The reinvenTion of The consTrucTion of verb + non ...

Journal of Semitic Studies LX/2 Autumn 2015 doi: 10.1093/jss/fgv006 © The author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester. All rights reserved.

The reinvention of the construction of verb + non-lexical subject-coreferential l- pronoun in Modern Hebrew Rivka Halevy Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Abstract A construction of verb + non-lexical (non-selected) subject-coreferential dative pronoun (SCD) is found in classical Hebrew on a limited scale, but widely used in Modern Hebrew (MH), crucially in the spoken register. The paper suggests that although the classical construction and the modern one look superficially similar, interpretatively they seem to be distinct. It is argued that the modern construction changed into a speaker-oriented construction resolved on the higher level of discourse. The paper aims to trace the emergence of the modern construction and the motivation for its change. It is suggested that the construction acquired pragmatic inferences as part of the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language and that the inspiration for that was a comparable construction prevalent in Slavic and Yiddish, the contact-languages of Hebrew at that time.

1. Introduction Retention or revival of an existing syntactic form with a new or renewed function is a phenomenon well known in the historical account of many languages. Wexler (1990) has claimed that Yiddish and Modern Hebrew are genetically related since Yiddish formed the substratum for a revived Hebrew. Essentially, following leading Semitic scholar Gideon Goldenberg (1996), I maintain that there are certain linguistic features, crucially grammatical morphemes and other morphosyntactic features that must be transmitted along a genetic line for a language to be considered a member of a given taxonomic unit. This is not to say that these features over time cannot change, still the speakers continue the generational transmission of the linguistic tradition, and ‘core’ elements are included in the language of the new speakers. This 395

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verb + non-lexical subject-coreferential l- pronoun

is exactly the case of revived Hebrew. However, though the microsyntax of Modern Hebrew (MH) is essentially Semitic (cf. Goldenberg 1996), it nevertheless shows traits of contact-languages, crucially in the domain of syntax, which, unlike morphology, is more dynamic and subject to change. Hence, it is not uncommon to encounter inherited constructions (Semitic, Hebrew) which are reused for a new function due to the influence of a parallel construction found in one of the contact-languages (Blanc 1968; Rosén 1977). The focus of this study is the function of the construction of verb + non-lexical (non-selected)1 subject-coreferential l- (‘to’, ‘for’, ‘of’) pronoun in MH. For purely formal reasons, this construction will be referred to as ‘subject-coreferential dative’ (SCD), though l- in the construction at issue is in fact a caseless affix, which does not represent prototypical dative participants (i.e. recipients and goals), and thus acquires case but not thematic role. A representative example of the construction in spoken MH is the following utterance:2 )1(

‫ככה סתם שוטטנו לנו בשדרות קק"ל‬ kaxa stam šoṭaṭnu lanu bi-sderot qaqal (Kaxa Stam, Israeli song of the 60s by A. Hillel) so just we-were-walking-around DAT1PL in-boulevard qaqal ‘We were just hanging around [~for our own delight, without any specific purpose] on Qaqal Boulevard’

The aim of the present study is twofold — firstly, to cast light on the data regarding the function of the SCD construction in MH; and secondly to point out that although formally it is similar to the construction found in previous layers of Hebrew, crucially Biblical Hebrew (BH), its function and inferences are completely different. The novelty of this study lies in the claim that the construction under investigation was reinvented by the first (non-native) speakers/ 1 A

dative is a lexical or selected constituent when the meaning of the verb somehow introduces the presence of a recipient or goal, and it is non-lexical/nonselected when no such relation with the verb can be observed, e.g. possessive, benefactive/malefactive and ethical dative. However, when one considers the full range of uses of the dative case across languages, it looks as if the dative (as assigned by verbs) is not associated with any particular grammatical function or with any particular meaning or thematic role (Van Valin 2009). For data of non-lexical datives in Hebrew see Berman 1982; Borer and Grodzinsky 1986 and Halevy 2013a, b. See also Horn 2008. 2 In examples adduced from BH full transcription will be employed. For Rabbinic and MH, on the other hand, I shall use the simple transcription reflecting the standard pronunciation of the spoken language. 396

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writers of MH at the time of the revival. This view will be sustained by data from Yiddish and Slavic languages (Russian and Polish), where a parallel construction features with similar implications, as well as from the literature of the revival directly translated from Yiddish or Russian or strongly inspired by them. In the present paper, matters that were addressed in two previous studies of mine (Halevy 2004, 2007) are pursued. In particular, this paper brings forward arguments and evidence that substantiate my suspicion that the modern SCD construction was reinvented in the first decades of the revival of MH (Halevy 2007: 318). The proliferation of non-lexical dative pronouns in present-day Hebrew, as will be suggested, clearly reflects the increasingly dativeorientation of the language3 and coincides with the dynamic changes it undergoes as a modern spoken language. The corpus for the present study has been assembled from the literature of the revival period and from elicited utterances in presentday Hebrew, written (including on websites) or spoken. The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 is an introduction. It includes examples from some unrelated languages where a similar construction is widespread. Section 2 provides a background, definition and characterization of the SCD in Hebrew and illustrates its diachronic development. Section 3 discusses the meaning and function of the SCD in previous strata of Hebrew. Section 4 highlights the properties and diverse implications of the construction in MH. Section 5 outlines an analysis of the modern SCD. Section 6 provides evidence showing that the MH construction was reinvented under the influence of contact languages. Section 7 concludes.

3 The dative orientation of MH is manifested in a strong tendency to employ, more than in previous layers of Hebrew, a wide array of non-lexical datives for pragmatic purposes (Berman 1982; Halevy 2013a). This might be due also to the fact that MH became a vivid spoken language (since non-lexical dative clitics and pronouns seem to characterize spoken languages more than written ones). English, for example, can be associated with the class of languages which manifest a dativeto-nominative shift diachronically, quite the reverse of what is manifested in Hebrew. The preference for non-lexical datives is remarkable also in the choice of possessive and experiencer datives, and crucially in the wide use of the ethical dative completely absent from earlier layers of Hebrew. In today’s usage, the preference for dative marking is so strong that the ordinary non-dative option of marking nominals seems sometimes marked, or alternatively, has a somewhat different, more restricted interpretation.

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1.1. Non-selected Reflexive-dative Constructions in Some Unrelated Languages Non-obligatory reflexive-dative constructions feature cross-linguistically also in some unrelated languages or in languages that were not in direct contact with MH at the time of revival. In Vulgar Latin, there is evidence of a dative-reflexive construction conveying equivalent meaning. To quote Bourciez (1946: §118c), ‘On disait déjà dans la langue classique abstinere ou abstinere se, erumpere ou erumpere se […] pour indiquer d’une façon plus analytique la part que le sujet prend à l’action; beaucoup de verbes se sont ainsi construits, notamment des verbes de mouvement: Surrexisse se Deos (Arn. 5, 18); vadent se unusquisque (Peregr. 25, 7)’. This construction later spread out to other Romance languages. The modern Spanish reflexive-dative se- construction entails a perfective aspectual meaning (specifically sudden change or sudden departure), very much alike the SCD of classical Hebrew, but far from the one of MH, e.g.: (2) (3)

El joven se fue the boy REFL3SG went ‘The boy went away [~took off]’ El joven se bebió el vino the boy REFL3SG drank the wine ‘The boy [~just] drank [up] the wine’

Maldonado (1999: 153–4) shows that the Spanish se- construction does not necessarily impose a completive interpretation, but rather a sense of full involvement, i.e. a maximal degree of participation by the subject in the execution of the action designated by the verb, whether transitive or intransitive. For example (borrowed from Maldonado, ibid.): (4) Tongolele se bailó una rumba inolvidable ‘Tongolele REFL3SG danced an unforgettable rumba’

On the other hand, if the action is done involuntarily or without much interest, encoding the non-obligatory se- produces an ungrammatical output. However, the Spanish construction (attested also in Ladino), contrary to the MH and Slavo-Yiddish construction, has not exceeded the level of sentence (locution) and does not seem to have developed any evaluative meaning. A non-obligatory (non-selected) se pronoun is prevalent also in French, expressing the idea that the action had an emotional effect 398

