Biblical Hebrew: A formal perspective on the left periphery
Elizabeth Cowper, Vincent DeCaen · 2017
We argue that Biblical Hebrew (BH) clause structure is consistently verb-second at the level of TopicP, which appears above Tense but below other C heads. A wide range of constructions and apparent exceptions to verb-second order can be explained in a principled way, depending on which other functional heads are present in the clause. We argue for a richly articulated clause structure, including T, Top, Ǝ, Polarity, Force, and a discourse-related &P whose specifier can host a so-called hanging topic. Apparent V1 and V3 clauses can arise when the verb moves to a head above Top, when the constituent in the TP specifier is a null subject pro, or when functional projections above TopP host other phrases in their specifiers, or when some combination of these three conditions holds.