Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Mathias van den Bossche <m.vdb AT free.fr>]

> 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