Balearic Hebrew/Pronouns

Conjunctions
The most common conjunctions are be "and," ʔo "or," kī "because," and ʔīn "if." These words connect two different words, phrases, or clauses. The difference between a particle and a conjunction is not very clearly defined.

Uses of be
The most common and versatile conjunction is be, a prefixing conjunction. When it attaches to a noun with the definite article ha, be becomes e. For example, hadomno ebet means "the landlord and the house."

The general translation for be is and. It connects two ideas together. When attached to two different verbs, it indicates that they occur at the same time or are otherwise related in meaning.

Two instances of be is equivalent to the English correlative "either...or." When connected to verbs that are negated, it can have the meaning "neither...nor." For example, al katab beʔal ʔakal means "neither write nor eat." The second negative particle is not required.

Uses of kī
The word kī is very versatile. Most generally, it expresses a causal relationship between two ideas, similar to English "because" or "for." For example, kī kūtabta lūkūtabtī-kū, means "because you wrote, I am blessing you."

With the subjunctive in the clause introduced after kī, the conjunction expresses purpose or a goal. In this context, it is translated as "so that" or "in order to."

Additionally, kī can introduce a clause stating the surrounding events at the time of the action in the main clause. This is called a circumstantial clause, and kī is followed by a verb in the subjunctive.

Uses of ʔīn
ʔīn is most common in conditional clauses. Therefore, its primary translation is "if." Different conditions are expressed depending on if the verb is in the indicative or subjunctive, base on complete factual implications, future conditions, or counterfactual conditions.

The subordinating conjunction
The subordinative clause that has no nominal antecedent uses the conjunction ʔašir. It is translated as English "that." Typically, this word introduces a subjunctive verb in the subordinate clause.

Additionally, ʔašir can stand alone and form a jussive or cohortative meaning with the subjunctive form. For example, ʔašir nīktūb means "let us write."

Honorific particles
These particles are used in commands or requests when speaking to someone older or of higher social standing, or to God. They roughly translate to "please," "oh," or "pray!" They indicate high expression of emotion, and at times desperation.

In order of weaker to strongest emotive force, nūg is less strong than ʔūnūg. Paired together, they mean something similar to "I beseech!" This is the strongest use of these particles.

The particle bī is similar to those exhortative particles, but has a slightly different meaning. It is used to make a polite request to a superior, and precedes the person addressed. For example, bī domnoyī, natan lī hadīnūryo meaning "please, my landlord, give me the money." bī is also used preceding second person plural pronouns to refer to a singular person of higher social standing, similar to the French use of the plural pronoun vous. Using an Iberian Spanish translation:

In this way, Balearic Hebrew has developed a T-V distinction parallel to Romance languages spoken in the region.
 * ʔati = vosotros (you all)
 * bī ʔati = usted (you, formal)

Negation
There are two negative particles in Balearic Hebrew.

The first, lo, is the most common and is used to negate verbs in the indicative, as well as non-finite verbs. For example, lo kūtabtī means "I did not write." Additionally, lo is used in verbless clauses to negate them, with an implied linking verb. For example, the phrase si lo bikamfo means "he is not on the battlefield."

The second, ʔal, is used to negate verbs in the imperative or subjunctive. For example, al kītbū means "do not write."

Prepositions
Some prepositions are always prefixed to nouns, modifying, if present, the definite article. Other noun phrases act as prepositions, but are not as widely used. The prefixing prepositions do not stem from the triconsonantal roots.

The four prepositions
These prepositions are the most commonly used prepositions and are a single consonant and a vowel.


 * bi = in, at, with, by
 * li = towards, to, for
 * mi = from, out of, concerning, about, of

These prepositions are very versatile and attach to the beginning of the noun they relate to. For example, bibet means "in a house."

Uses of bi
The most common use of bi is for spatial phrases indicating place where. Words such as “in," “on," “under," “with," “beside," and "at," all are valid translations of the preposition bi. Unlike English, bi meaning "in" cannot mean "into." That would be a translation of li.

Instrumental words such as "by," "with," or "using," are equivalent to the preposition bi.

Temporal constructions in Balearic Hebrew are most often used with the preposition bi. Bi describes when an action happened, and common English translations include "in," "during," "at," "while." Circumstantial clauses with the infinitive are usually introduced with bi. For example, the phrase "while talking" is the translation of Balearic Hebrew bi-dabbir. Other temporal clauses that do not have this "when" meaning are formed with other prepositions.

Uses of li
One of the most common uses of li is to indicate the indirect object of a verb. For example, in the Biblical verse "God called the light 'day'" (Genesis 1:5), the word "light" would be prefixed with li to indicate that it is the secondary recipient of the main verb's action.

