of the Subject-Coreferential Dative in Semitic and Elsewhere 1

of the Subject-Coreferential Dative in Semitic and Elsewhere 1

Rivka Halevy
The Grammaticalization 'Chains' of the Subject-Coreferential
Dative in Semitic and Elsewhere
1. Introduction
One of the characteristics of Hebrew is the employment of the dative case
as an extra marking on the action described in the sentence or on the
agent performing this action. Of special interest is the greatly expanded
use of the construction verb + the dative preposition l- suffixed with a
personal pronoun agreeing with the verb-incorporated Subject. This
construction is found in Biblical Hebrew but only on a limited scale,
while in Modern Hebrew it is widespread. The distinguishing
characteristics of this construction are the optional nature of the Subjectcoreferential dative, as well as its special stylistic and pragmatic effect,
which will be explained below.
In Semitic languages, the dative case is generally marked by the
ex-allative preposition l-, meaning 'to'. As in many other language groups,
this dative case-marker has a multitude of functions: it indicates not only
the obligatory dative case but also direction towards a goal,1 as well as
the meaning 'for' (i.e. the benefactive)2 and 'of' (i.e. the possessive).3 In
Biblical Hebrew, the preposition l- suffixed with a Subject-coreferential
pronoun was also used to indicate the reflexive. (An independent,
unambiguously reflexive pronoun based on the stem ∙etsem – 'bone',
1
In the latter meaning, it alternates with more expanded locative forms, e.g. Hebrew ≤el ('to', 'towards')
and its variations.
2
In post-Biblical Hebrew, this type of dative pronoun alternates with the benefactive preposition bišvil
(lit. 'in the path of').
3
E.g. Biblical Hebrew mizmor le-dawid 'a psalm of David' (Psalm 22:11).This type of dative pronoun
alternates with the unmarked possessive marker šel ('of') in post-Biblical Hebrew. In other Semitic
languages (such as Aramaic and Arabic), it also commonly signals the genitive (possessive), e.g. in the
Aramaic verbal pattern ī leh, lit. has to-him ('he has'), as well as in nominal possessive constructions.
'thing' – came into use only in post-Biblical Hebrew). This fluidity of
function displayed by the dative expression has implications in terms of
the ability to establish clear boundaries between the categories
represented on its grammaticalization 'chains', as will be shown below.
For purely formal reasons, the Subject-coreferential l- pronoun
under discussion will be referred to as a 'Subject-coreferential dative'
(SCD), though, as we shall see, it is in fact a Caseless affix (i.e. a dative
form which does not indicate abstract dative Case).
The following are examples of the construction in both Biblical
and Contemporary Hebrew:4
(1)
le l∞ m-≤arş∞ u-mi-molad∞t (Gen 12:1)
go SCD-2SG.M from your-country and-from-your-mother-land
'Leave your country and your homeland'
'Va t'en hors de ton pays, et de ta parenté' (LS Bible)
(2)
kaxa stam šotatnu lanu bi-sderot qaqal (Kaxa Stam, a popular
Israeli song by A. Hillel)
so just we-were-walking-around SCD-1PL in-boulevard qaqal
'We were just hanging around on Qaqal Boulevard'
This construction is occasionally found in Spoken Modern Arabic as
well,5 as shown in (3); however, it is quite rare in comparison to its
Modern Hebrew counterpart.
4
In examples from Contemporary Hebrew, I will use a simple transcription reflecting the standard
pronunciation of the spoken language. "x" will be used for both heth (˙) and khaf (), ' for both ∙ayin
(∙) and ≤aleph (≤), "ts" for şadi (ş), "v" for both vav and weak beth (), and "f" for weak peh (p‡).
Furthermore, I will generally ignore gemination (dagesh forte), and use only five vowels (a, e, i, o, u),
disregarding length.
5
Cf. Brockelmann 1961:380; Piamenta 1981: 217.
(3)
qa∙adË lahum
∆woye
they-sat SCD-3PL.M a-little
'They were sitting [about viz. leisurely] for a short while'
A construction involving a post-verbal l- + Subject pronominal suffix
evolved in Aramaic as well, most significantly in North-Eastern NeoAramaic (NENA),6 but this construction, which does not stem directly
from
the
reflexive-benefactive
(as will be explained in some details in Section 4), grammaticalized in the
synchronic system in a different way. Furthermore, a construction similar
to the Hebrew SCD also evolved, apparently independently, in some nonSemitic languages, as will be discussed below.
In Semitic linguistics, the Hebrew and Aramaic construction of
post-verbal l- + pronominal suffix agreeing with the verb-incorporated
Subject has traditionally been referred to as dativus ethicus.7 This term
(which is problematic and deceptive, since this construction 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. 8 The typical 'ethical dative' (ED) is a
personal pronoun in casus obliquo, which, unlike the SCD, is not coreferential 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 register and especially of direct
6
North-Eastern Modern Aramaic (NENA) comprises a large number of diverse dialects spoken by
Christian and Jewish communities in northern Iraq, south-eastern Turkey, Armenia and Georgia.
7
Regarding Biblical Hebrew, see GKC 1910: 381; BDB 1966: 515b; Jenni 2000:48-53; Regarding
Syriac, see Joosten 1989, inter alia.
8
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 ghting for two days')". About Greek, see Schwyzer
& Debrunner 1950:149.
speech.9 These "datives", very common in Indo-European languages, both
modern and ancient, are very rare in classical Semitic, but widespread in
Contemporary Hebrew (probably owing to the influence of Yiddish). The
following are examples from contemporary French, German and Hebrew:
(4)
Les gosses lui ont gribouillé sur tous les murs
the kids ED-3SG have scribbled on all the walls (example taken
from Autier & Reed 1992: 295).