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on the subject, interpreting it as being performed leisurely to the subject’s delight and contentment. In addition, as in Hebrew, it has a communicative motivation — to share the speaker’s attitude towards the subject involvement in the event with the interlocutor, as can be seen in the following utterances (cited from Leclère 1976: 79 and Al-Zahre and Boneh 2010): Jeanne s’est mangée trois gâteaux Jeanne REFL3SG ate three cakes ‘Jeanne ate [~ for her own pleasure] three cakes’ (6) Jeanne se fume une petite cigarette Jeanne REFL3SG smoke a small cigarette ‘Jeanne is smoking [~indulging] a cigarette.’ (5)

However, it seems that its scope is much more limited than in its MH equivalents. A similar construction, albeit much more restricted, is attested in dialectal Southern and Appalachian American English displayed in traditional country and mountain ballads (cf. Horn 2008) , e.g.: (7) Born on a mountain top in Tennessee The greenest state in the land of the free Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree [proi] Kilt himi a b’ar when he was only three. (‘Ballad of Davy Crockett’; cited in Horn 2008: 169)

However, from the list of properties provided by Horn (2008: 172) it is obvious that this construction is very restricted in terms of text frequency, selection restrictions and syntactic behaviour. For a broader typological comparison, it might be interesting to illustrate a somewhat similar pragmatic function of the optional postverbal subject corferential dative-possessive in the Benue-Congo languages. For example, based on Noss (1995: 334), Gen. 27:43 (for the Hebrew verse see (17) below) is translated into one of the Chadic languages in the following construal: (8) col kolo pii tud ki man vi wayanna Laban Arise up flee go away of-you to your uncle Laban

According to Noss, the post-verbal subject-coreferential pronoun in BH and in its Chadic counterpart represents contrastive subject focus, when the speaker/writer wishes to put emphasise not only upon the Actor-subject, but also in contrast to other possible Actors.4 4 Frajzyngier 2008 reports a similar construction in Wandala, one of the Central Chadic languages. He mentions that it is motivated by two factors: (1) the need to

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2. Background, Definition and Characterization of the SCD Construction in Hebrew The Semitic dative is marked by the ex-allative preposition l- ‘to’, which also appears in the inflected form. Like most grammatical words, this l- preposition probably evolved from lexical words.5 Most likely, its grammaticalization is a product of a shift from a less grammatical, unrestricted morpheme, into a more grammatical and restricted one, tracing the path allative > dative. Traces of this diachronic grammaticalization cline can be clearly seen in Early BH. For example, in the Book of Genesis the preposition l- still alternates with allative forms and with a range of more expanded and less grammaticalized prepositions such as ‫‛על‬al, ‫ אל‬ʼ el, ‫עמד‬- ‛imad- which later grammaticalized as equivalent to ‘on’, ‘towards’ and ‘with’.6 In the course of time, -‫ ל‬l- apparently expanded to become the optional benefactive (‘for’), and sequentially the reflexive-benefactive and presumably the non-argumental (non-lexical) pronominal l- now under discussion.7 In this connection it is important to note that the immediate precursor of the SCD is not the basic dative itself, since there is no hint there of the coreference that is the hallmark of this construction. Rather, it expanded from the reflexive-benefactive. However, as will be further demonstrated, in contrast with the well-governed use of the obligatory dative and the plethora of examples of its extension into the benefactive and reflexive there is a relative paucity of occurrences of the SCD construction in BH. It is plausible then to assume for the SCD the following gramma ticalization path: allative > dative > benefactive > reflexive-benefactive > SCD. However, what the historical order of development actually was requires another investigation.

include a nominal subject in a clause that marks an event as the background for subsequent discourse and (2) non-topicalizing switch reference. 5 It probably developed from the unreduced grammaticalized prepositions ʽal (‘on’) or ʼel (‘towards’), which, in turn, probably evolved from lexical words such as ʽala/ʽaley- ʽelyon/ʽelyonim, maʽala, etc., denoting the property of being up or above. 6 E.g.: (i) ‫ויתעצב אל לבו‬ va-yyiṯʽaşēḇ ʼel libbō (Gen. 6: 6) ‘and he became grieved at heart’ (ii) ‫האשה אשר נתת עמדי היא נתנה לי‬ hā-ʼiššā ʼašer nāṯaṯṯā ʽimmād-ī hī nāṯnā lī (Gen. 3:12) ‘the woman that you gave me, she gave (it) to me’ 7 In BH it encoded multitude of functions, i.e. dative, accusative, locative, benefactive, possessive, reflexive and non-lexical SCD (see Joüon-Muraoka 2003: §133d). 400

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MH developed special markers for each of the classical functions of the preposition l- standing in complementary distribution to each other. Furthermore, in MH only the recipient relation is obligatorily marked by l- even in its pronominal occurrence (contrary to the locative which varies in the pronominal form with the more expanded preposition ‫ אל‬ʼel ‘to’, ‘towards’). Other functions, of non-lexical datives, are marked by expanded particles that have come to be conventionalized for these meanings, e.g. ‫ בשביל‬bišvil ‘for’; ‫ לשם‬lešem ‘for the purpose of’; ‫ לכבוד‬lixvod ‘for’ (lit. to-honour-of); ‫ של‬šel ‘of’; ‫‛עצם‬eṣem ‘self’. We shall avoid the term ‘reflexive dative’ used sometimes in the literature (e.g. Borer and Grodzinsky 1986) for two reasons. First, in the contexts where the modern SCD is realized, it cannot be felicitously replaced by the canonical reflexive pronoun (i.e. the reflexive pronoun in MH is the grammaticalized noun ‛eṣem ‘bone’). Secondly, the SCD can be realized also with non-accusative verbs and crucially with verb patterns of overt middle-reflexive morphology, as seen in the following example: (9) ‫הכנתי את התיק והתלבשתי לי יפה כאילו אני הולכת למסיבה‬ hexanti ʼet ha-tiq ve-hitlabašti li yafe keʼilu ʼani holexet li-msiba (google 2012) I-prepared the-bag and-dressedREFL.1SG DAT1SG. nice as-if I (’m) going to-party ‘I prepared my bag and dressed up [~ leisurely, for my own delight] nicely as if I’m going to a party’

It is noteworthy that non-lexical datives are closely related to each other, and often hard to differentiate. For example, benefactive or malefactive/detrimental datives often overlap with the possessive dative, as is shown in the following example: (10) ‫אל תקלקל לי את הילדה‬ ʼal teqalqel li ʼet ha-yalda (attested) don’t spoil2SG DAT1SG OM the-girl ‘don’t spoil my girl’

In this utterance, the first person pronominal l- may have the readings ‘to-me’, ‘of-me’ (mine), ‘for-me’, and ‘on me’, respectively. The same holds for the modern SCD at issue which may sometimes call for reflexive, benefactive or malefactive, possessive, and speaker- interested dative. Note, however, that the pronominal l- standing for reflexive, possessive and benefactive is capable of being coreferential with another nominal expression in the clause, or even just with the 401

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subject-NP. The extra-personal evaluative attitude of the modern SCD is, though, what differentiates it from the ordinary reflexive, possessive and benefactive coreferential l- pronominals, as demonstrated in the following utterance: (11) ‫ארזתי לי מזוודה ונסעתי‬ ʼarazti li mizvada ve-nasa‛ti (attested) I-packed DAT1SG suitcase and-I-went-away ‘I packed my suitcase and went away’

Depending on the verb-type, context, stress and intonation, the coreferential l-pronominal can be interpreted here as denoting the beneficiary, i.e. ‘I packed it for myself, for my own benefit’, or as a personal evaluative index, i.e. ‘I have done it in a leisurely way or autonomously’. Another significant property of the non-lexical SCD is that unlike lexical datives it is obligatorily adjacent to the verb (akin to other non-lexical datives). Sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors play a significant role in the use and interpretation of non-lexical datives. Furthermore, their semantic and pragmatic contribution is often subtle and diverse. The wave sign (~) inside square brackets in the MH utterances exemplified in the present study represents the elusive and suggestive inferences of the l- subject-coreferential pronoun at stake. Obviously, the fluidity of function displayed by subject-coreferential l- pronoun has implications in terms of the ability to establish clear boundaries between the categories represented on its grammaticalization path illustrated above. 2.1 The SCD Construction in Some Cognate Semitic Languages A similar construction is infrequently employed in dialectal Modern Arabic, e.g. Modern Syrian Arabic (not attested in Standard Modern Arabic and in Palestinian dialectal Arabic), 8 though on a much more limited scale, and almost exclusively with motion verbs. In Modern Syrian Arabic, the SCD construction is modified by an attenuative vague measure (e.g. ‘a little’, ‘for a short while’ or numerals marking a relatively small quantity),9 as evident in e.g.: 8 Standard Modern Arabic has possessive/benefactive dative constructions, but not ethical dative and subject-coreferential dative of the type discussed here. 9 Cf. Brockelmann 1961: 380; Piamenta 1981: 217; Ullendorff 1992: 6; Al-Zahre and Boneh 2010.

