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New Perspectives in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew

 | 
Aaron D. Hornkohl
, 
Khan Geoffrey

Comparative Semitic And Hebrew Plural Morphemes

Na’ama Pat-El

Résumé

The distribution of the Hebrew plural morphemes on substantives is generally assumed to be conditioned by gender; nevertheless, many exceptions are attested in all periods. Scholars have suggested multiple explanations for this phenomenon, though none can adequately explain all exceptions. In this paper, comparative evidence is used to shed light on this problem. Based on this evidence, I argue that plural marking of substantives in Hebrew patterns with other languages and, therefore, should be studied comparatively and not in isolation. I also offer some criteria for the use of plural variation for linguistic dating of Hebrew texts.

Texte intégral

1.0. Introduction

1Like many Semitic languages, Hebrew has two suffixed plural morphemes: -ōṯ and -īm. Typically, grammars describe the plural morpheme -ōṯ as marking the plural of feminine nouns and the plural morpheme -īm as marking the plural of masculine nouns (e.g., GKC, 241–43; Blau 2010, 270–73). While adjectives and participles exhibit a predictable gender-number distinction which reflects the neat distinction described in the grammars, substantives often do not. The distribution of plural morphemes with substantives is not always predictable, although gender assignment is not affected: e.g., gaå̊ḏōl∼gəḏōlīm/gəḏōlaå̊∼gəḏōlōṯ ‘big’, but zaå̊naḇå̊∼zənaå̊ḇōṯ ‘tail (m)’/dəḇōraå̊∼dəḇōrīm ‘bee (f)’.

  • 1 The term ‘unmarked’ here designates nouns with no overt gender morpheme in the singular.

2In addition, a semantically diverse group of nouns is attested with both plural morphemes, the conditioning factors of which are unclear: e.g., ḥăṣērōṯ/ḥăṣērīm ‘courts (f)’, qəḇaå̊rōṯ/ qəḇaå̊rīm ‘graves (m)’. The choice of plural formation has a diachronic angle; a number of scholars have pointed to an inner-Hebrew diachronic trend whereby post-biblical Hebrew has a marked preference for -ōṯ plurals, even where Biblical Hebrew chooses a different morpheme (e.g., Cohen 1930; Sharvit 1990, 337). The increasing use of -ōṯ in post-biblical Hebrew is statistically significant, as has most recently been shown by Tubul (2003; 2005). Tubul shows that unmarked nouns,1 mostly masculine singular, select -ōṯ in Mishanic Hebrew more than in earlier stages of Hebrew, while marked feminine singular nouns show only a minor increase of the plural -īm.

Table 1: Distribution of mismatched plurals in Hebrew (Tubul 2003)

Table 1: Distribution of mismatched plurals in Hebrew (Tubul 2003)
  • 2 See already comments on the situation in Palestinian Arabic in Cohen (1930, 282).

3The question of this gender-number morphological mismatch in all phases of Hebrew is a long-standing problem; attempts to explain it have mostly been synchronic and restricted to evidence from Hebrew. Although the existence of gender-number mismatch in other Semitic languages is peripherally acknowledged by Hebraists,2 scholars have yet to examine this phenomenon comparatively. Given the failure to provide a coherent explanation for the mismatch internal to Hebrew, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to this phenomenon in other languages. In what follows, I would like to position the Hebrew case within a wider Semitic context and ask whether this system is especially typical of Hebrew, and, if not, what that tells us about plural formation in Hebrew. My aim is not to provide a full reconstruction of the Semitic system; I hope to do that in a separate study. Rather, I wish to contextualise Hebrew and point to avenues which have yet to be explored. In §2.0 I review some inner-Hebrew explanations and show them to be insufficient. In §3.0 evidence from other Semitic languages is presented. In §4.0 I offer analysis, with some implications for Hebrew. §5.0 summarises my findings and offers a conclusion.

2.0. Hebrew Plural Morphemes

4The main accounts of gender-number mismatch in Hebrew are lexical, morphological, or a combination of the two. That is, they treat plural formation as a lexical feature, unconditioned by nominal morphology, as a grammatical feature, or as arising from both lexical and grammatical factors.

5Schwarzwald (1991) suggests that a set of synchronic rules applies to a large number of substantive categories in the lexicon, and do not follow gender assignment (the Strong Lexicalist Hypothesis), while other categories, along with adjectives and participles, are marked in the grammar, and follow gender assignment (the Weak Lexicalist Hypothesis). According to this approach, different nouns are assigned plural formation in different layers of the grammar. Even if one accepts Schwarzwald’s position, it provides no explanation for the seeming randomness of plural formation in Hebrew, which results in a synchronically incoherent system. This approach is also problematic synchronically, because it is unclear how nouns move from one category to the other, especially from the one governed by the weak lexicalist hypothesis to the one governed by the strong lexicalist hypothesis.

6A set of phonological, morphological, and lexical criteria was already suggested by Cohen (1930), which form the basis for most subsequent discussions of the topic. Cohen suggested that - ōṯ is common with nouns with a rounded vowel, certain patterns (miqṭēl, maqṭēl), and quadriradicals (e.g., א ַ ש ְׁ כ ְׁ תל ‘clusters’); -īm is common with certain patterns (qiṭṭūl, qåṭūl), segolates, and nouns denoting flora (e.g., ְׁ את ֵ נ ִ םי ‘figs’) and fauna (e.g., ע ִ ז ִ םי ‘goats’).

7Tubul (2003) proposes a similar set of criteria to account for the distribution in both Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew. She discovered that gender is not a crucial factor in determining the plural morpheme, as 50 percent of unmarked nouns select -īm while the other 50 percent select -ōṯ, regardless of gender. For unmarked nouns selecting -ōṯ, she suggests two criteria:

  • 3 There are many exceptions to this rule, of course, most notably šibbōlɛṯ ‘sheaf’, which, in view of (...)
  • 4 It is worth noting, however, that the number of nouns to which this rule applies is small: for exam (...)

a. Phonological: nouns with a rounded vowel in the final two syllables of the stem tend to choose -ōṯ, which is also rounded, due to ad hoc vowel harmonisation. This tendency is claimed to be stronger in Mishnaic Hebrew.3
b. Morphological-ōṯ is associated with certain nominal patterns.4

8Marked feminine nous which select -īm typically belong to the semantic field of flora and fauna, although other categories are also possible.

