Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT crossmyt.com>]

> Subject: Nothing ordinary about these ordinals
> From: "Jeremy" <jnorthct AT hotmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 06:08:02 -0400

> Does anyone know the rationale behind the use of shorter and longer
> forms for ordinal numbers (that is, those numbers that are expressed
> in the form of: "in the nth year")?  The short form (e.g., Jer 36:9
> masc., Jer 52:4 fem.) adds the letter 'yod' to the end of the number
> or a 'yod' + 'tau' in the case of the feminine, while the longer
> form (e.g., Jer 36:22 masc., Jer 39:1 fem.) adds a 'yod' between the
> second and third letter, plus the extra letter(s) added for the
> shorter form.  There is also a third form of ordinal (e.g., Lev
> 25:22) that, in the case of the feminine cases, adds the 'yod' after
> the second letter and adds only a 'tau' to the end.  What are the
> rules governing these different spellings??

> Subject: RE: Nothing ordinary about these ordinals
> From: "Jeremy" <jnorthct AT hotmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 07:02:49 -0400

> Sorry, 'tau' should read 'tav.'  My Biblical Hebrew is a bit rusty
> I'm afraid!

Actually, "tau" is closer to the original form (though it's more often 
transcribed "taw").

The difference between he-pathah.-taw-dagesh-sh AT wa-shin-h.ireq-`ayin-
h.ireq-yod in Jeremiah 36:9 and he-pathah.-taw-dagesh-sh AT wa-shin-h.ireq-
yod-`ayin-h.ireq-yod in Jeremiah 36:22 is a general difference in use
of supplemental "matres lectiones" letters in spellings, and does not
show any phenomenon that is specific to or exclusive to ordinals or
numerals (so that your subject line is rather infelicitous).  Matres
lectionis are extremely simple on one level (their presence is merely
optional), but to try to really explain their detailed patterns of
occurrence and omission demands a large-scale study using high-powered
statistics; you could look at the Andersen and Forbes books, etc.

--
Henry Churchyard   churchh AT crossmyt.com   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/