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(12) qa‛adū lahum šwaye (Brockelmann 1961: 380) they-sat DAT3PL.M a-little ‘They were sitting for a short while’

However, implications such as performing an action by dissociating it from its surroundings or casually and for one owns delight, widespread in MH, are not commonly associated with the construction in Modern Syrian Arabic (cf. Al-Zahre and Boneh 2010) and as far as I know not attested in Palestinian spoken Arabic. A similar l- pronoun co-indexing the Actor-subject is well-known in classical Syriac, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and North-EasternNeo-Aramaic (NENA) dialects,10 but it differs from the function and implications of the SCD in Classical and Modern Hebrew. Substantially, the distinction lies in the function and form of the preceding verb, i.e. in Aramaic it is obligatorily adjacent to a bare passive participle verb-form and does not agree with the pronominal morpheme incorporated in the verb as a finite form.11 Furthermore, unlike the MH construction, the meaning of the Aramaic construction is resolved at the level of the sentence (locution). For example, in classical Syriac (cf. Joosten 1989): (13) šteq leh silentPTCP. 3SG.M DAT3SG.M ‘he shut up (became silent/stopped talking)’

And in Jewish Babylonian Talmud (cf. Bar-Asher-Siegal 2011), e.g.: (14) ‫רבי אליעזר כסומכוס סבירא ליה‬ Rabbi Eliezer ke-sumxos svira leh Rabbi Eliezer like-Sumkhos think. PTCP.3 SG.F DAT3SG.M ‘Rabbi Eliezer is in agreement with Symmachos’

In NENA dialects, the pronominal l- became suffixed and agglutinated to the base passive participle verb form as a single word representing the incorporated subject morpheme of the verb (cf. Hopkins 1989, Goldenberg 1991 and 1992, Khan 1999, inter alia). Unlike in Hebrew, it became grammaticalized as part of the verbal system, 10 The emergence of the construction at stake was presumably a result of the close contacts with Old Persian-Iranian languages. 11 It should be stressed that the subject morpheme is always incorporated in the finite verb, even when it does not overtly agree with the verb in number and gender (cf. Goldenberg 2006). According to Goldenberg 1998, the verb is a predicative compound containing three components: the subject, the verbal lexeme and the predicative bond (nexus). Cross-linguistically, only core arguments are indexed on the verb, but not oblique arguments.

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marking the incorporated subject pronoun and replacing the old Semitic perfective, e.g.: (15) baxta xzela xa gōra (Zakho dialect) woman seePTCP-DAT.3SG.F. one man ‘A woman saw a man’

All the more so, contrary to Hebrew, it did not develop further to become an element pertaining to the level of discourse (illocution, pragmatics). 2.2 Affinity and Differentiation Between the ‘Ethical Dative’ and the SCD In Semitic linguistics, notably Hebrew, Syriac and NENA dialects, this non-selected post-verbal l-+ subject pronominal form has traditionally been referred to as dativus ethicus (GKC 1910: 381; BDB 1966: 515b; Jenni 2000: 48–53; Joosten 1989, inter alia). This term, which is problematic and deceptive (since it is neither ‘ethical’ nor ‘dative’) is one of many technical terms that Semitic linguistics has borrowed from classical linguistics, especially from analyses of Greek and Latin.12 As is well known, the ‘genuine’ ethical dative is a personal pronoun in the dative case, which, unlike the modern SCD, is not co-referential with the subject, or, in fact, with any other argument in the sentence. It usually appears in first or second person (but sometimes also in third), and is typical of the colloquial speech especially in direct communication between speaker and hearer.13 This sort of non-lexical dative pronoun, common in, e.g. Romance 12 According to The Revised Latin Primer (London 1962) by B.H. Kennedy, ‘a Dative of a Personal Pronoun, called the Ethic Dative, is used, in familiar talk or writing, to mark interest or call attention, e.g. quid mihi Celsus agit? Horace (“Tell me, what is Celsus about?”), Haec vobis per biduum eorum milita fuit Livy (“This, mind you, was their style of fighting for two days”)’. About Greek, see E. Schwyzer and A. Debrunner (1950), Griechische Grammatik, Vol. II: Syntaktische Stilistik. (Munich), 149. 13 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the ethical dative is ‘used to imply that a person, other than the subject or object, has an interest in the fact stated’. Autier and Reed 1992: 296 state that ‘ethical datives […], unlike affected datives, denote individuals who are not necessarily interested parties as far as the process denoted by the sentence is concerned, but rather, this type of non-lexical dative refers to individuals whose relation to the process denoted by the sentence is only that of potential witness [emphasis mine]’. Borer and Grodzinsky 1986: 211 (working in the framework of Generative Grammar) state: ‘Ethic Dative must be disjoint from the external argument, and in fact from all the arguments of its clause. While we do not have a complete explanation for this disjointness, we would like to

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languages and German,14 is very rare in classical Semitic (e.g. Hebrew and Arabic), but widely used in present-day colloquial Hebrew (undoubtedly due to Yiddish influence), as in the very popular phrase: (16) ‫תהיה לי בריא‬ tihye li bari be2SG.M DAT1SG healthy - calque of Yiddish zei mir gezunt ‘[~ for my sake ] stay well’

When appearing in the first person, this non-lexical dative signifies the emotional interest of the speaker in engagement with his counterpart, whereas in the second person, it signals an intention on the part of the speaker to involve/impress the addressee in the situation being described, as in e.g.: (17) ‫תן לה טקסט באנגלית והיא משחקת לך אותו‬ Ten la text be-ʼanglit ve-hi mesax̱eqet lexa ʼoto (attested) give2SG.M her a-text in-English and-she playSG.F DAT2SG.M itACC [~ you’ll see, it’s amazing] ‘You give her a text in English and she plays it’

Being a non-argumental constituent, this l- pronoun has the effect of procuring the solidarity or complicity (of the hearer) or simply of creating a greater affective closeness between the hearer, the message and the speaker. By using this dative pronoun, the speaker seems to invite the hearer to share his feelings about the event or to be a witness to the event (Leclère 1976: 73). Encoding this dative pronoun signals that the information conveyed, or the process of conveying it, is of a high relevance for the hearer, or even takes place for his/her benefit. Nonetheless, the evaluative SCD and the ‘genuine’ ethical dative share some significant features (cf. Borer and Grodzinsky1986: 185). First, both are weak pronouns. They cannot be stressed or conjoined. In other words, they are obligatory clitics, i.e. cannot be separated from the verb that precedes them and cannot be topicalized (their subject is typically a topic). Secondly, both are non-lexical propose that this is due to the pragmatic function of the construction: conveying in essence the effect of an event on a seemingly uninvolved party [emphasis mine]’. 14 French: Au mont St. Michel la mer te monte à une de ses vitesse! (ex. taken from Autier and Reed 1992: 295) At-the Mount St. Michel the sea ED2SG rises at one of these speeds! German: Das ist mir ein feiner Kerl This is ED1SG a fine lad 405

