Towards a Typology of Qumran Hebrew

Various language typologies, each based on different properties of a language, have been proposed in the literature. A recent development (in this connection) is the socalled principles and parameters approach of Chomskyan generative grammar. In this approach the initial state of language represents a system of innate formal principles with associated open parameters, the values of which are fixed by linguistic experience. The way in which the parameters are set determines the
direction in which the grammar of a particular language will develop, that is, it determines the specific grammatical properties of that language in its mature state. The aim of this paper is to identify one of the parameters that is associated with the manifestation of clausal subjects, and to determine the value of this parameter for Qumran Hebrew. It will be argued that the way in which this parameter is set can account for a wide array of grammatical properties of Qumran Hebrew.