Markedness in Hebrew

The Semitic morphological templates form a closed system which is a set of exactly seven patterns (table 5.1). In order to define the kind of system we are concerned with let us first try to identify the unmarked/marked members in it.

simple intensive causative

Active Bs Bi Bc

Passive — B_ip Bcp

Middle B_sm Bm_i —

Table 5.1: The Morphological Templates Grid

Simple Intensive Causative (vocalization)

Active CaCaC CiC(C)eC HiCCiC

Passive — CuC(C)aC HuCCal u-a

Middle N iCCaC HiT C(C)aeC — i-a(-e)

(consonants) doubled (C) prefixedH

Table 5.2: Morphological Templates Morphological Material

Morphological markedness

According to Comrie, marked categories tend to have more morphological mate- rial then unmarked categories [7, p. 114]. With regard to the morpho-syntactic ac- count we presented we describe the morphological material (consonants and vow- els) added to the root in the various templates as follows in table 5.2.

Comrie’s morphological criterion already gives us one level of (un)markedness, namely that the simple form of the verb is unmarked with respect to the others. The other forms are morphologically marked with respect to the simple form with additional consonants and/or varying vocalization.

This marked/unmarked partition is reflected also in our semantic account as we have identified the simple form with the unmodified meaning of the root, and the rest of the templates as semantically marked with agency and voice features. With respect to the partition into simple/non-simple templates the system is asym- metrical in the subordinative sense. Non-simple forms of verbs give additional (specific) information about the meaning of verbs, of which the simple form of the verb in the same root remains silent.

Agency marking

In order to identify the marked choice between templates that realize different agency heads let us first fix our domain to the three active templates

In this set, the simple formBsis morphologically and semantically unmarked with

respect to the others. Morphologically, it has the least additional morphological material with respect to the root and semantically, it is not modified by any seman- tic features.

In this case the unmarked choice refers to the ‘general’ and the marked choice refers to the ‘specific’. The simple verb form may denote any kind of eventuality, with any internal event structure. The intensive and causative agency heads provide additional information with respect to the event structure that makes it of a more specific kind. Thus, in the alternation between Bs/Bi, Bs/Bc, Bs refers to the

‘general’ andBi/Bcrefers to the ‘specific’.

The crucial point is that the unmarked/marked choice is relevant only to the alter- nation between the simple formBsand any of the other two active forms,Biand

Bs. There is no marked choice in the alternation betweenBiandBs because they

are both marked with features which are symmetrical in the sense that each feature specifies information that the other remains silent about.

The system formed by this triple is, thus, asymmetric in the subordinative sense (according to the definition on chapter 3) and the marked choice adds specific in- formation that the unmarked option remains silent about.

Interestingly, this dimension is ‘consonantally’ marked; the intensive template is marked with a doubled middle morpheme (that can be seen as iconically marking intensity), and the causative template is marked with a prefixed heh (h) (that can be seen as iconically marking a preceding cause).

Fortunately, the conclusions in the discussion of this triple can be replicated in the other parallel sets of template (namely the passive and the middle templates that form the parallel lines in the table 5.2). Morphologically, the alternations are con- sonantly marked (with additional consonants and sometimes an added prefix), and semantically with specifying additional information that the simple form remains silent about.

Voice marking

In order to identify the marked choice between templates that realize different voice heads let us first fix our domain to the fully specified triple of the intensive tem- plates

{B_intensive, B_intensivepassive , B_intensivemiddle }

All the members in this triple are characterized by a double middle consonant but differ in the vocalization that is assigned to the consonants. Here, the intensive formBiis morphologically and semantically unmarked andBip,Bimare modified

On a par with the morphological material of the three, we assign the unmarked category with the feature of active voice and the marked categories u-a and i-a(- e) with the features of passive voice and middle voice respectively. The system is thus symmetric and the domain is divided between three positive contrasting values, active, passive and middle.

However, the morphologically marked choices in this system refer to the non- standard as opposed to the conventional. The active voice is much more standard usage, and the alternation to one of the other two results in a less conventional use and is made to serve some specific purpose. Semantically, the system is asym- metric in the privative sense as the unmarked choices specify negative information with respect to the marked categories (namely, that it is non-passive/middle voice). The point that was made for the agency marking applies also here. The semanti- cally relevant aspectual choice is made between unmarked/marked optionsBi/B_ip,

Bi/Bimrather then between the two marked onesBip/Bim.

Again, we can replicate our findings in the other voice dimensions (the simple tem- plates and the causative templates) and conclude that, in this case, marked choices are morphologically marked by vocalization and that semantically they are used to mark the unusual versus the conventional.

