Introduction to a Valency Dictionary of Classical Hebrew

This dictionary aims to present in as complete and clear a way as possible the syntactic, morphological, and semantic features of verbal valency in the Classical Hebrew corpus, based on the databases available from Accordance Bible Software: the Westminster Hebrew Morphology, the Sirach module, the Qumran Non-Biblical Manuscripts and Judean Desert Corpus modules, and the Hebrew Inscriptions module. Many of these analyses presented here originated in research on the complement-adjunct distinction for the Syntax of the Hebrew Bible project, and are reflected in its syntactical analysis. Interaction is made at times in the comments with the parallel morphological and syntactic databases for the Hebrew Bible, now available in Accordance (and elsewhere); namely, the Andersen-Forbes Database and the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computing advanced database.

Syntactically verbs are classified as avalent, monovalent, bivalent, and/or trivalent as a measure of the subject and VP complements that are configured with a verb. Morphological variations are identified for VP complements, including different complement types (i.e., NP, PP, INF, CL) and variations within each type (i.e., NP substitute PRO and marker את, prepositional head on PP and on INF, complementizer of clauses). Semantically, a minimal and course-grained set of thematic role markers are employed to index event participants and to indicate gross similarities among different event types: Actor/Agent, Patient, Recipient/Benefactive/Malafactive/Addressee, Theme, Location (including source, goal, path), Source/Stimuli (i.e., non-locative source or cause, and stimulii).

Structure of entries

The entries are structured as follows Hover over this text. Line one lists the verb by root and binyan followed by occurrences of the verb in the Hebrew Bible, Ben Sira, Qumran and Judean Desert, and Hebrew Inscriptions. The data are drawn from the Westminster Morphology and modules covering these other corpuses in Accordance Bible Software. A simple English gloss is given followed by a numeric classification of the valency range for the verb. The general structure of the verb is given in [brackets] wherein the structure is listed in SVO order, with _ indicating the verb's position. Morphosyntactic variations of the VP complement types are given in {brackets} and subscript letters indicate the semantic roles.

The remainder of the entry unpacks the detail briefly given in the first line. Valency structures are listed in order of low to high (i.e., 1, 2, 3) and within each valency in order of frequency, distinguished by letter where necessary (e.g., 2a, 2b, etc.). Derived patterns are listed next, distinguished by the use of > (e.g., 2>1, V>Adv) (see more below). The valency patterns are given a structural representation as in first line, but with more detail (as required) about the morphological variations within each complement type. Each type is accompanied by an example and then all the references are listed in canonical and corpus order (line 1), grouped by morphological variations in order of frequency, high to low. TXT is used to group references whose text is too broken to classify. The entry ends in smaller type with any comments and/or cross references and an indication of the last update of the entry.

Semantic roles

The semantic roles are marked in superscript capital letters and kept to minimum. David Dowty ("Thematic proto-roles and argument selection." Language 67/3 [1991]: 547–619) warns of "role fragmentation" in his discussion of the agent and patient "proto-roles." Following this lead, Agent/Actor and Patient denote arguments at the coarsest level—the "doer" and the "undergoer." The Recipient label also functions broadly to denote the entity towards whom an action is directed, whether to its reciept (recipient), hearing (addressee), benefit (benefactive), or detriment (malefactive). Location similarly serves as a cover for location as well as the locative varieties source, goal, and path. The Theme role, which sometimes interchanges with Patient in the literature, is employed here most significantly for medio-passive (ambiguous between middle and passive voice) and other species of the middle voice, such as when the single argument is the undergoer of a non-agentive event (e.g., anticausative or unaccusative such as The window broke), or one in which there is "argument identification" between agent and patient (i.e., reflexive and reciprocal). In the spirit of limiting semantic roles, Theme is also employed for resultative entities (e.g., The people made Saul king) and clausal complements. Finally, S is employed for non-locative Source and Stimuli.

Null complements

The distinction between null and implicit (below) complements is singificant to the theory underlying the dictionary. Null complements are phonologically empty but syntactically present and linked to an antecedent in the the context, whereas implicit complements are semantically motivated by the verbal lexeme itself (see Cook 2020). Given this position cases of null complementation are identified in the entries as one of the morphosyntactic variations within the patterns. The basis of identifying a complement as null (versus implicit) is pronoun insertion: the null can be replaced by an overt pronoun that refers to an antecedent in the discourse context. The antecedent (or some token of for lengthy or more abstract antecedents) is indicated in parentheses with each null complement reference. Antecedents that are themselves null are indicated by listing an appropriate modifier of the null element (e.g., כל, אשׁר, כאשר etc.).

