Transparency in Modern Hebrew: A Functional Discourse Grammar analysis

Abstract

The degree of transparency of Modern Hebrew is assessed by means of a transparency test that has been developed based on the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar. It appears that Modern Hebrew is a highly opaque language, exhibiting only one fully transparent feature that is included in the test: no tense-copying. It also turns out that the distribution of transparent features in Modern Hebrew aligns with previous results from Dutch, Quechua, Kharia, and Sri Lanka Malay. A hierarchy of Opacity Resistance is therefore proposed, ranking the transparent features from high resistant to low resistant. The Modern Hebrew data seem to suggest that lacking tense-copying is the most opacity-resistant transparent feature of all.