(5)
Das ist mir ein feiner Kerl
This is ED-1SG a fine lad
(6)
tihyeh li bari'
be ED-1SG healthy (calque of Yiddish zai mir gezunt)
When appearing in the first person, these EDs can be characterized as
signifying the emotional interest of the speaker in engagement with his
counterpart, whereas in the second person, they can be said to signal an
intention, on the part of the speaker, to involve the addressee in the
situation being described.
The SCD construction (as in 1-3) and the EDs (as in 4-6) are
similar in that both are non-lexical clitics. They are not arguments of the
verb or even adjuncts, they do not affect the grammatical function of the
verb or 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 other words, the hallmark of these "dative" pronouns is their
9
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 & 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 & 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 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]. "
dispensability, since they can be dropped without affecting the truth
conditions of the sentence. I suggest that both should be analyzed as
elements functioning on the extrasentential level, i.e. on the level of
discourse and pragmatics. In fact, I propose to treat the Modern Hebrew
SCD as a special case of the ED.
Unlike many writers, I will also avoid using the term 'reflexive
dative pronoun' in referring to the Semitic SCD,10 and this for two
reasons. First, in the contexts where it appears, the SCD cannot be
felicitously replaced by the unambiguously reflexive pronoun that is
found synchronically in the language (e.g. by the reflexive etsem pronoun
of post-Biblical Hebrew). Second, in Modern Hebrew, this l- pronoun cooccurs with verbal patterns of overt reflexive-middle morphology (i.e.
with the verbal templates Hitpa∙el and Nif∙al), as demonstrated in (7):
(7)
me'ever
la-∆ulxan hi∆tapla lah ha-keres ha-mefuneqet (A.B.
Yehoshua, The Return from India, 1994: 197)
beyond to-the-table went-lower- REFL SCD-3SG.F the-belly thespoiled
'Beyond the table the spoiled belly hung down (to herself)'
Another term I will avoid is dativus commodi/incommodi, which
traditional studies of Hebrew (especially of Biblical Hebrew), have
associated with the SCD. In my view, this association is misleading,
firstly because the SCD necessarily involves Subject coreference, while
the benefactive dative does not, and secondly, because the SCD, unlike
10
Borer & Grodzinsky (1986: 185 ff) refer to the Hebrew SCD, for purely morpho-syntactic reasons, as
a "reflexive dative". Berman (1982: 51ff) uses the rather loose term "reflexive or coreferential dative".
Many studies of Biblical Hebrew likewise use the term "reflexive dative" (cf. Jöuon 2003: 488, König
1897: §35, Waltke & O'Connor 1990: 208, Williams 1976: §272), even though Biblical Hebrew has no
other paradigm of reflexive pronouns. One exception I have found in the Semitic literature is that of R.
Contini, who prefers the term "coreferential dative" (dativo coreferenziale). This he uses as a purely
formal label, not meant to indicate the constructions' function.
the benefactive dative, cannot be replaced by the explicitly benefactive
prepositions (e.g. the post-Biblical Hebrew preposition bi∆vil 'for').
The provenance of the SCD in Hebrew and in certain nonSemitic languages such as Spanish, Slavic and Yiddish, could suggest
the following 'chain' of grammaticalization: allative > dative >
benefactive > reflexive-benefactive >SCD (and "genuine" ED).
However, a closer examination reveals that the diachronic 'chain' of
development is not so straightforward.
The purpose of this paper is twofold. From a narrow point of
view, it aims to investigate the internal grammaticalization 'chains' in
which the Semitic SCD developed. From a broader, theoretical
perspective, it aims to show that grammaticalization proceeds in
strictly local steps, and does not necessarily follow any presupposed
universal pattern. To illustrate this point, I will examine the
grammaticalization of the SCD in two Semitic languages: Hebrew
(Classical and Modern), which will be the main focus of the paper, and
Eastern
Aramaic,
especially
Eastern
Neo-Aramaic
(though
comparative remarks about some non-Semitic languages will be made
as well). I will show the local pathways that diverge independently
from the grammaticalization 'chain' of this common l- pronominal.
2. The grammaticalization of the Semitic SCD construction
Let us first introduce the grammaticalization pathways of the SCD in the
two languages under investigation, namely Hebrew and Eastern Aramaic.
The process of grammaticalization evolved independently in each
language, through both pathways begin with the same construction, i.e.
the ex-allative l-.
As mentioned above, Biblical and Modern Hebrew have formally
identical SCD constructions. However, I maintain that the modern SCD is
not patterned on the SCD of Biblical Hebrew (or post-Biblical Hebrew),
but is a "reinvention" by native speakers of Modern Hebrew, and its
function is different from that of the Biblical construction. 11 The modern
SCD is first attested in the colloquial language of (non-native) Hebrew
speakers during the first decades of Israeli Hebrew, though it was fairly
quite infrequent in their language. The data presented below suggests that
this SCD is a calque of a construction commonly found in Slavic and
Yiddish, the main languages which were in contact with the revived
Hebrew at the time. In this local pathway, the SCD construction
expanded in a process of subjectification, as will be explained below, and
eventually developed, in Contemporary Hebrew, into a "genuine" ED
functioning purely on the pragmatic level.
The second local pathway of the construction's development is the
one attested in Eastern Aramaic, where the post-verbal l- + pronominal
Subject eventually became grammaticalized as part of the verbal system.
Let us first outline the grammaticalization 'chain' of the
construction in both Biblical and Modern Hebrew, and then examine the
independent grammaticalization 'cline' of the post-verbal l- + pronominal
Subject in Aramaic.
2. The grammaticalization of the SCD in Hebrew
2.1 Biblical Hebrew
Like all grammatical words, the l-preposition probably evolved from
lexical words.12 Most likely, the grammaticalization 'cline' took the form
11
For a fully developed analysis of the construction in Modern Hebrew, see Halevy 2007.
To be precise, it probably evolved from the unreduced grammaticalized prepositions ∙al ('on') or 'el
('towards'), which, in turn, probably evolved from lexical words such as ∙ala /∙aley- ∙elyon/∙elyonim,
ma∙ala, etc., denoting the property of being up or above.