The direction towards something is always expressed with the preposition li. This meaning is categorized in two different ways: one, the direction toward an object, and two, the reaching of or attaining to it. In this way, it is very semantically similar to the Latin preposition ad.

Li is also the preposition used to create the construction for the agent of a passive verb. This preposition attaches to the enclitic personal pronoun, or a noun, to show who is causing the passive action to happen to the patient

Uses of mi
Mi denotes the going out, departure, or separation of an object or person from any fixed point. In this way, it both means "from" as in a literal directional sense, and "about," as a figurative line from one idea to another.

Mi is also very commonly used to indicate possession. This use is likely an innovation paralleled with the Latin preposition dē, which became a marker of possession in Romance. For example, habet madomno means "the landlord's house," literally, "the house from the landlord."

With the definite article
These three prepositions lose the  when the noun or adjective they modify is definite. Instead, the  is exchanged for /a/. Therefore:

Other prepositions
Other non-prefixing prepositions also exist in Balearic Hebrew. Of these, the most common are:


 * kimo = "like," "as," "than"
 * hal = "over," "above," "upon"
 * ben = "between," "among"
 * hīm = "accompanying," "with"

Of these, kimo is the most versatile. It is used in comparative phrases with adjectives, or for correlatives.

Definite object preposition
The definite object preposition ʔit indicates the direct object of some verb. It does this by directly preceding the noun or phrase that functions as the direct object of a verb (either finite or non-finite). It is only used if the object is definite, in the case of an indefinite direct object, no preposition is used to mark it. For example, in the sentence "God created the sun," būratta ʔilohī ʔit hašimiš, the particle is on view before hašimiš, "the sun."

Conjunctions such as be, "and" can attach to this particle if there are two direct objects.

Personal Pronouns
Balearic Hebrew has 10 distinct forms for the personal pronouns. The 1st person has no gender distinction. The 3rd person pronouns are identical to the medial demonstrative pronouns.

Since verbs already indicate their subject through inflection, the subject pronoun is optional but is added for emphasis.

Enclitic Pronouns
These are suffixes that can be attached to nouns, verbs, particles, or prepositions. When attached to a noun, the noun must be in the construct state. This forms a construction equivalent to possessive pronouns in English. Therefore, "my horse," would be sūyī, and "my horses" would be sūheyī.

For prosodic reasons, if a word ends in a vowel, then a /h/ is inserted before the enclitic pronoun, unless it is the first person singular, in which case a  is.

If the direct object of a verb is a personal pronoun, no direct object particle is used with the non-enclitic forms. Instead, the enclitic is attached to the end of the verb. For example, "he judges you" is the translation of lūšūpaṭ-kū. However, for emphasis, the enclitic form can actually attach to the end of the direct object particle, causing a vowel change. Instead of usual ʔit, the particle becomes ʔot.

The formal second person pronouns use the plural pronoun suffixes with the particle bī immediately following.

Pronouns with prepositions
The three prefixing prepositions take the enclitic pronoun as the object of said preposition. This causes their  vowel to lengthen to <ī>. Thus, "to you," is lī-kū. The first person singular enclitic adds no epenthetic /h/.

In addition to the three prefixing prepositions, all the other non-phrasal prepositions also take the enclitic pronoun. For example, "upon them" is hal-ahi, not *hal ʔilī.

Demonstratives
Balearic Hebrew has three kinds of demonstratives, whose use depends on the distance (physical or figurative) between the speaker and the modified noun. This is similar to Spanish or Old English, and an innovation from Biblical Hebrew The proximal demonstratives evolve from a combination of the word po, meaning "here," and the Biblical demonstrative set. The distal combine the archaic particle hīni with the demonstrative set, creating a three-fold system unlike any other Semitic language.

These demonstratives can function either as pronouns or as attributive adjectives.

Additionally, to introduce a personal relative clause, the medial demonstratives are used, not necessarily requiring an antecedent. For example, ʔūkal hakesū sot tūrattī means "he ate the cheese which I surrendered," with sot serving as the introduction to that relative clause.

Indefinite Pronouns
Indefinite pronouns refer to a person or thing, but not anything specific. English translations of the two pronouns would be "whoever" and "whatever."

Balearic Hebrew has mī referring to people ("whoever") and mū for objects ("whatever"). These are also two interrogative pronouns ("who?" and "what?", respectively). For example, mī mūtat can mean "he who died," "whoever died," or "who died?"

Interrogative Pronouns
Besides the pronouns mī and mū that also function as question words, Balearic Hebrew has many others. These pronouns also function as adjectives. The interrogative prefix of Biblical Hebrew is lost, instead, word order is flipped to convey a question. However, with these interrogatives, word order does not need to change and often does not.