9Tubul (2005) and others have noted that the plural formation of the most common nouns are not morphologically predictable, while those of the least common nouns are. Tubul (2005, 267) suggests that speakers learnt common words as lexical items, whereas less commonly-used words were subject to regular morphological rules.

10If there are rules governing the selection of the plural suffixes, nouns which are attested with both plural morphemes present a problem. Multiple unrelated explanations have been suggested in the literature to account for this phenomenon. Unfortunately, most of them are ad hoc and do not provide a motivation for the phenomena in toto.

11Tubul (2007) suggests that plural morphemes are grammatically determined. According to this hypothesis, different morphemes are used in different states; i.e., one suffix can be used for the absolute, while another is used for construct. These, however, are internally inconsistent (see Table 2); nouns may use different plural morphemes in different states, but the choice of morpheme for each state is unpredictable, so the assumption that plural morphemes are grammatically determined does not hold.

Table 2: Sample plural distribution by state

Table 2: Sample plural distribution by state

12Another claim is that different morphemes correlate with semantic differentiation (Tubul 2003, 195); for example, qɛḇɛr with -īm is the plural of ‘grave’, while qɛḇɛr with -ōṯ is ‘family burial grounds’. Thus, in example (1), the Israelites refer to simple graves, while in (2) the reference is to Josiah’s family burial compound.

(1)

֙ ה ַֽ מ ִ ב ְִּ ל ִ י א ֵ ק־ןי ְּ ב ִָ םיר ֙ ב ְּ מ ִ צ ְּ ר ַ֔ י ִ ם ֙ ל ְּ חק ְּ ת ָָּ֖ נ ּ ו ל ָ מ ּ֣ תו מב ְִּ בד ָָּ֑ ר ‘were there no graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the desert? ’ (Exod. 14.11)

(2)

ְׁ֒ נו ֶׁ א ֱ ס ַ פ ְׁ ת א ֶׁ ק־ל ִ ב ְׁ ר ֹ ת ֶׁ ךי ב ְׁ םולש ‘you will be buried peacefully in your family graves’ (2 Kgs
22.20)

13This explanation does not offer a coherent account of the phenomenon: what governs the choice of each morpheme remains unclear. Worse still, this line of reasoning applies only to a small sample of the occurrences, and, in fact, the plural morphemes show no consistent semantic association. Even the noun qɛḇɛr does not show a regular semantic distribution of its plurals. For example, in (3) below, Ezekiel refers to simple graves, scattered around a cistern, but uses the plural -ōṯ, which Tubul argues should be interpreted as marking a family burial plot. Conversely, in (4) below, the Hittites give Abraham leave to bury his dead in their own family tombs, and here the plural morpheme is -īm, which according to Tubul’s explanation should be reserved for simple graves.

(3)

֙ א ֲֶׁ֨ רש נ ִ ת ְּ נ ִּ ו ק ִ ב ְּ ר ֹ הית ָ ֙ ב ְּ י ְּ כר ְּ ת ֵ ב־י ַֹ֔ רו ‘whose graves are set around the uttermost parts of the pit’ (Ezek. 32.23)

(4)

֙ ב ְּ מ ִ ב ְּ ח ֣ ר ק ְּ ב ֵָ ר ַ֔ ני ּ ו ֙ ק ְּ ב ָֹּ֖ ר מ־תא ֵ ת ָּ֑ ך ‘bury your dead in the best of our graves’ (Gen. 23.6)

14Semantic differentiation, therefore, cannot explain variation in the case of most lexemes; as the examples above show, even with those lexemes whose variation is partially attributable to semantic differentiation, this tendency is inconsistent. Moreover, there is no coherent account for why a specific plural morpheme is selected to mark a given semantic nuance.

15But the rules governing the distribution of the plural suffixes may not be purely linguistic. Within Biblical Hebrew, Tubul (2007) argues that genre is also an important factor. At least for some nouns, plural morphemes are claimed to be distributed according to genre. Specifically, in poetry, nouns tend to select -ōṯ plurals, even when in other genres they do not. Here too there is no internal consistency; for example, in prose yaʿar ‘forest’ appears with -īm (Ezek. 34.25; 39.10), while in poetry it appears with -ōṯ (Ps. 29.9). But the exact opposite distribution is attested for dōr ‘generation’, which selects -ōṯ in prose (e.g., Num. 10.8), but -īm in poetry (e.g., Ps. 72.5). Genre is, therefore, unlikely to be a significant factor.

  • 5 For this lexeme, the plural with -īm is attested only in the absolute (Gen. 37.7), while the plural (...)

16Finally, several scholars suggest that alternative plural morphemes are used when similar plural morphemes occur in the vicinity, e.g., in the same clause, as a result of textual attraction, or ‘tonal agreement’ (Sharvit 1990, 338; Tubul 2007). For example, in (5) below, the noun *ʾălummå ‘sheaf’ selects the plural morpheme -īm when in the vicinity of another form with the same morpheme (the masculine plural participle mǝʾallǝmīm ‘were gathering’), but not otherwise:5

(5)

֙ ו ְּ ה ִ נ ֵ ה א ֲ נ ַ֜ ח ְּ נ ּ ו ֙ מ ְּ לא ְִּ מ ִ םי א ֲ ל ֻ מ ִ םי ֙ ...ְּ הו ִ נ ִֵ ה ת ְּ ס ֻ ניב ָ ה ֙ א ֲ ל ֻ מ ֹ֣ ת ֵ כי ַ֔ ם ‘we were collecting sheaves… and there, your sheaves gathered around’ (Gen. 37.7)

17This alleged attraction, however, does not describe the vast majority of the examples; furthermore, there are multiple examples where the evidence is squarely against such a hypothesis. In (6) below, the noun masmēr ‘nail’ is adjacent to a noun with the morpheme -ōṯ (ḏalṯōṯ ‘doors’), and yet selects -īm. Meanwhile, in example (7) below, the adjacent noun selects -īm (šǝqålīm ‘shekels’) but masmēr ‘nail’ selects -ōṯ. In both cases, masmēr ‘nail’ belongs in the same syntactic segment as nouns with a different plural morpheme, and yet there is no perceivable effect on the selection of plural morpheme.