12
of a unidirectional shift from a less grammatical, or unrestricted,
morpheme into a more grammatical and restricted one, apparently tracing
the path allative > dative. Subsequently, l- expanded to become the
optional benefactive, the reflexive-benefactive and presumably also the
non-argumental pronominal l- (SCD) under investigation. Thus, the
immediate precursor of our construction in Biblical Hebrew is not the
basic dative itself, but rather the expanded reflexive-benefactive pronoun.
Traces of this diachronic grammaticalization 'cline' can be clearly
seen in Early Biblical Hebrew. For example, in the book of Genesis, the
preposition l- still alternates with allative forms such as ≤el, with the
preposition ≤al and with more expanded and less grammaticalized
prepositions
like
∙imad-
–
which
later
institutionalized
(i.e.
grammaticalized) in the synchronic system, receiving the meanings of
'on/upon', 'towards' and 'with', respectively, e.g.:
(8)
va-yyi∙aş ≤el libb (Gen. 6: 6)
and-grieved-REF-3M.SG to his-heart
'and he became grieved at heart'
(9)
h-≤iša ≤ašer natta ∙immad-
h≤
nana
l (Gen.
3:12)
the-woman that gave-2M.SG with-1SG she gave-3F.SG DAT-1SG
'the woman that you gave me, she gave (it) to me'
Eventually, the ex-allative l- became conventionalized as the standard
dative marker.
However, though there is plentiful evidence of the well-governed
use of the obligatory dative in Biblical Hebrew, and of its extension into
the benefactive and reflexive, there are relatively few occurrences of the
SCD construction. Furthermore, this construction is restricted in its
semantic and syntactic distribution. In early Biblical Hebrew it is
generally confined to intransitive motion verbs such as 'go', 'flee', 'rise',
'ascend', 'pass' and 'turn' (plus one stative verb, namely 'sit'). In this layer
of Biblical Hebrew, the SCD it usually occurs in imperative-hortativejussive contexts, rather than in narrative statements. For example:
(10) v∞-qm
bra˙
l∞a
≤el ln (Gen. 27:43)
and-stand-up run-away SCD-2SG.M to Laban
'go away and take refuge with Laban'
'Lève-toi, enfuis-toi vers Laban' (LS Bible)
In Late Biblical Hebrew, which, according to the vast majority of
scholars, is represented by the Song of Songs, the use of the SCD
construction is more frequent and much more flexible. Intransitive
motion verbs still predominate, as in (11):
(11) ha-ssv ∙ar ha-ggešem ˙la hla l (SoS 2:11)
the-autumn passed the-rain passed-by went SCD-3SG.M
'La pluie a cessé, elle s'en est allée / s'en alla' (LS Bible)
However, there are also some occurrences with non-prototypical
transitive verbs such as 'know' and 'resemble', as demonstrated in (12)
and (13):
(12) ≤ im lo≤ td∙ la ha-yypˉ ba-nnšm (SoS 1:8)
if not know-PRET SCD-2-SG.F the-beautiful-SG.F in (among)the-women
'don't you know, (you) the most beautiful of (all) women'
(13) u-dm l∞ li-şv (SoS 8:14)
and-resemble-IMPER-2SG.M SCD-2SG.M to-stag
'and resemble (you) the stag'
Moreover, unlike in Early Biblical Hebrew, the SCD is no longer
confined to imperative-hortative-jussive constructions but also appears
in narrative speech, as exemplified in (11) above.
2.2 The grammaticalization of the construction in Modern Hebrew
In Modern Hebrew, the SCD shows an overall pattern of gradual
expansion in terms of its semantic range, i.e., the range of situation
types it expresses. Semantic constraints associated with the reflexivebenefactive source gradually disappear – especially constraints on the
animacy of the Subject and its volitionality/agentivity, and the
requirement for a basically two-participant event. Although a
coreference still holds between two participants in the event, the SCD
construction has basically become an indication of instigatoraffectedness.
In contrast to its Biblical counterpart, the SCD of Contemporary
Hebrew is very free in its distribution: it is not restricted to intransitive
verbs or to animate Subjects, nor is it confined to the colloquial
register, but appears in various styles and registers of the language. It
should be emphasized, however, that in Hebrew, and probably in all
languages that display this construction, it is prototypically confined to
verbs whose subjects have properties of control and/or instigation of
the action, and it is therefore precluded with verbs such as 'fall', 'slip' or
'feel'. The following utterances, collected from written Modern Hebrew
texts of various styles, demonstrate the very wide distribution of the
SCD. Note that, unlike in the examples from Biblical Hebrew, in the
following I add possible pragmatic inferences of the construction,
inserted in square brackets.13
(14)
ve-hi' qama ve-'azva yom 'exad 'oto ve-'et ∆ney ha-yeladim […]
pa∆ut barxa lah (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-away SCD-3SG.F
'And one day she [just] left him and her two children […] [fancy
that!] just ran away'
(15)
'anaq 'exad mexo'ar, […] haya mitnapel al kfarim, mišpaxot
xo†ef lo (E. Sidon, The Giant Monster, children poem, 1991)
giant one ugly, was attacking villages, families kidnapping SCD3SG.M
'One ugly giant, […] used to attack villages, kidnapping families
[for fun]'
(16)
be-lev ha-brexa pi'ape'a lah mizraqa xari∆it (A. Oz, ibid. : 356)
In-the-heart (of) the-pool bubbled SCD-3SG.F fountain silent
'In the center of the pool, a fountain was bubbling quietly [to
itself, dissociating itself from its surroundings]'
13
With regards to Biblical Hebrew, I maintain that it is impossible to draw any definite and generally
valid conclusions about the construction's pragmatic function, since this is an ancient "dead" language
which, moreover, consists of different diachronic layers.
