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Inflectional and Derivational Hebrew Morphology According to the Theory of Phonology As Human Behavior

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BEN- GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV FACULTY OF HUMINITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LITERATURES AND LINGUISTICS INFLECTIONAL AND DERIVATIONAL HEBREW MORPHOLOGY ACCORDING TO THE THEORY OF PHONOLOGY AS HUMAN BEHAVIOR THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS LINA PERELSHTEIN UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF: PROFESSOR YISHAI TOBIN FEBRUARY 2008 BEN- GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LITERATURES AND LINGUISTICS INFLECTIONAL AND DERIVATIONAL HEBREW MORPHOLOGY ACCORDING TO THE THEORY OF PHONOLOGY AS HUMAN BEHAVIOR THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS LINA PERELSHTEIN UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR YISHAI TOBIN Signature of student: ________________ Date: _________ Signature of supervisor: _____________ Date: _________ Signature of chairperson of the committee for graduate studies: ______________ Date: _________ FEBRUARY 2008 ABSTRACT This research deals with the phonological distribution of Hebrew Inflectional and Derivational morphology, synchronically and diachronically. The scope of this study is suffixes, due to the fact that final position bears grammatical information, while initial position bears lexical items. In order to analyze the gathered data, the theory of Phonology as Human Behavior will be employed. The theory classifies language as a system of signs which is used by human beings to communicate; it is based on the synergetic principle of maximum communication with minimal effort. This research shows that the similarity within Modern Hebrew inflectional and derivational suffix system is greater than the derivational Modern Hebrew – Biblical Hebrew system in terms of a specialized suffix system and that the phonological distribution of Hebrew suffixes is motivated by the principles of the theory. This leads towards the conclusion of a self-improving system, more economical, self-efficient with more suffixation distinction, and with greater emphasis on the preference for producing easier suffixes. The results of this research yield the fact that the theory of Phonology as Human Behavior is valid for describing and explaining Hebrew morphology and other languages. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to those people whose contribution, patience, perseverance, and kindness have helped me to complete this thesis. I am sincerely thankful to my supervisor, Prof. Yishai Tobin, for his vast knowledge and enthusiasm, inspiration and stimulating suggestions, who remained thoughtful, and supportive throughout. I would like to thank my fellow student, Liron Shokty, for hearing and sharing ideas on the matter, and for her practical part in our mutual works. To my best friend Gabi Friderich for all the times he was there to lend an ear to my crazy ideas and thoughts. To my significant other, Ram Shallom, who enriched my life, for his everlasting support and unceasing love. Last, but certainly not least, I wish to thank my brother Michael and my parents Sima and Israel Perelshtein for their love and encouragement to be curious and an independent thinker. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii List of tables vi 1 Introduction 1 1.1 The Theory of Phonology as Human Behavior (PHB) …………………… 3 1.2 The Principles of the Theory of PHB ……………………………………... 6 1.3 Hypotheses ………………………………………………………………... 8 1.4 Data and goals …………………………………………………………….. 8 2 Analysis 9 2.1 Phonological Systems …………………………………………………….. 9 2.1.1 The Biblical Hebrew Phonological System ………………………. 14 2.1.2 The Modern Hebrew Phonological System ………………………. 17 2.2 Hebrew Root System: Conjugations and Derivatives …………………….. 19 2.3 Inflectional Data …………………………………………………………... 20 2.3.1 Verbal Inflection ………………………………………………….. 24 2.4 Derivational Data …………………………………………………………. 25 2.4.1 Biblical Hebrew …………………………………………………... 26 2.4.2 Modern Hebrew …………………………………………………... 35 2.5 Data Analysis ……………………………………………………………... 45 2.5.1 Synchronic Analysis ……………………………………………… 45 2.5.1.1 Modern Hebrew: Summary of inflectional suffixes ……. 45 2.5.1.2 Modern Hebrew: Summary of derivational suffixes …… 46 2.5.1.3 Inflectional and Derivational suffixation: a comparison ... 47 2.5.2 Diachronic view: Modern Hebrew vs. Biblical Hebrew ………….. 53 2.6 Language changes and phenomena: Standard Hebrew vs. Spoken ………. 61 iv 3 Summary and Conclusions 64 4 Appendix 67 Appendix A …………………………………………………………………... 67 Appendix B …………………………………………………………………... 72 Appendix C …………………………………………………………………... 