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(non-selected) dative pronouns, i.e. they are not case-governed by the verb, do not add any new participant role to the event structure, and their insertion does not affect the relationship between the core participants in the event. In terms of the measure of contribution to the propositional core meaning, their information is thus of ‘low relevance’. Their hallmark, is then, their dispensability, since they can be dropped without affecting truth-conditional content. Nevertheless, their pragmatic information cannot be ignored. In their new function in MH as well as in some modern Indo-European languages (e.g. French, German) they express an attempt on the speaker’s part to increase informativeness to the interlocutor by indicating a particular point of view (cf. Traugott 1995). Hence, they belong to the level of speaker-hearer exchange of information, in other words their meaning is resolved at the level of discourse. We shall focus here only on the meaning and function of the SCD in MH. We shall not be concerned with the ethical dative, except inasmuch as it constitutes the necessary background for understanding the topic at issue. 3. The Meaning and Function of the SCD Construction in Previous Strata of Hebrew In BH, the ultimate model for the revivers of MH, the SCD construction is restricted in scope and in semantic and syntactic distribution. Semantically, it is almost exclusively confined (crucially in early BH) to intransitive and perfective motion verbs such as ‘go’, ‘flee’, ‘rise’, ‘ascend’, ‘pass’ and ‘turn’. Syntactically, it frequently occurs in imperative-hortative-jussive contexts, while in MH it is not widespread in these contexts. For example:15 (18) ‫וקום ברח לך אל לבן‬ wǝ-qūm bǝraḥ lǝḵā ʼel lāḇān (Gen. 27:43) and-stand-upIMP.2SG.M run-awayIMP.2SG.M DAT2SG.M to Laban ‘Go away and take refuge with Laban’

15 One

can find a great deal of inconsistency regarding the translation of Biblical occurrences into European languages such as Latin, French, German and English. For example, while English translators usually omit it, French translators (e.g. in Louis Segond) frequently use the pattern s’en aller for the perfect tense ‫הלך לו‬, or else va t’en, for the imperative ‫ לך לך‬or enfuis-toi for ‫( ברח לך‬cf. Halevy 2007: 301–4). 406

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(19) ‫לך לך מארצך וממולדתך ומבית אביך‬ leḵ lǝḵā mē-ʼarṣǝḵā u-mim-mōladǝṯḵa u-mib-bēṯ ʼāḇīḵā (Gen. 12:1) goIMP.2SG.M DAT2SG.M from-your-country and-from-your-motherland and-from-house (of) your-father ‘Leave your country and your homeland’

And rarely in narrative contexts with stative or imperfective verbs, such as ‘sit’, as in e.g.: (20) ‫ותשב לה מנגד‬ wat-tešeḇ la min-neged (Gen. 21:16) and sitPFV.3SG.F DAT3SG.F from-against ‘and she sat down over against him’

It is only in poetry of late BH, as represented in Song of Songs, that encoding the SCD is relatively more frequent and more flexible, though motion verbs still predominate. Furthermore, it seems common also in narrative statements, as shown in e.g.: (21)

‫הסתיו עבר הגשם חלף הלך לו‬ has-sṯāv ʽāḇar hag-gešem ḥālap̄ hālaḵ lō (Song 2:11) the-autumn passPFV the-rain pass-byPFV goPFV DAT3SG.M ‘autumn passed and rain passed away’

There are also some limited occurrences of SCDs associated with stative imperfective transitive verbs, crucially, epistemic verbs, e.g.: (22) ‫אם לא תדעי לך היפה בנשים‬ ʼim loʼ tēdʽī lāḵ hay-yāp̄ā ban-nāšīm (Song 1:8) if not knowIMPFV.2SG.F DAT2SG.F the-beautifulSG.F in-the-women ‘Don’t you know, (you) the most beautiful of (all) women’ (23) ‫ודמה לך לצבי‬ u-dǝmē lǝḵā li-ṣḇī (Song 8:14) and-resembleIMP.2SG.M DAT2SG.M to-stag ‘and resemble (you) the stag’

Note also that contrary to the MH construction, the BH construction tends to co-index a verb incorporated subject (whether explicitly verb suffixed or incorporated as zero-pronoun) rather than an explicit NP subject. In light of its subtle and ambiguous character, it is not surprising that the SCD received various interpretations in the literature, particularly in the study of BH. For example, it has been treated as ‘dativus commodi or incommodi […] used in order to give emphasis to the significance of the occurrence in question for a particular 407

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subject’ (GKC 1910: 381),16 ‘dative of feeling’ (BDB 515b), ‘“Lamedh centripetal” […] creating a self-contained little cosmos around the subject, detached from the surrounding world’ (Muraoka 1978: 497), ‘a special variety of the lamed of interest’ (Waltke and O’Connor 1990: 208) and most commonly ‘reflexive dative’ (Joüon 2003; 488, Williams 1976: §272). Furthermore, it was suggested that the use of the SCD in BH is a feature of colloquial language where it is often related with irony, informality or frivolity (Ullendorff 1985, 1992). Ullendorff (1992: 2) compares a minimal pair in 2 Kgs 18:21 and Isa. 36:6. In the first an SCD is employed whereas in the latter it is absent. He concludes that the verse in 2 Kings 18 should be read with the nuance of ‘just fancy!’, as opposed to its counterpart in Isaiah 36, which, according to his view, assumes a much more serious aspect, e.g.: (24) ‫הנה בטחת לך על משענת הקנה הרצוץ הזה על מצרים‬ Hinnē bāṭaḥṯ lāḵ ʽal mišʽeneṯ haq-qāne hā-rāṣuṣ haz-ze ʽal miṣrayim (2 Kgs 18:21) Here trustPFV.2SG.M DAT2SG.M on support (of) the-reed the-broken this on Egypt ‘Just fancy putting your trust in Egypt, that broken reed!’ (Ullendorff, ibid.) (25) ‫הנה בטחת על משענת הקנה הרצוץ הזה על מצרים‬ Hinnē bāṭaḥṯā ʽal mišʽeneṯ haq-qāne hā-rāṣuṣ haz-ze ʽal miṣrayim (Isa. 36:6) here trustPFV.2SG.M on support (of) the-reed the-broken this on Egypt ‘And you trusted that broken reed, Egypt!’

The reading of (24) above, as suggested by Ullendorff, does not seem convincing. In my view, such inferences reflect the modern reading rather than the classical one. It suffices to mention God’s command to Abraham appearing twice in Genesis using the same phrase ‫לך לך‬ leḵ lǝḵā (goIMP.2SG.M DAT2SG.M), i.e. in Gen. 12:1 (leave your homeland) and Gen. 22:2 (go to the land/mountain of Moriah and sacrifice your son Isaac), to refute the claim that the BH construction signals irony, informality or frivolity and that it characterizes informal language.17 In my view, we cannot provide a unified account of the semantic-pragmatic implications of the SCD construction in BH not 16 Cf.

Rashi’s commentary to ‫ לך לך‬leḵ lǝḵā in God’s command to Abraham (Gen. 12:1) ‘for your own good and benefit’. 17 See Muraoka’s note in Joüon 2003 §133d. n. 3. 408

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only because they are too elusive, but also because BH represents different historical and stylistic layers. According to Kogut (1993: 410–11), the SCD pronoun may be perceived as a subject intensifier index standing in complementary distribution with ordinary personal pronouns. Jenni (2000: 49) defines it as actualization of the hic et nunc of the Actor-Subject (‘eine Revaluation der Person […] als Re-Lokalisation und Re-Situierung, kurz als Aktualisation: “x […] in seiner aktuellen Situation”’). Other scholars suggested that it plays the role of a contrastive subject focus marker.18 That is, by using the SCD the narrator/speaker puts emphasis upon the Actor-subject in contrast to other possible Actors. For example, the SCD in God’s command to Abraham to leave his homeland and go to a new land that will be revealed to him seems to emphasize that Abraham is being called apart from all those around him, who did not receive this call of God. In any event, it seems that a great deal of occurrences in BH of the construction (crucially alongside motion verbs) may be interpreted as denoting the perfective, or in some cases more specifically as denoting the ingressive (i.e. entering into or coming out from an activity). For example, leḵ lǝḵā in (19) above, in God’s command to Abraham to leave his homeland, could be interpreted as ‘leave completely’, while in God’s command to go to the land of Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac it might be interpreted as marking the ingressive Aktionsart, i.e. ‘(I am telling you) take off / be ready to go’. The SCD construction is found in a limited scale also in Mishnaic Hebrew of the Tannaitic period. Although it is undoubtedly related to its cognates, most significantly to the BH and the Aramaic construction, it differs in essential ways. According to Sokoloff (1969: 270–2),19 the SCD in Mishnaic Hebrew is currently employed as an ingressive aspectual marker, e.g. ‫ בא לו‬ba lo means ‘turned to leave there’ and not ‘has already reached a certain place’ as implied by its equivalent in BH.20 In MH, depending on the particular flavour with which the speaker wishes to imbue the utterance, such a construction would yield inferences such as ‘fancy!’ ‘he is/was coming at his leisure or regardless of others’. Furthermore, as opposed to the BH and 18 Alluded

by Gesenius (GKC 1910) and strongly argued by Noss 1995. his dictionary, Sokoloff 1990: 274, notes that the ingressive meaning of the SCD construction is prevalent in Jewish Aramaic in a subset of motion verbs such as ‘rise’, ‘sit’, ‘descend’ and the like. 20 Cf. Bendavid 1967: 146–7 who maintains that the ingressive meaning of the SCD construction in Mishnaic Hebrew is influenced by Greek. Cf. also Ullendorff 1992: 7–9. 19 In

