interrogative sentence

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HEBREW LANGUAGE

AND LINGUISTICSVolume 2

G–O

General Editor

Geoffrey Khan

Associate Editors

Shmuel BolokzySteven E. FassbergGary A. Rendsburg

Aaron D. RubinOra R. Schwarzwald

Tamar Zewi

LEIDEN • BOSTON2013

© 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-17642-3

Table of Contents

Volume One

Introduction ........................................................................................................................ viiList of Contributors ............................................................................................................ ixTranscription Tables ........................................................................................................... xiiiArticles A-F ......................................................................................................................... 1

Volume Two

Transcription Tables ........................................................................................................... viiArticles G-O ........................................................................................................................ 1

Volume Three

Transcription Tables ........................................................................................................... viiArticles P-Z ......................................................................................................................... 1

Volume Four

Transcription Tables ........................................................................................................... viiIndex ................................................................................................................................... 1


320 interrogative sentences


certainty and have a negative connotation); (b) diminution of or scorn towards the subject in constructions such as the ?מי אתה שתכתוב mi ±ata še-tixtov? ‘who are you to write?’, which occurs already in the Bible (Schwarzwald 1979) and is still in use in Modern Hebrew; (c) pro-posed action, especially in sentences beginning with מדוע madua≠ or למה lama followed by a future or infinitive verb, e.g., ?להם לוותר למה lama levater lahem ‘why give in to them?’, and negative sentences with an affirmative meaning, as in ?לממשלה עכשיו תצטרף לא lama lo למה tiß†aref ≠axšav la-memšala ‘why don’t you join the government now?’ (Burstein 1999). The words כמה kama, איזה ±eze, מה ma, and איך ±ex also serve as exclamations, e.g., !יופי eze± איזה yofi! ‘how great!’, !בכנען הלילות יפים ma מה yafim ha-lelot bi-xna≠an ‘how beautiful are the nights of Canaan!’.

R e f e r e n c e sBar-On, Avraham Zvi. 1983a. “Why questions” (in

Hebrew). Thinking philosophy: Conceptual analy-sis, 59–68. Jerusalem: Magnes.

——. 1983b. “When questions” analysis (in Hebrew). Thinking philosophy: Conceptual analysis, 69–77. Jerusalem: Magnes.

Burstein, Ruth. 1999. “Questions and responses in contemporary Hebrew: A syntactic semantic and pragmatic approach” (in Hebrew). PhD disserta-tion, Bar-Ilan University.

——. 2005. “On queclaratives” (in Hebrew). Itai Zim-ran book, ed. by Ruth Burstein, 459–502. Jerusalem: David Yellin Academic College of Education.

Fruchtman, Maya. 1979. “Determinative and delimi-tative categories in Israeli Hebrew” (in Hebrew). PhD dissertation, Tel-Aviv University.

GKC = Kautzch, Emil. 1910. (ed.), Gesenius’ Hebrew grammar. Trans. by Arthur E. Cowley. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Glinert, Lewis. 1989. The grammar of Hebrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kaddari, Menahem Zvi. 1995. Post-biblical Hebrew syntax and semantics: Studies in diachronic Hebrew, Vol. 1 (in Hebrew). Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University.

Rubinstein, Eliezer. 1971. The verb phrase: A study in the syntax of contemporary Hebrew (in Hebrew). Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad.

Schwarzwald, Ora. 1979. “Linguistic phenomena and their reflections on the syntax of the inter-rogative pronoun ‘mi’ in Biblical Hebrew” (in Hebrew). Bet Miqra 24:81–89.

Segal, Moshe Zvi. 1936. Diqduq lešon ha-mišna (in Hebrew). Tel-Aviv: Dvir.

Tobin, Yishay. 1989. “A functional approach to invariance, variation and markedness: The two ‘hows’ in Moderm Hebrew; a case in point”. La Linguisique 25:143–165.

Ruth Burstein (The David Yellin Academic College of Education)

Interrogative Sentences

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n

The term ‘interrogative sentences’ as a syntactic type refers to sentences of a certain structure, that is to a linguistic entity. The term ‘ques-tion’ refers to the utterance’s content, to its meaning, to the logical entity. The two terms are not synonymous, since an interrogative sentence may also be used to express non-inter-rogative content (it may contain a proposal, a threat, a reprimand, an instruction, informa-tion), while a ‘question’ may be expressed in ways other than interrogative sentences. A question is non-factive (that is, it lacks a truth value) and non-assertive (it does not transmit information); rather, it asks for information. In speech, interrogative sentences have an into-nation that expresses their mood, while in writing this is marked by the question mark. Hebrew lacks specific non-assertive pronouns and adverbs such as ‘any’ and ‘ever’, that occur only in interrogative and negative sentences. Even אי-פעם ±e pa≠am ‘ever’, which contains the interrogative element אי ±e, can be found in declarative sentences.

2. T y p e s o f I n t e r r o g a t i v eS e n t e n c e s

Interrogative sentences can be divided into three main types.

