# Gender Polarity with Numerals and Counted Nouns



## Josh_

I was wondering if anyone knows the history of the so-called gender polarity rule in Arabic, that is, a masculine noun in the plural takes a feminine number and a feminine noun in the plural takes a masculine number (not sure of the Arabic grammatical term for this).  Has it always been that way or is it possible that it somehow changed over time? I assume it has probably always been that way.  Is there any real reason for it or is it just one of things?  To me, there just doesn't seem to be any logic as to why it is that way.

After a few responses (if anyone wants to give one, that is) I will tell you why I ask.  I made quite an interesting (to me) discovery that led me to think about this.


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## Abu Bishr

Hi Josh

The same apparently applies to Hebrew. This link takes you to a scholarly article comparing Hebrew and Arabic in this regard.

Later, I'll try to give you the reasons for this Arabic grammatical anomaly according to medieval Arabic grammar.


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## Josh_

Hello Abu Bishr,



Abu Bishr said:


> Hi Josh
> 
> The same apparently applies to Hebrew.


Actually, this is a tricky question.  Technically the same doesn't apply, but I will explain more in my next post.



> This link takes you to a scholarly article comparing Hebrew and Arabic in this regard.


  That sounds like an interesting article.  I briefly looked over it, but will read it in depth later.  I’m sure it will provide insight.



> Later, I'll try to give you the reasons for this Arabic grammatical anomaly according to medieval Arabic grammar.


  Yes, I would be very interested in knowing what medieval grammars say on the subject, as well as any other discussions of the subject.


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## Josh_

I said it was a discovery, but actually, it was not so much a discovery, as it was an epiphanic moment in making a connection between Hebew and Arabic. So, here it is.  

  Like I was saying in my first post, the rule of polarity applies so that masculine nouns take feminine numbers and feminine nouns take masculine numbers.  This is different than the Hebrew in that, as one might deem more logical, masculine nouns take masculine numbers and feminine nouns take feminine numbers.  But (and this is where it gets interesting) there is a catch.  

  Before I go any further I would like to briefly explain something about gender morphology.  In Hebrew there are two ways to show femininity of a noun – ית (iit) and just the letter ה (he), סטודנטית stuudentiit (female student) and רופאה rofa (female doctor) respectively.  I am not concerned with the former in this discussion, but rather with ה , which I said denotes a feminine noun in Hebrew, and corresponds to the Arabic ـة usually denotes femininity in nouns.  Ok, now that that has been stated let’s turn to the numbers.

  The feminine numbers (from 3 to 10) in Arabic are:

  ثلاثة   thalaatha
  أربعة   arba3a
  خمسة   khamsa
  ستة   sitta
  سبعة   sab3a
  ثمانية   thamaaniya
  تسعة   tis3a
  عشرة  3  ashara

  And the masculine are:

  ثلاث   thalaath
  أربع   arba3
  خمس   khams
  ست   sitt
  سبع   sab3
  ثمان   thamaanin
  تسع   tis3
  عشر  3  ashr



  Now the numbers in Hebrew

  Feminine:
  שלוש   shlosh
  ארבע   arba3
  חמד   khamesh
  שש   shesh
  שבע   sheva3
  שמנה   shmone
  תשע   tesha3
  עשר  3  eser

  Masculine:
  שלושה   shlosha
  ארבעה   arba3a[1]
  חמדה   khamiisha
  ששה   shiisha
  שבעה   shiiv3a
  שמנה   shmona
  תשעה   tiish3a
  עשרה  3  asara

  As you may have noticed the numbers are very similar to their counterparts in both languages.  This, of course, is due to the fact that both are related Semitic languages.

  As you also might have noticed the masculine numbers in Hebrew take the ה (and thus appear as though they should be feminine) and conversely, the feminine numbers do not take the ה (and thus appear as though they should be masculine).  This is what interests me and my epiphanic experience revolved around. 

