What Is New in the np-Strategy for Expressing Reciprocity in Modern Hebrew and What Are Its Origins?

Abstract

This essay focuses on various aspects of thenp-strategies for expressing reciprocity in Modern Hebrew and inquires about their origin. It attempts to determine the exact type of relationship that exists between the contemporary constructions and their equivalents in older periods. It describes a situation in which Modern Hebrew added a newnp-construction to express reciprocity, due to a calque of a construction existing in Indo-European languages. This is an interesting example of the way Modern Hebrew grows richer by incorporating external influence. The new construction did not replace the older one, an inheritance from Mishnaic Hebrew. Instead, it provided a means to distinguish between registers. Despite the semantic and the syntactic resemblance between the new and the old constructions, they remained independent, and they differ in their sociolinguistic distribution, grammatical properties, and semantic nuances.