In terms of its function, the SCD construction basically expresses two
opposite directions of the action, namely movement in and out, flowing
outwards (from the Subject) and going back (i.e. turning the action back
upon the Subject). The main effect of the construction is therefore to
assign reflexivity to the event, in that the event is viewed as reflecting
forward from the Subject-nominal to the pronoun, and then back from the
pronoun to the Subject-nominal. In addition, it also imparts a sense of
benefactivity in that the event is viewed as performed by and for the
Subject. In other words, the Subject is presented as fulfilling both the
agent role and the experiencer role at the same time. It seems, therefore,
that the essential function of the construction is to express a rather intense
involvement of the Subject in the action,14 as well as the autonomy of the
event.15 The Subject is perceived as a free agent, detached from the
surrounding world.16 Accordingly, this construction can often be
associated with a sense of isolation, loneliness, dissociation, egoism or
frivolity.
Thus, we may define this construction as Subject-oriented.
However, in Modern Hebrew, the construction also clearly signals that
the event is presented from the speaker's perspective.17 That is to say, in
addition to increasing the prominence of the Subject, this construction
also functions as an anaphoric reference to the speaker's attitude towards
the Subject or the situation in which he/she/it is immersed. To use Lyons'
14
Cf. Glinert (1989: 224): "[The construction] highlighti[s] that the subject is his own 'free agent'
capable of acting on his own, and responsible for his own condition".
15
Cf. Berman (1982: 55): "The use of the SCD pronoun highlights the AUTONOMY of the event, as
perpetrated to, by and for the subject noun (even where the subject is nonanimate)".
16
Cf. Muraoka (1978: 497): "The preposition Lamedh followed by the matching pronominal suffix
seems to 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 [emphasis mine]".
17
Jenni (2000: 49) denes the function of the SCD in Biblical Hebrew as "eine Revaluation der Person
[…] als Re-Lokalisation und Re-Situierung, kurz als Aktualisation: 'x […] in seiner aktuellen
Situation'". As indicated above (fn. 13), I feel that, with regards to Biblical Hebrew, we lack sufficient
data to determine this. However, regarding Modern Hebrew I completley agree with this
characterization of the SCD function.
term, the SCD under investigation is a case of "empathetic deixis".18 To
my mind, this expressive, or evaluative, meaning of the construction is
not far removed from that of the "genuine" ED, which is essentially a
discourse pronoun that is anchored in the speech situation and co-indexed
with one of the speech participants (speaker or addressee), and as such
has the effect of enlisting the solidarity or complicity of the hearer, or
simply of creating a greater affective closeness between hearer, speaker
and message. That is, its development does not merely involve
desemanticization, or loss of function, but rather change of function. It is
important to note that "grammaticalization", as used here, is not meant
only in the diachronic sense. It refers primarily to the systematic or
conventionalized way in which an abstract grammatical function is
attributed in the synchronic system. Our pronominal SCD is thus a true
"grammaticalizator", since it codes semantic and pragmatic relations that
were not coded in the same way before.
18
Lyons (1977: 452) refers to all elements which express the speaker's attitude towards, or opinion
about, the content of the proposition as "modals". He applies the term "emphatetic deixis" (ibid :677) to
cases of anaphoric reference where "the speaker is personally involved with the entity, situation or
place to which he is referring, or is identifying with the attitude or viewpoint of the addressee". He
concludes that "at this point deixis merges with modality".
2.3 A Cross-linguistic comparison with languages in contact with
Modern Hebrew
A construction similar to the Hebrew SCD is apparently also found in
Slavic languages, though it varies from one Slavic language to another in
a number of parameters.19 Polish has two reflexive markers, one that is
not sensitive to case (się) and another which is case-sensitive (siebie).
Frazjyngier (2000) proposes that while siebie and its related forms code
the identity of the Subject with some other argument, the marker się does
not indicate that the Subject controls the action but only that it is affected
by the action. In other words, the contemporary Polish construction with
the Subject-coreferential pronoun (henceforth SC.PRO) się seems to be
Subject-oriented, just like the Hebrew SCD. This explains why it can
appear not only with transitive verbs, but significantly also with
intransitive ones. The following examples, taken from Frazjingier,
demonstrate its usage with an animate as well as an inanimate Subject:20
(17) Ale serce mi
się
kraje na myšl
but heart 1SG.DAT SC.PRO cut on
o
rozstaniu
thought about separation
'But my heart hurts when I think about separation'
(18) Zabacz czy
see
woda się podnosi
whether water SC.PRO is rinsing
'See whether the water is rinsing'
19
According to Geniušenė (1987: 274-5), it varies in the obligatory vs. optional character of the dative
pronoun to which the initial subject is demoted; the presence vs. absence, and the obligatory vs.
optional character, of modal qualifiers meaning 'well', 'easily', etc.; and in restrictions on the lexical
base.
20
Frajzyngier 2000:131.
The following are examples of the construction in colloquial
Russian,21 conveying a durative state in which the Subject is immersed,
very much like their Modern Hebrew counterparts:
(19) a. R: ya sidel sebe v uglu i molchal
I was-sitting SC.PRO [casually] in (the) corner and was-silent
(keeping silent)
b. MH: ya∆avti li ba-pina ve-∆atakti
I-was-sitting SCD-1SG [casually] in-the-corner and-I-was-silent
(20) a. R: ona ∆la sebe po ulitse i nikogo ne trogala.
she was-walking SC.PRO [casually] on (the) street and didn't
disturb anybody
b. MH: hi' halxa lah ba-rexov ve-lo hifri'a le-'af 'exad
she was-walking SCD-3SG.F in-the-street and not-disturbed toanybody
An SCD construction very close in its pragmatic function to that of the
Slavic languages is already present in the Hebrew of the revival period,
for example in Uri Nisan Gnesin's novels from the beginning of 20th
century. As pointed out by Even-Zohar,22 this literary usage is probably a
calque from Russian (while the SCD of current spoken Hebrew may also
be inspired by Yiddish and Polish). The following are examples from
Gnesin:
(21) u-ma? halxa la linqa? (U. N. Gnesin, Be†erem, 1913: 248)
and-what? Went SCD-SG.3F Linka?
