Studies in Language 40:4 (2016), 733–764. doi 10.1075/sl.40.4.01coh issn 0378–4177 / e-issn 1569–9978 © John Benjamins Publishing Company he modern Hebrew prepositional relative clause strategy Eran Cohen he Hebrew University 1. Introduction Modern Hebrew has, among its several relativization strategies, one that is seem- ingly unique typologically, where the relative clause, oten described as asyndet- ic, consists of a clause-initial prepositional phrase, which ostensibly contains a resumptive pronoun. his paper has two objectives: 1. To provide a short synchronic description, including the analysis and special features of this relative clause strategy, thereby showing that these relative clauses are not in any way asyndetic, and that the initial prepositional phrase is actually a newly-formed inlecting relative pronoun. 2. In view of this, it is also possible to ofer an alternative explanation regard- ing the source of emergence of this strategy by language contact. I propose that the structure in question is in fact a structural borrowing from European languages, some of which were both mother tongues and “school languages” for those users of Hebrew who came from Eastern Europe — Latin, German, Russian, etc. 1 he relative clause discussed in this paper is interesting because it is obliga- torily introduced by a prepositional phrase, where the preposition is immediately followed by a personal pronominal suix, rather than by a noun (for exceptions, see §§4.1–4.2 below): (1) … maxar et ha-bayit {b-o gar} sell.pst.3msg acc def.det-house.msg in-3msg reside.pst.3msg ‘…(he) sold the house {in which he lived}’ (http://www.takdin.co.il/Search/ Document/Index/4247678) 1. he term used in the title of Sommer 1931 is “Schulsprachen”.