(6)

֙ ּ בו ְּ זר ֣ ל ׀ ל ָָ֠ ר ֹ ב ל ַֽ מ ִ ס ְּ מ ְִּ ר ִ֞ םי ל ְּ לד ְּ ת ֹ֧ תו שה ְּ ע ִָ ר ִ֛ םי ‘iron in abundance for the nails of the gate doors’ (1 Chron.
22.3)

(7)

ּ מו ִ ש ְְׁׁ ק ָ֛ ל ְׁ מל ְִׁ מס ְׁ֥ תור ל ִ ש ְׁ ק ִ ל ִ֖ םי ח ֲ מ ִִ םיש הז ָ֑ ב ‘the weight of the nails was fifty golden shekels’ (2 Chron.
3.9)

18Describing variation as a form of attraction has, therefore, very limited applicability. Indeed, in most cases, it has no effect at all.

19Explanations thus far have appealed to multiple lines of reasoning which are internally inconsistent and which provide a coherent account of neither the mismatch in gender-number nor the alternation between plural suffixes in Hebrew. A diachronic explanation, to the best of my knowledge, has not been offered. Both gender-number mismatch and the use of alternating morphemes are attested in other Semitic languages, and a review of the evidence there may shed some light on Hebrew.

3.0. Sound Plurals in Semitic

  • 6 The list should include also Canaanite dialects, but due to the paucity of the evidence they are le (...)

20Many Semitic languages use broken plurals for some or most of their substantives. Such a system is found in the languages of the Arabian Peninsula (Arabic, Modern South Arabian, and Epigraphic South Arabian) and Ethiopia (Gəʿəz). A strong preference for sound plurals of the type that Hebrew shows is found primarily in Northwest and East Semitic. Other branches show a much more complicated combination of broken plurals and sound plurals, with a strong preference for the former. Therefore, the most relevant sub-branches for a comparison with Hebrew are Akkadian, Aramaic, and Ugaritic,6 although evidence from Ethiopic and Arabic is also illustrative.

  • 7 Data on Akkadian plurals was collected from CAD and Streck (2010).
    Data on Ugaritic plurals was coll (...)

21I have collected all nouns that show a morphologically unexpected plural, namely a reflex of Proto-Semitic (PS) *-ūn on feminine nouns and a reflex of PS *-āt on masculine nouns.7 The comparison is not exhaustive, because for some nouns, plural forms are not attested. This is especially true for Ugaritic, but also on occasion for Akkadian, where some plural forms are consistently written with logograms, and so remain morphologically opaque. Another snag is that we cannot truly evaluate the ratio of predictable plural morphology with mismatched gender-number morphology, since we have no access to speakers, and sometimes only limited access to texts. The reliance on information from dictionaries is not without risk, since dictionaries list all forms, regardless of their actual status in the language. Nevertheless, for a broad comparison, there is no other resource to collect evidence.

22All the languages examined for this study have a significant number of substantives the plural of which is unpredictable. With the exception of Aramaic, most languages show a strong preference for the use of *-āt at the expense of other plural forms, regardless of gender; namely, the number of substantives selecting an unpredictable *-āt is far larger than that of substantives selecting an unpredictable *-ūn. In Ugaritic the ratio of unpredictable *-āt to *-ūn is 2: 1, in Biblical Hebrew it is slightly over 2: 1, in Mishnaic Hebrew it is 3.5: 1, and in Akkadian it is 30: 1. The preference in Aramaic is reversed: the ratio of unpredictable *-ūn to unpredictable *-āt in Syriac is more than 5: 1. Clearly, all languages show a strong preference for one of the plural morphemes and their distribution is therefore not random. In this respect, Hebrew patterns with Akkadian and Ugaritic, but not with Aramaic.

  • 8 In some languages, the gender of the noun has changed, and the plural is therefore no longer unpred (...)
  • 9 Assyrian abbāʾū; see Huehnergard (1987, 186).

23The set of nouns with unpredictable plurals is not easily compared, since not all languages share the lexicon and the shared set of nouns which select the same unpredictable plural morpheme is small.8 Additionally, there is some variation even in the case of the most prototypical examples of unpredictable plural formation; for example, the plural of ‘father’, which selects *-āt in Hebrew ʾåḇōṯ and Aramaic ʾabāhātā, appears to select a masculine plural in Akkadian abbû,9 despite the fact that Akkadian shows the most notable preference for *-āt. Table 3 below includes nouns that show the same unpredictable plural across Northwest Semitic (NSW) and Akkadian. This is a very short list, and includes two loan words from Akkadian, the first originally Sumerian (kissē ‘chair’ < kussû; mazzål ‘constellation’ < mazzāzu).

  • 10 Other possible lexemes are attested only in Hebrew and Aramaic, such as bēṣå ‘egg’, dəḇōrå ‘bee’, (...)

Table 3: Nouns selecting the same plural reflex10

Table 3: Nouns selecting the same plural reflex10
  • 11 Most plural attestations of this lexeme are written with Sumerograms and are thus morphologically o (...)
  • 12 This noun is attested only in the plural in the Bible.

Note11
Note12

  • 13 The table includes only nouns whose plurals are attested in at least three of the four languages re (...)