  So, because of the polarity of gender rule with Arabic numbers, and the polarity of sorts, or the inverse appearance, in the gender of Hebrew numbers, the result is that numerical phrases look exactly alike in both languages regardless of gender classifications – that is, masculine nouns take numbers that have ـة and ה respectively, and feminine nouns take numbers the numbers without ـة and ה .  Let’s take a look at a few examples:

  four dogs
  أربعة كلاب  arba3at kilaab 
  ארבעה כלבים  arba3a klaviim 
  seven kings
  سبعة ملوك  sab3at muluuk  
  שבעה מלכים  shiiv3a melakhiim 

  nine hours
  تسع ساعات  tis3 saa3aat nine hours
  תשע שעות tesha3 sha’oot
  three years
  ثلات سنوات  thalaath sanawaat
  שלוש שנים  shlosh shaniim

  I’m not sure exactly what to make of this so the following just represents some thoughts and musings I have had concerning all of this.  As I am not sure what to make of all this it might appear rambling or misdirected.  If so, I apologize.  Like I was asking in my previous post, is it possible that Arabic numerals have changed over the years?  That doesn’t seem like the case as the numbers in Arabic still reflect the traditional feminine indicator of ـة .  But that still doesn’t answer the question of why a masculine noun in with a feminine number and vice versa.  It might just be one of those peculiarities of Arabic (and other Semitic languages) that just is.  So, why do Hebrew numbers appear to be opposite the normal gender indicators?  I would be interested to know if it is the same way in Classical/Biblical Hebrew which I am not familiar with.  Without knowing much about Biblical Hebrew I thought that if gender polarity of noun/number relationships has always been a fact in Semitic languages, including Biblical Hebrew,  than possibly somewhere along the line, the gender of Hebrew numbers changed due to the fact that they were attached to nouns of the opposite genders.  Hebrew was a dead language for close to 18 centuries when it was revived.  So possibly, when it was revived, it just came to be that the numbers switched genders to better represent the nouns that they are qualifying.  But if that’s the case why not switch the actual words themselves and not only the genders, so that the numbers without the ה are masculine and the numbers with the ה are feminine?  Definitely an interesting discussion.

  --------------------------
[1] Note that the Hebrew letter ע (‘een) which corresponds to the Arabic ع is generally not pronounced or is pronounced like a glottal stop.   I transliterated it with the 3 for morphological reasons.


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## Abu Bishr

Hi Josh

According some theories provided by the medieval Arabic grammatical tradition, the feminine numbers ثلاثة , أربعة , خمسة and so on, are actually compound nouns in the class of أُمَّة , فرقة , جماعة , etc. all of which end with the Taa, which would mean that the suffixing of the Taa to these nouns is the Asl or unmarked state for these nouns. Now, we also know that the masculine is also the Asl or unmarked state of nouns, and the feminine the Far' or marked state due to the fact that you get feminine markers (like the Taa) but not masculine markers. Accordingly, to use numbers with the Taa would be to use them in their Asl or unmarked formed, and it therefore makes sense to use unmarked with unmarked.

Hence, to drop the Taa from these numbers would be the marked form and it would make sense to use the marked form of these numbers with also the marked form of gender which is the feminine form, due to the presence of feminine markers distinguishing the feminine form from the masculine form merely by adding the marker to the latter. They give other reasons or theories as well, but this is by far their stongest case.

By the way, the number anomaly or polarity ocurs only for numbers 3 - 10, whether as units or tens. As for 1 - 2, or 11 & 12, or 21 & 22, and so on, the 1 & 2 in each of these agree in gender with the noun enumerated, which strengthens the classical theory, as these two nouns are not in the class of Arabic compound nouns, firstly, because they are not plurals and, secondly, because they don't just end in a Taa like the rest.


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## Josh_

Thanks for doing the research, Abu Bishr.

Yes, I am aware that the polarity rule is only for numbers 3-10.  I didn't mean to imply otherwise.  The same is essentially the same in Hebrew, in look anyway, but not in classification as I discussed.


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## clevermizo

Josh_ said:


> I’m not sure exactly what to make of this so the following just represents some thoughts and musings I have had concerning all of this.[...]


This is my take on the issue. The origin of the polarity agreement rules in Classical Arabic and Classical Hebrew is of common Semitic stock. Personally, I think it's all terminology.

