Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Friday 10 December 2004 07:39, Samuel Arnet wrote:
> Karl Randolph wrote:
> > The construct LMW occures over 50 times in Tanakh. Though the
> > majority of its uses are for plural subjects, it refers to what is
> > unquestionably a singular subject often enough that the numerical
> > value of the -MW cannot be determined from the form. The only people
> > I have run into before who insisted that LMW had to be plural did so
> > for ideological, not linguistic, reasons.
>
> L/F^MOW is a plural form. For a discussion, and some literature, see
>
> http://whi.wts.edu/WHI/MORPH/BugTracker/7

There was an extended discussion about this around 3 years ago on the 
newsgroup soc.religion.christian.bible-study where several of us pointed out 
numerous passages that can't possibly be plural.  The word can go either way, 
and only context determines its number.  I can try to dig through the 
archives for examples, but can't promise when.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No good.  Hit on head."   -Gronk