24Nevertheless, a comparison can be made between the languages to illustrate how plural morphemes pattern. Note the following two comparative tables, where the plurals of 16 nouns are provided. Table 4 presents a set of Hebrew masculine singular forms which select the plural morpheme *-āt, along with their equivalents in Aramaic, Ugaritic, and Akkadian. Some of these substantives select more than one plural morpheme, in which case the most common morpheme was chosen for the sake of simplicity. The shaded cells indicate substantives which select a reflex of *-āt.13

Table 4: Masculine nouns with *-āt plural forms

Table 4: Masculine nouns with *-āt plural forms
  • 14 This lexeme selects -ōṯ twice (Ezek. 25.4 in the pronominal state; Ps. 46.5 in construct) out of 20 (...)
  • 15 This is the plural in the earlier dialects. Later dialects shift to *-āt, e.g., Syriac nharwān.

Note14
Note15

  • 16 The list of mismatched Aramaic–Hebrew nouns is longer than what is presented here, but in many case (...)

25The table illustrates that within Northwest Semitic, Aramaic is the least similar to Hebrew,16 with Ugaritic slightly more similar; however, Hebrew patterns more often with Akkadian than with its closest Northwest Semitic relatives.

26Table 5 below includes feminine singular nouns, either marked or unmarked for gender, which select the plural morpheme *-ūn. In Hebrew and even more so in Akkadian, this is a relatively small category, as neither language has many cases where feminine singular nouns select *-ūn.

Table 5: Feminine nouns with *ūn plural

Table 5: Feminine nouns with *ūn plural
  • 17 Although the singular and plural are indistinguishable in Ugaritic orthography, the construct bt lb (...)
  • 18 The absolute plural of this lexeme is -īm, the construct and pronominal indicate either -ōṯ or -īm, (...)
  • 19 There are three instances of -ōṯ (Exod. 25.12; 37.3; 1 Kgs 7.30), all in the pronominal state, out (...)
  • 20 The form of the plural of pēnu ‘thigh’ depends on its gender, as it is attested with both genders i (...)

Note17
Note18
Note19
Note20

27The data indicates that in the case of feminine nouns with *-ūn plurals, Hebrew patterns exactly with Aramaic, a bit less with Ugaritic, and very little with Akkadian.

28Tables 4 and 5 show that Biblical Hebrew has slightly more variation than Aramaic, which shows greater propensity for *-ūn, and Akkadian, which leans toward *-āt; however, Hebrew patterns with Akkadian more than expected given its phylogenetic position.

  • 21 The tendency to mark borrowed words with *-āt is also widespread in modern Arabic dialects; e.g., r (...)
  • 22 See Heijmans (2013) for the most up-to-date list of borrowed Greek lexemes.

29Borrowed lexemes are a special case. Typically, when borrowed lexemes are incorporated into the host system, they are expected to follow the standard morphological rules of the host system. In the languages I examined, most borrowed lexemes select *-āt, regardless of their gender, animacy, or the morphology of the singular.21 For example, words borrowed into Akkadian, primarily from Sumerian, frequently select *-āt, e.g., ḫarwaraḫuzuḫarwaraḫuz-āt-u ‘tool’ (< Hurr.); iššakkuiššakk-āt-u ‘local ruler’ (< Sum.). In Ugaritic, evidence of plural forms for loan and native lexemes is limited, but nablủnblảt ‘flame’ (< Akk. nabl-ū) is quite striking, as Ugaritic selects the plural marker -āt, even though the original Akkadian plural is -ū. In Mishnaic Hebrew, -ōṯ is the preferred plural morpheme for borrowed lexemes, e.g., måmōn∼måmōnōṯ ‘wealth, value’ (<Gr.), simpōn∼simpōnōṯ ‘receipt’ (<Gr.). Since most of the borrowed lexemes in this stage of Hebrew are Greek,22 many carry a Greek masculine or neuter suffix, which includes a rounded vowel (-ος/ - ον), giving false support to the impression that the conditioning factor is phonological. Many other lexemes without this morpheme also select -ōṯ; e.g., zūḡ∼zūḡōṯ ‘pair’, ʾissar∼ʾissarōṯ ‘coin’, etc.

30The comparative evidence provides a number of useful leads. First, Hebrew is clearly not an exceptional system and several of the phenomena assumed thus far to be Hebrew-specific and/or Hebrew-internal should be examined from a much broader perspective. Second, Hebrew often patterns with Akkadian, not, as might be expected, with Aramaic or Ugaritic. Explanations given for the distribution of the plural morphemes in Hebrew clearly cannot be based solely on internal evidence (§2.0 above).

31The assumption in the scholarly literature is that, since plural morphemes are gendered, feminine nouns will choose *-āt and masculine nouns will choose *-ūn. This assumption is true for the distribution of the plural morphemes with adjectives and participles, where the plural morphemes behave predictably. If indeed plural marker distribution on adjectives is the same as that for substantives, as is widely assumed (Hasselbach 2007), one should expect alignment of the plural morphemes with appropriately gendered singular nouns. But that is not the case. The Semitic languages examined here, including Hebrew, show numerous semantically and morphologically diverse categories of substantives that do not select the expected suffix. Since all Semitic languages with a similar number system show the plural morpheme to be unpredictable with substantives, any answer provided by examining Hebrew alone, outside its Semitic context is likely to be partial, if not misleading. I now turn to examine what these observations bring to the study of Hebrew.

4.0. Hebrew in Context

  • 23 For example, Hebrew miškånmiškānoṯ ‘dwelling’ and Akkadian maškanātu; Hebrew maśśåmaśśåʾōṯ and (...)

32Given the comparative evidence, it emerges that some claims concerning the distribution of plural morphemes in Hebrew are unsustainable. The phonological and morphological factors conditioning the choice of *-āt, if they exist at all, cannot be internal Hebrew factors. For example, the patterns miqṭål/maqṭēl, which are listed as conditioning -ōṯ (Tubul 2003, 74–75), include nouns which are attested in other languages with the plural *-āt.23 If there is a morphological factor underlying the choice of the plural morpheme, it should be expected to apply as equally to Ugaritic and Akkadian as it does to Hebrew.

33Given the distribution observed in the previous section, not only is the organisation of plural morphemes in Hebrew unexceptional; it is also possibly inherited from some ancestor. While it is interesting to trace the distribution of each morpheme in Biblical and post-biblical Hebrew, studying them in isolation from similar patterns in other languages has not yielded fruitful results.

