The paper discusses the standardization of agent phrases in Modern Hebrew, focusing on the role of language contact in triggering a typological shift from basic to non-basic passive (Keenan and Dryer 2007): whereas ancient Hebrew used passives impersonally (Rabin 2000), Modern Hebrew passive verbs are intrinsically personal, and may be accompanied by an agent phrase introduced by the preposition ʕal yede ‘by’ (literally ‘on the hands of’), which was originally an instrumental marker (Taube 2020).
The main research questions are:
The study is based on data from a vast textual corpus (over 320,000 words) reflecting language use in the early Hebrew press throughout the seminal period of modernization (1870s–1930s). Combining diachronic, contrastive and sociolinguistic considerations, it traces the structural change and examines the contributing factors.
As opposed to the common view, which attributes the spread of ʕal yede as an agent marker to contact with English after WWI (namely, a calque of the isomorphic instrument/agent function found in English by-phrases, see e.g. Bendavid 1965), our data clearly indicate that the shift preceded contact with English. The early texts in our corpus are marked by variation, as writers explored possible ways to specify the agent – a feature present in their European contact languages but lacking an inherent Hebrew parallel. ʕal yede was used for this purpose alongside several other competing options. Its transformation into the prevailing form coincided with the formation of the Hebrew speech community in the early 20th century, and the process was completed by the end of WWI. Hence, the onset of contact with English evidently did not initiate the process, but may have merely reinforced an already existing linguistic state.
The spread of ʕal yede cannot be attributed to internal linguistic factors, as neither its former distribution nor its structural properties compared to its alternatives explain its favoring over them. The explanation seems to lie in the impact of Yiddish and Russian – two of the major contact languages in the nascent speech community. In terms of language ideology, the attitude towards Yiddish was hostile, whereas Russian enjoyed prestige; therefore, strategies mirroring Yiddish usage were rejected, while the strategy of using the same form for both instrument and agent marking – similarly to Russian – gained predominance. The process did not involve full calquing, but rather the choice of a pre-existing strategy, which offered a functional (rather than structural) equivalence to the prestige language.
The study highlights a typological change accompanying the rise of Modern Hebrew, clarifies the role of contact in the process, and underlines the possible gap between structural and functional impact in cases of language contact.
Bendavid, A. (1965). letaqanat lešon haʕitonim [The correction of journalistic language]. Leshonenu laʕam 16, 227–248.
Keenan, E.L. & M.S. Dryer. (2007). Passive in the world’s languages. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description (pp. 325–361). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rabin, Ch. (2000). The Development of the Syntax of Post-Biblical Hebrew. Leiden: Brill.
Taube, D. (2020). Voice distinctions. In R.A. Berman (Ed.), Usage-based Studies in Modern Hebrew: Background, Morphology, Syntax (pp. 331–374). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.