(a) Yes/no questions. Such questions, for example, לגליל? -nasa≠ta la נסעת galil? ‘Did you travel to Galilee?’, נסעת לא lo nasa≠ta la-galil? ‘Didn’t you travel to לגליל?Galilee?’, express a choice between two dia-metrically opposed alternatives, that is, one is the negation of the other. From a logical and syntactic perspective only one of the alterna-tives, either the affirmative or the negative, can be true, never both together. The sentence itself contains only one of the alternatives; the other is implied. The question asks which alternative has the truth value ‘True’ (Jespersen 1024) and the answer is limited to the alterna-tive expressed by the interrogative sentence or its negation. In a conversation, however, when the question does not involve informa-tion as such, the answer may encompass both

interrogative sentences 321


mutually-contradictory alternatives, as in אהבת ahavt ±oto?—ken ve-lo ‘Did you± אותו?—כן ולאlove him?—Yes and no’ (Burstein 2000).

Unlike the situation in many other languages, yes-no interrogative sentences in Hebrew can-not be formed by changing the word-order of an indicative sentence (for example, preposing an auxiliary verb to the subject). Yes-no inter-rogative sentences can begin with one of the following particles: -ה ha-, האם ha-±im, כלום klum, and וכי ve-xi (the first two from Bibli-cal Hebrew and the latter two from Rabbinic Hebrew). According to philosophers of lan-guage (Bar-On 1983a) a ‘correctly’ formulated yes-no interrogative sentence requires the pres-ence of an interrogative particle, but in fact whether or not an interrogative adverb appears at the beginning of such a sentence depends on the register or genre. In contemporary Hebrew sentences without an interrogative adverb are more common in speech and constitute the unmarked case. Therefore the intonation pat-tern (rising at the end of the sentence), whichis a phonological rather than syntactic marker (which denotes the question’s emotional con-notation; see Kirtchuk 1997) is the only marker common to all yes-no sentences. Such sen-tences can be found already in the Bible and in Rabbinic Hebrew. In the press interrogative sentences also usually lack an explicit ques-tion particle. The particle האם ha-±im is often encountered in the sections on the economy, politics and culture, as well as in translated interviews. -ה ha- is rarely used in writing, mainly by elderly, well-educated people, espe-cially before אין ±en ‘there is no/not’, יש yeš ‘there is’, אמנם ‘indeed’, לא lo ‘no/not’, and cer-tain verbs: ?הידעת ha-yada≠ta ‘did you know?’, ha-yitaxen ‘is it possible?’ (Burstein הייתכן?2003b). In literary writings and culture sec-tions of newspapers כלום klum, וכי ve-xi, and ha-lo appear at the head of interrogative הלאsentences that do not ask a question, but rather make a statement that is diametrically opposed to that of the sentence, for example וכי יש טעם ve-xi yeš †a≠am bi-dvarav? ‘Does what בדבריו?he says make any sense?’, meaning ‘What he says makes no sense’ (Burstein 2005a). Most interrogative sentences are either simple or complex; very few are conjoined. When a sen-tence begins with a sentential adverbial, the interrogative particle usually follows it, as in מסוכן? המצב האם שקיבלתם, הדיווחים le-fi לפי

divu≤im še-qibaltem ha-±im ha-maßav mesu-kan? ‘According to the reports you received, is the situation dangerous?’, because the sen-tential adverb is not part of the question, but rather the information on which it is based. In a complex sentence the interrogative adverb can appear at the beginning of the sentence, for example, האם תסגרו אגפים כיוון ששיעור הגבייה -ha-±im tisgeru ±agapim kevan še-ši≠ur ha קטן?gviya qa†an? ‘Will you close sections because the collection rate is low?’. When such a sen-tence begins with a conditional, concessive, or temporal clause, that is, a clause that can func-tion as a sentential adverbial, the interrogative particle may appear before the main clause, as in ?כאשר צפית בהם, האם שמחת ka-±ašer ßafita bahem ha-±im »ama≤ta? ‘When you watched them did you feel happy?’. Interrogative sen-tences may be elliptical and contain only a sin-gle constituent (noun phrase: .לא מועמדת? יש yeš mo≠omedet?—lo.—xavera? ‘Is there חברה?a candidate? No. A member/friend?’; preposi-tional phrase: ?אנשים בכו. בגללך ±anašim baxu. biglalxa? ‘People cried.—Because of you?’; adverb: כאן? קרס. —.ha-binyan qaras הבניין kan? ‘The building collapsed.—Here?’; or a clause: ?ספרים קונים שאנשים מאושר. היה הוא hu haya me±ušar. še-±anašim qonim sfarim? ‘He was happy.—That people bought books?’ (Burstein 2005b). Such elliptical questions are completed by a previous interrogative or response sentence. An interrogative may begin with a conjunction that links it to a previous interrogative or response sentence, as in אף פעם af pa≠am lo± לא ניסיתי לשנות אותו.—והוא אותך?nisiti lešanot ±oto.—ve-hu ±otxa? ‘I never tried to change him?—And has he (ever tried to change) you?’. Interrogative sentences can be affirmative or negative. Affirmative sentences are usually neutral, although some expressions give rise to an affirmative bias, for example (a) the phrases -ש מבין/מניח /ani mevin± אני menia≤ še- ‘I understand/assume that’ when they occur at the beginning of a sentence and function pragmatically as parenthetical expres-sions and not as part of the question; (b) expressions that reflect the speaker’s practical certainty (such as בטח be†a≤ and ודאי vaday ‘certainly’), which logically are not expected to occur in interrogative sentences, since the latter express uncertainty; other words, such as ’be-±emet ‘truly באמת bixlal ‘at all’ and בכללbias the question towards a negative answer.



