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Nominal possessive constructions in the early modern Hasidic Hebrew tale*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2013

Lily Kahn
Lily Kahn*
Affiliation:
University College London
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper constitutes the first linguistic analysis of nominal possessive constructions in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Hasidic Hebrew hagiographic tales. Such analysis is necessary because it sheds much-needed light on the grammatical structure of this prominent but largely unstudied early modern Eastern European form of Hebrew. Hasidic Hebrew possessive constructions exhibit a variety of noteworthy features, namely non-standard uses of the construct chain including definiteness of the construct noun, double definiteness, and split construct chains; construct chains with adjectives in the absolute position; the productiveness and widespread use of the construct chain; the tendency to favour the post-Biblical Hebrew possessive particle של shel only in certain syntactic contexts; and the employment of the Aramaic particle ד- de- specifically to express geographical and temporal relationships. These phenomena reflect a mix of various strata of Hebrew as well as Aramaic, Yiddish, and independent elements that combine to form a unique system distinct from other varieties of Hebrew.

Keywords

HebrewHasidicPossessionEastern EuropeMorphosyntax
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 271 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 2013 

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Footnotes

*

The author gratefully acknowledges the British Academy for funding the research project of which this paper forms a part, as well as the anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful comments.

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