# Conjugation of נמס



## hadronic

Hello,
Talking with an Israeli, I needed to say נמס in the infinitive and present feminine, I came up with _lehames_ and _nemisa_. He wasn't too sure, and told maybe it should be _lehinames_ and _nameset_. Both were wrong, the official forms are _lehimes_ and _nemasa _(from root מ.ס.ס).

My question is, I totally understand that anyone would make mistakes on this one, but my surprise was that he *wasn't sure* of how he would say it. I mean, even if you were to use "wrong" forms  (like mekir, mavin, litfos...), that's just how you say them, how your bowels want to say them, regardless of their correctness. In this case, his instinct was at a loss and his brains had to compute an answer.

How is נמס instinctively conjugated by natives? Is it used at all?


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## ystab

The conjugation of the geminal (?) roots is hard for every native speaker, and it often sounds archaic.

I don't know about all speakers, but I assume many consider the root of נמס as נ-מ-ס instead of מ-ס-ס, therefore its intuitive conjugation is like ישן:
Namasti, namasta, namas, namsa, names, nemesa, nemesim, yimas, etc.

Anyone else care to share his thoughts?


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## origumi

Also, it was always hard, even in Biblical times, and the forms are inconsistent. Looks like bad job by the Proto-Hebrew committee that designed this gizra .


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## hadronic

ystab said:


> therefore its intuitive conjugation is like ישן:
> Namasti, namasta, namas, namsa, names, nemesa, nemesim, yimas, etc.



What would be the infinitive? Limas, limos?


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## amikama

hadronic said:


> What would be the infinitive? Limas, limos?


לְהִמֵּס (and also לְהִמַּס), according to Even Shoshan.


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## hadronic

I meant, the infinitive in the "instinctive" conjugation by native speakers, in the case where they relate this paradigm to ישן, as evoked by ystab?


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## DieHigh

hadronic said:


> What would be the infinitive? Limas, limos?



I would say lehinames.


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## amikama

Yes, להנמס is what one would say in colloquial Hebrew.


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