'So [is it really true that] Linka went off [just like that]?
21
I thank Ben-Zion Dimersky, a native speaker of Russian, for providing these examples. According to
his intuition, they are characteristic of the southern Russian dialect.
22
Cf. Even-Zohar 1986:31.
(22) Va-'atem be-fo – harey 'atem mazqinim laxem, ah? (ibid. 258)
and-you in-here – actually [emphatic word] you are-getting old
SCD-PL.2M, ah?
'So, you guys are really getting old [just like that/regardless of
others],ah?'
As already indicated, a very similar construction is prevalent in Yiddish,
which was also in contact with revived Hebrew and probably influenced
the Hebrew SCD construction. Many occurrences are found in Sholem
Aleichem's Yiddish novels, which were translated into Hebrew by his
son-in-law, Y. D. Berkovitz. On a single page (the first page) of "Dos
Meserl" ("The Knife"), a story written in highly colloquial Yiddish, there
are four occurrences of the construction. The SCDs appear with both
transitive and intransitive verbs and are very similar to their counterparts
in Contemporary Hebrew:
(23) Y: dos meserl zol zix ligen in kešene
MH: yanuax lo ha'olar ba-kis
'The knife will lay SCD-3SG.M [for a while] in the pocket'
(24) Y: un ven ix vil, zol ix dos mir aroysnemen
MH: u-kše 'ertse, 'otsi' li 'oto
'and when I want, I'll take SCD-1SG it out [as I please]'
(25) Y: ix hob dos mir taki alain gemaxt
MH: 'ani 'atsmi (levadi) 'asiti li 'oto
'[imagine/ fancy that!] I made SCD-1SG it by myself (all alone)'
(26) Y: un hob mir fargeštelt
MH: ve-hirkavti li 'oto.
'and I have assembled it SCD-1SG [by myself/for my own pleasure]'
SCDs are also ubiquitous in Sh. Y. Agnon's writing, representing the
second phase of revived Hebrew (the 1930s and 1940s), e.g. in his novel
Shira,23 and, as already mentioned, they are generally widespread in
Israeli Hebrew, both written and spoken.24
I argue that the expressive (pragmatic) SCD construction in
Modern Hebrew, and probably in numerous other languages such as those
mentioned above, developed via a process of subjectication, as did the
"genuine" ED. That is, both are instances of a propositional element that
evolved into a non-propositional element in the sentence structure. Thus,
I suggest that the SCD in question illustrates a dynamic, unidirectional
process of grammaticalization whereby lexical items that originally
function on the lower level of structure (viz. predication, locution)
acquire a new status in the synchronic system, that is, come to encode
meanings and relations on the higher level of structure (viz. pragmatics,
illocution). In this sense, the development of the SCD can be
characterized in terms of the grammaticalization 'cline' propositional>
expressive, as defined by Traugott (1982; 1989).25
23
For examples and discussion, cf. Ullendorff 1985.
Cf. Halevy 2004; 2007.
25
As stated in Traugott (1989: 31, 35), "meanings with largely propositional (ideational) content can
gain either textual (cohesion-making) or expressive (presuppositional, and other pragmatic) meanings,
or both"; "Meanings tend to become increasingly situated in the speaker's subjective belief
state/attitude toward the proposition"; or, more recently, as a type of semantic change causing
meanings "to become increasingly based in the SP(eaker)/W(riter)'s belief or state or attitude toward
what is being said and how it is being said" (2003 :125)..
24
3. A Cross-linguistic comparison with SCDs in unrelated languages
A similar construction also evolved in languages that are unrelated to
Hebrew and were not in direct contact with it. In Vulgar Latin, there is
evidence of a reflexive (dative) construction conveying similar extra
meaning regarding the doer of the action. To quote Bourciez,26 "On disait
déjà dans la langue classique abstinere ou abstinere se, erumpere ou
erumpere se […] pour indiquer d'une façon plus analitique la part que le
sujet prend à l'action; beacoup de verbes se sont ainsi construits,
notamment des verbes de mouvement: Surrexisse se Deos (Arn. 5, 18);
vadent se unusquisque (Peregr. 25, 7)". Evidently, this construction later
spread to other Romance languages. In Spanish, it is quite evident that
two separate constructions, of different diachronic origins, merged into
one single form, marked for 3rd person by the reflexive pronoun se-. The
first construction, a "genuine" reflexive marked by se- (Lat. sui),
appeared most commonly with transitive verbs but also developed a
middle-voice meaning and later an impersonal-passive meaning. The
second construction is the old dative>benefactive pronoun le-, which
later evolved into ge->se-.27 It is noteworthy that the modern Spanish
SCD conveys no sense of reflexivity. Just as in Biblical Hebrew, it is
typically associated with perfectivity, sudden change, or sudden
departure, as demonstrated by the following examples:
(27) El joven se-fue
the boy SC-PRO-3SG went
'The boy went away [took off]'
26
27
Bourciez 1946: §118c,
Cf. Monje 1955.
(28) El joven se bebió el vino
the boy SC.PRO-3SG drank the wine
'The boy [just] drank [up] the wine'
Maldonado (1999) 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. An example is (29):28
(29) Tongolele se bailó una rumba inolvidable
'Tongolele SC.PRO-3SG danced an unforgettable rumba'
If the action is done involuntarily or without much interest, the addition
of se- produces an ungrammatical output, e.g. (30):
(30) *Tongolele se bailó una rumba inolvidable sin mayor interés
'Tongolele SC.PRO-3SG danced an unforgettable rumba without
much interest'
However, contrary to the SCDs of Contemporary Hebrew, Slavic and
Yiddish, the Spanish construction does not seem to have developed an
evaluative meaning, i.e. the function of anaphoric reference to the
speaker's attitude towards the Subject and the situation in which the
Subject is immersed. To use Traugott's (1982; 1989; 2003) terminology,
it has not yet undergone a process of subjectification.