I know that in Modern Hebrew the -h numbers are definitely considered "masculine" and the -0 numbers are considered "feminine." This is true for the most part in how Biblical Hebrew is taught as well. My feeling is that this was created for pedagogical ease. Hebrew was studied as a classical language by Jews in non-Semitic environments for a very long time. It was also studied by non-Jews in a non-Semitic environment. It seems easier to teach strict agreement than disagreement. I'm not sure what Aramaic/Arabic-speaking Hebrew grammarians had to say on the subject and it's possible they used the principle of polarity just as in Arabic, which brings me to my next point -

Similarly, I would bet that the Classical Arabic grammarians invented the principle of يخالف العدد المعدود for pedagogical ease. It was apparent that suffixed forms with ـة were paired with masculine nouns while unsuffixed forms were paired with feminine nouns. Since speakers of Arabic would associate the former with a "feminine" ending already, it would be easier just to call those the "feminine forms." Thus, feminine forms paired with masculine counted items. The position that some linguists have today about polarity agreement in Hebrew and other Semitic languages is likely based on this exposure to terminology in Arabic.

As such, I don't really think the strict genders of anything have changed over time. However, the terminology and approaches of Hebrew and Arabic grammarians reflect different pedagogical strategies.

This is all just musing of my own and I don't have much to back it up. Note, I do not have any origin theory as to the Semitic use of feminine looking numbers with masculine plurals  - but I'm sure there are several running about.



> [1] Note that the Hebrew letter ע (‘een) which corresponds to the Arabic ع is generally not pronounced or is pronounced like a glottal stop.   I transliterated it with the 3 for morphological reasons.


You'd be interested in knowing (although you probably know already) that Jews of origin in the Middle East or North Africa usually pronounce this as 3.  The Italki (Italian) and Dutch traditions both have different ways of reading this too. For example, in the Dutch tradition 3 is rendered as [ng].

Interestingly however, I believe that in the Tiberian Masoretic reading tradition, Hebrew 3 and 2 were already converging in the Levant into the same sound. This may have been true of Levantine Aramaic as well. Therefore, the reason why 3 is preserved in Mizra7i Jewish reading traditions is (my guess) because it actually resurfaced due to Arabic influence, which was the everyday language.


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## Har Simaja

I've also been interested in numerical gender polarisation. It also occurs in Akkadian, Aramaic (where an aleph ending is used) and Canaanite languages in general. I'm not sure about Ugaritic, Eblaite, etc. (I'd guess yes) but the examples so far show that gender polarisation in numerals goes back before the written record, so medieval grammarians would have had no clue, though they would come up with some cute stories! As for the South Semitic languages, I have no idea - I know Amharic has all but lost the ordinary 't' feminine ending anyway, so that doesn't say much. As for other Afro-Asiatic languages, there are other, different reversals in Cushitic languages like Somali, but in the Berber languages and Egyptian, I believe the numbers are the 'right way round', with the feminine ones taking the ending -t. Hausa (Chadic) has the ending '-a', but the numerals are invariable w.r.t. gender (I believe).

On your second topic, certainly Ashkenazi, Polish, Sephardic etc. Hebrew have been heavily Europeanised both grammatically and phonologically -and even before the diaspora was concentrated in Europe the Talmud notes a boy laughing at a 'dated' (even then) pronunciation of undotted gimmel (without dagesh) - impying it may have originally been a voiced velar fricative like the Arabic ghayn. The aleph was a glottal stop, the ayin was pharyngeal - both became glottal stops or lost any phonetic value, partly under European influence.


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## clevermizo

Har Simaja said:


> As for other Afro-Asiatic languages, there are other, different reversals in Cushitic languages like Somali, but in the Berber languages and Egyptian, I believe the numbers are the 'right way round', with the feminine ones taking the ending -t. Hausa (Chadic) has the ending '-a', but the numerals are invariable w.r.t. gender (I believe).



