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Glinert, Lewis. Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar (third edition). London & New York: Routledge, 2005. xx + 300 pp. £16.99. ISBN 0–415–70082–5, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 43, Issue 1, JANUARY 2007, Page 100, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cql141
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Lewis Glinert is well known for his grammatical descriptions of Hebrew, and what we have here is a version of the third edition of Chik-Chak! A Gateway to Modern Hebrew Grammar, first published by the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 1991. It now joins the very useful and highly regarded Routledge series of Essential Grammars. As such, it includes many exercises in addition to a concise, clear and simple (but not simplified) description of the grammar. In addition to an introductory Glossary and list of Hebrew grammatical terminology at the beginning, a set of exercises, vocabulary for the exercises, a key to the exercises, and an Index (pp. 299–300), we have a set of 100 “paragraphs”, of which the first 49 (Level One) cover the simple sentence, gender and number, agreement, numerals, verbal inflections, important binyanim (verbal word patterns), prepositions and other prefixes and suffixes, “there is/are”, “I have”, questions and negation, degree words, adverbs of time and place, and embedded clauses. Level Two looks at special root-types, nominal word patterns (mishkalim), adjective types, constructs and possessives, construct nouns, vowel changes, numerals, comparatives, adverbials and negatives. It is not at all a graded presentation other than that it focuses first on regular forms and syntax rather than inflections and the written word; what it is is a sensible, and lexically up-to-date, outline of the grammar, with attention to useful colloquial and formal features. One little warning: there is no presentation of pronunciation and the orthographic system; knowledge of that is, rightly, assumed.
