Biblical Hebrew ‫יש‬ and Biblical Aramaic ‫איתי‬ followed by non-verbal clauses as markers of polarity contrast

Abstract

In both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, there is a construction formed by the existential marker followed by a non-verbal clause. This construction is used to mark polarity contrasts, i.e., to contrast a non-negated sentence with its negated counterpart or vice versa. If the subject of the non-verbal clause is a personal pronoun, this is incorporated in the existential marker as a pronominal suffix, but the presence of such a suffix is not an essential feature of the construction.