The grammar of Modern Hebrew shares similarities with that of its Biblical Hebrew counterpart, but it has evolved significantly over time. Modern Hebrew grammar incorporates analytic constructions, expressing such forms as dative, allative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than morphological cases.
Modern Hebrew grammar is also fusional synthetic:Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), Complement Clause Types in Israeli, Complementation: A Cross-Linguistic Typology (RMW Dixon & AY Aikhenvald, eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 72–92. inflection plays a role in the formation of verbs and nouns (using non-concatenative discontinuous morphemes realised by vowel transfixation) and the declension of prepositions (i.e. with pronominal suffixes).
Representation of Hebrew examples Examples of Hebrew here are represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as well as native script. Although most speakers collapse the phonemes into ,Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad (2005), “Abba, why was Professor Higgins trying to teach Eliza to speak like our cleaning lady?”: Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, Prescriptivism and the Real Sounds of the Israeli Language, Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 19, pp. 210–31. the distinction is maintained by a limited number of speakers and will therefore be indicated here for maximum coverage. In the transcriptions, is used for the rhotic, which in Modern Hebrew phonology is more commonly a lax voiced uvular approximant .
Hebrew is written from right to left.
Syntax Every Hebrew sentence must contain at least one subject, at least one predicate, usually but not always a verb, and possibly other arguments and complements.
Word order in Modern Hebrew is somewhat similar to that in English: as opposed to Biblical Hebrew, where the word order is verb-subject-object, the usual word order in Modern Hebrew is subject-verb-object. Thus, if there is no case marking, one can resort to the word order. Modern Hebrew is characterized by an asymmetry between definite objects and indefinite objects. There is an accusative marker, et, only before a definite object (mostly a definite noun or personal name). Et-ha is currently undergoing fusion and reduction to become ta.Consider ten li et ha-séfer ("give:2ndPerson.Masculine.Singular.Imperative to-me ACCUSATIVE the-book"), meaning "Give me the book," where et, though functioning syntactically as a case marker, is formally a preposition, and ha is the definite article. This sentence is realised phonetically as ten li ta-séfer.
Sentences with finite verbs In sentences where the predicate is a verb, the word order is usually subject–verb–object (SVO), as in English. However, word order can change in the following instances: An object can typically be topicalized by moving it to the front of the sentence. When the object is a question word, this topicalization is almost mandatory. Example: , literally "To-whom he-told?", means "Whom did he tell?" In other cases, this topicalization can be used for emphasis. Hebrew is a partly pro-drop language. This means that subject pronouns are sometimes omitted when verb conjugations are able to reflect gender, number, and person; otherwise the subject pronouns should be mentioned. Specifically, subject pronouns are always used with verbs in the present tense because present forms of verbs don't reflect person. Indefinite subjects (like English's a boy, a book, and so on) are often postponed, giving the sentence some of the sense of "there exists [subject]" in addition to the verb's normal meaning. For example, , literally "Turned to-me some man that-asked that-[I]-will-help to-him with something", means "A man came to me wanting me to help him with something." This serves a purpose somewhat analogous to English's narrative use of this with a semantically indefinite subject: "So, I'm at work, and this man comes up to me and asks me to help him." Indeed, outside of the present tense, mere existence is expressed using the verb to be with a postponed indefinite subject. Example: , literally "Was reason that-[I]-asked", means "There was a reason I asked." Definite subjects can be postponed for a number of reasons. In some cases, a postponed subject can be used to sound formal or archaic. This is because historically, Hebrew was typically verb–subject–object (VSO). The Bible and other religious texts are predominantly written in VSO word order. Sometimes, postponing a subject can give it emphasis. One response to ("Start") might be ("You start!"). A subject might initially be omitted and then added later as an afterthought, such as , literally "[We]'ll-do it together, you and-I", means "You and I will do it together" or "We'll do it together, you and I".
Generally, Hebrew marks every noun in a sentence with some sort of preposition, with the exception of subjects and semantically indefinite direct objects. Unlike English, indirect objects require prepositions (Hebrew "" /hu naˈtan li ʔet ha-kaˈdur/ (literally "he gave to-me direct-object-marker the ball) in contrast to English "He gave me the ball") and semantically definite direct objects are introduced by the preposition (Hebrew "" /hu naˈtan li ʔet ha-kaˈdur/ (literally "he gave to-me direct-object-marker the ball) in contrast to English "He gave me the ball").
