Re: Zechariah 4:10 eyes or pairs of eyes
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 10:49 pm
Oh, I understand what you mean.
When I was in ulpan ages ago, the teacher brought up the fact that people claim that Hebrew plural endings are "masculine" and "feminine," but that there is a list of "irregulars."
That list, she claimed, includes some 30% of the most common words in the language. כיסא is masculine and takes the "feminine" plural ending, as is אב and שולחן and מלון and חלון and so many others. The opposite is the case with עיר, which is feminine but takes the "masculine" plural ending.
If it's true that 30% of the most common nouns in the language take the "opposite" endings (as do the numbers), then it is probably a mistake on our part to label these endings "masculine" or "feminine." We cannot label such a common phenomenon "irregular." It is perfectly regular. We just need to fix our terminology.
It confused me when you said that עין takes a masculine plural, because it simply doesn't. It takes a dual ending, which is common to masculine and feminine nouns (dual isn't marked for gender). And even if it had taken "masculine" endings, we shouldn't think of it in those terms. It's just incorrect for the noun system.
I will agree that in the adjective and verb systems these endings agree with gender, but in nouns the statistics show something else.
When I was in ulpan ages ago, the teacher brought up the fact that people claim that Hebrew plural endings are "masculine" and "feminine," but that there is a list of "irregulars."
That list, she claimed, includes some 30% of the most common words in the language. כיסא is masculine and takes the "feminine" plural ending, as is אב and שולחן and מלון and חלון and so many others. The opposite is the case with עיר, which is feminine but takes the "masculine" plural ending.
If it's true that 30% of the most common nouns in the language take the "opposite" endings (as do the numbers), then it is probably a mistake on our part to label these endings "masculine" or "feminine." We cannot label such a common phenomenon "irregular." It is perfectly regular. We just need to fix our terminology.
It confused me when you said that עין takes a masculine plural, because it simply doesn't. It takes a dual ending, which is common to masculine and feminine nouns (dual isn't marked for gender). And even if it had taken "masculine" endings, we shouldn't think of it in those terms. It's just incorrect for the noun system.
I will agree that in the adjective and verb systems these endings agree with gender, but in nouns the statistics show something else.