For a broader typological comparison, it might be worthwhile to
investigate a parallel construction (namely verb + Subject-repetitive
28
Cf. Maldonado 1999: 153-4.
dative or genitive pronoun) in Chamito-Semitic languages. Such
constructions exist in Ancient Egyptian,29 as well as in contemporary
African languages, including some Chadic languages and Swahili.30
For instance, a team of Bible translators from Chad translated Gen.
27:43 as follows (see example 1 for the Hebrew original):
(33) col kolo pii tud ki man vi wayanna Laban (taken from Noss 1995:
334)
Arise up flee go away of-you to your uncle Laban
The following is an example in Swahili:
(34)
wamekwenda zao (example taken from Ashton 1947:57)
they have gone theirs
'They've gone off'
Significantly, in these languages, the Subject-coreferential pronoun is a
post-verbal suffix identical in its morphological form to a possessive,
rather than dative, pronoun.
29
30
Cf. Polotsky 1979: 208 fn. 9; Jenni 2000:48.
Cf. Noss 1995.
4. The grammaticalization 'chain' of the SCD construction in
Aramaic
The construction of post-verbal l- + pronominal Subject takes a different
path of development in middle (pre-Christian) Aramaic, Rabbinical
Hebrew (probably due to Aramaic influence), Babylonian Talmudic
Aramaic, Classical Syriac, and finally in the later varieties of NeoAramaic, where it appears as a conventionalized grammatical form
constituting part of the synchronic verbal system. Unlike in Hebrew, in
these Semitic languages it did not develop further to become an element
functioning on a higher level (i.e. not on the sentence level, but on that of
illocution or the universe of discourse).
At the early stage of the grammaticalization 'cline' – as represented
by the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud and by Classical Syriac – we
find, in addition to the regular past-tense forms, three variations of a
participle base, primarily passive in meaning, which occur with an agent
expression introduced by l- and appear with both transitive and
intransitive verbs:31
1. The perfect/passive participle (q†il), bare or inflected + l- + explicit NP
representing the agent. E.g. in Classical Syriac:
(35) kol da-re l-alåhå (I Tim. iv 4)
all that create PAST.PART to-God
'All that God has created'
2. The inflected perfect/passive participle + proleptic l- pronominal agent
+ l- + explicit NP representing the agent. This construction is widespread
in the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud, e.g.:
31
Cf. Goldenberg 1998 [1992] : 118 [610]; Bar-Asher 2007: 378.
(36) svira leh l-rabbi yehuda (Kritut 10:a)
think-PAST.PART. SCD-3SG.M to-Rabbi Yehuda
'Rabbi Yehuda thought'
3. The bare or inflected perfect/passive participle + l- + pronominal agent.
This construction is frequently found in Classical Syriac, e.g.: 32
(37) w-en ˙a†åhe‡ ∙bidin le‡h (Jas. V 15)
and-if sins make- PAST.PART 3PL. SCD-3SG.M
'And if he has committed sins'
These three variations apparently represent three consecutive stages in the
grammaticalization 'chain' of the Aramaic SCD, culminating in the third
construction. In this last grammaticalized construction, common in
NENA languages, the doer of the action denoted by the passive participle
base is expressed by the enclitic preposition l- + a pronominal suffix
obligatorily affixed to the bare past-tense (passive participle) base. In
these languages, then, the bare passive participle form known as q†il and
the pronominal li have become – formally and syntactically – a single
verbal expression, "contracted or shriveled up into a single word",33 e.g.
(Urmi dialect) ptixle 'he opened', ptixla 'she opened'. The l- pronominal
suffix agrees with the Subject nominal and actually replaces the Subject
pronominal suffix of the historically inflected verb, e.g. (Sulemaniyya)
gorā pli†le, lit. 'man went out to-him'; ≤āna pli†li, lit. 'I went out to-me'.
32
It should be noted that this construction with the passive participle can also introduce actants other
than the agent, namely the 'beneficiary' (when the agent is not mentioned). Cf. Goldenberg 1998
[1992]: 613 [117].
33
Cf. Goldenberg 1998 [1992] : 614 [122].
In NENA languages, the passive participle base thus displays a
discrepancy between 'logical' function and grammatical form. The
erstwhile dative, which normally represents the undergoer role, has
spread into the Subject-pronominal paradigm, where it has the inverse
function of actor. It is noteworthy that the phenomenon of dative-marked
agents or agent-phrases – expressed as instrumentals, locatives or
genitives in both active and passive – is well known in many other
languages throughout the world,34 as are agent-phrases that attach to the
(passive or active) verb in the same way as possessors in possessive
constructions. The latter phenomenon is attested, for example, in the
languages of the Philippines and in Malagasy.35
In the Aramaic SCD under discussion, the agent-participant serves
as the anchor of the action, and thus has a dative-possessive meaning. In
line with Polotsky (1979) and Goldenberg (1992/1998), it seems
reasonable to posit that the passive character of the q†il(-li) form is the
key to understanding the whole construction. To quote Polotsky, "the
'logical' undergoer of ptix-lı ['he opened'] is grammatically the nå∙ib alfå∙il [the undergoer], and its 'logical' actor is the Dative, expressing the
actor as possessor of the accomplished action and its result".36 And
similarly in Goldenberg: "With a perfect/passive form […] of transitive
verbs, […] the agent is expressed as the possessor of the-patient-havingundergone-the-accomplished-action with the resulting state […]. With a
34
Hebrew has such a construction with perception verbs, e.g. nir'e li (lit. seen to me) meaning 'it
appears to me' and nidme li (lit. seem to me) meaning 'it seems to me'. Unlike in Aramaic, however, the
Hebrew construction is restricted to a small class of verbs, and thus has not reached the same level of
grammaticalization in the synchronic system. More significantly, in the Hebrew construction, the
referent of the dative is basically viewed as the 'experiencer', i.e. as non-agentive.
