Innovation of Verbs in Hebrew
What it is about
A short paper on how Hebrew makes new verbs. Hebrew words sit in a root-pattern array: several thousand consonant roots cross 100–120 noun patterns, but only seven verb patterns. When a foreign noun has no verb form, speakers apply "squeezing": the vowels are removed from the noun, the remaining consonants become a new root, and that root gets a new row in the array, where a verb can then be built from one of the seven patterns. The paper gives examples (telephone, giving a verb to phone; basis; compile, debug, format, fax, discuss, Pascal, Rentgen), and shows that squeezing also works on Hebrew nouns (mispar, "number", gives a verb to number) and on a two-word idiom. It is a description of a generation procedure; the paper reports no measurements.
Ideas
- I1. A squeezing generator for loan verbs: given a loan noun, delete its vowels to get a consonant root, place the root in the array, and fill the seven verb patterns. Output the candidates with a flag "unchecked" for a lexicon entry. This is a deterministic table, not a model.
- I2. A test set from the paper: the squeezed verbs it lists (for example le-qampel for compile, le-dabbeg for debug, le-farmet for format, le-faqses for fax) are source-noun-to-verb pairs. Run the generator on the source nouns and measure how many of the listed verbs it reproduces.
- I3. Squeezing from phrases: because the procedure also works on two-word idioms, a verb-noun expression can yield a new verb root. Use this as a candidate rule when a Hebrew verb-noun expression has no single verb in the lexicon.
For Mova
I1 goes into 05b. Verb paradigms: the strong verb in seven binyanim and the weak roots. I2 is a test for the generator and is documented in 8. Lexicon and register under loan words. I3 goes into 05. The verb: system, binyanim, tense and use, next to the verb-noun expressions.
Cite
@inproceedings{ornan2014innovation,
title = {{Innovation of Verbs in Hebrew}},
author = {Ornan, Uzzi},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Joint Workshop on Social Dynamics and Personal Attributes in Social Media},
year = {2014},
doi = {10.3115/v1/w14-2713},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3115/v1/w14-2713}
}References
- Bat-El Outi, 1994. Stem Modification and Cluster Transfer in Modern Hebrew. Natural Language and a LinguisticTheory 12, pp. 571-596 find
- Bolozky, Shmuel 1978. Word Formation Strategies in the Hebrew Verb System, Denominative Verbs. Afroasiatic Linguistics 5:3 pp. 111-136. McCarthy, John. find
- J., 1981. A Prosodic Theory of Nonconcatenative Morphology. Linguistic Inquiry 12. pp. 373-418. find
- Ornan, Uzzi. 1976. םישדח םישרוש תריצי לע (on generating new roots). Leshonenu- la-ˁam, Academy of Hebrew Language, Jerusalem, Vol 27, pp 254-267. find
- Ornan, Uzzi. 1983. דציכ תירבעה הלימה תרוצת (How do we build a Hebrew word). Bar-Asher et al. (editors), Studies in Hebrew dedicated to Ze`ev Ben-Haiim, Magnes Press, Jerusalem, pp. 13-42. find
- Ornan, Uzzi. 1990. Machinery for Hebrew Word Formation, Martin Charles Golumbic (ed), Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Springer-Verlag, pp. 75-93. find
- Ornan, Uzzi. 2003. הנורחאה הלימה (The Final Word), University of Haifa pub, pp. 103-126. various new roots are dealt with in Ornan, 2003 pp. 110-116. pattern root psq gmr ḥbr ˁbd prsm ṭlgrp _a_a_ _i__e_ ma__e_ pasaq gamar ḥabar ˁabad - - pisseq gimmer ḥibber ˁibbed pirsem ṭilgrep mapseq - maḥber - - - Figure 1: Part of Root-Pattern Array list of patterns: ma—ati—o-t list of roots: gmr ḥny h'l'k' MAhlAk Figure 2: Illustrating part of the generating algorithm hit_a__e-__a_ ta__u_a hi__i_ hitpasseq - hitḥabber - hitparsem - psaq gmar - - - - -- taḥbura - - - hipsiq - - hiˁbid - - phonemic word: actual word: /mahlak/ [mahalax] find
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