The ‘swift of foot’ construction and the phrase structure of the adjectival construct in Hebrew

Abstract

This article sheds new light on the puzzling phrase structure of complex adjectival phrases which are common in Semitic, specifically in Hebrew, and which are equivalent to Indo-European phrases such as‘swift of foot.’The article draws a clear distinction between these constructions and adjectival compounds such as‘swift-footed’, which are prevalent in major Indo-European languages but are absent from Semitic languages. The Hebrew construction under discussion is a genitival construct consisting of an adjective followed by a modifying noun in genitive status. The adjective is the head of the construction, but agrees in number and gender with a noun outside the construction. This construction has invited controversial analyses by different scholars, most recently in the framework of generative grammar. The present study construction is anchored in the framework of Construction Grammar. It nevertheless advances a morphosyntactic and semantic analysis of its inner composition. Functional aspects and the speaker’s perspectival choice in construing such attributive phrases are taken into account as well.