# Classical Hebrew: singular of מְתִים



## Madeeha719

Hello

An alternate word for "men" is מְתִים. What is its singular? It seems to be related to the Ugaritic mutu.

מִמְתִים יָדְךָ יְהוָה מִמְתִים מֵחֶלֶד חֶלְקָם בַּחַיִּים וצפינך [וּצְפוּנְךָ] תְּמַלֵּא בִטְנָם יִשְׂבְּעוּ בָנִים וְהִנִּיחוּ יִתְרָם לְעוֹלְלֵיהֶם
(Psalms)

Thank you


----------



## Abaye

There's a Wiktionary entry for this word: מתים - ויקימילון, it's a useful site for no money, and so is the Strong's lexicon in the site that includes also Gesenius and Driver-Brown-Briggs, you may try it for once: H4962 - maṯ - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv). In the bible always plural (beyond names like מתושלח, מתושאל) so we don't know the singular, may be מְתוּ or מֻתוּ.


----------



## Ali Smith

One thing is for sure: the initial syllable contained a short vowel (because if it had been long it would not have reduced). Having determined its quantity, we can speculate about its quality. It was probably a _u_, for Akkadian 𒁮 'husband, man' is pronounced _mutum_.

I am reluctant to adduce Ugaritic 𐎎𐎚 as evidence due to the fact that vowels are not indicated in the writing system of Ugaritic. So, 𐎎𐎚 could be theoretically be pronounced with any vowel between the _m_ and the _t_.


----------



## Drink

That doesn't really address the question though. The question is about Biblical Hebrew, not about what it was historically. In Biblical Hebrew, the "short u" likely would not have been retained. It would have become something else. The question is what? Did it become tzere? Did it become a holam? But the answer is unknown because it is not attested.


----------



## Ali Smith

Well, /qul/-base nouns went to /qо̄l/, right? For example, תּוֹר 'turtle-dove'.

So, _mut_ would have become _mо̄t_ and would have sounded just like the word for 'death'.


----------



## Drink

But the plural of תור is תורים tōrīm. So the fact that the vowel of מתים got reduced indicates that the paradigm may not have gone through the same process.


----------



## Ali Smith

You have a point there. In fact, it doesn't reduce even in _pro_pretonic position! Witness:

אַל־תִּתֵּ֣ן לְ֭חַיַּת נֶ֣פֶשׁ תּוֹרֶ֑ךָ
  חַיַּ֥ת עֲ֝נִיֶּ֗יךָ אַל־תִּשְׁכַּ֥ח לָנֶֽצַח׃
(תהלים עד יט)


----------



## Drink

Ali Smith said:


> You have a point there. In fact, it doesn't reduce even in _pro_pretonic position! Witness:
> 
> אַל־תִּתֵּ֣ן לְ֭חַיַּת נֶ֣פֶשׁ תּוֹרֶ֑ךָ
> חַיַּ֥ת עֲ֝נִיֶּ֗יךָ אַל־תִּשְׁכַּ֥ח לָנֶֽצַח׃
> (תהלים עד יט)


In this example it is pretonic, not pro-pretonic.

Though I don't doubt that it wouldn't reduce in a pro-pretonic position either.


----------



## Ali Smith

How come it isn't propretonic? _tor-e-kha_, right?


----------



## Drink

Which syllable do you think is stressed?


----------



## Ali Smith

Why, the last one, of course. Cf. דְּבָרְךָ 'your (m.s.) word/matter/thing'.


----------



## Drink

Try again. Pay attention to the vowel under the ר.

Side point, even though the qamatz in your example of דְּבָרְךָ is pro-pretonic, note that it also doesn't get reduced. But this is for a different reason. This is because the stress shift to the final vowel of the ך suffix, just like the stress shift to the final vowel of verb forms with the ו/ה/י suffixes, actually occurred at a later stage than the vowel reductions.


----------



## Ali Smith

Yeah, that makes sense, but the pronominal suffix is the stressed syllable, isn't it? Look at שְׁלוֹמְךָ 'your (m.s.) peace'.


----------