Nominal sentences Hebrew also produces sentences where the predicate is not a finite verb. A sentence of this type is called , a nominal sentence. These sentences contain a subject, a non-verbal predicate, and an optional copula. Types of copulae include: The verb (to be): While the verb to be does have present-tense forms, they are used only in exceptional circumstances. The following structures are used instead: While the past and future tenses follow the structure [sometimes-optional subject]-[form of to be]-[noun complement] (analogous to English, except that in English the subject is always mandatory), the present tense follows [optional subject]-[subject pronoun]-[noun complement]. (my father was a policeman when he was young.) (literally "the-son of-his he the-father of-hers", his son is her father.) (Yossi will be a chemist) While ("not") precedes the copula in the past and future tenses, it follows the copula (a subject pronoun) in the present tense. Where the past and future tenses are structured as [optional subject]-[form of to be]-[adjective complement] (analogous to English, except that in English the subject is mandatory), the present tense is simply [subject]-[adjective complement]. For example, , literally "the-door closed", means "the door is closed." That said, additional subject pronouns are sometimes used, as with noun complements, especially with complicated subjects. Example: , literally " it strange that-he said thus", means "that he said that is strange," i.e. "it's strange that he said that." The verbs , and (to become): When the sentence implies progression or change, the said verbs are used and considered copulae between the nominal subject and the non-verbal predicate. For instance: (The dog became more angry with every passing moment) (My friend has become a monster!) Possession / existence: : Possession in Hebrew is constructed indefinitely. There is no Hebrew translation to the English verb "to have," common in many Indo-European languages to express possession as well as to serve as a helping verb. To express the English sentence "I have a dog" in Hebrew is ,ˈ/jeːʃ ˈliː ˈkelev/, literally meaning "there exists to me a dog." The word expresses existence in the present tense, and is unique in the Hebrew language as a verb-like form with no inflected qualities at all. Dispossession in the present tense in Hebrew is expressed with the antithesis to , which is – means "I do not have a dog." Possession in the past and the future in Hebrew is also expressed impersonally, but uses conjugated forms of the Hebrew copula, [lihyot]. For example, the same sentence "I do not have a dog" would in the past tense become , literally meaning "there was not to me a dog."
Sentence types Sentences are generally divided into three types:
Simple sentence A simple sentence is a sentence that contains one subject, one verb, and optional objects. As the name implies, it is the simplest type of sentence.
Compound sentences Two or more sentences that do not share common parts and can be separated by comma are called /miʃˈpat meħuˈbar/, a compound sentence. In many cases, the second sentence uses a pronoun that stands for the other's subject; they are generally interconnected. The two sentences are linked with a coordinating conjunction ( ). The conjunction is a stand-alone word that serves as a connection between both parts of the sentence, belonging to neither part. (I haven't eaten all day, therefore at the end of the day I was exhausted.) Both parts of the sentence can be separated by a period and stand alone as grammatically correct sentences, which makes the sentence a compound sentence (and not a complex sentence): (I haven't eaten all day. By the end of the day I was exhausted.)
Complex sentences Like English, Hebrew allows clauses, (sing. ), to serve as parts of a sentence. A sentence containing a subordinate clause is called , or a complex sentence. Subordinate clauses almost always begin with the subordinating conjunction (usually that), which attaches as a prefix to the word that follows it. For example, in the sentence (Yossi says that he is eating), the subordinate clause (that he is eating) serves as the direct object of the verb (says). Unlike English, Hebrew does not have a large number of subordinating conjunctions; rather, subordinate clauses almost always act as nouns and can be introduced by prepositions in order to serve as adverbs. For example, the English As I said, there's nothing we can do in Hebrew is (literally As that-I-said, there-isn't what to-do).
That said, relative clauses, which act as adjectives, are also formed using . For example, English Yosi sees the man who is eating apples is in Hebrew (literally Yosi sees [et] the-man that-eats apples). In this use sometimes acts as a relativizer rather than as a relative pronoun; that is, sometimes the pronoun remains behind in the clause: , which translates to She knows the man I talked about, literally means She knows [et] the-man that-I-talked about him. This is because in Hebrew, a preposition (in this case ) cannot appear without its object, so the him () could not be dropped. However, some sentences, such as the above example, can be written both with relativizers and with relative pronouns. The sentence can also be rearranged into , literally She knows [et] the-man about him I-talked., and translates into the same meaning. In that example, the preposition and its object also act as a relative pronoun, without use of .
Impersonal sentences A sentence may lack a determinate subject, then it is called , an indefinite or impersonal sentence. These are used in order to put emphasis on the action, and not on the agent of the action. Usually the verb is of the 3rd person plural form. (literally: they-made a renovation in-the building of-mine; my building was renovated)
Collective sentences When a sentence contains multiple parts of the same grammatical function and relate to the same part of the sentence, they are called collective parts. They are usually separated with the preposition וְ- (and), and if there are more than two, they are separated with commas while the last pair with the preposition, as in English. Collective parts can have any grammatical function in the sentence, for instance: Subject:
Predicate:
Direct object:
Indirect object:
When a collective part is preceded by a preposition, the preposition must be copied onto all parts of the collective.
Verbs