Negative interrogative sentences are usually not neutral. They tend either to a negative answer when expressing the speaker’s surprise (לא לגליל? lo nasa≠ta la-galil? ‘You didn’t go נסעת to Galilee?) or disappointment (?לא קנית ירקות lo qanita yeraqot? ‘You didn’t buy vegetables?), or to an affirmative answer when they negate a verb of thinking (?אינך חושב שטעית ±enxa ≤ošev še-†a≠ita? ‘Don’t you think you were wrong?’. Yes-no interrogative sentences may also be indirect, that is, clauses in a complex sentence. In such structures they do not pose a question and do not end in a question mark. The most common subordinating conjunction is אם ±im ‘if’, which also begins a conditional clause. What interrogative and conditional sentences have in common is that they both express hypothetical situations and lack of knowledge (Bolinger 1978). Such clauses can function as object (יבוא הוא אם יודעת eni yoda≠at ±im± איני hu yavo ‘I do not know whether he will come’), as subject (לא ידוע אם הוא יבוא lo yadua≠ ±im hu yavo ‘It is not known whether he will come’), as predicate (השאלה היא אם הוא יבוא ha-še±ela hi ±im hu yavo ‘The question is whether he will come’), or as apposition (השאלה אותי מטרידה יבוא הוא ma†rida ±oti ha-še±ela ±im hu yavo אם ‘What bothers me is the question of whether he will come’).

(b) WH-questions. Sentences expressing WH-questions begin with an interrogative pronoun, such as מי mi ‘who’ and מה ma ‘what’, or an interrogative adverb (pro-adverb according to Glinert 1989), such as כיצד keßad ‘how’ and madua≠ ‘why’, which express a variable מדועwhose value is unknown. Such a pronoun or adverb indicate a general concept, type, or category that is not a diametrical (yes/no) opposition. It is the value of the variable that is the missing lexical element in the sentence. Because of their function these pronouns and adverbs have the status of rheme, that is, the conceptual object of the sentence, while the rest of the sentence is the theme, that is, the sen-tence’s conceptual subject. Yes/no and WH interrogative sentences differ from each other in a number of respects. (a) The interrogative word: in yes/no questions the interrogative particles are optional, that is, they may be omit-ted without changing the sentence’s meaning, while in WH interrogative sentences they are obligatory, since it is they that create the inter-

rogative construction. (b) Representation of the answer in the interrogative sentence: in yes/no questions one possible answer is explicitly represented in the sentence itself, while none is represented in WH sentences. (c) Possible answers: the answer to a yes/no question is either the possibility expressed in the interroga-tive sentence or its negation, while the answer to a WH question replaces the WH pronoun or adverb. The WH pronoun can be replaced by a noun (קרה?—אסון ma qara?—±ason מה ‘What happened?—A disaster’), an adjective הוא?—ישר) אדם eze ±adam hu?—yašar± איזה ‘What kind of a person is he?—Honest’), a nominalized clause (שמתחשב כך?—מי נוהג מי mi noheg kax?—mi še-mit≤ašev ba-zulat בזולת‘Who behaves like this?—Someone who is con-siderate of others’). The WH adverb can be replaced by an adverb (הספר?—כאן efo± איפה ha-sefer?—kan ‘Where is the book?—Here’), a prepositional phrase (נסעת?—בבוקר מתי matay nasa≠at?—ba-boqer ‘When did you leave?—In the morning’), or an adverbial clause רעבה) הייתי יצאת?—כי lama yaßat?—ki למה hayiti re≠eva ‘Why did you go out?—Because I was hungry’). (d) Intonation: in yes/no inter-rogative sentences the intonation rises towards the end of the sentence, while in WH sentences it falls.