35
Cf. Keenan 1985: 259, 263-265.
36
Polotsky 1979: 208.
perfect/passive form of intransitive verbs, the agent is accordingly
expressed as the possessor of the accomplished action and its result".37
In Western Neo-Aramaic languages, this l- pronominal has
integrated mainly into the participle form of movement and position
verbs, and seems to express the semantic domain of the middle voice. The
following are examples from Ma∙lula, a modern Western Aramaic dialect
of the Anti-Lebanon region:
(38) †oˉle
come-PRES.PART.SCD-3SG.M
'he comes'
(39) zålle
go-PAST.PART. SCD-3SG.M
'he went away'
(40)
q∙oˉle
sit-PAST.PART. SCD-3SG.M
'he sat down'.
In the Eastern Aramaic languages, such as Mandaic, Classical Syriac38
and to some extent Babylonian Talmudic Aramaic,39 the l- agentive
pronominal has extended into other categories of verb, including the
stative and the fientive (i.e. verbs designating a durative and dynamic
action, such as verbs of motion and change of position), and also into the
category of verbs expressing emotions and perceptive content, which are
37
Goldenberg 1998 [1992]: 608 [116]. Lazard (1984:242), addressing the question of how to analyze
the case-marking of the actor in passive constructions, suggests a more subtle and flexible analysis. He
claims that it depends on whether the action described is potential or completed: "Si celle-ci a un sens
potentiel, l'agent est un destinataire … Si la forme verbale exprime l'action accomplie, particulièrement
au parfait, l'agent est un possesseur. C'est le cas dans le tour vieux-perse manā krtam. L'expression A(h)
urmazdā-šām ayadiya, où le verbe est à l'imparfait, semble occuper une position intermédiaire, mais
plus proche du rapport de destination".
38
Cf. Joosten 1989:490.
39
Cf. Schlesinger 1928 §30.
likewise associated in many languages (e.g. Spanish) with the middle
voice. Recall that in Modern Hebrew, unlike in Aramaic, the SCD
construction is not confined exclusively to verbs of motion or to
intransitive verbs.
When used with stative verbs, the l- pronominal agent often
denotes the ingressive Aktionsart.40 Some examples from Classical
Syriac:
(41) qiˉm leh
arise-PAST.PART. SCD-3SG.M
'he arose '
(42)
∆teq leh
silent-PAST.PART SCD-3SG.M
'he shut up (became silent/stopped talking)'
Thus, the local development of the l- pronominal Subject seems to have
traced the following path: stative > fientive, durative > ingressive. In
NENA, the bound q†il-le form is also grammaticalized with intransitive
verbs that have the semantic properties of a prototypical agent, e.g.
control and/or instigation of the action, e.g. xille 'he ate', pqele 'he shot (a
gun)', or with verbs denoting actions that are controlled by the Subject
and express a reflexive activity, e.g. lwšle 'he dressed' (himself)', ksele 'he
covered (himself)'.41 Another class of intransitive verbs that take the q†il-
le form in the past tense is that of punctual verbs denoting the production
of noise, e.g. nwixle 'it (the dog) barked', šrixle 'he shouted'. Conversely,
40
Joosten ibid.
When these verbs are inflected without the l- suffixes, they express actions in which the Subject is
the affectee of the action rather than one who controls it, and so have a passive meaning.
41
when the action is not perceived as being controlled by the Subject (e.g.
šire 'he slipped', pil 'he fell'), this grammaticalization does not occur; that
is, the verb does not take the l-suffix.42 Interestingly, the same semantic
features characterize the SCD construction in Contemporary Hebrew. The
construction is excluded with verbs denoting actions not controlled by the
Subject, e.g.:
(43) ??hu ma'ad lo barexov
he slipped SCD-SG.3M. in-the-street
The grammaticalization 'chain' in Aramaic thus apparently developed as
follows. The dative preposition l- first spread to the definite-accusative,
and subsequently into the pronominal agreement of all objects, dative and
accusative alike. In addition, as shown above, it also spread into the
Subject-agreement paradigm via a passive participle form indicating the
perfective or past tense.43 Eventually, this pronominal l- construction
became restricted to perfective verb forms with a base derived from the
earlier Aramaic passive participle q†il- type. Verb forms referring to the
present or future, and all imperfect verbs, retained accusative syntax.
Historically, these l- pronominals were not grammatical subjects,
but rather expressions denoting the agent in a passive construction
consisting of the bare form of the passive participle plus an agentive
42
Jastrow (1988) uses the term 'ergative' to describe this construction. Khan (2007) defines it as 'split
ergativity', conditioned by the tense/aspect of the verb as well as by its semantic nature. However, the
term 'ergative' is not unanimously accepted by Iranists, nor is it normally used in Neo-Aramaic
grammar. In Aramaic studies this construction is normally regarded as a preterite and perfect. Iranists
mostly refer to it either as passive, or, since the publication of Benveniste (1952), as possessive.
43
Documents from the Achaemenid period – datable to the 5th century BC and published by Driver
(1954) – already display (inflected) past-tense verbs suffixed with an l- preposition denoting the agent.
Kutscher and Friedrich (1957/8) note the presence of this verbal form and attribute it to the influence of
Old Persian.
prepositional expression.44 The common view among scholars is that this
construction first developed under the influence of Iranian languages,
especially the Kurdish dialects, but subsequently took on a life of its own,
and developed differently from its correlates in the modern Iranian
dialects.45 According to this view, the l- pronominal agent of NeoAramaic corresponds to what Benveniste (1952) analyzes as a possessive
expression in Iranian languages, e.g. Old Persian manā krtam 'I have
done' (literally 'to me/of me done').46 However, in Classical Syriac and
NENA – unlike in Old Persian – the true possessive pronouns are never
used to mark the agent. This suggests that the Neo-Aramaic construction
was not felt to be truly possessive.
