
to Israeli Hebrew phonology and a detailed description of the R alternants is not possible here. It suffices to say that in modern Israeli, as
in Classical Hebrew, no R
signifier can be made only of vowels
and that he majority of R signifiers have the afore-mentioned
structure. But as opposed to previous
Hebrew the weight of quadri-consonantal R
signifiers has increased
considerably. This is due to the new R’s
which have mainly C-CC-C signifiers (C=any consonantal
phoneme). Nevertheless, one may find
new R’s generally derived from
borrowed nouns which have even a five-consonantal signifier, such as t-lgR-f
in tilgRef “(he) telegraphed.”
As
far as their semantics is concerned, these new R’s are an innovation.
Synchronically, the great majority of Hebrew R’s are “opaque,” i.e., the solidarity relation between the signifier and the signified is unmotivated, arbitrary and conventionalized. This is not the case with the new R’s dealt with. They are partially “transparent.” Indeed, the relation between the expression m-k-m and the content “to locate” is
partially “motivated,” because this R
is synchronically associated with the expression makom which means “place.”
Partially “transparent “R’s
also are to be found in Classical Hebrew (e.g., onomatopoeic or denominative R’s), but they were always a small
minority in the R inventory, whereas
nowadays their number is rising considerably.
Verbal
Patterns (Vp) and Verbal Bases (RVp)[9]
Israeli
Hebrew has inherited a set of seven Vp
signifiers[10]. If we take k-t-l as an illustration of R we can have seven RVp
signifiers: 1. katal, 2. niktal, 3. hiktil, 4. huktal, 5. kitel, 6. kutal, 7. hitkatel. The seven Vp’s occurring in these seven forms will
be referred to as Vp 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7 respectively. Each R whose signifier has the structure C-C-C
can automatically occur with the seven Vp
signifiers mentioned, whereas R’s whose signifiers have the structure C-CC-C
can occur only with Vp 5, 6, 7.
The
main semantic function of the Vp’s is
to convey “voice” oppositions: given a context of an identical R these can convey only four “voice”
oppositions at the most (the active, the passive and the causative and
non-causative oppositions).
It
follows that there is a great gap between the number of Vp signifiers which can
occur automatically together with each R signifier
whose structure is C-C-C and that of Vp signifieds
opposed with the “voice” category, namely, seven
signifiers but only four signifieds.
Hence, theoretically at least, each R
of the above-mentioned signifier
structure described can occur with three Vp
signifiers which are practically not
used in conveying “voice” oppositions.
And, of course, there are R’s
which do not use four Vp signifiers, or five or even six. Accordingly, given a certain R, one can hardly predict how many and
which of the seven Vp signifiers will actually be used to
derive RVp’s, which content
oppositions each Vp will
contract. This feature of the behavior
of the Vp’s is generally referred to
by the somehow dubious expression, that the use of the Vp’s is “partially
lexicalized.”
We
have by now detected a basic feature of the Vp
system, that there appears to be an asymmetry
between the number of the Vp signifiers automatically possible and the number
of the Vp signifieds needed for “voice” oppositions. This facilitated the massive
polysemicization of Hebrew R’s
already mentioned, without which the main chance of the RVp structure in its overwhelming productivity would probably have
been precluded in Israeli Hebrew. So,
too, given a certain R, it made
possible the use of “vacant” VP’s to
convey oppositions other than “voice” oppositions, for instance, “aspectoid”
ones.
As a
result of this asymmetry the normal functioning of the verbal system was
rendered possible and its main Semitic derivational feature was ensured. Consequently those VP’s were used which had no part in conveying “voice”
oppositions. The majority of the
restorers of Hebrew spoke Yiddish, a language which, being of German origin,
tinged with Slavic influence, which has “aspectoid” oppositions expressed by
morphemes as well. Consequently they
made use of those Vp’s which had no
part in conveying “voice” oppositions even after the massive polysemicization
of R’s. These “vacant” VP’s became marked
members of “aspectoid” oppositions, by the process of adding auxiliary verbs
other than haya, lit. “was,” such as natan lit. “gave” and xataf, lit. “caught” to derive signifiers of compound verbal bases (RVp RNp). This is one of two main innovations which
have taken place in Israeli Hebrew as far as the verbal base derivation is
concerned. The other is the “aspectoid”
feature expressed by the opposition between simple verbal bases (RVp) and compound ones (RVp RNp). Both are due to the influence of foreign
linguistic background (especially of Yiddish) of the direct predecessors of
native Israeli Hebrew.