34One of the shortcomings of this scholarly navel-gazing is failure to observe that plural formation in post-biblical Hebrew does not pattern with Aramaic. The influence of Aramaic on Rabbinic Hebrew is well documented, but plural nominal morphemes remain largely unaffected. The reason may be that, crosslinguistically, bound morphemes tend to exhibit low borrowability (Matras 2014). It may also indicate that the system in Hebrew was already firmly established by the time Hebrew speakers came into intense contact with Aramaic speakers.

35The difference between the distribution of plural morphemes in the languages examined here, as well as the documented diachronic shift to -ōṯ observed in post-biblical Hebrew indicate that nominal plural morphemes are not gendered. Additionally, not only does the gender of the singular fail significantly to affect the choice of plural morpheme, but so does the form of the singular. If either the gender or form had much relevance for plural formation, we should expect a much more consistent system, where certain plural forms are blocked. Moreover, a pronounced shift to -ōṯ in a system regulated by gender assignment would be unlikely, if -ōṯ were marked for gender. The fact that the shift happened regardless of an opposite shift in Aramaic is indicative that gender cannot be the principal feature.

36From the perspective of Hebrew historical linguistics, the two observations noted here, namely the historical shift in Hebrew to -ōṯ and the difference between the trends in Hebrew and Aramaic, may be useful for the relative dating of biblical texts, if used with caution. In order to properly ascribe weight to the occurrence of a particular plural morpheme, we must first trace its distribution across the entire corpus, under the assumption that in proto-Hebrew plural morphemes on substantives were not gendered. This will allow us to identify the pattern of change, if such exists. The use of a specific plural morpheme does not have a clear binary monarchic/exilic distribution; rather, it can be interpreted as historically significant if certain conditions are met. There are two ways of interpreting the evidence:

  1. A change from -īm to -ōṯ can be interpreted as a sign of a diachronic shift in cases in which -ōṯ appears in texts known or thought to be late, as well as post-biblical Hebrew, while -īm is restricted to early texts or Transitional Biblical Hebrew (TBH).

  2. A localised use of -īm may be an indication of Aramaic interference in cases in which -īm appears in some late texts, while -ōṯ appears in texts of various periods, including Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH) and post-biblical Hebrew. Comparison to Aramaic is instructive, if the lexeme is attested there.

  • 24 Other examples of a shift from -īm-ōṯ are observable in the case of, among others, the nouns mōʿ (...)

37Claim (1) above can be illustrated with the distribution of the plural of ḥallōn ‘window’. In monarchic period texts it is pluralised with -īm, ex. (8), in exilic texts, it shows both plurals, (9)– (10), and in LBH (11) and post-biblical Hebrew (12), -ōṯ is found. This tallies with the observation made by several scholars, that during its attested history Hebrew shifts to use -ōṯ more generally, at the expense of -īm.24

  • 25 Ezekiel is the only text where ḥallōn ‘window’ conditions feminine agreement.

(8)

֙ יו ֣ ע ׂ ש בל ַָ֔ י ִ ת לח ֹ נו ֵָּ֖ י ש ְּ ק ִֻ פ ֵ םי ‘he made window frames for the house’ (1 Kgs 6.4)

(9)

֙ ְּ לחהו ֹ ו ִ נ ֣ םי ה ָָ֠ א ֲ ט ֻ מ ֹ תו ְּ הו ָ תא ִ י ִ ק ִ םי ֙ ׀ ֙ ס ָ ב ִ בי ‘and the sealed windows and the galleries around’ (Ezek.
41.16)25

(10)

֙ ו ְּ ח ֹּ נל ֹ֣ תו א ֲ ט ֻ מ ֹ֣ תו א ַֽ תה־ל ָ א ִ םי ‘and sealed windows facing the chambers’ (Ezek. 40.16)

(11)

שמ ְּ ג ִ חי ֙ מ ִ ה־ן ַֽ ח ֲֹּ נל ַֹ֔ תו ‘gazing from the windows’ (Song 2.9)

(12)

אל תוחפי ןמ תונולחה אלו ףיסוי םהילע ֙ ‘he shall not reduce or increase the number of windows’ (m. Baba Metzia 8.9)

38It is, therefore, warranted to assume that for this noun the plural - ōṯ in Song of Songs is a sign of lateness, while the use of -īm likely positions a text no later than the Babylonian Exile.

39Claim (2) is more complicated. Since Aramaic exhibits the exact opposite direction of Hebrew, under certain conditions the appearance of -īm may be indicative of an Aramaism and, therefore, of exilic or post-exilic date. One must exercise caution, however, as not all nouns that select -īm are a result of foreign interference, and an early use of the plural morpheme -īm should be clearly distinguished from a hypothesised Aramaic calque -īm. I suggest that we can verify whether -īm is a result of language contact, if there is evidence that both pre-exilic and later texts regularly use -ōṯ, while -īm occurs only in texts that are suspected of being under Aramaic influence. A few examples will suffice to demonstrate the potential of this feature.

40The biblical nouns pinnå ‘corner’ and parså ‘hoof’ are attested with the plural morpheme -ōṯ in both pre-exilic, (13)– (14), and exilic or post exilic, (15)– (16), texts:

(13)

֙ ו ְּ ש ֹ ס ִ תע עסש ֙ פ ְָּ סר ַֹ֔ ת ‘and that has cloven hooves’ (Lev. 11.3)

(14)

֙ ְּ עו ִָׂ ש ֣ תי ָ ֙ ק ְּ נר ֹ ת ָ וי ע ַ֚ ל א ְּ בר ֣ ע פ ִ נ ֹ ת ַָ֔ וי ‘you shall create its horns on its four corners’ (Exod. 27.2)

(15)

֙ ּ פו ְּ סר ֵֹ תו ב ְּ ה ֵ מ ָָּ֖ ה ל ֵֹ א ת ְִּ לד ָ ח ֵַֽ ם ‘the hooves of a beast will not bother them’ (Ezek. 32.13)

(16)

מה־לע ִ ג ְּ ד ָ ל ִ םי ֙ ו ְּ פה־לע ִ נ ַֹ֔ תו ֙ ‘over the towers and [their] corners’ (2 Chron. 26.15)

41The same morpheme is also used in post-biblical Hebrew, where both lexemes select the plural -ōṯ:

  • 26 Sharvit (1990, 370) notes a few instances of pinnīm ‘corners’ in Mishnaic manuscripts, but they are (...)