409

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crucially the MH construction, in Mishnaic Hebrew it is almost exclusively confined to verbs in third person singular and most crucially to formal language dealing with rules and norms for conducting religious ceremonies and interpersonal relations, as for example: (26) ‫] יוצא והולך לו בא וישב לו אצל אחד‬...[ ‫הכהנים‬ ba ve-yašav lo ʼeṣel ʼex̱av ha-kohanim […] yoṣe ve- holex lo (Mishna, Tam. A:1) came3SG.M and-sat3SG.M DAT3SG.M by one (of) the-priests […] goes-out and-goes DAT3SG.M ‘(if) he came-in and sat-down with one of the priests […] he must go out and leave’

In this utterance the ingressive meaning is achieved also by lexical means, namely by employing a coordinated sequence comprising of the verbs ‫ בא‬ba ‘came’ or ‫ יצא‬yaṣa ‘went out’ serving as modifiers of the ingressive meaning of the main verb. For reasons of space, we will not dwell on the Mishnaic Hebrew construction further. Instead readers are referred to a detailed survey of the construction in Mishnaic Hebrew by Shemesh (2011). Having sorted out some terminological problems and illustrated the behaviour and coding properties of the SCD construction in previous stages of Hebrew, we are now in a position to discuss its functional change in MH. 4. The Functional Change of the SCD in MH While in BH and Rabbinic Hebrew the SCD is found on a limited scale, in MH it shows a greater variety in terms of verb classes and it is also expanded in terms of context and frequency. Furthermore, there is an expansion in the range of situation types (Aktionsarten), and selection restrictions associated with its reflexive-benefactive origin are softened, most notably restrictions to motion verbs and constraints on animacy of the subject-participant and its volitionality/ agentivity.21 As shown in the following utterances, (27) and (28), there are no constraints on transitive verbs, e.g. it can be uttered with telic and punctual verbs: 21 In

this respect, the MH construction differs also from some other languages where a similar construction is employed, e.g. French, Spanish and Syrian spoken Arabic, as mentioned above. 410

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(27)

‫] היה מתנפל על כפרים משפחות חוטף לו‬...[ ‫ענק אחד מכוער‬ ʽanaq ʼex̱ad mexoʽar […] haya mitnapel ʽal kfarim, mišpax̱ot x̱oṭef lo (E. Sidon, The Giant Monster, 1991) giant one ugly […] was attacking3SG.M on villages, families kidnapping3SG.M DAT3SG.M ‘One ugly giant […] used to attack villages, kidnapping families [~for his own delight]’ (28) ‫ היא צבטה לה מהלחם וצחקקה‬.‫הייתי כל כך נבוך‬ haiti kol-kax navox. hi ṣavṭa la me-ha-lex̱em ve-ṣix̱qeqa (google) I-was so embarrassed. She pinched DAT3SG.F from-the-bread and giggled ‘I was so embarrassed. She [~ just, leisurely] pinched pieces of the bread [~ she was engaged in pinching] and giggled’

Or, as shown in e.g. (29) and (30) it can be uttered with a wide-range of atelic verbs: (29) ‫ישבתי בבית הקפה וקראתי לי ספר ואז הוא פתאום הופיע‬ yašvti be-vet ha-kafe ve-qaraʼti li sefer ve-ʼaz hu pitʼom mofiaʽ (google) I-sat in-house(of) the-coffee and-I-read DAT1SG book and-then he suddenly appeared3SG.M ‘I was sitting in a coffee house and reading [~leisurely, for my delight] a book when suddenly he appeared’ (30) ?‫מה חשבת לך שפה? ניו יורק‬ ma x̱ašavta lexa še-po? New York? (google) what you-thought DAT2SG.M that-(is)-here? New York? ‘What did you think/imagine [~ just fancy!, this is not what you were supposed to do] is here? New York?’

Employing the dative for personnification is a cross-linguistically well-known device. When the evaluative SCD co-occurs with inanimate subjects, it yields an inference of an uncontrolled or haphazard situation. The subject, which represents an unintentional causer, is conceptualized as a living being, and is given a kind of individual identity as an autonomous entity capable of acting on its own, as in e.g. (similarly in (21) above, in BH): (31) ‫ הופיע לו עץ תות קטן בגינה‬,‫ בלי שעשיתי כלום‬,‫והנה פתאום‬ ve-hine pitʼom, bli še-ʽasiti klum, hofiaʽ lo ʽeṣ tut qaṭan ba-gina (google) and-here suddenly, without that-I-did anything, appeared DAT3SG.M tree (of) strawberry little in-the-garden ‘and all of a sudden, without me doing anything, a little strawberry tree appeared [~ by itself, as his own free agent] in the garden’ 411

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Horn (2008:181) argues that by employing what he calls ‘personal dative’ the speaker assumes that the action expressed has or would have a positive effect on the subject, typically satisfying the subject’s perceived intention or goal. It seems to me that such an observation derives from the speaker’s evaluation of the underlying eventuality as somehow autonomous, or free from outside intervention. Obviously, because of its very nature, such evaluation is often associated with an action for one’s own benefit. The data from MH, however, shows that although this is the tendency, it is actually not rare to find significant exceptions, e.g.: (32)

‫הם חיבקו אותה ואני בכיתי לי בצד‬ hem x̱ibqu ʼota va-ʼani baxiti li ba-ṣad (google) they hugged her and I cried1SG DAT1SG on-the-side ‘They hugged her and I was crying aside [~ in private, detached from the surrounding world]’

In such cases, the negative facts seem to be related to the ‘isolation effect’ inherent in the cognitive construction. Depending on the context, this sense of fulfilling the subject’s own desires and goals can take on overtones of egocentric, lonely, egoistic, frivolous or leisurely action, as shown in the following utterance: (33) ‫] פשוט ברחה לה‬...[ ‫והיא קמה ועזבה יום אחד אותו ואת שני הילדים‬ ve-hi qama ve-‛azva yom ʼexad ʼoto ve-ʼet šney ha-yeladim […] pašut barx̱a la (A. Oz, Story of Love and Darkness, 2002: 195) and-she stood-up and-left day one him and-OM the-two children […] simply run-away3SG.F DAT3SG.F ‘And one day she stood up and left him and her two children […] [~fancy that!, regardless of others] just ran away’

As evident from (33) above, there is no straightforward semantic distinction between the unmarked construction ‫והיא קמה ועזבה יום אחד‬ ve-hi qama ve-ʽazva yom ʼex̱ad ‘and one day she stood up and left’, and the marked SCD construction ‫ ברחה לה‬barx̱a la ‘she ran away’. The difference between these two constructions is in marking or unmarking the speaker’s stance towards the subject’s behaviour. That is, the marked construction conveys the implicature ‘fancy, just like that’ absent from the unmarked construction. It should be emphasized that the realization of an SCD tends strongly to relate to verbs whose subjects have properties of control and/or instigation of the action. Normally the SCD sounds odd with verbs such as ‘fall’, ‘slip’, ‘feel’, ‘lose’ denoting uncontrolled actions, 412

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though in some contexts, for instance in children’s songs, it is often encountered as a pragmatic device implying a casual, clumsy and even cute activity, as in the following poem (adapted from a children’s poem named Gilgulo šel meʽil ‘Adventures of a Jacket’ where the SCD originally refers to an inanimate subject, a jacket): (34) ‫ והנה הוא כבר בחוץ‬/‫] קצת מעד לו אהוד גוץ‬...[ ‫אהוד רץ לו כשנתיים‬ Ehud raṣ lo ki-šnatayim […] qṣat ma‛ad lo Ehud guṣ/ ve-hine hu kvar ba- x̱uṣ (google 2011) Ehud ran DAT3SG.M about-two-years […], a-little slipped DAT3SG.M Ehud podgy/and-behold he is already outside ‘Ehud ran [~ leisurely] for about two years […] Ehud podgy slipped a little [~ unintentionally, not seriously] and he is already outside’