When the pronoun is not the grammatical subject the word order of the interrogative sentence is different from that of its declarative counterpart, for example ?קנתה רבקה ma מה qanta rivqa? ‘What did Rebecca buy’ versus ספר קנתה rivqa qanta sefer ‘Rebecca רבקה bought a book’. The declarative sentence begins with the grammatical subject while the interrogative sentence begins with the missing element, the direct object in this case. When the missing element is the subject the word order in the interrogative sentence is identical to that of the corresponding declarative sentence, for example ?בחידון זכה ?mi zaxa ba-≤idon מי ‘Who won the quiz?’, like בחידון זכה dan דן zaxa ba-≤idon ‘Dan won the quiz’. Most WH interrogative sentences are either simple or complex. In the latter case, when the interroga-tive pronoun or adverb belong to a subordinate object or subject clause they will come at the head of the main clause that begins the sen-tence, for example ?מה את רוצה שאני אעשה ma ±ata roße še-±ani ±e≠e«e? ‘What do you want me to do?’, ?איפה הוא אמר שהוא שם את הספר ±efo



hu ±amar še-hu «am ±et ha-sefer? ‘Where did he say he put the book?’. Conjoined clauses are rare: אחת מכל דוחה אתה ומה מקבל אתה מה ma ±ata meqabel u-ma ±ata do≤e משתי הגישות?mi-šte ha-gišot? ‘What do you accept and what do you reject from the two approaches?’. How-ever, there are interrogative sentences with two semantically distinct adverbs that are syntacti-cally conjoined, for example התחלת ולמה איך ex ve-lama hit≤alta leßayer? ‘When and± לצייר?why did you begin to draw?’, איך ומתי כפו את אשכול? על ex u-matay kafu ±et dayan ≠al± דיין ±eškol? ‘How and when did they impose Dayan on Eshkol?’. Less frequently the two adverbs are separated, as in בציור להתמקד התחלת איך ?ex hit≤alta lehitmaqed be-ßiyur ve-lama± ולמה?‘How did you start to focus on drawing and why?’. In dialogue one frequently uses ellipti-cal interrogative sentences consisting of just a pronoun or an adverb, for example כתבתי מכתב.—מתי? ?katavti la mixtav.—matay לה ‘I wrote her a letter.—When?’. The meaning in such cases is completed through the context. In headlines and names of conferences the inter-rogative pronoun or adverb may be moved to the end of the sentence or phrase, for empha-sis, as in ?האקדמיה—לאן ha-±aqademya—le±an? ‘Academe—Whither?’; extraposed construc-tions may also be encountered, for example ben ±adam ba-me±a בן-אדם במאה העשרים—מהוha-≠e«rim—mahu? ‘Man in the Twentieth Century—What Is He?’. Some interrogative sentences have two variables, for example מי -mi nil≤am neged mi? ‘Who is fight נלחם נגד מי?ing against whom?’, ?מה שיחק מביניכם mi מי mi-benexem «i≤eq ma? ‘Which of you played what?’. Three variables in one sentence occur only rarely: ?למי מה קנתה היא efo he± איפה qanta ma le-mi? ‘Where did she buy what for whom?’. The interrogative particle וכי ve-xi usually appears at the head of a yes/no sentence, but in Rabbinic Hebrew it also happens that it is used at the head of a WH sentence (Segal 1936). In contemporary literature there are a few examples of this, as in ?וכי מה קרה ve-xi ma qara? ‘So what happened?’. Most WH questions are affirmative; negative WH interrogative sen-tences usually begin with מדוע madua≠ ‘why’, while למה lama ‘why’ is used for expressing an affirmative suggestion, for example למה לא lama lo nisa≠ la-yam? ‘Why don’t we ניסע לים?go to the beach?’, meaning ‘Maybe we should go to the beach’. Interrogative WH sentences

can be indirect, that is, they can be subordinate clauses in a complex sentence, for example לא lo yadua≠ matay ya≤zor ‘It is not ידוע מתי יחזורknown when he will be back’. These sentences do not differ in form from regular interrogative sentences, but they do not ask a question, nor do they end with a question mark. They are not preceded by a complementizer and they are conjoined asyndetically.

3. I n t e r r o g a t i v e P r o n o u n s

mi ‘who’ is the interrogative pronoun for מי[+ animate] nouns of all genders and numbers, and מה ma ‘what’ is the interrogative pronoun for [– animate] nouns and adjectives of all genders and numbers, as well as for clauses. These pronouns and the following noun have different syntactic roles and create a predicative relation between them. eze ‘which’ is a pronoun that can stand± איזה

for a noun, an adjective, or a clause. It has no independent existence; it will always be fol-lowed by an indefinite noun, both of which belong to one and the same noun phrase and do not create a predicative relation between them. eze and the noun following it can± איזה replace the interrogative pronoun מה ma, as in רעיון חדש הוא הביע? eze ra≠yon ≤adaš hu± איזה hibia≠? ‘What new idea did he express?’ (= מה ma ha-ra≠yon he-≤adaš הרעיון החדש שהוא הביעše-hu hibia≠?), as well as the following adverbs: be-±eze maqom באיזה מקום) ’hexan ‘where היכןliterally ‘in which place’), מדוע madua≠ ‘why’ me-±eze nimuq literally ‘for what מאיזה נימוק =)reason’), למה lama ‘why’ (= לאיזו תכלית le-±ezo taxlit literally ‘for what purpose’), matay מתי ‘when’ (= יום be-±eze yom literally ‘on באיזה what day’), and איך ±ex ‘how’ (= אופן באיזה be-±eze ±ofen literally ‘in what manner’). The feminine singular form איזו ±ezo and the com-mon gender plural form אילו ±elu are used mostly in high registers. The masculine singular form is often used regardless of the gender and number of the noun.