Another important difference between the two language-groups –
namely Old Persian and Old Syriac (and subsequently NENA) – concerns
the verbs themselves. In Old Persian, and in later Iranian languages, this
passive (or 'ergative') construction (i.e. the participle form of the verbal
base preceded by a pronoun in an oblique case designating the agent) is
restricted to transitive verbs, whereas in NENA it has also extended to
intransitive past-tense verbs. Therefore, it can no longer be appropriately
described as a passive construction. However, in both language-groups,
an enclitic agent pronoun (from the l- series in Neo-Aramaic and
possessive/adnominal in Persian) eventually became mandatory.
In conclusion, we may assume that in Eastern Aramaic – unlike in
the case of Hebrew and some other modern languages mentioned above –
44
Polotsky (1979:208-209) refers to this as a special case of a more general phenomenon, namely that
of an 'objective' expression with l- that may function as the actor of a passive base, in parallel to its
function as the undergoer of an active verb.
45
For general accounts of the development of this past-tense form in Eastern Aramaic, see Kutscher
(1969), Hopkins (1989), Goldenberg (1992/1998), Kapeliuk (1996) and Khan (1999) , (2004).
46
Polotsky (1979:208 fn. 9) points out that the dative-possessive construction was familiar to scholars
of Ancient Egyptian long before the publication of Benveniste's article 'La construction passive du
parfait transitif' BSL 48 (1952). The Ancient Egyptian verbal base has been characterized as an
undifferentiated 'perfect passive participle', and compared both with the Syriac construction and with
the European Perfect with 'have'. For references see Polotsky, ibid.
the direct precursor of the post-verbal agentive l- pronoun was the dativepossessive rather than the dative-benefactive. In other words, we may
posit that, due to its essential nature as an element signifying movement
towards a goal, the l-pronoun in this construction signifies the direction
of the action towards the agent as possessor of the accomplished action
and its result. In light of this, it seems reasonable to assume that this
Aramaic syntagm traced the following grammaticalization 'chain':
allative>dative>
possessive>perfect/past
tense.
As
regards
the
universally defined grammaticalization 'cline' , we have seen that it is a
manifestation of the
course
of
content
word> grammatical
word>clitic>inflectional affix.47
5. Conclusions
The different local paths of grammaticalization taken by the originally
allative-dative pronoun has yielded some radical typological changes in
the Semitic languages under investigation, namely Hebrew and NeoAramaic. The evolution of this pronoun has significant impact on the
typological character of Modern Hebrew, since it is part of the shift from
an essentially VSO language to an increasingly 'dative-orientated' one. As
for
Neo-Aramaic,
we
have
seen that
the
qil-li
construction
grammaticalized in specific linguistic environments (namely in the
context of the l- pronominal suffixed to the historical passive participle
base), and eventually became a grammatical operator coding the
perfective (of both transitive and intransitive verbs) in the synchronic
system of the language. While the SCD of Biblical Hebrew
grammaticalized almost exclusively with motion verbs, the Neo-Aramaic
construction also grammaticalized with stative verbs, and thus represents
47
According to Hopper & Traugott 2003:7.
a decategorization of both the passive form and the dative meaning of the
l-pronominal.
As a conclusion, I propose that the Aramaic q†il-li
syntagm
represents a local reanalysis of the possessive construction, probably
under the influence of Old Persian. This grammaticalized Neo-Aramaic
construction is part of a radical reorganization and differentiation of the
verbal system in terms of tense, mode and aspect, categories that are very
seldom expressed in other Semitic languages. This reorganization, which
is undoubtedly the result of close contacts with Old Persian-Iranian
languages,48 represents a typological shift from the inflectional
morphology of verb forms, which characterizes the earlier stages of
Aramaic, to an "Indo-Europeanized" system of syntactic morphology (i.e.
periphrastic verbal forms similar to those found in English, German,
French, etc.). However, the strong semantic and morpho-syntactic
interaction between the past participle verb and the agent participant of
the event – the owner of the accomplished action and its result –
prevented the construction from being 'subjectivizable', as it was in
Modern Hebrew.
As shown above, data from African languages like Chadic and
Swahili provide clear evidence that the grammaticalization 'chain'
apparently traced by the Semitic l- pronoun – and thus by implication
perhaps all grammaticalization 'chains' – is accidental (rather than
predetermined by universal principles), for in Chadic and Swahili the link
to the dative is completely absent. One conclusion that may be drawn
from the data presented above is that even when two related languages
display constructions similar in form, such as the l- pronominal agent in
various Semitic languages, the grammaticalization 'chains' of the
construction may have in fact proceeded in different local steps, each
48
Cf. Kapeliuk 1996.
independent of its counterparts elsewhere. The grammaticalization of the
Semitic SCD pronoun may thus suggest that the apparent 'chains' are in
fact accidental and epiphenomenal, arising only because of the high
probability of two or more strictly local steps.
This suggests that it is not possible to develop a predictive
hypothesis about the grammaticalization 'cline' of a given construction
based on broad cross-linguistic processes or supposed language
universals, just on the basis of surface identity between two or more
languages. Rather, there seem to be language-internal constraints which,
for example, block grammaticalization from proceeding beyond a certain
point. This is clearly demonstrated by the divergent grammaticalization
'chain' of the l- pronominal agent in Semitic languages, which in Hebrew
evolved beyond the level of sentence and grammar via a process of
subjectification, eventually becoming a "genuine" ED, while in NENA,
due to language-specific typological developments, remained on the level
of sentence and grammar.
Finally, I hope to have shown that observations deriving from the
study of Semitic languages may be instructive for typological studies in
general, and may shed light on processes and mechanisms – both
universal and language-specific – which underpin grammaticalization.
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