Modern Hebrew grammar is partly analytic, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than morphological cases.
On the other hand, Modern Hebrew grammar is also fusional synthetic: inflection plays a role in the formation of verbs and nouns (using non-concatenative discontinuous morphemes realised by vowel transfixation) and the declension of prepositions (i.e. with pronominal suffixes).
Representation of Hebrew examples
Examples of Hebrew here are represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as well as native script. Although most speakers collapse the phonemes into , the distinction is maintained by a limited number of speakers and will therefore be indicated here for maximum coverage. In the transcriptions, is used for the rhotic, which in Modern Hebrew phonology is more commonly a lax voiced uvular approximant .
Hebrew is written from right to left.
Syntax
Every Hebrew sentence must contain at least one subject, at least one predicate, usually but not always a verb, and possibly other arguments and complements.
Word order in Modern Hebrew is somewhat similar to that in English: as opposed to Biblical Hebrew, where the word order is verb-subject-object, the usual word order in Modern Hebrew is subject-verb-object. Thus, if there is no case marking, one can resort to the word order. Modern Hebrew is characterized by an asymmetry between definite objects and indefinite objects. There is an accusative marker, et, only before a definite object (mostly a definite noun or personal name). Et-ha is currently undergoing fusion and reduction to become ta. Consider ten li et ha-séfer "give:2ndPerson.Masculine.Singular.Imperative to-me ACCUSATIVE the-book" (i.e. "Give me the book"), where et, albeit syntactically a case-marker, is a preposition and ha is a definite article. This sentence is realised phonetically as ten li ta-séfer.
Sentences with finite verbs
In sentences where the predicate is a verb, the word order is usually subject–verb–object (SVO), as in English. However, word order can change in the following instances: An object can typically be topicalized by moving it to the front of the sentence. When the object is a question word, this topicalization is almost mandatory. Example: , literally "To-whom he-told?", means "Whom did he tell?" In other cases, this topicalization can be used for emphasis. Hebrew is a partly pro-drop language. This means that subject pronouns are sometimes omitted when verb conjugations are able to reflect gender, number, and person; otherwise the subject pronouns should be mentioned. Specifically, subject pronouns are always used with verbs in the present tense because present forms of verbs don't reflect person. Indefinite subjects (like English's a boy, a book, and so on) are often postponed, giving the sentence some of the sense of "there exists [subject]" in addition to the verb's normal meaning. For example, , literally "Turned to-me some man that-asked that-[I]-will-help to-him with something", means "A man came to me wanting me to help him with something." This serves a purpose somewhat analogous to English's narrative use of this with a semantically indefinite subject: "So, I'm at work, and this man comes up to me and asks me to help him." Indeed, outside of the present tense, mere existence is expressed using the verb to be with a postponed indefinite subject. Example: , literally "Was reason that-[I]-asked", means "There was a reason I asked." Definite subjects can be postponed for a number of reasons. In some cases, a postponed subject can be used to sound formal or archaic. This is because historically, Hebrew was typically verb–subject–object (VSO). The Bible and other religious texts are predominantly written in VSO word order. Sometimes, postponing a subject can give it emphasis. One response to ("Start") might be ("You start!"). A subject might initially be omitted and then added later as an afterthought, such as , literally "[We]'ll-do it together, you and-I", means "You and I will do it together" or "We'll do it together, you and I".
Generally, Hebrew marks every noun in a sentence with some sort of preposition, with the exception of subjects and semantically indefinite direct objects. Unlike English, indirect objects require prepositions (Hebrew "" /hu naˈtan li ʔet ha-kaˈdur/ (literally "he gave to-me direct-object-marker the ball) in contrast to English "He gave me the ball") and semantically definite direct objects are introduced by the preposition (Hebrew "" /hu naˈtan li ʔet ha-kaˈdur/ (literally "he gave to-me direct-object-marker the ball) in contrast to English "He gave me the ball").