A note about the middle templates: it is easy to see that the morphological cor- respondence between the middle templates (last line in table 5.2) and the active templates (first line in table 5.2) is weaker than the correspondence between the active and passive (first and second lines). This fact is morphologically manifested by the additional consonants nun, taw (n,t) in addition to the voice morphological contribution (the varying vocalization).

This morphological evidence, together with the historical debate about the origin and orientation of these forms (chapter 2) justifies a slightly different treatment of their semantical contribution. According to Doron [15] the middle voice mor- phemes modify the root rather than a fully constructed verb as is the case with the passive ones. Thus, they should receive a treatment which is similar to the agency morphemes in the active templates.

Recall that the active templates were examined relative to the simple template that approximates the meaning of the root. Thus, we examine alternations between the middle templates Bm_s B_im and the simple form Bs, in order to evaluate the

contribution of the middle morpheme. Trivially, the marked choice between the middle pattern and the simple one is the former since it is morphologically and semantically marked with the middle morpheme.

‘Grammaticality’ marking

In the preceding sections we focused on existing alternations between templates that use the same root, bearing in mind that not all root-template combinations are grammatical. In this section we are concerned, to some extent, with the remaining ungrammatical combinations.

According to Smith [47] the grammaticality of aspectually marked choices depends on the language. Different situation types and viewpoints might have some default correlation. A marked aspectual choice that involves a non-typical combination of situation type and viewpoint may sound grammatically odd or even ungrammatical. In Hebrew, a language with a very limited set of grammatical morphemes to de- note tense (let alone aspect) it is not too uncommon to find odd, ungrammatical or new constructions.20 This can be done by accident by speakers that learn the language (Hebrew as L2) or on purpose by proficient speakers in order to make subtle distinctions.

Such combinations are, for the most part, successfully parsed by hearers. Some- times new combinations find their way into the langauge. ‘Street language’ and slang benefit extensively from this effective means of combining a simple meaning with certain ‘dynamics’ and is rich in word formations that involve nouns, adjec- tives, and other real world properties.

To illustrate some of this phenomena, consider the following examples. In (76) the intensive form is undoubtedly odd, however it is grammatical21 and is used to denote a subtle distinction between making someone laugh (which ought to be a result of an activity), and causing someone to laugh (which might as well be punctual, accidental).

(76) a. [c][x][k] +Bs=caxak(to laugh)

b. [c][x][k] +Bi=?cixek(to make someone laugh)

c. [c][x][k] +Bc=hicxik(to cause someone to laugh)

Our Hebrew speaking readers might be more familiar with our next two examples. The ‘childish’ utterance in (77b) can be used (accidently by children or on purpose by adults to describe a process of getting wet, as opposed to ‘get wet’ that refers to (puts emphasis on) the result state of getting wet. The ‘adultish’ slang utterance in (78b) refers to hanging out in the ‘hippest’ street in Tel-Aviv during the seventies, ‘Dizengof’ street.22

20

By ‘odd’ I mean a root-template combination that is rare in colloquial usage. By ‘ungrammati- cal’ I mean that the result of the root-template combination is not defined by the ‘vocabulary’ and/or its special meaning is not listed in the ‘encyclopedia’.

21

According to ‘Even Shoshan Dictionary’.

(77) a. [r][t][v] +B_sm=nirtav(to get wet) b. [r][t][v] +B_im=hitratev(to become wet) (78) a. Dizengoˇp(a person/street name)

b. [d][z][n][g][ˇp] +B_im =hizdangepˇ(walk about/hang out in Dezingof street)

These aspectual choices are made to mark subtle distinctions or deviations from the standard view of the situation and a particular stance taken by the speaker. Regardless of the fact that some utterances are more grammatical then others, they are all being used in colloquial speech and are successfully parsed by the listener. Although in the current account we deal only with the grammatical, the application can be extended to deal with such ‘ungrammatical’ utterances, and we draw special attention to such phenomena in the empirical part of the study.

Summary

So far we have identified four levels of markedness in the Hebrew verbal systems. First, we isolated the single morphologically unmarked member, the simple tem- plateBswith respect to all the others, which are marked with additional morpho-

logical material and modifying semantic features.

Secondly, in the agency dimension that is fixed on asymmetrical subordinative sub- sets, the intensive/causative alternations are marked ‘consonantally’ with respect to the simple form, and indicate the specific as opposed to the general. Lastly, the voice dimension that is fixed on asymmetrical privative subsets divides the option space between three contrasting values active, passive and middle and the alterna- tions are marked by vocalization and are manifested in less conventional uses. An evaluation of ungrammatical marked choices cannot be done within the basic account I develop, as here I am concerned only with the formally grammatical. However in the empirical part of the study we can find further support for the view that the templates indeed carry some aspectual meanings, since in light of the lack of other linguistic means template alternations are employed to endow situations with less-conventional properties.