Current Issues in Generative Hebrew Linguistics (Linguistik aktuell = Linguistics today)

This Volume Presents A Collection Of Specially Commissioned Papers Devoted To Analyzing The Linguistics Of Modern Hebrew From A Number Of Perspectives. Various Aspects Of Modern Hebrew Grammar Are Discussed Including The Structure Of The Lexicon, Grammatical Features And Inflectional Morphology, As Well As The Grammaticalization Of Semantic And Pragmatic Distinctions. The Psycholinguistic Issues Addressed Include The Acquisition Of Morphological Knowledge, The Pro-drop Parameter And Question Formation, As Well As Language Use In Hearing-impaired Native Speakers. The Collection Of These Papers Together In A Single Volume Allows These Phenomena To Be Considered Not In Isolation But In The Context Of The Grammatical System Of Which The Language Is An Expression. As A Consequence, More General Issues Connected To Modern Hebrew Begin To Emerge, Such As The Role Of The Inflectional Morphological System In The Grammar, And A Rich Set Of Facts And Analyses Relevant For Many Related Issues Are Made Available To The Reader. 1. Acknowledgement 2. Current issues in generative Hebrew linguistics (by Armon-Lotem, Sharon) 3. Part I. The structure of the lexicon 4. Morphologically conditioned V-O alternation in Hebrew: Distinction among nouns, adjectives & participles, and verbs (by Bat-El, Outi) 5. The special status of nif'al in Hebrew (by Schwarzwald, Ora) 6. Object gap constructions: Externalization and operator movement (by Botwinik-Rotem, Irena) 7. Active lexicon: Adjectival and verbal passives (by Horvath, Julia) 8. Part II. Grammatical features and inflectional morphology 9. Definiteness agreement with PP modifiers (by Danon, Gabi) 10. Predication and equation in Hebrew (nonpseudocleft) copular sentences (by Greenberg, Yael) 11. Morphological knowledge without morphological structure: Morphology-prosody interface in the first Hebrew verbs (by Adam, Galit) 12. The interaction between question formation and verbal morphology in the acquisition of Hebrew: A minimalist perspective (by Armon-Lotem, Sharon) 13. On child subjects in a partially pro-drop language (by Schaeffer, Jeannette) 14. Resumptive pronouns as a last resort when movement is impaired: Relative clauses in hearing impairment (by Friedmann, Naama) 15. Part III. Semantics, pragmatics and discourse 16. Bare minimizers (by Sharvit, Yael) 17. Hebrew negative polarity Items - sum and af (by Levy, Alissa) 18. A two-layered analysis of the Hebrew exceptive xuc mi (by Sevi, Aldo) 19. Codifying apparent inconsistencies in discourse: The case of Hebrew ma (by Ziv, Yael) 20. Index In this paper I examine the Modern Hebrew discourse marker ma the function of which is to help anchor new information into the discourse when it appears that the newly introduced material is inconsistent with information assumed to be already in the addressees knowledge store. I claim that ma is used to acknowledge and possibly rectify such incompatibilities at the service of coherence and consistency. I briefly discuss yet another discourse marker used to preserve coherence (staam), showing that it constitutes an instruction to the hearer to delete material from the discourse model in the face of a sharp contradiction between its content and information taken to be shared