Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures Hornkohl and Hornkohl and New Perspectives in Biblical and Khan (eds) New Perspectives in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew Rabbinic Hebrew Aaron D. Hornkohl and Geoffrey Khan (eds) EDITED BY AARON D. HORNKOHL AND GEOFFREY KHAN Most of the papers in this volume originated as presenta� ons at the conference Biblical Hebrew and Rabbinic Hebrew: New Perspecti ves in Philology and Linguisti ,cs which was held at the University of Cambridge, 8–10th July, 2019. The aim of the conference was to build bridges between various strands of research in the fi eld of Hebrew language studies that rarely meet, namely philologists working on Biblical Hebrew, philologists working on New Perspectives in Biblical Rabbinic Hebrew and theore� cal linguists. The volume is the published outcome of this ini� a� ve. It contains peer-reviewed papers and Rabbinic Hebrew in the fi elds of Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew that advance the fi eld by the philological inves� ga� on of primary sources and the applica� on of cu� ng-edge linguis� c theory. These include contribu� ons by established scholars and by students and early career researchers. This is the author-approved edi� on of this Open Access � tle. As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found here: www.openbookpublishers.com Cover image: Genizah fragment of the Hebrew Bible with Babylonian vocalisati on (Num. 18.27-28, Cambridge University Library T-S A38.12; courtesy of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library). Genizah fragment of the Mishnah (Ḥ allah 1, Cambridge University Library MS Add.470.1; courtesy of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library). Linguisti c analysis of Ps. 1.1 (Elizabeth Robar). Images selected by Estara Arrant. Cover design: Anna Gatti book 7 ebooke and OA edi� ons also available OBP https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2021 Aaron D. Hornkohl and Geoffrey Khan (eds). Copyright of individual chapters is maintained by the chapters’ authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Hornkohl, Aaron D., and Khan Geoffrey, eds. New Perspectives in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew. Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 7. Cambridge: University of Cambridge & Open Book Publishers, 2021, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0250 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0250#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at, https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/ 10.11647/OBP.0250#resources Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 978-1-80064-164-8 Semitic Languages and Cultures 7. ISBN Hardback: 978-1-80064-165-5 ISSN (print): 2632-6906 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-80064-166-2 ISSN (digital): 2632-6914 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0250 Cover image: Genizah fragment of the Hebrew Bible with Babylonian vocalisation (Num. 18.27-28, Cambridge University Library T-S A38.12; courtesy of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library). Genizah fragment of the Mishnah (Ḥallah 1, Cambridge University Library MS Add.470.1; courtesy of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library). Linguistic analysis of Ps. 1.1 (Elizabeth Robar). Images selected by Estara Arrant. Cover design: Anna Gatti COMPARATIVE SEMITIC AND HEBREW PLURAL MORPHEMES Na’ama Pat-El 1.0. Introduction Like 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 as- signment is not affected: e.g., ga ḏ̊̄ ōl~gəḏōlīm/gəḏōla~g ̊̄ əḏōlōṯ ‘big’, but za n̊̄ a ḇ̊̄ ~zəna ḇ̊̄ ōṯ ‘tail (m)’/dəḇōra ~d̊̄ əḇōrīm ‘bee (f)’. In addition, a semantically diverse group of nouns is at- tested with both plural morphemes, the conditioning factors of which are unclear: e.g., ḥăṣērōṯ/ḥăṣērīm ‘courts (f)’, qəḇa r̊̄ ōṯ/ qəḇa r̊̄ īm ‘graves (m)’. The choice of plural formation has a dia- chronic 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, © 2021 Na’ama Pat-El, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0250.06 118 New Perspectives in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew 337). The increasing use of -ōṯ in post-biblical Hebrew is statisti- cally significant, as has most recently been shown by Tubul (2003; 2005). Tubul shows that unmarked nouns,1 mostly mas- culine singular, select -ōṯ in Mishanic Hebrew more than in ear- lier 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) Biblical Hebrew Mishnaic Hebrew Unmarked > -ōṯ 6.7% 14.5% Marked feminine > -īm 2% 3.4% The question of this gender-number morphological mis- match in all phases of Hebrew is a long-standing problem; at- tempts to explain it have mostly been synchronic and restricted to evidence from Hebrew. Although the existence of gender-num- ber mismatch in other Semitic languages is peripherally acknowl- edged by Hebraists,2 scholars have yet to examine this phenome- non comparatively. Given the failure to provide a coherent ex- planation 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 1 The term ‘unmarked’ here designates nouns with no overt gender mor- pheme in the singular. 2 See already comments on the situation in Palestinian Arabic in Cohen (1930, 282). Comparative Semitic and Hebrew Plural Morphemes 119 reconstruction of the Semitic system; I hope to do that in a sepa- rate 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 summa- rises my findings and offers a conclusion. 2.0. Hebrew Plural Morphemes The 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 nom- inal morphology, as a grammatical feature, or as arising from both lexical and grammatical factors. Schwarzwald (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 Hypoth- esis), while other categories, along with adjectives and partici- ples, are marked in the grammar, and follow gender assignment (the Weak Lexicalist Hypothesis). According to this approach, dif- ferent nouns are assigned plural formation in different layers of the grammar. Even if one accepts Schwarzwald’s position, it pro- vides no explanation for the seeming randomness of plural for- mation in Hebrew, which results in a synchronically incoherent system. This approach is also problematic synchronically, be- cause it is unclear how nouns move from one category to the other, especially from the one governed by the weak lexicalist 120 New Perspectives in Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew hypothesis to the one governed by the strong lexicalist hypothe- sis. A 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 clusters’); -īm is‘ אַשְׁ כְׁ ֹלת ,.miqṭēl, maqṭēl), and quadriradicals (e.g) common with certain patterns (qiṭṭūl, qa ṭ̊̄ ūl), segolates, and nouns .(’goats‘ עִ זִ ים ,.figs’) and fauna (e.g‘ תְׁאֵ נִ ים ,.denoting flora (e.g Tubul (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: 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.