Namely, the evaluative SCD assumes an explicit referential and intentional participant. In this construction, even when the subject represents the undergoer, its involvement still assumes some kind of intentionality and awareness of the underlying eventuality, crucially when referring to a personified entity, e.g.: (35) ‫מעבר לשולחן השתפלה לה הכרס המפונקת‬ meʽever la-šulx̱an hištapla la ha-keres ha-mefuneqet (A.B. Yehoshua, The Return from India, 1994: 197) beyond to-the-table went-lowerREFL.3SG.F DAT3SG.F the-belly the-spoiled ‘Beyond the table the spoiled belly hung down [~casually, autonomously, dissociating itself from its surroundings]’

Borer and Grodzinsky (1986:187) argue that the SCD (‘reflexive dative’ according to their terminology) may only be employed with verbs having an external argument. The data from MH prove that this observation is inadequate, as shown in the following utterance, where the SCD is uttered with a passive participle verbal form of stative meaning: (36)

‫ הצצתי וראיתי אנשים יושבים סביב שולחן‬.‫הדלת הייתה פתוחה לה לרווחה‬ ha-delet hayta ptux̱a la lirvax̱a. heṣaṣti pnima ve-raʼiti ʼanašim yošvim sviv šulx̱an (google 2011) the-door was openPPTCP.3SG.F DAT3SG.F widely. I-peeped inside and-saw people sitting around table ‘The door was widely [~ casually, by itself] opened. I looked inside and saw people sitting around a table’

In other cases it can be encountered adjacent to regular passive verb forms, e.g. in the past: 413

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(37)

‫פירות טריים הונחו להם על הקצפת וגם‬ ve-gam perot ṭriyim hunx̱ lahem ʽal ha-qaṣefet (google 2012) and-also fresh fruits were-placed DAT3.PL.M on the-cream ‘And also fresh fruits were placed [~ casually] on (top of) the cream’

This means that the evaluative SCD can refer to a non-external argument as long as this argument is perceived as holding a rather vague control over the denoted situation, though it is clearly not a controller in the sense of agency. Furthermore, the evaluative SCD can be uttered with hortatives and related modals, particularly in speech-acts of vigorous demand, exhortation and negative wish. In such speech-acts, the SCD can frequently be encountered with predicates denoting ‘leave’, and ‘be ashamed’, as seen in, e.g. (38) and (39): (38) ‫שתסתלק לה כבר מפה‬ še-tistaleq la qvar mipo (attested) that-she-depart DAT3SG.F already from-here ‘I wish that she leaves already’ [~she can leave for all I care] (39) ‫תתבייש לך ככה לדבר‬ titbayeš lexa kaxa le-daber (attested) be-ashamed2SG.M DAT2SG.M like-that to-speak ‘You should be ashamed talking like that’

The SCD occurs in MH also in speech-acts encouraging the addressee’s interest in a particular issue of the message or in speech-acts of warning, e.g.: (40) ‫ זה ייגמר ברע‬,‫תדעי לך‬ tedʽi lax ze yigamer be-raʽ (attested) (you-should) know.2SG.F DAT2SG.F it-will-end in-bad ‘[~ before it is too late] I’m warning you, it’ll not end good’ (41) ‫ שזה לא יקרה גם לך‬,‫תיזהר לך‬ tizaher lexa, še-ze lo yiqre gam lexa! (attested) be-carful.2SG.M DAT2SG.M that-it not will-happen also to-you ‘Beware [~ I’m warning you], it might happen also to you’

This construction is attested also in the enlightened literary register (archaic), e.g.: (42) ‫חדל לך מדברי הבאי כאלה‬ x̱adal lexa mi-divre havai kaʼele! (D. Fogel, ‘In front of the Sea’, in Stories & Diary, 1932: 23) 414

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stop2SG.M DAT2SG.M from-talks (of-)vain like-these ‘Stop this vain talk [~ I urge you]’

In such subjective utterances, the SCD seems to leave an effect upon the attitude or behaviour of the interlocutor. To use Austin’s terminology (1962), it has a ‘perlocutionary effect’. Following Lyons (1977: 749), the contribution of the SCD can be accounted for in terms of the speaker’s commitment to the desirability etc. of the propositional content. 5. Analysis of the Meaning and Function of the SCD in MH Some authors (Berman 1982: 53; Borer and Grodzinsky 1986: 187; Borer 2005: ch.17) analysed the SCD of MH as an aspectual operator giving an imperfective flavour to the predicate with which it is associated. (As pointed out in Section 3 above, in BH the SCD essentially denotes a strengthened perfective while in Mishnaic Hebrew it denotes crucially an ingressive.) According to the analysis proposed here, the SCD in MH is clearly interpersonal, namely it functions beyond the level of the sentence, and thus has nothing to do with aspect. In terms of the aspectual meaning and situation types (Aktionsarten), there is no difference between its readings and those yielded by the parallel unmarked (simple) construction. For example, when co-occurring with telic and punctual verbs, as e.g. in (27) and (28), compared to the unmarked construction there is no change in their situation type. That is, the modern SCD construction does not change the aspectual meaning of the verb, but rather adds a colourful expressive-evaluative flavour to the described eventuality. Cross- linguistically, a wider range of contexts and frequency of a construction are commonly associated with speaker-oriented inferences (Bybee et al. 1994; Haspelmath 2008). On the phrastic level, on the other hand, the evaluative SCD increases the degree of prominence or thematicity given to the subject entity. This thematizing function causes an isolation of the subject and is related with affectedness, since it marks this individual as affected by the event that he/she initiated (i.e. the subject entity is presented as fulfilling both the Actor role and the Affectee role). Looked at from the point of view of the syntax-semantic interface, the grammatical construction of marking the event as reflecting 415

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forward from the subject-nominal to the subject-pronoun and then back from the subject-pronoun to the subject-nominal plays a significant role in establishing the semantic-pragmatic meanings of the construction. The modern SCD is, thus, an ego-oriented construction, viewed as performed by the subject and for the subject as his own free agent. When the speaker and the Actor are identical the Actor-subject is his own evaluator. A conflict between them occurs when the SCD is co-indexed to a third personal subject. The predication then is displayed from the speaker’s viewpoint, as the evaluator of the subject and the activity in which he/she is immersed. Naturally, in such cases the SCD often invites some kind of criticism of the concentrated activity of the subject. The SCD highlights the Actor-subject as the ‘semantic focus’ of the sentence. This coincides with the ‘pragmatic focus’ which is the topic of the discourse.22 That is, it coincides with what the speaker assumes to be shared knowledge or old information. Its inferences are thus ‘as for X’, ‘speaking about X’. Non-lexical dative clitics generally refer to an individual who is understood as being concerned in some pragmatically determined way by the event denoted by the sentence (Authier and Reed 1992: 296). Accordingly, as non-lexical elements, such datival clitics are capable of connoting diverse pragmatic contents. In subject-oriented inferences, the addressee interprets the utterance as a report about the subject’s state of mind, while in the speaker-oriented ones, the addressee interprets the utterance as reporting on the state of mind of the speaker. In these lines, the SCD of MH and the ethical dative can be defined as discourse-personal markers. Discourse deixis pronouns anchor the predication either to a speech participant (in first and second person) or to an entity which is not a speech participant (third person) but is immediately accessible (viz. referential, topic, known) to the speech participants. That is, their anaphoric reference receives its interpretation on the utterance level (illocution, pragmatics) rather than on the sentence level (locution, predication). Lyons (1977: 677) defines what he calls ‘empathetic deixis’ as an anaphoric reference ‘when the speaker is personally 22 Van der Auwera 1981: 73ff. distinguishes between two types of focus: ‘the semantic focus’ (SF) and ‘pragmatic focus’ (PS). The SF operates at the phrastic level of the sentence: it refers to the entity which is highest on the thematic hierarchy in terms of animacy and thematic role. The PS, on the other hand, functions in the total speech-act: it refers to what is pragmatically presupposed and is presented as belonging to what the speaker assumes to be shared knowledge or old information.