Nominal
Patterns (Np) and Nominal Bases[11]
Israeli
Hebrew nouns (including adjectives)
may be divided into four derivational
types:
1) Nouns whose base is a moneme (N) such as šulxan “table.”
2) Nouns whose base is a RNp such as ševeR “breakage.”
3) Compound nouns with a bi-basic
structure, such as xadaR-oxel “dining
room” (lit. “room (for, of) food”).
4) Nouns which have a derivational suffix
and/or a derivational prefix, such as
dukiyum “co-existence,” where du
– “co” is a derivational suffix and kiyum
“existence” is an RNp.
To
these four major types we must add two minor ones:
5) Nouns like sakum “cutlery,” the signifiers
of which are wholly or partially derived from sakin kaf umazleg “cutlery” (lit. knife, spoon, fork). These nouns are to be considered N’s, but, while inherited ones are
“opaque,” these are “motivated”.
6) Borrowed nouns such as professor “professor.” These are to be considered as N’s unless some RP can be derived by extracting an R from the consonantal part of the borrowed signifiers.
The N type is unproductive
and its weight in the inventory is diminishing.
The RNp
type is to be deemed as resistant to foreign interference, as in the fact that
the derivation by prefixation is very limited.
On the other hand, the derivation of compound nouns and that by
suffixation are generally derivational calques (loan translations) and,
therefore, the result of foreign interference.
But even here native Hebrew shows signs of resistance. Noun composition in native Hebrew is falling
away slightly, whereas the RNp type
is gaining in productivity. Derivation
of compound adjectives
with or without derivational suffixes has become very common in native Hebrew
since pre-Israeli Hebrew was almost totally devoid of adjectival
derivation. At the same time, borrowed
adjectives are relatively few in number.
Similarly, borrowed adjectival suffixes such as –le, - ćik “endearing diminutives,” –nik “person being a member
of,” while flourishing in the early period of Israeli Hebrew, are now falling
into oblivion and are being replaced by Hebrew derivational suffixes.
[1] For more recent publications and general bibliography see; I have corrected obvious errors and supplied the bolding and table of contents to make this essay more accessible. DS
[2] “The
spread of the nationalistic movements in
[3] “… Yiddish (and European)
interference are most strongly felt in the domain of syntax…. Two instances
will illustrate this point….
“(In Israeli Hebrew) nouns like rofe 'doctor', menahel 'director', sofer 'author' … come before the name, contrary to what we would expect on the basis of BH (Biblical Hebrew) and MH (Mishnaic Hebrew) usage. To the best of my knowledge, even purists have never taken exception to this usage.
“If an Israeli is asked to translate the English sentence
'the house is big', he will give habayit
gadol or use the copula habayit hu
gadol. Only rarely, if pressed, might he offer a third construction habayit gadol hu. Yet the second
construction, so widely used in IH (Israeli Hebrew), exists neither in BH nor
in MH except for the "identity clause" as is Yoseph hu’ hashaliT
'Joseph was the vizier', Gen. 42, 6 where both subject and predicate are
determined). In BH and MH we find either the first construction without the
copula, or the third construction with the copula after the predicate. (The
copula also folIows the predicate in the gadol
hu habayit 'big is the house' type of construction,
where the sentence begins with the predicate). Incidentally, this is the case
with all Semitic languages possessing a copula. The second construction, of
course, reflects the influence of Yiddish, Fench. German, and English where the
copula comes between the subject and predicate.
“The most astonishing fact is that not only did this replica
formation in IH pass uncontested, but it was not even recognized as an intruder
by writers and eminent Hebrew scholars. Surely an outstanding sign of the depth
of the influence of the foreign substrata upon IH is the fact that it is found
even in the works of such classical Hebrew writers as Bialik. …
“Hebrew writers were sometimes unconsciously influenced in
their use of prepositions by their Yiddish or other substrata….”
A HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE
HEBREW LANGUAGE EDUARD ECHEZKEL KUTSCHER Edited by RAPHAEL KUTSCHER 1982 THE MAGNES PRESS, THE
[4] I had
to somewhat alter the transliteration due to limitations in the fonts available
to me. In the original ś was
sometimes used in place of š=sh. I have used š or sh throughout DS
[5] cf. Israel Language Policy and Linguistics by
Haiim B Rosén and Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew (Palgrave Studies in Language History and
Language Change) by Ghil'ad Zuckermann (Hardcover - January 17, 2004)
[7] Cf.
late 19th century terms “e.g. toeff boker “guden morgen,” toeff
laila “gude naicht,” with an inverted order). See Groote 1860; Babinger
1920; Klausner 1923.” From The Emergence of Spoken Israeli Hebrew
by Shlomo Izre’el
[8] Interestingly, a well respected scholar of
both Hebrew and Arabic has shown the Modern Standard Arabic has developed in
ways very closely paralleling developments in Israeli Hebrew. See Joshua Blau's
book The Renaissance of Modern Hebrew and Modern Standard Arabic
(Berkeley: UC Press, 1981) DS
[9] “…It is believed that she + imperfect denoting the jussive, e.g.,she-yelekh 'let him go' is a Yiddish calque, but this
requires clear-cut proof.
“One very important trait of the IH verb originating in
Yiddish has been noted by H. Blanc. Under Slavic influence, the Yiddish verb
developed "aspectoid" distinctions wherein plain action is contrasted
with "instantaneous or abrupt variety of the same action", e.g., ich
shrayb ‘I write' vs. ich gib a shrayb 'I am
writing for a moment' (gib from gebn 'to give'). In cases of the
"plain verb vs. prefixated verb... the contrast is between a plain verb
with imperfective lexical meaning and a prefixated verb with perfective lexical
mcaning", e.g., shlofn ‘'to
sleep' vs. aynshlofn 'to fall asleep'
where the second verb "denotes transition from some other state or action
to the state or action denoted" by the first member.
“The first trait is to be found in IH in expressions
construed of a noun plus the verb natan
'give' (= Yiddish gebn), e.g., natan
kfitza (=gebn a shprung) 'to jump', natan tzitzul (=gebn
a klung) 'to ring, phone',
“More important than these substandard phrases is the fact
that "there are a number of Hebrew verb pairs.., qaTal vs. niqTal or qaTal vs. hitqaTTel which "are functionally
equivalent to some Yiddish pairs of the second type", e,g., yashav
(zien) 'to be sitting', hityashev (/avek/ zeen zech) 'to
sit down'; shakhav (lign) 'to be lying down', nishkav (/avek/ Ieygn
zich), 'to lie down'; ‘amad (shteyn)
'to stand', ne’emad (/avek/ shteln zich, opshteln zich) 'to stand up, to
come to a halt'; zakhar (gedenken)
'to remember', nizkar (dermanen zich) 'to recall to mind’….
(However) some of the pairs … already appear in BH but especially in MH
with the same function….
A History of the Hebrew Language by Eduard Echezkel Kutscher, edited by Raphael Kutscher 1982 THE MAGNES PRESS, THE
HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM EJ. BRILL,
[10]
Those adopting the view (traditional for all Semitic languages) that
conjugations of verbs from the same root constitute one paradigm must consider
the semantic relationship between the various conjugations. In the extreme
formulation of this view, every conjugation is said to have a particular
meaning in relation to the "basic form" of the verb, the form pa’al….
