Publications

Forthcoming
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal. Forthcoming. The Language Of The Mishnah &Ndash; Between Late Hebrew And Mishnaic Hebrew. In What's The Mishna . Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press .
In discussing the history of the Hebrew language, a distinction must be made between its history as a linguistic system and the history of its written forms. The former assumes an idealized periodization of the language and distinguishes between Early Hebrew (EH) and Late Hebrew (LH). The latter bases the division on corpora, resulting in the traditional classification into Biblical Hebrew, Qumranic Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, with further sub-divisions such as early vs. late Biblical Hebrew, Early vs. Late Mishnaic Hebrew, Babylonian vs. Palestinian Talmudic Hebrew, etc. Although these two perspectives are fundamentally different, they are clearly interrelated: on the one hand, our knowledge about the history of the structure(s) of the language is based on data gathered from the Hebrew corpora and on the historical setting of these texts; on the other hand, the analysis of the linguistic information in the corpora is a de facto description of how the different linguistic systems were used in each corpus. This paper aims to examine the language of the Mishnah from these two perspectives and explore the conceptual distinction between the two categories with which it is associated, namely Late Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew. I will outline what it means to provide a description of Late Hebrew as a linguistic system, and what it means to examine Mishnaic Hebrew as the language of a written corpus. Accordingly, this paper has a twofold goal: 1) to explain the difference between the two perspectives as relevant to the language of the Mishnah. 2) to demonstrate the advantages of keeping them separate.
bar-asher_siegal_revised_paper_june_2021.pdf
Bar-Asher Siegal Elitzur A. Forthcoming. Two Types Of Negation: Semantics, Distribution And History. In Language Change: Theoretical And Empirical Perspectives. Springer.
negation_paper_for_submission_22.12.2023.pdf
2024
Elitzur A. Bar Asher Siegal. 2024. Register Variation In The Writing Of Heritage Russian Speakers In Israel. In Russian As A Heritage Language From Research To Classroom Applications, Pp. 139-164. London and New York: Routledge. . Publisher's Version

The chapter reports on the results of an experimental study that examined register variation in the writing of adult Russian Heritage speakers residing in Israel, specifically exploring such characteristics of formal writing as average sentence length, average word length, nominalizations, Latin origin vocabulary, and subordinate and coordinated clauses. The study compared the written production of the heritage speakers to that of Russian-dominant speakers residing in Israel. The findings indicate that, similarly to Russian-dominant speakers, heritage speakers of Russian distinguish between formal and informal written registers, but also exhibit some divergences. The authors then explored how reading practices and access to Russian language instruction in Israeli schools impacted the ability of heritage writers to employ the identified elements in formal writing. The chapter concludes with a discussion of possible pedagogical approaches to teaching register variation in the heritage language classroom.