(17)

אוה ףיקמ ויתוסרפ ֙ ‘he surrounds his hooves’ (m. Bekhorot 7.6)

(18)

עברא לע עברא ויתוניפ ֙

‘its corners are four by four’ (m. Middot 1.1)26

42However, in Zechariah, an Achaemenid period text, both nouns select the plural morpheme -īm:

(19)

֙ ּ פו ְּ סר ֵ הי ָּ֖ ן י ְּ פ ֵָ ר ַֽ ק
‘he will tear their hooves’ (Zech. 11.16)

(20)

ש־דע ֣ רע פה ִ נ ִַ֔ םי ֙ ‘up to the corner gate’ (Zech. 14.10)

  • 27 Neither lexical item is attested in Persian period Aramaic texts. In Late Antique dialects pnītā ta (...)

43Given the distribution of the plural t in pre-exilic, exilic, and post-exilic texts, the occurrence of -īm in Zechariah is exceptional, requiring explanation. I suggest that the choice of plural morpheme is a localised Aramaic calque, which failed to be adopted in later periods.27

  • 28 The list of LBH features in Song includes orthography (the plene spelling of dåwīḏ ‘David’), morph (...)

44A second example comes from Song of Songs, another post-exilic text. The language of Song has generally been dated to the Hellenistic period based on a number of late features.28 Dobbs-Allsopp (2005) proposes that the plural of mɛḡɛḏ ‘precious thing’ there, mǝḡåḏīm (Song 4.13, 16; 7.14), is a late feature, on the basis of the discussion in Polzin (1976), who argued that preference for nominal pluralisation is a sign of lateness.

(21)

֙ ש ְּ ל ָ יח ִ ך ֙ פ ְּ דר ֵ֣ ס ִ מר ֹ נו ִַ֔ םי ִ֙ ע ָּ֖ ם פ ְִּ ר ֣ י מ ְּ ג ִָ ד ָּ֑ םי ‘your branches are a pomegranate orchard with precious fruit’ (Song 4.13)

  • 29 See also Ezra 1.6 and 2 Chron. 32.23.

45This proposal is difficult because another plural, miḡdå̄nōṯ, is used in several other biblical texts, so the use of the plural is not per se diagnostic:29

(22)

֙ ּ מו ִ ג ְּ ד ָ נ ֹ ת נ ָ ןת ל ְּ א ָ ח ִ הי ָ ּ֙ לו ְּ א ִ מ ָ ה ‘he gave precious things to her brother and mother’ (Gen.
24.53)

(23)

יו ִ ת ֵ ן ל ָ םה א ֲ ב ִ םהי תמ ָ נ ֹ תו בר ֹ תו ל ְּ ףסכ ּ לו ְּ ז ָ ה ָ ב ּ לו ְּ מ ִ ג ְּ ד ָ נ ֹ תו ֙ ‘their father gave many presents of silver, gold and precious things’ (2 Chron. 21.3)

  • 30 Akkadian *magattumagadātu is a possible cognate. Von Soden (1966, 16) reads magāṭātu and suggests (...)

46The exact dating of Gen. 24, ex. (22), is difficult. Rofé (1990) has suggested that it is a Persian period text, based on its language. Rendsburg (2002) argues on the basis of the same features that it is not a late text, but rather a Northern text, which per Rendsburg includes multiple instances of Aramaisms, as a form of style switching. This analysis includes the lexeme mɛḡɛḏ, which Rendsburg argues is ‘Aramaic-like’ and Rofé suggests is late.30 Hendel and Joosten (2019, 81–82), however, note that despite the late features and signs of contact with Aramaic embedded in Gen. 24, the text also exhibits several CBH features which are generally absent from LBH. They, therefore, suggest that the text belongs to TBH.

47What has not previously been noted in the context of this discussion is the form of the plural. Song of Songs pluralises mɛḡɛḏ with -īm, while all other biblical texts, whatever their date, use -ōṯ. Following the criteria I set above, the plural with -īm in a single text is exceptional, and since the language clearly did not stop using -ōṯ to pluralise this substantive, it may be a calque of the Aramaic plural. Indeed, all dialects of Aramaic where the lexeme is attested pluralise mɛḡɛḏ with a reflex of *-ūn: JPA maḡdānīn, Targum maḡdānīn, Syr. maḡdunē (or meḡdunē). The plural of mɛḡɛḏ in Song is, therefore, likely an Aramaic calque, which lends support to the LBH dating of the text.

48Some other possible cases are the plural of kinnōr ‘lyre’. It generally selects -ōṯ in pre-exilic (2 Sam. 6.5) and post-exilic (Neh. 12.27) biblical texts. This is also true in Mishnaic Hebrew (e.g., m. Sukkot 5.4). The only exception is Ezek. 26.13, where it appears as kinnōrayiḵ ‘your (fs) lyres’. In Aramaic, this noun also selects *-ūn, for example JPA kīnārīn, Syriac kēnārē. The plural of šåḇūaʿ ‘week’ is typically pluralised with -ōṯ in both pre-exilic (Exod. 34.22) and post-exilic (2 Chron. 8.13) biblical texts. The same plural is found in Mishnaic Hebrew (e.g., Megilla 3.5). The only exception is Daniel, where all occurrences of the plural of šåḇūaʿ are šåḇūʿīm. The plural of this noun in Aramaic is similarly a reflex of *-ūn, e.g., JPA and CPA šābuʿīn, Syriac šabuʿē. Caution should be exercised, however, in evaluating such cases, and evidence from Aramaic and post-biblical Hebrew is crucial to establishing the direction of change.