A similar, though less extreme,
position is generally taken in textbooks. These also treat the pa’al conjugation as the basic form,
said to be semantically "simple," but they attempt to establish a
semantic relationship for each root between the pa’al conjugation and other conjugations, it being assumed that
each of these makes some addition to the basic meaning of the pa’al. The principal additional
meanings, expressed synthetically by a change in the form of the verb, are said
to be passive, reflexive, reciprocal, strengthening, durative, iterative,
causative, change in state, declarative, and deprivative. Thus, for example,
the niph’al is said to express the
passive when the active agent is found with the pa’al e.g., shavar
("he broke")— nishbar
("it was broken") or hiph’il,
e.g., hirgica
("he soothed")— nirgac
("he was soothed"); reflexive, e.g., nishmar, nizhar ("he
took care of himself"); or reciprocal, e.g., nidberu ("they spoke to one another"). The pi’el is said to express the strengthening,
e.g., shavar ("he broke")— shibber ("he smashed"); the
durative, e.g., raqad ("he
danced")— riqqed ("he
danced for a long time"); repetitive, e.g., qavar ("he buried")—
qibber ("he buried many"); causative, e.g., lamad ("he learned")—
limmed ("he taught"); or deprivative, e.g., sheresh ("he uprooted"). The pu’al is said to be the passive equivalent of verbs with the same
root in pi’el. The hitpa’el is explained as denoting the
reflexive, e.g., hitraHetz ("he
washed himself"); reciprocal, e.g., hitlaHashu
("they whispered to each other"); passive chiefly when the active is
in the pi’el, e.g., bishel ("he cooked")— hitbashel ("it was cooked");
or strengthening, e.g., hitnashem
("he breathed strongly"). The hiph’il
is said to denote the causative, chiefly when the active is in the pa’al, e.g., malakh ("he reigned")— himlikh ("he made [him] a king"), and consequently
changes the verb from intransitive to transitive, e.g., yashab ("he sat")— hoshiv
("he caused to sit," "he set"), or from unitransitive to
ditransitive, e.g., ‘akhal ("he
ate")— he’ekhil ("he
fed"); a change of state, e.g., heceshir ("he became rich"), especially a change of
color, e.g., hilbin ("it became
white"); or declarative, e.g., tzaddik
("righteous")— hitzdik
("he declared as righteous," "he justified"). The hoph’al/huph’al is considered the
passive equivalent of the hiph’il. In
addition, some verbs with a "simple" meaning like that of the pa’al appear in other conjugations,
e.g., nikhnas ("he
entered"), riHef ("he
hovered"), hitnagged ("he
opposed"), himtin ("he
waited").
However, this view of the semantic
relationships of the conjugations, with the pa’al
taken as the basic conjugation, does not sufficiently fit the facts. Even a
partial examination of Hebrew verbs shows that, except for pu’al and hoph’al/huph’al
(which almost always have a predictable relationship with pi’el and hiph’il
respectively), we cannot automatically predict the meaning of a root in one
conjugation from that of the same root in another conjugation. Though there are
many instances of predictable semantic relationships between the conjugations,
like those given above, in many instances verbs of the same root have no
relationship at all or have an unpredictable relationship, e.g., dibber ("he spoke") - hidbir ("he subdued"); mahar ("he bought a wife")— miher ("he hastened"); batzar ("he gathered grapes")—
nivtzar ("it was
withheld")— bitzer ("he
fortified"); saphar ("he
counted")— sipper ("he
told")— histapper ("he had
his hair cut"); saphak ("he
clapped hands")— sippek
("he supplied")—hispik
("he made enough")—histapek
("he had sufficient"); he’emin
("he believed")— hitammen
("he trained himself"). It may well be that at an early period of the
language, the conjugations constituted a paradigm of predictable semantic
relationships similar to the paradigm of changes of person and tense within a
conjugation, but as a consequence of the development of meanings of verbs
throughout the history of the language, the conjugations cannot now be
recognized as belonging to one paradigm.
Similarly, there was once a fixed
semantic relationship between nouns of different patterns belonging to the same
root. Indeed, even in contemporary Hebrew there are such relationships, e.g.,
between nouns denoting people with particular occupation such as sappar ("barber") and the
corresponding noun for the place of work, mispara
("barber shop"). In general, new nouns have been formed in recent
times on the appropriate patterns, e.g., katif
("season for picking fruit growing on trees") and talish ("season for picking fruit
growing on low bushes") for the seasons of agricultural work; mirpa’a ("clinic") and mikhbasa ("laundry") for
places of work. Nevertheless, each noun is treated as an entirely independent
noun; the semantic relationship between nouns of the same root has not resulted
in their being considered one noun with various patterns.
THE EXTENT TO WHICH A
PREDICTABLE RELATIONSHIP EXISTS BETWEEN THE CONJUGATIONS
Two forms have predictable
relations when they fulfill two conditions:
(1) If one of them exists, it
follows that the other exists too;
(2) When the meaning of one of them
is known, the meaning of the other one is self-explanatory. Only forms having
predictable relationships with other forms can be considered as belonging to the
same paradigm, since only these can be freely used by a speaker though he has
never heard them before and are unambiguous to the hearer though he has never
encountered them before. For example, within one conjugation there are
predictable relationships between forms varying only in person or tense ….
