Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/418

 Abstract ideas include also—

(c) Collectives in the fem. form, generally fem. participles used substantivally, especially as the comprehensive designation of a number of persons, e.g. (fem. of travelling), prop. the travelling (company), i.e. travelling persons (a caravan); (fem. of ) the company of exiles (also frequently used of those who had returned home again);  (that which inhabits) i.e. the population,,  f.;  (prop. that which is hostile) the enemy, , 10 (cf.  f. the halting, cast off, driven away, i.e. those who halt, &c.);  (the abject) the poorest sort; of living beings which are not persons, cf. (that which lives) in the sense of cattle, beasts;, (but in  as a , cf. t, for , which in verses 1 and 11 is used as the nomen unitatis). Cf., moreover,, , &c. (construed as masculine), for a heap of dead bodies.—On the collective poetic personification of a nation, by means of, in , (equivalent to ) my countrymen, see above, i.

(d) Conversely the feminine form of substantives is sometimes used (as in Arabic) as a nomen unitatis, i.e. to indicate a single example of a class which is denoted by the masculine form; cf. , single ship ( ff.);,     a piece of venison;  (coll.),  single hair (in the plural, , ); , frequently collective,  single song; so probably also  (the corresponding masculine tîn is collective in Arabic);  (also );  (Arab. libina, but libin collective), &c.

(e) The feminine is also used for things without life (as being weaker or less important), which are named from their resemblance to organic things expressed by the corresponding masculine form; cf. (of the body), thigh, or  (of a country, house, &c.);,. On a similar distinction between the masculine for natural, and the feminine for artificial objects, see.

Rem. The juxtaposition of the masculine and feminine from the same stem serves sometimes to express entirety; e.g., i.e. every kind of support (unless we omit verse  as a gloss and take staff as = staff-bearer, official; the list of officials begins in verse 2); cf. , . For similar groupings in the case of persons, see, , (sons and daughters); 49:23,.

Besides the plural endings treated in –i, the language employs other means to express a plurality of living beings or things:

(a) Certain words employed exclusively in a collective sense, while the individual members of the class are denoted by special words (, but not in the same sense as in ).