5.0. Summary and Conclusions

49This paper has dealt with the age-old problem of mismatched plurals in Hebrew. I have attempted to show that the study of such phenomena purely on the basis of Hebrew is misleading. In a comparative perspective, the distribution of plural morphemes in Hebrew is not exceptional and has parallels in other Semitic languages. The comparative evidence as well as documented diachronic shifts in Hebrew can be used for linguistic dating. The main methodological conclusion I hope readers draw from this paper is that the study of the structure of Hebrew must not be undertaken in isolation from evidence in other languages; in most cases comparative evidence is invaluable.

Bibliographie

References

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Bettega, Simone. 2017. ‘Agreement with Plural Controllers in Omani Arabic’. In Linguistic Studies in the Arabian Gulf, edited by Simone Bettega and Fabio Gasparini, 153–74. Turin: Università di Torino.

CAD = Roth, Martha, et al. 1965. Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.

CAL = Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon. http://cal.huc.edu.

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Cook, Edward M. 2015. Dictionary of Qumran Aramaic. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

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Fox, Joshua. 1998. ‘Isolated Nouns in the Semitic Languages’. Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 11: 1–31.

GKC = Kautzsch, Emil (ed.). 1910. Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Translated by Arthur E. Cowley. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hasselbach, Rebecca. 2007. ‘External Plural Markers in Semitic: A New Assessment’. In Studies in Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics Presented to Gene B. Gragg, edited by Cynthia L. Miller, 123–38. Chicago: The Oriental Institute.

Heijmans, Shai. 2013. ‘Greek and Latin Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew: Lexicon and Phonology’. PhD dissertation, Tel-Aviv University.

Hendel, Ronald, and Joosten, Jan. 2018. How Old Is the Hebrew Bible?: A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Huehnergard, John. 1987. ‘Three Notes on Akkadian Morphology’. In Working With No Data: Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin, edited by David M. Golomb, 181–93. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

Matras, Yaron. 2014. ‘Why Is the Borrowing of Inflectional Morphology Dispreferred? ’. In Borrowed Morphology, edited by Francesco Gardani, Peter Arkadiev, and Nino Amiridze, 47– 80. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Mor, Uri. 2011. ‘Language Contact in Judea: How Much Aramaic is There in the Hebrew Documents from the Judean Desert? ’. Hebrew Studies 52: 213–20.

Payne-Smith, Robert. 2007 [1879]. Thesaurus Syriacus. Piscataway: Gorgias Press.

Polzin, Robert. 1976. Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press.

Rendsburg, Gary A. 2002. ‘Some False Leads in the Identification of Late Biblical Hebrew Texts: The Cases of Genesis 24 and 1 Samuel 2: 27–36’. Journal of Biblical Literature 121: 23–46.

Rofé, Alexander. 1990. ‘An Enquiry into the Betrothal of Rebekah’. In Die Hebräische Bibel und zweifache Nachgeschichte: Festschrift für Rolf Rendtorff zum 65 Geburtstag, edited by E. Blum, C. Macholz, and E. W. Stegemann, 27–39. Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag.

Schwarzwald, Ora. 1991. ‘Grammatical vs. Lexical Plural Formation in Hebrew’. Folia Linguistica 25: 577–608.

Sharvit, Shimon. 1990. ‘Nouns with Double Formation in the Plural in Tannaitic Hebrew’. Language Studies 4: 335–73. [Hebrew]

von Soden, Wolfram. 1966. ‘Aramäische Wörter in neuassyrischen und neu- und spätbabylonischen Texten. Ein Vorbericht. I (agâ–*mūš)’. Orientalia 35 (1): 1–20.

Sokoloff, Michael. 2002. A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press.

— ——. 2003. A Dictionary of Judean Aramaic. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press.

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Tubul, Meirav. 2003. ‘The Distribution of the Plural Morpheme of Nouns in Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew’. PhD dissertation, Bar Ilan University.

— ——. 2005. ‘Ø-Ending Nouns with Plural -ōt in Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew’. Lešonenu 65: 241–69. [Hebrew]

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Notes

1 The term ‘unmarked’ here designates nouns with no overt gender morpheme in the singular.

2 See already comments on the situation in Palestinian Arabic in Cohen (1930, 282).

3 There are many exceptions to this rule, of course, most notably šibbōlɛṯ ‘sheaf’, which, in view of the feminine singular form and the rounded vowel in the stem, should have selected -ōṯ. Its plural, however, is šibbōlīm.

4 It is worth noting, however, that the number of nouns to which this rule applies is small: for example, *maqṭīl (mazlēḡ ‘fork’, and five other lexemes), *quṭlån (šulḥån ‘table’, and one more lexeme), *maqṭål (map̊tēaḥ ‘key’, five lexemes out of 49).

5 For this lexeme, the plural with -īm is attested only in the absolute (Gen. 37.7), while the plural with -ōṯ occurs only in the pronominal state (Gen. 37.7; Ps. 126.6).

6 The list should include also Canaanite dialects, but due to the paucity of the evidence they are less useful for a comparison.

7 Data on Akkadian plurals was collected from CAD and Streck (2010).
Data on Ugaritic plurals was collected from DULAT. Data on Aramaic plurals was collected from Sokoloff (2002; 2003), Cook (2015), Payne Smith (1879), which are all incorporated in the online CAL.

8 In some languages, the gender of the noun has changed, and the plural is therefore no longer unpredictable, at least synchronically.

9 Assyrian abbāʾū; see Huehnergard (1987, 186).

10 Other possible lexemes are attested only in Hebrew and Aramaic, such as bēṣå ‘egg’, dəḇōrå ‘bee’, dəḇēlå ‘dried fig’, yōnå ‘dove’, millå ‘word’, nəmålå ‘ant’, səʾå ‘seah’, ṣəp̊ardēaʿ ‘frog’, etc. ʿir∼ʿårīm ‘town’ is attested only in Hebrew and Ugaritic.

11 Most plural attestations of this lexeme are written with Sumerograms and are thus morphologically opaque; however, seegiš GU.ZA-a-at ḫu-raṣi ‘golden thrones’ (YOS 11, 23.18), where the head noun shows -āt in construct (Steinkeller 2005, 29). I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for referring me to this text.

