Is Biblical Hebrew a non-configurational language? Reconsidering the evidence from discontinuous phrases
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v5i2.142732Keywords:
non-configurational languages, discontinuous phrases, Biblical HebrewAbstract
The occurrence of discontinuous phrases is an important feature of so-called non-configurational languages, which are characterized by relatively free word order in clauses and phrases. Partly based on this feature, it has been argued that Biblical Hebrew is a non-configurational language. However, after reviewing broader linguistic literature on this topic, the present article shows that the seemingly discontinuous phrases in Biblical Hebrew are not comparable to the typically non-configurational types of discontinuous phrases, and thus need a different explanation. The suggested alternative analyses are afterthought (or right dislocation) and extraposition. Since these constructions occur in languages at various positions on the configurationality continuum, they should not be interpreted as evidence for the assumed non-configurational nature of Biblical Hebrew.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Counting from volume 9 (2024), articles published in HIPHIL Novum are licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). The editorial board may accept other Creative Commons licenses for individual articles, if required by funding bodies e.g. the European Research Council. With the publication of volume 9, authors retain copyright to their articles and give Hiphil Novum the right to the first publication. The authors retain copyright to earlier versions of the articles, such as the submitted and the accepted manuscript. Authors and readers may use, reuse, and build upon the published work, use it for text or data mining or for any other lawful purpose, as long as appropriate attribution is maintained.
Articles in volumes 1-8 are not licensed under Creative Commons. In these volumes, all rights are reserved to the authors of the articles respectively. This implies that readers can download, read, and link to the articles, but they cannot republish the articles. Authors may post the published version of their article to their personal website, institutional repository, or a repository required by their funding agency as a part of a green open access policy.