All interrogative pronouns can be preceded by prepositions: ְלמי le-mi ‘to whom’, ְּבמה be-ma ‘in/with what’, איזה .’im ±eze ‘with which≠ עם

4. I n t e r r o g a t i v e A d v e r b s

The adverbs מדוע madua≠ and למה lama ‘why’ ask for the causal relation between events (מדוע



החשמל? madua≠ kava ha-≤ašmal? ‘Why כבה did the power go off?’) or for an explanation madua≠ hu nixšal? ‘Why did he מדוע הוא נכשל?)fail?’ (Bar-On 1983b). למה lama is more com-monly used than madua≠, which belongs מדוע to a higher register. למה lama can also be used to ask for the purpose. keßad ‘how’ ask for the כיצד ex and± איך

means, the way, the explanation and reason. A split sentence such as ?איך זה שאתה לא מספיק ±ex ze še-±ata lo maspiq? ‘How is it that you do not manage?’ is similar in meaning to מדוע אתה madua≠ ±ata lo maspiq? ‘Why don’t לא מספיק?you manage?’. איך ±ex is more common than keßad, which is characteristic of a higher כיצדregister. כיצד keßad occurs only in verbal sen-tences, while איך ±ex can also occur in nominal sentences as a pronoun for an adjective, for example ?איך תנאי העבודה ±ex tna±e ha-≠avoda? ‘How are the work conditions?’.איה hexan, and היכן ,efo± איפה ±aye ‘where’

ask about a general or a restricted place and can occur in nominal sentences (?הילד איפה ±efo ha-yeled? ‘Where is the child?’) or verbal sentences (?איפה טיילת ±efo †iyalta? ‘Where did you stroll?’). Of the three, איפה ±efo is the most common; היכן hexan and איה ±aye are used in higher registers. איה ±aye is fairly rare. ,minayin ‘from where מניין me-±ayin and מאין

whence’ express origin while לאן le-±an ‘to where, whither’ expresses destination. They can be used with either a concrete or an abstract meaning. In the latter sense they are usually accompanied by the verb ידע yada≠ ‘know’. ematay ‘when’ ask for± אימתי matay and מתי

time as well as for circumstances (or condi-tions, according to Bar-On 1983c), for example תגידי, מתי את מתאהבת, לא באיזה עיתוי אלא מהן tagidi, matay ±at mit±ahevet, lo be-±eze הנסיבות?≠ituy ±ela mahen ha-nesibot ‘Tell me, when do you fall in love, not at what time, but what are the circumstances’. Of the two adverbs, מתי matay is more common; אימתי ±ematay can occasionally be found in literature.

The interrogative adverb כמה kama ‘how much, how many’ asks for quantity. It can either come before an indefinite noun or func-tion in nominalized form. כמה kama may be used to ask for specific or non-specific quanti-ties (so the answer may be a number, or a gen-eral word such as מעט me≠a† ‘a little’ or הרבה harbe ‘much, a lot’.

5. D i s j u n c t i v e I n t e r r o g a t i v e S e n t e n c e s

Such sentences explicitly present the various alternative answers to a question. From a syn-tactic as well as a logical perspective only one of the alternatives presented in the interrogative sentence should be chosen as the answer; how-ever, in non-scientific and non-factual dialogues other possibilities may be materialized, such as choosing all the alternatives, or none, or even giving a new alternative that is not contained in the question.

The disjunctive particle או ±o ‘or’, placed between the alternatives, syntactically expresses conjunction, logically and semantically denotes exclusive disjunction, and pragmatically asks the addressee to choose the correct alternative. In speech the intonation rises towards the end of the first alternative and drops towards the end of the second.

There are a number of different types of disjunctive interrogative sentences (Burstein 2003a).

Type 1: This type is based on yes/no interroga-tive sentences. Whereas in the usual type of yes/no sentence only one answer is explicitly repre-sented, the disjunctive version explicitly gives both diametrically opposed alternatives, as in מסר? לא או ההתחייבות את מסר hu masar הוא ±et ha-hit≤ayvut ±o lo masar? ‘Did he hand in his pledge or did he not?’. These questions are thus neutral with respect to the answer expected by the speaker.