Interestingly, some Arabic dialects (many?) have evolved away from gender polarity in numbers to a specific set of "counting" numbers vs. "non-counting number." For example, in Levantine dialects the number "_tlāte_" تلاتة (with the feminine -e ending) is used primarily for stating the numeral "3" whereas the number "_tlətt/tlitt_" تلت  (without a feminine ending) is used for "counting" anything (without respect to gender) (_tlətt əbyūt_ تلت بيوت or _tlətt saʕāt_ تلت ساعات.).

I wonder if counting-numbers versus numeral-numbers has any role in understanding the gender polarity of classical Hebrew and Arabic.



> On your second topic, certainly Ashkenazi, Polish, Sephardic etc. Hebrew have been heavily Europeanised both grammatically and phonologically ....


This is a complicated issue of course as there were multiple pronunciation traditions in Talmudic times, even those that already merged ayin with alef. To discuss this further would be off-topic here, but see this thread in the Hebrew forum.


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## WadiH

clevermizo said:


> For example, in Levantine dialects the number "_tlāte_" تلاتة (with the feminine -e ending) is used primarily for stating the numeral "3" whereas the number "_tlətt/tlitt_" تلت  (without a feminine ending) is used for "counting" anything (without respect to gender) (_tlətt əbyūt_ تلت بيوت or _tlətt saʕāt_ تلت ساعات.).



I don't know about this.  This might just be a pecularity with the number "3" where the masculine and feminine have practically merged due to assimilation of the the th > t into the _taa marboutah_ in _thalathat_:

Feminine: thalathat > talatat > talatt (sounds close to talat)
Masculine: thalath > talat

From memory, I can recall Palestinian and Jordanian "arba3t ush-hur" ("four months") versus "arba3 sa3aat" ("four hours").


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## clevermizo

Wadi Hanifa said:


> From memory, I can recall Palestinian and Jordanian "arba3t ush-hur" ("four months") versus "arba3 sa3aat" ("four hours").



Actually, the "t" is used as a prefix when the following word starts with a vowel (hamza+vowel) and even then it's only used with certain words. For example, it's 2arba3 byuut أربع بيوت (not 2arba3t ibyuut) and 2arba3 sayyaraat أربع سيارات and 5ams ibyuut خمس بيوت (not 5amst ibyūt) and 5ams sayyaraat خمس سيارات, sitt ibyuut, sitt sayyaraat, 5ams irjāl خمس رجال, also 3ašr iwlād عشر ولاد. But there may be more variation than I'm aware of (sitt you could make the same argument you made for tlaate vs tlatt/tlitt.) You could also argue that with words that begin with consonants (other than hamza+vowel), that the "t" from the feminine numeral form is elided or assimilated. That's a hard argument because other nouns that end in ـة don't have any problem adding the sound "t" when in 2iḍāfa and epenthetic short "i" or ə is added as necessary.

However, note: xams*t* *i*yyām خمسة إيام , arba3*t* *u*šhor أربعة أشهر (as you pointed out), arba3*t* *a*lāf , 3ašr*t a*rɣife عشرة أرغفة.


I'm not sure how you say 5 teachers tho: خمس أساتذة either 5ams asātze or 5ams*t* asātze خمسة أساتذة. I would say 5ams but I'm non-native and I tend to apply a rule regularly rather than feeling out intuitively.

What's the situation in Najdi?


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## إسكندراني

In Egypt I have no idea what the rule is. First thinking about it, it's random, or whatever's easy on the tongue, but maybe there's some underlying rule. We say:
تَلَتْ تُشْهُر أو تَلَتْ شُهُور
تَلَتْ عَرَبيّات
تَلَتْ أساتذة
تلتْ رجّالة
تلتْ ستّات
Exactly the same for all the other numbers, with the ت in تشهر remaining. For me, it seems there just for ease of pronunciation. Also happens in عشر تِرْغِفة since you mentioned أرغفة.


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## clevermizo

^Well the question is - would you say أبرعت(ـة) رجّالة or only أربع رجالة? To me this implies that you primarily use the "short" forms for counting (without "ت" ـة , however there are some exceptions, like with أشهر).


