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Title:
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Independent Personal Pronouns in Qumran Hebrew Syntax
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Author:
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Jacobus Naude
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of the Free State
, Near Eastern Studies
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Degree Date:
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1996
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Syntax
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Subject Language(s):
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Hebrew, Ancient
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Director(s):
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Hagit Borer
J. Oosthuizen
F. Laubscher
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Abstract:
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In this study the main lines of a syntactic account of independent personal pronouns in Qumran Hebrew are developed within the framework of the Minimalist Program. The proposed analysis relies crucially on the operations of the Minimalist Program's structure building mechanism. Starting from a set of lexical resources, syntactic structures are built up in a stepwise bottom-up fashion by these operations. Movement is always forced by the need for formal checking of features on lexical items. These mechanisms play a central role in accounting for the grammatical function and distribution of independent personal pronouns. Traditionally, these pronouns have been associated solely with the structural subject position. In this study, however, it is argued that independent personal pronouns can also be utilised as empty pronominal subjects; subject topics; dislocated constituents and resumptives; markers for specificational verbless clauses; and in quantification structures.
Verb forms in Qumran Hebrew differentiate into (i) those which allow null subjects (i.e. verb forms which allow an independent personal pronoun (as subject) to be absent if no other overt subject is utilised) and (ii) those which do not allow null subjects (i.e. verb forms which require the obligatory presence of an independent personal pronoun (as subject) when no other overt subject is utilised). Null subjects are allowed only if the empty pronominal element in a subject position can be licensed and identified (and not by rich inflection as traditional grammars stated).
With null subject verb forms of Qumran Hebrew, subject pronouns can appear only in a preverbal position of clauses, whereas subject nouns can appear in preverbal and postverbal positions. With non-null subject verb forms, by contrast, subject pronouns and subject nouns can both appear preverbally and postverbally. It is argued that subject pronouns with null subject verb forms can be utilised only as subject topics, whereas subject pronouns with non-null subject verb forms are not necessarily subject topics.
To account for topics and subjects a preverbal topic position and a postverbal subject position are incorporated within the syntactic structure. If the external argument is utilised only as a subject, it stays in situ. However, if the external argument is utilised as a subject topic, it raises to the topic position. Assuming that the verb must raise for checking of agreement features, it follows that a subject topic occupies a preverbal position and a subject (which stays in situ) a postverbal position.
A movement analysis involving topicalisation cannot account for dislocation despite the superficial similarities between these two phenomena. Dislocated constituents, unlike topicalised constituents, are base-generated in the positions that they occupy in overt syntax, specifically in an adjunction position. Such an analysis implies that dislocated constituents are adjuncts. Independent personal pronouns that are used as dislocated constituents are therefore to be construed as adjuncts, with the label Dislocation Phrase.
In genuine operator constructions where independent personal pronouns limit the scope/domain of an operator, the presence of these pronouns is forced by the properties of the relevant phrases in which they occur, and not by the operator. An operator has scope over the constituent/phrase which immediately follows it or the phrase which it forms part of. If an independent personal pronoun after an operator is omitted, the operator will get scope over the verb phrase, which will result in a different interpretation.
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Page Updated: 27-Nov-2009
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