In most such sentences only the predicate is repeated in both alternatives and the other sentence components appear only once, after the non-negated verb (נסעת אתמול לחיפה או לא nasa≠ta ±etmol le-≤efa ±o lo nasa≠ta? ‘Did נסעת?you go to Haifa yesterday or did you not go?’) or after the negated verb (קליין יוריד או לא יוריד בקרוב? הריבית klein yorid ±o lo yorid ±et את ha-ribit be-qarov? ‘Will or will not Klein lower the interest soon?’). The unmarked affirmative alternative always comes before the negative one. Occasionally the first alternative is given in full and the second only elliptically, for example ?לא או המפקד ata ha-mefaqed± אתה ±o lo? ‘Are you the commander or not?’. This usage expresses impatience, a demand for a quick response. Sentences ending in ?לא או כן



ken ±o lo? ‘yes or no?’, for example, את הכנת hexanta ±et ha-ši≠urim, ken השיעורים, כן או לא?±o lo? ‘Did you do your homework, yes or no?’, serve to extract a definite answer from the addressee. Questions that begin with או האם ha-±im ±o ha-±im lo ‘did you or did you האם לאnot’, as in ?לחיפה נסעת לא האם או ha±im האם ±o ha±im lo nasa≠ta le-≤efa? ‘Did you or did you not go to Haifa?’ sound stilted and are used only for specific purposes.

Type 2: This type is based on WH inter-rogative sentences. In the usual sentences of the latter type the intended replacement for the question word is not specified, while in their disjunctive version possible answers are given, for example ?מי הגיע ראשון, דן או משה mi higia≠ rišon, dan ±o moše? ‘Who arrived first, Dan or Moshe?’. The correct answer is one of the dis-juncts. Only rarely does the disjunction appear adjoined to the question word, as in או דן מי, ?mi, dan ±o moše higia≠, rišon משה, הגיע ראשון?‘Who, Dan or Moshe, arrived first?’.

The disjuncts that stand for interrogative pronouns are noun phrases (,מי מצטיין בלימודיםיואב? או רן mi miß†ayen ba-limudim, ran ±o yo±av? ‘Who excels in his studies, Ran or Yoav?’), while those that stand for interroga-tive adverbs may be adverbs (היכן קר יותר, כאן hexan qar yoter, kan ±o šam? ‘Where is או שם?it colder, here or there?’), prepositional phrases ,ex ±ata kotev± איך אתה כותב, במחשב או בעט?)be-ma≤šev ±o be-≠e†? ‘How do you write, on the computer or with a pen?’), or clauses (מתי שאת לפני או שרה שאת לפני יותר, מתרגשת את matay ±at mitragešet yoter, lifne še-±at רוקדת?šara ±o lifne še-±at roqedet? ‘When are you more tense, before you sing or before you dance?’. When the conjuncts are verb phrases the inter-rogative pronoun is מה ma ‘what’, followed by the verb ≠a«a ‘do’, as in או קראת עשית, מה ma ≠a«ita, qarata ±o katavta? ‘What did כתבת?you do, read or write?’. When the proposed answers are the subjects of the sentence they do not always show agreement with the predi-cate, for example הקריירה לך, חשוב יותר מה האהבה? ma yoter ≤ašuv lax, ha-qaryera ±o או ha-±ahava? ‘What is more important to you, your career or love?’. The lack of agreement is due to the fact that the speaker formulates the sentence before having decided on the precise form of the disjunction. Since the masculine is the common and unmarked form, it will be used in such cases.

There are elliptical interrogative sentences consisting only of the disjunction, for example שנתיים? לפני או היא?—עכשיו —?ex hi± איך ≠axšav ±o lifne šnatayim? ‘How is she?—Now or two years ago?’. Their full meaning is derived from the context. A rare construction has a disjunction that is preposed to the interroga-tive sentence, for example או מהערוץ התמימה ha-tmima הנועזת מהתיאטרון—מה יותר קרוב אליך?me-he-≠aruß ±o ha-no≠ezet me-ha-te±a†ron—ma yoter qarov ±elexa? ‘The naïve one (f) from the channel or the daring one (f) from the theater —what’s closer to you?’. In writing the disjunc-tion and the interrogative pronoun in such sentences are separated by a punctuation sign (a comma, a dash, or even a period).

Type 3: This type corresponds to yes/no interrogative sentences in form but elicits a WH-type response. Such sentences are con-structed like regular yes/no questions but end with a disjunction providing possible alterna-tives to one of the interrogative sentence’s constituents. The answer then is not ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but one of the explicit alternatives given in the sentence. Instead of expressing a diametri-cal opposition the sentence provides an addi-tional possibility. Syntactically and logically only one of the disjuncts is a possible answer, but in conversation speakers may agree to all or some. The choice may be among noun phrases ידידה?) או חברה at ≤avera ±o yedida? ‘Are± את you a girlfriend or just a friend?’), verbs (ניסע nisa≠ la-te±a†ron ±o nelex? ‘Shall לתאטרון או נלך?we drive to the theater or go on foot?’), or prep-ositional phrases (?ניפגש בחמש או בשש nipageš be-≤ameš ±o be-šeš ‘Shall we meet at five or at six?’). When the alternatives are verbs they can be juxtaposed and their complements stated just once, either after the first verb (הפשיעה שיעור ירד? או האחרונות בשנים ši≠ur ha-pši≠a± עלה ba-šanim ha-±a≤ronot ≠ala ±o yarad? ‘Did the crime rate in recent years rise or fall?’) or after the second (?ישראל לעם טוב או רע שהוטל המס ha-mas še-hu†al †ov ±o ra≠ le-≠am yisra±el ‘Is the tax that has been imposed good or bad for the people of Israel?’). Usually the disjuncts appear next to each other, but when they function as subjects they will usually be separated, as in ata menaqe± אתה מנקה את הבית או החברה שלך?±et ha-bayit ±o ha-≤avera šelxa? ‘Do you do the cleaning at home or does your girlfriend?’. Sometimes the word או ±o between the dis-juncts is lacking, for example, כשתפרוש תמשיך



