This study of the syntactic constructions of extraposition and pronominal agreement in Semitic languages--Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, and Amharic--examines both structure and function, using a method of discourse analysis to demonstrate how syntactic constructions are used to mark boundaries in the semantic structure of texts.

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2000 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, University of Stuttgart, language: English, abstract: This work places the theory of Transformational Grammar into the foreground presenting it applied to Arabic and partly to Hebrew. In the first part of this work the theory is presented summarizing all rules and principles that are relevant for this subject. In the second and third part of this work the analyses of Abdelkader Fassi-Fehri and Ur Shlonsky are examined with regard to the syntactic structure of Arabic and Hebrew. Finally, it may be observed that this work more or less applies a syntactic theory to a language rather than advancing a new one itself.

Collected in this volume are articles published over the last three decades, which deal with various aspects of Semitic languages in general, the structure of Hebrew, history of Arab grammatical tradition, Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic, Syriac syntax, and particularly with Ethiopian languages (Amharic and Old Amharic Gurage, Harari and Comparative Ethiopian). While discussing general, language-specific and comparative issues, special attention is devoted in these studies to syntax, to the examination of linguistic methodology and to the contribution of Semitics to the Science of language.

This volume is dedicated to professor Jacob Hoftijzer on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday as well as of his retirement from the chair of "Hebrew Language and Literature, the Israelite Antiquities and Ugaritic" at the University of Leiden. After a preface by A. van der Heide and a bibliographical list of Hoftijzer's publications, the volume contains 16 essays on syntactical questions in the field of Hebrew and Aramaic. Most of these essays deal with subjects occurring in Hoftijzer's publications. Such are the nominal sentence, the particle 'et', questions related to clause types as well as to word order and concord within sentences, the status and use of particles and verbal forms. Whereas Biblical Hebrew is discussed in most of the essays, other language forms are represented as well, esp. Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic, Middle Aramaic and Classical Syriac.

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.

This is a stimulating description by an outstanding Hebraist and Semitist of some essential features characterising the syntax of Hebrew used in non-artistic prose during the 12th-15th centuries in Southern France and Spain. An essential reading for any Hebraist and Semitist interested in the historical development of Hebrew syntax.

Historical syntax has long been neglected in the study of the Semitic languages, although it holds great value for the subgrouping of this diverse language family. Focusing on the development of adverbial subordination, nominal modifiers and direct speech marking, as well as reviewing changes through language contact and drift, this book is the first step in the syntactic reconstruction of the Aramaic dialect group, the longest-attested branch of the Semitic language family.