UniLang

Hi,
I'm look for resources detailing the syntax of modern Hebrew. This is by far the worst aspect of language learning for me and I am finding that there is a dearth of information on the topic and where such exists it most often pertains to Biblical Hebrew which is not a focus of mine at this time. Does anyone know of anything? Or perhaps someone could explain to me the ordering of complex sentences and subordinate clauses? Thanks for your time.

Regards,
Marcus

Okay maybe if I get the ball rolling. I understand that the underlying structure of Hebrew is SVO; this would mean the English "I eat apples" would literally be the same order of words in Hebrew. But what about time, manner and place elements? And what can be moved around?

So, for example. How you one arrange these sentence in Hebrew? (For clarity can we just rearrange the English words to illustrate the Hebrew arrangement please)

"I eat apples in the garden with my sister"
"At 5 o'clock I go to the gym in town by bus"

I'm afraid I don't know of any resource explaining Hebrew syntax (being a native I don't need one...), but it's not too different from English syntax on the whole. The sentences you've written can be said in Hebrew with virtually the same word order:

The latter may be better translated as בחמש אני נוסע באוטובוס לחדר הכושר בעיר, keeping the verb for "travelling" next to the vehicle in use.

Here are some rules I've found. But I'm only new at learning Hebrew so wait for some other people to give it the green light okay? So here we go...

The basic structure is SVO (Subject-Verb-Object)

- An Object can be moved to the front of the sentence: This for questions or emphasis
- You can place the Subject after the Verb: This sounds formal
- The other elements I read can be placed freely
- Present tense needs a different structure in Hebrew when using a "to be" verb in English

That's the best I can come up with at the moment, I'm still building vocabulary and working on declensions and conjugations so I haven't really tried making lots of sentences. You might find it useful to start off with noun, adjective, verb, adverbial and prepositional phrases and then build bigger complex sentences off of that knowledge. Hope that helps sorry I can't be more helpful.

Rutie Adler's Zeh Lo Nora is a good start. I also use Coffin/Bolosky' A Reference Grammar of Modern Hebrew
Yours, Cambron