Animacy and Referential Status as Factors of Asymmetric Object Marking in Modern Hebrew (based on Interrogative and Relative Pronouns)

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Abstract

The goal of this study is to confirm a correlation between the asymmetric object marking in Modern Hebrew and two factors that license the marking of the referential expression its encoding, namely “referential status” and “animation”. To achieve this goal, interrogative and relative pronouns that encode the O-participant in a transitive clause in the Hebrew language, are considered. They constitute the subject of the study and justify its scientific novelty, since this type of referential expressions encoding the patient participant of the situation in Modern Hebrew has not been the subject of research until now. To conduct a quantitative and comparative analysis, the author formed an experimental Hebrew Objects Targeted Corpus, with a volume of about 49,000 words. As a result of the study, it was concluded that there is a correlation between the asymmetric object marking, referential status and animation in Modern Hebrew. The study showed that the asymmetric object marking of referents encoded by interrogative pronouns in the vast majority of cases (98%) is regulated by the animacy of the referent, while the variability of the marking of referents encoded by relative pronouns is licensed both by the animacy and the referential status of the object. A hypothesis was also put forward about the existence of an additional factor that licenses the asymmetric object marking of interrogative and relative pronouns, which lies in the area of pragmatic characteristics of the statement, in particular, the degree of topicality of the referent encoding the patient participant in the situation.

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