Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/268

 Undoubted instances of masculines with (masculine) plural in  are:, ,  and , , , ,  and , ,  and , , , , , , , , ,.

Feminines ending in which take in the plural the termination  are,  (but also ),  of figs, , ,  (only in poetry) a word, , a dry measure, , and the following names of animals  and ; also, for  fem. eggs, a singular  is to be assumed. and (see above, n) take both  and ; cf. finally, plur. , and without the fem. termination in the singular, plur. .

5. A strict distinction in gender between the two plural endings is found, in fact, only in adjectives and participles, e.g., , musc.,  fem. So also in substantives of the same stem, where there is an express distinction of sex, as , ; ,.

Rem. 1. In some few words there is added to the plural ending a second (masculine) plural termination (in the form of the constr. st., cf. ), or a dual ending , e.g. , plur. , ''constr. st''. (also bāmothê,, , &c., sometimes as Qerē to the Kethîbh ; see );  from Saul’s head, ; , plur. , whence dual. This double indication of the plural appears also in the connexion of suffixes with the plural ending.

2. Some nouns are only used in the singular (e.g., and collectively men); a number of other nouns only in the plural, e.g. (the old sing.  is only preserved in proper names, see ; in Eth. the sing. is mĕt, man); some of these have, moreover, a singular meaning , as. In such cases, however, the same form can also express plurality, e.g. means also faces,, ; cf. , and also gods (the sing., a later formation from it, occurs only ten times, except in Job forty-one and in Daniel four times).

Cf. the literature on the Semitic dual in Grünert, Die Begriffs-Präponderanz und die Duale a potiori im Altarab. (Wien, 1886), p. 21; Brockelmann,, p. 455 ff.

1. The dual is a further indication of number, which originated in early times. In Hebrew, however, it is almost exclusively used to denote those objects which naturally occur in pairs (see e). The dual termination is never found in adjectives, verbs, or pronouns. In the noun it is indicated in both genders by the termination