ppaper_hl_scan.pdf
2022
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal. 2022. &Ldquo;Presentative Datives In Modern Hebrew&Rdquo;. In Building On Babel’s Rubble, Pp. 337-355. Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.
This paper deals with two presentative dative constructions in Modern Hebrew, characterizing them from two angles: as dative constructions and as presentative constructions. It demonstrates that this dual perspective allows to account for both the syntactic and the semantic differences between them.
presentative_datives_in_modern_hebrew.pdf
Emanuel Tov. 2022. Syntactic Reanalysis And Semantic Reanalysis: A Study Of The Semantic Shift Of 'Ilmale In Babylonian Hebrew And Aramaic. In Shay Le-Moshe, Pp. 129-159. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
This paper proposes a formal definition of reanalysis, while emphasizing the importance of the distinction between two different kinds of reanalysis: those in which the change is confined to the grammatical level, and those in which it is confined to the semantic level. After tracing the history of a negative counterfactual conditional marker in Hebrew and Aramaic which underwent both syntactic and semantic reanalyses, the paper assesses the concept of reanalysis with focus on the following questions: Is reanalysis a single, clearly-defined phenomenon, and if so, what is its nature? Is it merely a descriptive label for a certain observable state of affairs, or does it explain diachronic changes? Alternatively, perhaps it is a theoretical constraint, a theoretical requirement that linguistic change must be associated with specific environments where reanalysis can take place? A detailed analysis of the marker and its evolution yields the following broad hypothesis: Reanalysis of a linguistic form does not change the truth conditions of the proposition that contains it, regardless of whether the reanalysis is on the grammatical level or on the semantic level.
final_reanalyis_hebrew.pdf
2020
Bar-Asher Siegal EA. 2020. Medieval Jewish Literary Languages: The Case Of The Aramaic Of The Zohar. In Hebrew And Aramaic In The Middle Ages – Language Studies And Grammatical Thought, Pp. 19-63. Jerusalem: The Academy of Hebrew Language.
This paper characterizes Medieval Hebrew and Aramaic as literary languages, and uses the Aramaic of the Zohar as a test-case to explore this category. The paper seeks to explain how a ‘literary language’ – namely a language used mainly in literary contexts – arises, while utilizing three types of research: comparative philological research, which compares different languages and texts in terms of their vocabulary and grammar; sociolinguistic research, which examines the social functions of language use; and psycholinguistic research, which (in this particular case) examines issues of language acquisition. The paper builds on philological studies of literary languages to explain how the grammar of these languages evolves. It assumes that the acquisition of such languages is similar to second-language acquisition, while taking into account that these languages are both acquired and used in a strictly literary context. The main argument of the paper is that literary languages should be studied the same way as other languages, because ultimately – after making some adjustments motivated by their particular functions – they are compatible with the standard models of second-language acquisition. After concluding my general theoretical discussion, I apply my conclusions therein to the Aramaic of the Zohar (the main text of the Jewish Kabballah), adapting previous studies of Zoharic Aramaic to this theoretical framework, and examining various new issues in the Zoharic grammar.
medieval_jewish_literary_languages_the_c.pdf
2019
Bar-Asher Siegal EA and K., De Clercq . 2019. From Negative Cleft To External Negator. In Cycles In Language Change, Pp. 228-248. Oxford: Oxford University Press . . Publisher's Version
This chapter discusses the syntax and the semantics of the negator lāw in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (henceforth JBA) through the lens of the diachronic emergence of this negator. The new negator lāw is a sentential external negator, whose syntactic and semantic properties is discussed alongside a diachronic study concerning its origin. Syntactically, we propose that lāw, like negative DPs/PPs in English (Haegeman 2000) and Sicilian neca (Cruschina 2010; Garzonio and Poletto 2015) is merged in SpecFocP in the extended CP-domain from where it takes wide scope. Semantically, lāw takes propositional scope and expresses the meaning of external negation, equivalent to the independent clause: ‘it is not the case’. Diachronically, lāw, as a single-morpheme external negation, developed from a cleft whose matrix clause negates the content of the embedded clause. Following work by Bar-Asher Siegal (2015b), we argue that the syntactic reanalysis of lāw is triggered by a phonological process of univerbation between the regular negator lā in clefts with the agreement clitic. This syntactic reanalysis involves a morphological univerbation of lāw (Andersen 1987). The main claim of this chapter is that the syntactic and the semantic characteristics of this negator can be better understood in the light of its historical origin. Moreover, this is an interesting example of how a similar semantic interpretation can be associated with two different syntactic structures, thus allowing a syntactic reanalysis. This type of development is not part of the Jespersen Cycle or Croft’s cycle, but constitutes the development of a non-standard negator next to the standard negator. It is demonstrated that a similar development can be observed for the Sicilian negator neca as well (cf. Garzonio and Poletto 2015).
final_-_scan.pdf
2015
Bar-Asher Siegal Elitzur A. 2015. Hebrew Language. In Encyclopedia Of The Bible And Its Reception 11, Pp. 637-639, 646-653. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. . Publisher's Version
2013
Bar-Asher Siegal EA. . 2013. Adnominal Possessive And Subordinating Particles In Semitic Languages . In Morphologie, Syntaxe Et Sémantique Des Subordonnants, Pp. 133-150. Cahiers du LRL.
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal. 2013. Apocope. In Encyclopedia Of Hebrew Language And Linguistics, 1:Pp. 117. Leiden: Brill. . Publisher's Version
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal. 2013. &Ldquo;Diglossia In Rabbinic Hebrew&Rdquo;. In Encyclopedia Of Hebrew Language And Linguistics, 1:Pp. 725-729. Leiden: Brill. . Publisher's Version
2012
Elitzur A Bar-Asher Siegal. 2012. Diachronic Syntactic Studies In Hebrew Pronominal Reciprocal Constructions. In Diachrony In Biblical Hebrew, Pp. 209-244. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
diachronic_syntactic_studies_in_hebrew_p.pdf
2010
Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal. 2010. Hebrew: Jewish Use Of In The Second Temple Period. In Dictionary Of Early Judaism, Pp. 713-715. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.