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The Typological Classification of the Hebrew of Genesis: Subject-Verb or Verb-Subject?

What it is about

Most Hebraists call Biblical Hebrew a verb-subject language because VS clauses outnumber SV more than five to one in Genesis. Holmstedt answers Moshavi (2010) by applying the four typological criteria for basic word order (frequency, distribution, clause type, pragmatics) to the clauses of Genesis with an overt subject. Wayyiqtol clauses (866 with an overt subject in Genesis) are set aside because wayyiqtol is a restricted form: obligatorily verb-initial, past, indicative, almost absent from direct speech. So are subordinate clauses, modal clauses and clauses with a fronted constituent. In what remains (main, indicative, non-wayyiqtol clauses with nothing fronted) SV outnumbers VS about two to one. His analysis is "SV / X-VS": SV is basic, and a third element in front (a subordinator, a fronted phrase, or modality) triggers inversion to VS.

Ideas

For Mova

I1 and I2 are counts for Syntax: the clause and the sentence (word order); they need only the trees and the MACULA verb-form features. I3 is a change to how fronting is read in tools/macula/src/prag.rs and 09-discourse.md, to be measured with --with/--without. The same filters (clause type, wayyiqtol excluded) belong in any word-order statistic the manual quotes.

Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.5508/jhs.2011.v11.a14

@article{holmstedt2011typological,
  title = {{The Typological Classification of the Hebrew of Genesis: Subject-Verb or Verb-Subject?}},
  author = {Holmstedt, Robert D.},
  journal = {Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 11},
  year = {2011},
  doi = {10.5508/jhs.2011.v11.a14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2011.v11.a14}
}

References

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