416

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involved with the entity, situation or place to which he is referring or is identifying with the attitude or viewpoint of the addressee’, and he states that in this case deixis merges with ‘modality’ in the broader sense.23 In his words, such personal deixis pronouns denote ‘subjective epistemic modality’ (ibid.: 800). In a similar vein, Traugott and Dasher (2002: 31, 89–99) speak of intersubjectivity when there is ‘an explicit speaker/writer’s attention to the “self” of addressee/reader in both an epistemic sense (paying attention to their presumed attitudes to the content of what is said), and in a more social sense (paying attention to their “face” or “image needs” associated with social stance and identity’. When such meanings become codified in the language, one can speak of intersubjectification.24 Evidently, this accounts for the construction at issue — its inferences are intersubjectified by hearers/readers and by speakers/ writers as conventionalized indices of the speaker’s attitude towards the subject role in the event. To summarize: It was probably only in MH that the sense of intense involvement of the Actor-subject, performing the action for his/her own benefit, became conventionalized as the core meaning of SCD.25 Furthermore, in addition to increasing the prominence of the subject the renewed construction became intersubjectified (became a speaker-oriented construction). In a more formulated account, the emergence of the modern SCD can be illustrated as: meaning1 (presumably reflexive-benefactive) >meaning1+ meaning2 intersubjectified

23 Lyons 1977: 452 refers to all elements which express the speaker’s attitude towards, or opinion about, the content of the proposition as ‘modals’. 24 Traugott 1995: 31; 2003: 128; 2010: 60 defines intersubjectification as semanticization of what were pragmatic implicatures and pragmatic values of the earlier form-meaning. That is, only when the new (inter)subjective meaning is conventionally coded by the forms one can speak of intersubjectification. 25 Cf. Glinert 1989: 224: ‘highlighting that the subject is his own “free agent” capable of acting on his own, and responsible for his own condition’; Berman 1982: 55: ‘it highlights the autonomy of the event, as perpetrated to, by and for the subject noun (even where the subject is inanimate)’. Muraoka 1978: 497: ‘[…] have the effect of creating a self-contained little cosmos around the subject, detached from the surrounding world, an effect of focusing on the subject […] this preposition can be best described as centripetal’.

417

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6. The Role of Contact-languages in the Functional Change of the Construction 6.1 Comparable Constructions in Contact-languages of Revived Hebrew Constructions with comparable inferences are found in Yiddish and Slavic,26 the substrate and adstrate languages of the first generation of MH speakers and writers. In colloquial Russian and in some other Slavic languages, expressions with a non-stressed reflexive pronoun (unchangeable for person and number) are frequently employed to express the speaker’s attitude towards the eventuality. The following are elicited utterances from Russian (R) and Polish (P),27 and their striking parallel in MH: (43) a. R: ya sidel sebe v uglu i molchal I was-sitting to-me in corner and was-silent ‘I was-sitting [~casually] in the corner keeping silent’ b. P: siedziaƚem sobie w kącie i milczaƚem I-was-sitting to-me [~casually] in corner and was-silent c. MH: ‫ישבתי לי בפינה ושתקתי‬ yašavti li ba-pina ve-šataqti I-was-sitting DAT1SG [~casually] in-the-corner and-I-was-silent

In a contrastive study of reflexivity in MH and Polish Mark Piela (2012) brings forward utterances from present-day literature where an SCD construction is employed in similar meaning and function as the Polish reflexive pronoun siebie (and not samemu), e.g. (ibid. p. 182): (44) ‫היא שוב הולכת לה עירומה בבית‬ hi šuv holexet la ’eruma ba-bayit (I. ʼAviram, Tipeš ’esre baribuaʽ , [Tel Aviv] 1995: 19). she again walks DAT3SG.F naked in-the-house P: ona znow chodzi sobie goła po domu ‘once again she is moving [~about] in the house naked [~ she does not pay attention that she shocks other people]’

26 It varies from one Slavic language to another in a number of parameters. Cf. Geniušenė 1987: 274–5. 27 I am thankful to Ben-Zion Dimersky, a native speaker of Russian, and to Prof. Olga Kepeliuk, for providing me these examples.

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6.2 Evidence from the Literature of Revival Time Evidence of the renewed SCD can be found in novels imitating colloquial speech written by non-native Hebrew speakers during the first decades of the revival period, notably novels adapted into Hebrew from Yiddish. It seems plausible that the adoption of the SCD was eased by the fact that it already co-occurred in BH. That is, in spite of its different meanings it was not rejected as a ‘foreign intruder’ but had rather been felt as the restructuring of an existing structure, unlike the noninherited (European) ethical dative which purists used to recommend should be discarded.28 An echo to Russian influence on written MH language at the beginning of the twentieth century is evident in the wide use of SCDs in Gnesin’s novels (Even-Zohar 1986: 31), e.g.: (45) ?‫ומה? הלכה לה לינקה‬ u-ma? halxa la linqa? (U.N. Gnesin, Beṭerem, 1913: 248) and-what? Went DAT3SG.F Linka? ‘So [~is it really true that] Linka went off [~just like that]?’ (46) ?‫ אה‬,‫ הרי אתם מזקינים לכם‬-‫ואתם בפה‬ va-ʼatem be-fo – harey ʼatem mazqinim laxem, ah? (ibid. 258) and-you in-here – actually you are-getting-oldPL.M DATPL.2M, ah? ‘So, you guys are really getting old [~just like that], ah?’

However, the reinterpretation of the SCD in the first decades of spoken Hebrew was undoubtedly inspired first and foremost by an equivalent speaker-oriented construction of a non-selected reflexivedative pronoun widespread in Yiddish. As is well known, Yiddish has been spoken in areas where the dominant languages and culture were Slavic, thus it should not be a surprise that it took some of the characteristics of the surrounding Slavic languages.29 Plentiful examples of the evaluative SCD construction are found in the language of Mendele Mokher-Sfarim, a Yiddish and Hebrew writer active in the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. His Hebrew was one variety 28 MH has been subject to language planning and normative demands since the very beginnings of its creation and this approach is somewhat still common in present-day Hebrew. One such purist was Reuven Sivan who recommended avoidance of the ethical dative in present-day Hebrew (for reference see Berman 1982). 29 Relevant to the issue at hand is the construction borrowed from Russian of the aspecto-modal pattern with the personal dative-reflexive pronoun, e.g. ‫לערנען‬ ‫ זיך‬lernen zix ‘to study, learn’ (imperfective) vs. ‫ אויסלערנען זיך‬oyslernen zix ‘to learn completely’ (perfective).

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out of many that were based upon Jewish linguistic substrata, namely Yiddish. Such Hebrew usage is considered a radical change from the pseudo-BH used during the Enlightenment period (cf. Kutscher 1982: 190–2). For example in his novel ‫ספר הקבצנים‬ Sefer Ha-Qabṣanim (‘The Book of Beggars’) published in Russia in 1869 in Yiddish under the name ‫ פישקע דער קרומער‬Fishke der Krumer (‘Fishke the Lame’) and adapted by him into Hebrew a few years later, the evaluative SCD features frequently, as in e.g. (ibid., ch. 6): (47) a. ‫ רייכערן און שמועסן זיך אזוי פריילעך‬,‫ ווי מיר ליגן זיך דא אזוי רויק‬

vi mir ligen zix do azoy ruyik, reixern un šmusen zix azoy freilex (Fishke der Krumer [New York] 1884) b. ‫ ואנו‬,]...[ ‫עד שאנו שוכבים כך […] הגיע לאוזנינו קול אופני עגלה‬ ‫משיחים לנו ואין נותן דעתו עליה‬ ʽad še-ʼanu šoxvim kax […] higiaʽ le-ʼoznenu qol ʼofney ʽagala […], va-ʼanu mesix̱im lanu ve-ʼen noten daʽato ʽaleha (Sefer Ha-Qabṣanim [Tel Aviv] 1953) until that-we were-lying so […] arrived to-our-ears sound-of wheels-of carriage […], and-we(are) talkingPL DAT-1PL and-no(one) (is) giving his-attention on-it ‘While we were lying like that […] a sound of carriage wheels arrived to our ears […], while we were talking to each other [~ leisurely, regardless of others] and nobody paying attention to it’