12 This noun is attested only in the plural in the Bible.

13 The table includes only nouns whose plurals are attested in at least three of the four languages represented here.

14 This lexeme selects -ōṯ twice (Ezek. 25.4 in the pronominal state; Ps. 46.5 in construct) out of 20 plural occurrences.

15 This is the plural in the earlier dialects. Later dialects shift to *-āt, e.g., Syriac nharwān.

16 The list of mismatched Aramaic–Hebrew nouns is longer than what is presented here, but in many cases, there are no cognates, or no plurals, attested in other languages, which precludes definitive conclusions on the pattern in Hebrew. Some of the nouns which show -ōṯ in Hebrew, but -īn in Aramaic are ʾōṣår ‘treasure, granary’, zikkårōn ‘memory’, ḥălōm ‘dream’, mizråq ‘basin’, måṭår ‘rain’ (Job 37.6), masmēr ‘nail’ (twice with -ōṯ and twice with -īm), ʿēśɛb ‘grass’ (Ps. 27.25), ṣōm ‘fast’ (Est. 9.31), qəråḇ ‘war’ (Ps. 68.31), måʾōr ‘light’ (except in Ezek. 32.8).

17 Although the singular and plural are indistinguishable in Ugaritic orthography, the construct bt lbnt ‘brick house’ (1.4 V 11) likely contains a plural form (‘a house of bricks’ rather than ‘a house of brick’).

18 The absolute plural of this lexeme is -īm, the construct and pronominal indicate either -ōṯ or -īm, sometimes in the same book, e.g., šənōṯēḵå ‘your (ms) years’ (Job 10.5) versus šånåw ‘his years’ (Job 36.26).

19 There are three instances of -ōṯ (Exod. 25.12; 37.3; 1 Kgs 7.30), all in the pronominal state, out of 61 plural occurrences.

20 The form of the plural of pēnu ‘thigh’ depends on its gender, as it is attested with both genders in Akkadian.

21 The tendency to mark borrowed words with *-āt is also widespread in modern Arabic dialects; e.g., ranǧ-āt ‘Range Rovers’ (Bettega 2017, 162). See also Fischer (2002, 66, §104, n. 1) for a similar phenomenon in Classical Arabic.

22 See Heijmans (2013) for the most up-to-date list of borrowed Greek lexemes.

23 For example, Hebrew miškånmiškānoṯ ‘dwelling’ and Akkadian maškanātu; Hebrew maśśåmaśśåʾōṯ and Aramaic massān; Hebrew mōšåḇmôšåḇōṯ ‘dwelling’ and Ugaritic mṯbt, etc.

24 Other examples of a shift from -īm-ōṯ are observable in the case of, among others, the nouns mōʿēḏ ‘appointed time’, which occurs with - ōṯ only in 2 Chron. 8.13; maṭʿåm ‘savoury dish’, which occurs with -ōṯ only in Prov. 23.6, 3; måḡēn ‘shield’, which occurs with -ōṯ in 2 Chron. 23.9 (and also in contemporary Akkadian; cf. von Soden 1966, 16), but with -īm everywhere else; pɛrɛṣ ‘breach’ occurs with -īm in Amos 4.3; 9.11, but with -ōṯ in Ezek. 13.5; and others.

25 Ezekiel is the only text where ḥallōn ‘window’ conditions feminine agreement.

26 Sharvit (1990, 370) notes a few instances of pinnīm ‘corners’ in Mishnaic manuscripts, but they are rather likely related to pånīm ‘face’.

27 Neither lexical item is attested in Persian period Aramaic texts. In Late Antique dialects pnītā takes -ātā (e.g., in Syriac), although the lexeme is likely derived from a different root (Aram. √pny versus Hebrew √pnn). The lexeme parsā is also attested in later texts, where its plural morpheme varies. JPA has parsātā, while Syriac uses parsānē as well.

28 The list of LBH features in Song includes orthography (the plene spelling of dåwīḏ ‘David’), morphology (e.g., preference for the 1cs pronoun ʾănī), syntax (the decline of narrative wayyiqṭol), and lexicon (preference for ḥēḵ for mouth instead of the early ). See Dobbs-Allsopp (2005) for a fairly thorough list and discussion.

29 See also Ezra 1.6 and 2 Chron. 32.23.

30 Akkadian *magattumagadātu is a possible cognate. Von Soden (1966, 16) reads magāṭātu and suggests that it is a loanword from Aramaic, whose root he suggests is √ghṭ (see Sokoloff 2002, 362). CAD assumes the root is √mgd. The lexeme is still listed as an Aramaic loan in CAD although no Aramaic origin is noted. Abraham and Sokoloff (2011, 40) reject Sokoloff’s etymology, but suggest no alternative. Given the context of the lexeme in Akkadian, that is, a dowry list, it is possible that it is a cognate of the Aramaic and Hebrew lexeme. Its attestation in Neo-Babylonian roughly fits the date of the first instance of the lexeme in Hebrew, if Gen. 24 is viewed as a TBH text. The evidence is, however, too scant for a clear conclusion.

Table des illustrations

Titre Table 1: Distribution of mismatched plurals in Hebrew (Tubul 2003)
URL http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20165/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 11k
Titre Table 2: Sample plural distribution by state
URL http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20165/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 12k
Titre Table 3: Nouns selecting the same plural reflex10
Légende Note11Note12
URL http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20165/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 31k
Titre Table 4: Masculine nouns with *-āt plural forms
Légende Note14Note15
URL http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20165/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 36k
Titre Table 5: Feminine nouns with *ūn plural
Légende Note17Note18Note19Note20
URL http://books.openedition.org/obp/docannexe/image/20165/img-5.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 38k

Auteur

Na’ama Pat-El (PhD, Harvard University, 2008) is Associate Professor of Semitic Languages and Linguistics at the University of Texas, Austin. Her research is focused on historical linguistics, mostly syntactic change, and language contact. She has recently edited with John Huehnergard the second edition of The Semitic Languages (Routledge, 2019).

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