באימון? בניהול? ke-še-tifroš tamšix בכדורגל? be-xaduregel? be-nihul? be-±imun? ‘When you retire will you continue with football? Manage-ment? Training?’. In the latter case the disjuncts can be treated as examples, not as a closed list, so that the addressee can also choose another possibility.

An interrogative sentence such as את ראית ra±ita ±et dan ±o rivqa? ‘Did you see דן או רבקה?Dan or Rebecca?’ may be ambiguous between a reading as (a) a disjunctive question which presupposes that the addressee saw only one of the two, with the expected answer of either et rivqa± את רבקה et dan ‘(I saw) Dan’ or± את דן‘(I saw) Rebecca’, or as (b) a yes/no questions that presupposes that he either did or did not see the two of them, with the expected answer of either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. In speech the two readings have distinct intonations, in (a) a rising into-nation on the first alternative and a falling intonation on the second, and in (b) a rising intonation at the end of the sentence.

The disjunction can also be composed of two clauses of a conjoined sentence, either of two interrogative sentences of the same type את אוהבת לקרוא ספרים או שאת מעדיפה לצפות)בסרטים? ±at ±ohevet liqro sfarim ±o še-±at ma≠adifa lißpot bi-sra†im? ‘Do you like to read books or do you prefer to watch films?’), or of different types (את אוהבת לקרוא או מה את עושה הפנאי? at ±ohevet liqro ±o ma ±at ≠o«a± בשעות bi-š≠ot ha-pnay? ‘Do you like to read or what do you do in your spare time?’). או מה ±o ma ‘or what’ is a common elliptical expression used in the colloquial language to indicate an open set of alternatives, for example הילדים מזדהים איך -ex mizdahim ha± שלך, ספרדים אשכנזים או מה?yeladim šelxa, sfaradim ±o ±aškenazim ±o ma? ‘What do your children consider themselves to be, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, or what?’.

In addition, there are two secondary types of interrogative sentences.

Type 4: Tag interrogative sentences. Such sentences follow a declarative sentence and ask for confirmation. The following expressions are used for this purpose in Modern Hebrew (Di-Nur 1987): מעניין ha-sefer me≠anyen הספר ‘The book is interesting’, ?נכון naxon? ‘right?’ / ’?ma? ‘what מה? / ’?lo? ‘no לא? / ’?ken? ‘yes כן?כך? / ’?e? ‘huh± אה? / / ’?lo kax? ‘isn’t it לא tofes? ‘get תופס? / ’?mevin? ‘understand מבין?it?’. There is no polarity reversal between the

declarative sentence and the tag interrogative sentence.

Type 5: Echo interrogative sentences, which consist of the repetition of a word or words said by the other person. The purpose of such sentences is to confirm that one heard correctly, to express doubt, or to ask for clarification. Usually the interrogative pronoun or adverb in such sentences will be placed at the end, for example ?מי עם dibarta ≠im mi? ‘You דיברת spoke to whom?’, said after the sentence דיב־ dibarti ±emeš ≠im ±a≤yaniti רתי אמש עם אחייניתי‘Last night I spoke to my niece’; ?לאן נסעת nasa≠ta le-±an? ‘You took a trip to where?’, said after the sentence למונטנגרו nasa≠ti נסעתי le-mon†enegro ‘I took a trip to Montenegro’. The location of the interrogative pronoun or particle in sentences of this type is due to the fact that the questioner adheres to the constitu-ent order of the questioned sentence. When the questioned element is the grammatical subject no change in word order takes place, as in מי יפה? ,’?mi diber yafe? ‘Who spoke nicely דיבר said after the sentence יפה דיבר iti±el± איתיאל diber yafe ‘Itiel spoke nicely’.

R e f e r e n c e sBar-On, Avraham Zvi. 1983a. “The Question”.

Thinking philosophy—conceptual analysis, 41–58 (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes.

——. 1983b. “Why questions”. Thinking philos-ophy—conceptual analysis, 59–68 (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes.

——. 1983c. “When question”. Thinking philos-ophy—conceptual analysis, 69–77 (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Magnes.

Bolinger, Dwight. 1978. “Yes-no questions are not alternative questions”. Questions, ed. by Henry Hiz, 87–106. Dordrecht: Reidel.

Burstein, Ruth. 2000. “Combined affirmative and negative answers to yes-no questions” (in Hebrew). Helkat Lashon 29–31:101–128.