75 Appendix D …………………………………………………………………... 76 Appendix E …………………………………………………………………... 77 Appendix F …………………………………………………………………... 78 5 References 79 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Points for Hebrew vowels (and selected consonant) phonemes ………… 11 Table 2. Points – shwa ……………………………………………………………. 12 Table 3. Vowel length comparison and summary for BH vs. MH ….……………. 13 Table 4. Consonants ………………………………………………………………. 16 Table 5. Hebrew modern phoneme system ……………………………………….. 18 Table 6. Noun declension …………………………………………………………. 67 Table 7. Adjectival Inflection …………………………………………………….. 68 Table 8. Noun declension (possession) …………………………………………… 69 Table 9. Hebrew Forms …………………………………………………………… 21 Table 10. Construct state (proximity) ……………………………………………… 70 Table 11. Verbal inflection ………………………………………………………… 71 72 ..………………………………………… (גזרת ל"א) Table 12. Gizrat Lamed-Aleph 73 ..…………………………………………… (גזרת ל"ה) Table 13. Gizrat Lamed-Hei Table 14. Suffixes summary of Hebrew nouns …………………………………….. 23 Table 15. Summary Derivatives ……………………………………………………. 74 Table 16. Summary: Verbal Suffixes (by tenses) ………………………………….. 24 27 ………………………… (גזרת השלמים) Table 17. Regular verbs Gizrat ha-shlemim Table 18. I - Guttural verbs ………………………………………………………… 28 Table 19. I-Aleph verbs ……………………………………………………………. 28 Table 20. II – Guttural verbs ……………………………………………………….. 29 29 ………………………………………………… (גזרת פ"נ) Table 21. Gizrat Pei-Nun 30 ...……………………………… (גזרת פ"י) Table 22. I- Vav verbs / Gizrat Pei-Yod 31 ..………………………… (גזרת ל"ה +ל"י) Table 23. Gizrat Lamed-Hei/Lamed-Yod Hollow verbs) …………….. 32) (גזרת ע"ו + ע"י) Table 24. Gizrat Ain-Vav + Ain-Yod 33 …………………………………………… (גזרת הכפולים) Table 25. Geminate verbs Table 26. III – Guttural …………………………………………………………….. 34 34 ..……………………………… (גזרת ל"א Table 27. III Aleph (Gizrat Lamed-Aleph 35 ..………………………… (גזרת ל"ה +ל"י) Table 28. Gizrat Lamed-Hei/Lamed-Yod 36 ..………………………………………… (גזרת ל"א) Table 29. Gizrat Lamed-Aleph 37 ………………………………………………… (גזרת פ"י) Table 30. Gizrat Pei-Yod 38 ………………………………………………… (גזרת פ"נ) Table 31. Gizrat Pei-Nun 39 ...…………………………… (גזרת ע"ו + ע"י) Table 32. Gizrat Ain-Vav + Ain-Yod 40 ...…………………………………… (גזרת המרובעים) Table 33. Gizrat ha-merubaim 41 …………………………………………… (גזרת כפולים) Table 34. Gizrat ha-kfulim 44 ………………………………………… (גזרת השלמים) Table 35. Gizrat ha-shlemim Table 36. Summary of Hebrew inflectional suffixes: Nouns, Adjectives, Forms, Derivatives and Verbs …………………………………………………… 46 Table 37. Summary of MH Derivatives ……………………………………………. 46 Table 38. Summary of BH Derivatives …………………………………………….. 54 Table 39. Summary of BH Derivational suffixes ………………………………….. 75 Table 40. Summary of MH Derivational suffixes ………………………………….. 76 Table 41. Diachronic summary …………………………………………………….. 55 Table 42. BH &MH: Examples of suffixal change ………………………………… 60 Table 43. Frequency: BH and MH …………………………………………………. 77 vi Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their Greek. In France every Frenchman knows his language from 'A' to 'Zed'. Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning. And Hebrews learn it backwards, which is absolutely frightening. - George Bernard Shaw (1913) 1. Introduction Phonology is an attempt to understand the non-random distribution of sounds (Diver 1975). Phonology tries to describe, and explain the distribution of sounds in certain phonetic environments, the diverse frequency of different sounds, and the favored and disfavored collocations of sounds. There have been many developments in linguistics science from the beginning of the 20th century until today; which have been placed under the name of "Modern Linguistics". Modern Linguistics' main research objective is to determine the characteristic of human linguistic abilities. A language, as a system that stands by itself, in a given time, was first introduced by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who is considered to be the 'father' of Modern linguistics. Saussure was interested in the structure of language; and he viewed linguistics as a science of signs (which he named Semiology1). Saussure states that "the subject matter of linguistics comprises all manifestations of human speech, whether that of savages or civilized nations, or of archaic, classical or decadent periods". He asserts that the linguist must consider in each period "not only correct speech and flowery language, but all other forms of expression as well" along with the written text, since observing the speech directly is not an easy task, and "only through them can he reach idioms that are remote in time and space". 1 "A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology' (from Greek semefon 'sign'). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place
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