Similarly, the relationships between verbs in pi’el and hiph’il and
verbs of the same root in pu’al and hoph’al/huph’al, respectively, are
virtually predictable. There is not complete predictability because some
intransitive verbs in pi’el, e.g., Tiyyel ("he went for a walk")
and riHef ("he hovered"),
and in hiph’il, e.g., hismik ("he became red") and heHlid ("he [it] became
rusty") either do not have corresponding forms in pu’al or hoph’al/huph’al
or, if they do, these do not express a passive meaning.
Predictable relationships between pa’al and niph’al (with respect either to the existence of one form if the
other exists or to the stipulated semantic relationship) apply only to some
verbs. Thus, there is no corresponding form in the other conjugation for yarad ("he descended"), nivhal ("he was alarmed"), or nishbac
("he swore"), and a predictable active-passive relationship is
lacking between yashav ("he
sat")— noshav ("it was
inhabited"); kanas ("he
assembled")— nikhnas ("he
entered"); or yashen ("he
slept")— noshan ("he was
old"). Even less predictable are the relationships between pa’al and pi’el. It is impossible to know whether the change from pa’al to pi’el will entail strengthening, lengthening, repetition,
causation, or some other meaning, which might be completely different from that
of pa’al, e.g., shiHek ("he played")—
shaHak ("he laughed"), Hinnekh
("he educated")— Hanakh
("he inaugurated"), bishel
("he cooked")— bashal
("it ripened"). Moreover, there are many verbs in pi’el that have no corresponding forms
in pa’al, e.g., tiyyel ("he went for a walk"), zinnev ("he routed the rear"), Hiddesh ("he renewed"), Hiyyekh ("he smiled"), tzivva ("he commanded").
Similarly, it is impossible to be
confident that the hiph’il will
express the causative of the pa’al,
since many verbs in hiph’il do not
have any semantic connection with the same root in the pa’al, or have an unpredictable relationship, e.g., yarak ("he spat")— hirik ("it became green"); sarat ("he scratched")— hisrit ("he filmed"); ratza ("he wanted")— hirtze ("he lectured").
Furthermore, there are some verbs in hiph’il
whose passive is in niph’al as well
as in hoph’al/huph’al (occasionally
with some difference in nuance), e.g., hirtiac
("he deterred")— nirtac,
hidpis ("he published")— nidpas, and these somewhat disturb the
predictability in relationship between hiph’il
and hoph’al/huph’al.
There is certainly no predictable
relationship between pa’al and hitpa’el. Not only are there two large
categories of semantic relationships, exemplified, on the one hand, by raHatz ("he washed")— hitraHatz ("he washed
himself"), and on the other, by katav
("he wrote")— hitkattev
("he had a correspondence with [someone"]), but there are also many
verbs appearing in only one of these conjugations, e.g., gazal ("he robbed") and hitkarer ("he caught a cold"), or which have independent
meanings in the two conjugations, e.g., saphar
("he counted")— histapper
("he had his hair cut"). The semantic relationships between other
conjugations, such as pi’el — hitpa’el or pi’el — hiph’il are also
unpredictable in similar respects.
An awareness of this situation
requires a consideration of the conjugations not as an inflection of one verb
but as a set of different verb patterns related by derivation. The
relationships between pi’el and pu’al and between hiph’il and hoph’al/huph’al
may perhaps be an exception to this generalization.
Uzzi Ornan Encyclopedia
Judaica article Hebrew
Grammar
[11] “In
word formation, modern Hebrew, for the most part, follows the methods inherited
from former stages of the language. The available noun and verb patterns are
used to the full for innovations. Yet, some possibilities of derivation and combination
that in older Hebrew were realized in relatively small measure are now put to
use more extensively and, as some maintain, even excessively. The following
deserve special mention and exemplification:
(1) Many
nouns and adjectives are derived from noun bases by adding suffixes:
(a) -an,
fem. -anit for nouns, as in:…hatzeran,
"trumpeter"; …totaHan, "artilleryman"; …dodan,
fem. dodanit, "cousin"; …mahpe>an,
"revolutionary," n.;…tiqan, "cockroach,", from …tiq,
"envelope," i.e., the protective shell of the insect's eggs.
(b) -ay,
fem. -ait for nouns, as in: …ittonay, fem. 'ittonait,
"journalist"; …bulay, "philatelist"; …aviray,
"airman"; …mekhonay, "machinist"; …telefonay, fem. telefonait,
"telephone operator"; …statistiqay,
"statistician".