——. 2003a. “Alternative questions in Hebrew: Types and meanings” (in Hebrew). Studies in Modern Hebrew on the 30th anniversary of the Israeli Association of Applied Linguistics, ed. by Yitzhak Shlesinger and Malka Muchnik, 42–60. Jerusalem: Tzivonim.

——. 2003b. “ ‘He Interrogative’ in the Bible and in written contemporary media—its frequency and its distribution” (in Hebrew). Bamichlala 14–15:55–99.

——. 2005a. “On Queclaratives” (in Hebrew). Itai Zimran Book, ed. by Ruth Burstein, 459–502. Jeru-salem: David Yellin Academic College of Education.

——. 2005b. “Dependent-Context interrogatives in interviews and contemporary newspapers” (in Hebrew). Helkat Lashon 36:31–55.

Di-Nur, Miryam. 1987. “Studies in the structure of dia-logue in Hebrew plays by means of conversational

intonation: israeli hebrew 327


analysis—in selected plays of Hanoch Levin” (in Hebrew). PhD dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Glinert Lewis. (1989). The grammar of Hebrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jespersen, Otto. 1924. The philosophy of grammar. Chicago / London: The University of Chicago Press.

Kirtchuk, Pablo Isaac. 1997. “Question, exclama-tion, negation—contacts” (in Hebrew). Hadassah Shay Jubilee book—Research papers on Hebrew linguistics and Jewish languages. ed. by Yaakov Bentolila, 263–272. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.

Segal, Moshe Zvi. 1936. The grammar of Mishnaic language (in Hebrew). Tel-Aviv: Dvir.

Ruth Burstein (David Yellin Academic College of Education,

Jerusalem)

Intonation: Israeli Hebrew

I n t r o d u c t i o n

The term ‘intonation’ is used in its narrow sense to describe the variation of pitch by the change in the fundamental frequency of the voice (F0) in the process of speaking and the over-all pitch-form of the utterance. In its broader sense, which is used for this entry, the term also includes such phenomena as accent (above the level of the lexical stress) and its location, rhythm, duration, and intensity. However, the characteristics which are frequently attributed to the ‘biological’ rather than ‘linguistic’ code, such as general loudness (shouting vs. whis-pering), are beyond the scope of ‘intonation’, although the border between the ‘biological’ and the ‘linguistic’ in this domain is frequently blurred or disputed (Gussenhoven 2004).

1. G e n e r a l P r o s o d i c C h a r a c -t e r i s t i c s o f I s r a e l i H e b r e w

The prosodic features of lexical stress in Israeli Hebrew have a lot in common with the char-acteristics of intonation as defined above, and therefore their behavior is strongly interre-lated. Following the famous experiments by Fry (1958), which showed that the main properties of the stressed syllable in English are pitch height, vowel length, and (only finally) inten-sity, similar results were obtained for Israeli Hebrew (Laufer 1987:47). The special char-acteristics of pitch, namely, its deviation from

general contour and non-abrupt falling tone of the final syllable (as opposed to the expected abrupt fall), etc., can be crucial for the percep-tion of stress, but much research remains to be done in order to understand the nature of this phenomenon. It is very probable that central roles are played by vowel quality and other properties which were recently shown to be very significant for some Western-European languages, such as English and Dutch (Gussen-hoven 2004:14).

Israeli Hebrew is not a tonal language, i.e., pitch contour is not used to distinguish minimal pairs of words lexically. Although the perceived difference between minimal pairs distinguished by stress (such as in ַצַעד [|tsa͡ad ] ‘a step’ vs. ,he marched’) is, to a large extent‘ [ tsa͡±ad] ָצַעדbased on their pitch movement, it is the devia-tion from the general direction of pitch that is responsible for the perception of stress and not a specific and constant pitch contour.

Spontaneous speech is divided into Into-nation Units—prosodic units which have “a coherent intonation contour” (Izre’el 2005 for Israeli Hebrew, following Du Bois et al. 1992, see part 3 for the detailed discussion). Usually, each unit has at least one accent—a stress on the level of the Intonation Unit (frequently these are called ‘sentence-accents’, as the com-mon analysis is theoretically sentence-based, instead of being based on the prosodic units of the spoken language). Accents tend to occur on the lexically-stressed syllables. Syllables which do not carry an accent frequently have no per-ceived lexical stress either.

Pitch deviation from the main intonational contour is one of the principle clues for the location of accent. The best known type of such deviation is the so-called ‘intonational peak’, a local maximal height of pitch. If the accented syllable is not final or penultimate in the unit, Israeli Hebrew has a tendency to postpone this peak to the post-accented syllable, i.e., the pitch curve continuously rises through the accented syllable and reaches its peak in the beginning of the syllable which immediately follows the accent (as will be seen below in Fig. 4). However, this post-accented syllable is never perceived as prominent or accented and has no additional properties of accent besides the height of pitch, such as special length or a specific vowel quality. This feature has led

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