A particularly striking evidence in favour of Yiddish influence can be found in the translation into Hebrew of Sholem Aleikhem writings. For example in his short-story ‫ דאס מעסערל‬dos Meserl (‘The Knife’), written in highly colloquial Yiddish, I came across plenty of occurrences of a non-selected reflexive-dative pronoun. This story was first translated into Hebrew in the 1934 by Aleikhem’s son-in-law, Y.D. Berkovitz, under the name ‫ האולר‬ha-ʼolar ‘The knife’. I found that all the occurrences of the non-lexical reflexive-dative pronoun in the original version in Yiddish (with inferences similar to the ones in present-day Hebrew) were systematically transferred into Hebrew by employing the SCD construction. However, interestingly, in later editions of the translated story (of the 40s and 50s) all the occurrences of the evaluative SCD are completely omitted. This may indicate that this usage was still felt at that time as Yiddishism, and therefore rejected. The following are two of the examples I found on the first page of the story in Yiddish (1923) and in its translation into Hebrew (1934 – first edition): 420

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(48) a. ‫ זאל איך דאס מיר ארויסנעמען דאס מעסערעל זאל‬,‫און ווען איך וויל‬ ‫זיך ליגען אין קעשענע‬ dos meserl zol zix ligen in kešene un ven ix vil, zol ikh dos mir aroysnemen (Solem Aleichem far der Schul [Vilna] 1923) b. ‫ אוציא לי אותו‬,‫ינוח לו האולר בכיס וכשארצה‬ yanuax̱ lo ha-ʼolar ba-kis u-xše ʼertse, ʼoṣi‘ li ʼoto (Y.D. Berkovitz [Tel Aviv] 1934) ‘The knife will lay DAT3SG.M [~for a while] in the pocket and when I want, I’ll take DAT1SG it out [~as I please]’

Yiddish-induced occurrences of the SCD construction are to be found also in the translation into Hebrew of Sholem Ash stories. For example in the Hebrew version of ‫ לטעטש יד‬Die Steitl written in Yiddish (first published in 1904) and translated into Hebrew by Y. Twersky in 1958, e.g. (49) a. ‫( איינס אליין און פאר זיך אליין שטעהט זיך א הייזעל אין טהאל‬S. Ash [Warsaw] 1904: 17) eins alein un far zix alein šteht zix a heizl in tahal ‫אחד ולעצמו עומד לו בית קטן בעמק‬ b. ʼexad u-le‛aṣmo ‛omed lo bayit qaṭan ba-‛emeq (Y. Twersky [Tel Aviv] 1958: 30) ‘An isolated and lonely little house is standing DAT3SG.M in the valley [~ by its own]’

In most likelihood the use of the SCD with its new inferences was not infrequent in the language of the first phase of revived Hebrew, as evident for example in its usage by national poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, e.g. in his poem from 1911: (50) ‫צנח לו זלזל על גדר וינום‬ ṣanax lo zalzal ‛al gader va-yanom ‘A twig dropped DAT3SG.M on a fence and got asleep [~casually]’

Its use was already fairly common in the second phase of revived Hebrew (the 1930s and 1940s). This is evident very clearly in Agnon’s writing, for example in his novel ‫ שירה‬Shirah (1971 – posthumously published),30 representing MH of the second phase of the revival time, e.g.:

30 For

more data on the SCD in Shirah see Ullendorff 1985. Muraoka 1978: 496–7 mentions also occurrences from Agnon’s novel ‫ בלבב ימים‬Bi-lvav yamim and notes that contrary to Mishnaic Hebrew none of them conveys an ingressive aspect. 421

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(51) ‫ישב לו מנפרד וישבה לה הנריאטה ושכבה לה שרה בעריסתה ולצדה‬ ‫מונחת לה בובה‬ yašav lo Manfred ve-yašva lah henrieta ve-šaxva lah sara ba ‛arisatah u-le-ṣidah buba šel gumi (Sh. Y. Agnon, Shirah, 58) ‘Manfred was sitting DAT3SG.M [~leisurely] and Henrietta was sitting DAT3SG.F [~leisurely] and Sarah was lying [~ leisurely] in her cradle and beside her lying DAT3SG.F [~ casually] a doll’ (52) ‫שותק לו האדון‬ šoteq lo ha-ʼadon (S.Y. Agnon, Shirah, 64) keeping-silent DAT3SG.M the-master ‘[~As for] the master - he keeps silent’

In the last utterance the SCD construction is exploited as a device for invoking informal irony, and as an attempt at eliciting the hearer’s identification with the speaker’s (writer) point of view. 7. Conclusion The analysis of the SCD construction in MH revealed that it encodes semantic and pragmatic relations that were not encoded in the same way in the inherited (Semitic) construction. Furthermore, in terms of context-expansion, text frequency and selection restrictions, the use of the MH construction seems to be wider and less restricted. In the speaker-oriented construction of MH it is the speaker who controls and exploits the construction as a device for highlighting his point of view regarding the eventuality while at the same time eliciting empathy on the part of the hearer/interlocutor. The data presented from Slavic and Yiddish (Eastern Yiddish/ Slavo-Yiddish), as well as from Hebrew literature of the revival period heavily influenced by these contact languages, was shown to be the explanation for the renewal of the classical SCD construction as a new meaning-function pairing. Obviously, this means that the MH construction is not a direct reanalysis of the inherited Semitic construction. The construction in MH does not reflect loss of function, but rather change of function — from the sentence level to the discourse level. Thus, unlike the development of the l- pronoun in NENA dialects, the MH construction was conventionalized at the level of discourse skipping any grammaticalization phase. The emergence of the construction at issue is, then, an example of a change of a construction in a certain direction may correlate with typological changes that occur under the influence of languages in contact. Additionally, the distinct pathways in the development of the same cognate Semitic l- pronoun may prove that preferences for certain 422

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cognitive construals might block grammaticalization from proceeding beyond a certain point. Furthermore, it shows that genetic relationship sometimes plays a minor role in the behaviour and coding properties of a construction. Finally, it is important to acknowledge that present-day Hebrew is witnessing an intensive growth in usage of dative clitics. The precise nature of the increasingly dative-orientation of MH awaits a diachronic and sociolinguistic analysis, which goes well beyond the scope of this paper. Address for correspondence: [email protected] The Department of Hebrew Language, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel References Al-Zahre, N. and N. Boneh. 2010. ‘Coreferential Dative Constructions in Syrian Arabic and Modern Hebrew’, Brill’s Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 2:1, 248–82 Austin, J.L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. (Oxford) Autier, J.-M and L. Reed. 1992. ‘On the Syntactic Status of French Affected Datives’, The Linguistic Review 9:2, 295–311 Bar-Asher Siegal, E.A. 2011. ‘On the Passiveness of One Pattern in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic – A Linguistic and Philological Discussion’, JSS 56:1, 111–43 BDB = Brown, F., S.R. Driver and Ch.A. Briggs. 1966. The New Brown-DriverBriggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. (Oxford) Bendavid, A. 1967. Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew. (Tel Aviv) Berman, R. 1982. ‘Dative Marking the Affectee Role: Data from Modern Hebrew’, Hebrew Annual Review 6, 35–59 Blanc, H. (1968). ‘The Israeli Koine as an Emergent National Standard’, in J.A. Fishman, C.A Ferguson and J. Das-Gupta (eds), Language Problems in Developing Nation (New York). 237–51 Borer, H. 2005. Structuring Sense. (Oxford) Borer, H. and J. Grodzinsky. 1986. ‘Syntactic Cliticization: The Case of Hebrew Dative Clitics’, in H. Borer (ed.), The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics (Syntax and semantics 19, New York). 175−217 Bourciez, É. 1946. Éléments de linguistique romane. (Paris) Brockelmann, C. 1961. Grundriss der Verleichenden Grammatik der Semitischen Sprachen, vol. II (Hildesheim) Bybee, J., R. Perkins, and W. Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. (Chicago) Even-Zohar, I. 1986. ‘The Dialogue in Gnesin and the Issue of Russian Models’, in D. Miron and D. La’or (eds), Uri Nisan Genesin - Studies and Documents. (Jerusalem). 11–41(In Hebrew) Frajzyngier, Z. 2008. ‘One Way of Becoming a Dative Subject’, in Z. Frajzyngier and Sh. Erin (eds), Interaction of Morphology and Syntax. Case studies in Afro asiatic (Amsterdam and Philadelphia). 61–84 423

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