Valency-reduced patterns, implicit complements, and lexical shifts

The valency-reduced patterns are listed as 2>1, 3>2, etc. in order to indicate to their semantic connection with the higher-valency pattern (and so are not "counted" in the valency assigned the entry): these patterns can be thought of as "derived" from the higher-valency pattern via one of a number of strategies. The most systematic of these is passivization, which is indicated by the designation of patient subject (i.e., [S_P _ ]), raised from the active VP complement position. However, only the qal passive participle is so designated since most passivization strategy occurs between binyanim, which are listed as separate verbs. The unspecified complement alternation (Unspec) accounts for the rest of the valency-reduced patterns. In this alternation, the complement is left unspecified and pragmatically supplied (e.g., ויאכל בועז וישׁת Boaz ate and drank, Ruth 3:7; see Cook 2020).

Three patterns labeled V> represent a lexical shift of the lexeme from verb to adjective (V>Adj), noun (V>N), and adverb (V>Adv) through Participle and Infinitive forms. The participle occurs frequent with some lexemes as a substantival adjective (creating lexical confusion, in the qal binyan, between the participle and the participle-based qotel noun; e.g., אויב (one who is) hostile; enemy. Less frequently, the Infinitive forms (mostly the Construct but occasionally the Absolute form) occur nominally (e.g., רני פלט shouts of saving, Ps 32:7; אלה . . . פרצו swearing . . . has broken out, Hos 4:2. These two lexical shifts represent morphosyntactic variations of unspecified complement valency-reduced patterns, since there is no grammatical reason they cannot appear with a complement; as such, they may be specifically labeled when multiple valency-reducing strategies appear for pattern. The V>Adv shift refers to the Adverbial Infinitive (Absolute) functioning adverbially, as a topic or focus marker (see Hatav 2021), or as a light verb (e.g., יוסף עשׂה do again; see Snider 2021). All these uses have no valency potential, and so they are listed as a separate "pattern" rather than within a valency-reducing one.

Abbreviations

_	indicates place of verb in structure
[ ]	enclose valency frame
{ }	enclose morphosyntactic variants of VP complements
=	parallel passage
0	avalent; e.g., (It) is raining.
1	monovalent; e.g., She sat down.
2	bivalent; e.g., He hit the ball.
2>1	bivalent to monovalent valency reduction pattern
3	trivalent; e.g., They gave food to the children.
3>2	trivalent to bivalent valency reduction pattern
XA	Actor/Agent; "doer," instigator, experiencer of action
Akk	Akkadian
CL	complement clause
cog	cognate complement
ellip.	elliptical
hi	hifil
ho	hofal
ht	hitpael
Impl	Implicit complementation
INF	infinitive clause
InfA	Infinitive Absolute/Adverbial Infinitive
intr	intransitive
K	Ketiv
XL	Location/Source/Goal/Path; spatial configuration of an event
ni	nifal
NP	Noun Phrase
Ø	null complement (antecedent follows in parentheses)
XP	Patient; the "undergoer" of the action
Pass	passive
pi	piel
PRO	clitic pronoun
pu	pual
Q	Qere
S	subject
XR	Recipient/Benefactive/Malafactive/Addressee; the entity towards which or for/against which an event or speech is directed
RNR	right node raising: The "sharing" of a rightward-moved constituent by two clauses; e.g., She slapped and he swatted the flies.
XS	Source/Stimuli
XT	Theme; single-argument of medio-passive and other middle verbs (reflexive/reciprocal) or non-patient entity moved or most affected by the action (including resultative and clausal complements)
tr	transitive
TXT, txt	broken text or textually difficult
Unspec	unspecified complement: implicit complement is semantically and/or pragmatically inferred to be something generically typical of (often cognate with) the verb; e.g., I already ate (something edible).
V>Adj	deverbal adjective pattern; i.e., participle lacking any VP complements
V>Adv	deverbal adverb pattern; i.e., tautological infinitive (absolute) and verbal hendiadys
var	variant manuscript reading (in Ben Sira module)
V>N	deverbal noun pattern; i.e., infinitive (construct) when it lacks any VP complements

Bibliography

Bibliographic abbreviations used in the dictionary and not listed below are found in Billie Jean Collins, ed., The SBL Handbook of Style. 2nd ed. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014, §8.4.1–2.