(c) -on,
fem. -onet, often for diminutive nouns: dubbon, "young bear,
teddy bear";…yaldon, "small boy",…yaldonet,
"small girl";…shedon, "sprite".
(d) -i,
fem. -it, mainly for adjectives:…tzevai, "military"; …gammadi,
"dwarfish"; …afsi, "amounting to nothing";…tehomi,
"abysmal",…anaqi, "colossal". The suffix -i
is also widely used to derive adjectives from compounded pairs of nouns, as in ...tzefon-mizrahi, "north-eastern", from …sefon-mizrah, northeast; …gav-leshoni,
"dorsal," in phonetics, from …gav-lashon, "dorsal surface of the tongue";…kelal-enoshi, "all-human,
universal". This mode of derivation, found in the Bible in gentilitial
names, like …Ben-Yemini, "Benjaminite" and …Bet-Hallahmi,
"Bethlehemite", has also been extended to compounds whose first
member is a quantifier, as in …had-kivuni,
"unidirectional";…du-leshoni, "bilingual"; …rav-tzedadi,
"many-sided"; or a preposition, as in …ben-leummi,
"international"; …qedam-miqtzoi,
"pre-professional": …cal-enoshi,
"superhuman".
(e) -it,
for nouns, some diminutive (besides being the feminine form of -i): …mekhonit,
"automobile"; ...monit,
"taxi"; …yadit, "handle"; …mappit,
"napkin"; … tavit, "label".
(f) -ut,
for abstract or collective nouns: …borerut,
"arbitration": …tziyyonut,
"Zionism"; …roqeHut,
"pharmacology"; … meyalledut,
"obstetrics"; …ittonut, "press".
(g) Several
of the foregoing suffixes may combine to form new derivations, such as: …mahpekhani,
"revolutionary," adj.; …mahpekhanut,
"revolutionism"; …toteHanut,
"artillery"; …ittonaut, "journalism"; …gammadiyyut,
"dwarfishness"; …afsiyyut, "worthlessness"i.
(2) New
nouns are built by joining elements of two other words, particularly when this
is suggested or facilitated by both words having one or more consonants in
common or by the second word beginning with a glottal stop (alef) which
can easily be omitted. …qolnoa, "cinema" is but a simple
joining of …qol, "sound" and…noa, "movement",
while…ofannoa, "motorcycle" joins…ofan,
"wheel" and …noa. Two original consonants are omitted in …daHpor,
a blending of the verbal roots…d.H.f. and …H.f (p).r; with the recurring pair
H and f(p) inserted only once,
the sequence…d.H.f(p).r is left and shaped into a noun with the vowel
sequence a.o frequent in nouns. On the same vowel pattern ramzor,
"traffic light" is formed from the verbal root r.m.z, "to
indicate" and the noun or, "light" whose initial …'alef
is elided. The popular creation …shmartaf, "babysitter” is compounded from…sh.m.r.,
"to watch" and …taf,
"children", but the Academy prefers …shomer-taf modelled after the
biblical … shomer-saf, "keeper of the door".
(3) Among
verbal innovations the amount of denominative verbs is significant: …rishshet, "to cover
with a net" comes from…reshet,
"net";…qirqa, "to ground [an aircraft]" from …qarqa,
"ground": …nittev, "to pilot" from…nativ,
"path", and numerous others, especially scientific, technological,
and military terminology. For such new active verbs, the pattern piel is
preferred with hifil left far behind and paal (qal) almost
entirely neglected.
(4) Many
of these new denominative verbs are derived from nouns with prefixed or
suffixed formatives. Thereby, new roots, mostly quadiliteral, have entered the
language:…mirkez, "to centralize", with it the passive
participle…mvmurkaz,
and the action noun…mirkuz have been derived from…merkaz,
"center" to differentiate from the former verb…rikkez,
"to concentrate" which shows the original root …r.k.z,…misper,
"to number" contains in its secondary root…m.s.p.r the
consonants of …mispar, "number", a noun derived from the
primary root…s.f(p).r. The relation between…tizmer, "to
orchestrate"), …tizmoret, "orchestra", and the primary
root …z.m.r is similar. In a piyyut by Eleazar Kallir (of the early Middle Ages) there is
the verb…hitmir originating from…temura,
"change" which in turn is based on the primary root …m.w.r;
the verb…hitmir has now passed from its remote literary source into
modern use in the meaning "to substitute" in chemistry. From the
primitive root …H.m.z
Ben-Yehuda formed the noun …Hamtzan, "oxygen", and this served as a base
for the new verb ...Himtzen, "to
oxydize".