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## إسكندراني

^As with تلاتة for all the other numbers. أربع خمس ستّ سبع رجّالة


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## cherine

It's true that we have a difference between the pronunciation of the number in itself and pronouncing it when followed by a word:
تلاتة - تَلَتْ بنات، تلت ولاد، تلت رجالة
أربعة - أَرْبَعْ بنات، أربع ولاد، أربع رجالة
خمسة - خَمَس بنات/ولاد/رجالة
ستة - سِتّ بنات/ولاد، رجالة
and the same with سبعة/سَبَع، تمانية/تَمَن، تسعة/تِسَع، عَشْرة/عَشَر but it stops here, the rest of the numbers remain the same.

But I think it's a matter of ease of pronunciation rather than grammaticall differentiation.


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## WadiH

clevermizo said:


> What's the situation in Najdi?



Traditionally, the rule was the same as in Classical Arabic, but most people in this country are below 30, and the rule has now broken down.  If you say ستة أسابيع instead of ست أسابيع, you'll sound like an older man.


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## aurelien.demarest

Moderator's Note: the following posts are moved from this thread.


Silky_Sword said:


> There is a rule in Arabic grammer, that if the subject is masculine, the number will be in feminine.



really? I did not know it, thank you very much for sharing this!

Aurélien


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## Arabic_Police_999

Silky_Sword said:


> There is a rule in Arabic grammer, that if the subject is masculine, the number will be in feminine.


not all numbers only from 3 to 10


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## aurelien.demarest

hmm... interesting ! Thanks

One question is 10 included or excluded in the rule?


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## djweaverbeaver

^10 is included. For numbers 3-10, if the noun is masculine, the number is feminine, and vice versa.  The nouns are all in the *plural *and take the *genitive case*.  Here are some examples:




* Four students (masculine)* * أربعةُ طلّابٍ*
*  Four students (feminine)* *ارْبَعُ طالباتٍ*
*  Ten cars (feminine)* * عَشْرُ سياراتٍ*
*  Six fanatics (masculine)* * ستّةُ متطرّفين*



These examples were taken from *this link*.  You can also learn more about numbers there.  Pour une explication en français, clique sur *ce lien*  (pages 37-50.  C'est en pdf).


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## aurelien.demarest

thank you very much


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## fdb

Arabic_Police_999 said:


> not all numbers only from 3 to 10



Gender polarity affects all numbers from 3 upwards, except for 11, 12, and multiples of ten (20, 30, 100, 1000 etc.) and multiples of ten plus one or two (21, 32, etc.)


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## Emeté

[...]


fdb said:


> Gender polarity affects all numbers from 3 upwards, except for 11, 12, and multiples of ten (20, 30, 100, 1000 etc.) and multiples of ten plus one or two (21, 32, etc.)



So just to clarify myself:

-Number 1 shows gender agreement with the noun counted, declined in nominative singular.
-Number 2 shows gender agreement with the noun counted, declined in nominative dual.
-Numbers from 3 to 10 show gender polarity with the noun counted, declined in nominative plural.
-Multiples of 10 don't show gender polarity with the noun counted, declined in accusative singular.
-Compound numbers ending in 1 or 2 (11, 32, 51...) show gender agreement with the noun counted, declined in accusative singular.
-Compound numbers ending in 3 to 9 (13, 26, 49...) show gender polarity in the "units" number and gender agreement in the "tens" number with the noun counted, declined in accusative singular.

Am I wrong?


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## fdb

Emeté said:


> -Numbers from 3 to 10 show gender polarity with the noun counted, declined in *genitive* plural.





> -Compound numbers ending in 3 to 9 (13, 26, 49...) show gender polarity in the "units" number and gender agreement in the "tens" number (*except that the numbers for 20, 30, 100 etc. are invariable for gender)* with the noun counted, declined in accusative singular. *And what about thousands?*


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## Emeté

I thought even hundreds and even thousands formed an 2iDaafa relationship with the noun counted (therefore this should be genitive and... singular?). If the number is not an even number (i.e., 357, 2213), I would then go with the rules above said for numbers ending in 0, 1 or 2, or 3 to 9.


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## fdb

ألف is followed by the genitive singular. In compound numbers the last mentioned number determines the form of the following word. You can read this is any good Arabic grammar. [...]


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