Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - RE: Masculine and Feminie Nouns

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Mathias van den Bossche <m.vdb AT free.fr>
  • To: Peter Kirk <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>
  • Cc: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Masculine and Feminie Nouns
  • Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 12:30:43 +0200 (MEST)


> feminine ending which becomes -ET when it loses the stress; on the
> other hand, its Arabic cognate LEYLA appears to be feminine, hence its
> common
> use as a girl's name.

The comparison with Arabic on this exemple is rather rather awkward.
The Layla cognate does not end in the regular feminine ending, which
is a special letter (tâ' marbûta) oscillating from [h] to [t] depending
on the construct/non-construct context of the feminine word. The ending
of the Arabic cognate is a special form of 'alef (alif maqsûra) that
indicates a "y" underlying consonnant (thus a lyly consonnantic root).

On the other hand, "night" in Arabic is either "layl" or "layla" (masc.
and fem.), and the feminine form has a regular femining ending
(tâ' marbûta).

To go on with gender in this Semitic language, it is interesting to note
that words with masculine form and feminine gender are essentially
words
- with obvious feminine connotation such as " 'umm " / " 'imm " (mother),
"bint" (daughter, but -t is actually a fossile feminine -t like in Hebrew/
Aramaic "batt")
- meaning natural elements such as "sham(e)s" (sun), "qamar" (moon), ...

Mathias




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page