(5) Another
way to form denominative verbs is to derive new roots from contractions or
acrostics of compound words. Thus, from… din-ve-Heshbon, "account, report"
first the acrostic …duaH or …devaH, "report"
came into use, and then the verb …divvaH, "to report" was
formed with the artificial root …d.w.H.. In order to obtain a Hebrew
verb for "to internationalize," to which ...ben-leummi,
"international" did not lend itself, a contracted root …b.n..m
had to be presumed to arrive at the desired verb …bine) and its action
noun …binum, "internationalization". However, this presumption
is not so farfetched, since there is a Hebrew noun …’umma, besides …leom
for "nation."
(6) In
analogy to several verbs of the shafel formation inherited from biblical
and later Aramaic and Hebrew, some new causative verbs and action nouns with
the prefixed sh- have been created from existing roots, mainly where
other verb formations had already been exploited for the same root. To these
innovations, some of which have been sanctioned by the Academy, belong shiHzer,
"to restore", root …H-z-r, "to return", and
its action noun …shiHzur; …shiqqem, "to rehabilitate"
with …shiqqum as action noun, root …q-w-m, "to rise"; …shifret, "to elaborate"
derived from …perat,
"detail"; …shikhpel, "to duplicate, multiply (written
matter)"), etc. Among the first and most widely used of these new words
were …shiHzur with the meaning of restoration of a previous condition
inherent in its root …H-z-r, and …shiqqum), which
intrinsically only means "causing to rise, erecting," but was used in
contexts entailing the connotation of "again." Many speakers,
therefore, came to attribute this meaning of remaking or redoing to the shafel
formation, and by way of vindicating this semantic shift, some even interpreted
the prefixed sh- as an abbreviated …shuv, "again". On this assumption, more verbs and action
nouns with initial sh -,
corresponding to English re-, have been formed and in part accepted:
…shiHlef, "to re-exchange"), root …H-l-f—in another
sense …shalHef < shaHlef is already found in the Aramaic of the Targum
and Talmud; …shiacarukh, "reassessment",
root …c-r-k;
…shizra, "to resow", root …z-r- c,…
shigzur, "back formation" in linguistics, root …g-z-r-
"to derive", etc.
(7) A
considerable number of passive verbal adjectives has been adopted with the
vowel sequence a-i inserted in the root and corresponding in meaning to
French and English adjectives in -able, -ible. The first of these
probably was …shavir,
"breakable", followed by …qari, "readable", …savir,
"reasonable", …kavis, "washable", …hadir,
"penetrable", …daHis, "compressible", and more.
However, this pattern has at all times served in the formation of other
adjectives (as the biblical cashir
"rich" and of nouns (as the biblical qatzir
"harvest"). Its application to defective roots meets with
difficulites; its use is limited to derivations from paal (qal) verbs,
and its corresponding abstract noun is ambiguous (e.g., deHisut may be
understood as "compressibility" and as "[state of]
compression," from daHus, "compressed"). Words of this
semantic category are, therefore, also formed in other ways, either with the
suffix -i appended to an action noun, as in …shimmushi,
"practical", from …shimmush, "practice, use",
or, as in classical Hebrew, either by the use of passive participles, such as, mitqappel,
"collapsible," "folding"; …ne’ekhal,
"edible"; …mittaltel,
"portable", etc., or by compounding … ben- or - …bar- with
abstract nouns, mostly action nouns, as in …ben semekh;
"reliable", …ben-buz
[Bialik], "contemptible"; …bar-bitzuca "executable");
…bar-bittul,
"abolishable"), etc.
Syntactic structure in translated
literature and in journalistic writing has been greatly influenced by European
languages (now mainly English). One of the results, for example, is the
frequent appearance of non-restrictive, continuative relative clauses, such as,
… ("The police pursued the thief, who escaped into the nearest house").
Although this use is found neither in the colloquial language nor in that of
writers whose Hebrew is considered exemplary, it is frequent in journalese and
officialese. Some linguists do not condemn it on this level of the language,
and the same applies to other syntactic structures, equally foreign to more
elevated and conservative style.”
Eli Eytan Encyclopedia Judaica
article Hebrew Language