Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/265

 arising from ăy, in, i.e. a sacrifice offered by fire;  (prop. milky) the storax-shrub, Arabic lubnay.

6. Abstract nouns formed from concretes by the addition of, [] , cf. our terminations -dom, -hood, -ness, e.g., (the omission of the  in  shows that the  is weakened from a full vowel; on malik as underlying the present form  cf. ); , from ,. In Aram. this fem. ending (or  with rejection of the ) is a common termination of the infinitive in the derived conjugations (cf., as substantival infinitives of this kind,, , and , ); in Hebr. as a termination to express abstract ideas (including some which appear to be directly derived from the verbal stem, as, ) becomes more common only in the later books. It is affixed to adjectives ending in î (see above, h) in, and (, used adverbially).

The ending is found earlier, e.g. in, , from = (head) princeps. The termination ôth seems to occur in (in, , joined to a singular; so also  , where, probably,  should likewise be read) and in  , &c., with the parallel form.

Brockelmann,, i. 426 ff., and on the feminines, p. 441 ff.; M. Lambert, ‘Remarques sur la formation du pluriel hébreu,’ xxiv. 99 ff., and ‘Les anomalies du pluriel des noms en Hébreu,’ xliii. 206 ff.; P. Lajčiak, ''Die Plural- u. Dualendungen im semit. Nomen'', Lpz. 1903; J. Barth, ‘Beiträge zur Pluralbildung des Semit.,’ 1904, p. 431 ff., i. ‘the ai of the constr. st.’

1. The regular plural termination for the masculine gender is, always with the tone, e.g. , plur. ; but also very often written defectively, especially when in the same word one of the vowel letters, or , precedes, e.g.  . Nouns in  make their plural in , e.g. , plur. ; but usually contraction takes place, e.g. ;, from.

Nouns in lose this termination when they take the plural ending, e.g., plur. (cf. ).—In regard to the loss of the tone from the in the two old plurals  and, cf. and § 96.

The termination is sometimes assumed also by feminines (cf., § 96 under ; , from ; , from ), so that an indication of gender is not necessarily implied in it (cf. also below, m–p).—On the use of this termination  to express abstract, extensive, and intensive ideas, cf. .