# מזרח למערב נוֹשֵק גבולות



## קטן

מזרח למערב נוֹשֵק גבולות.

Imagination tells me the meaning is 'from east to west, nearly touching borders'.
(Because Israel is relatively thin from west to east, and the sentence is part of the lyrics of Israel song.)

But why the form נוֹשֵק of לִנְשֹׁק ~ לנשוק ?
This form is for use with I, you, he, it (but not she).
Can it be used to denote 'touching' in a generic sense, independent of grammatical gender, number and person, as in 'two borders touching each other' ?


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## Abaye

Root נשק means: kiss, touch.

Hebrew present tense, aka participle, is conjugated by gender and number but not by person. נושק is present masculine singular.


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## קטן

OK. (Participle fully determined by grammatical gender and number. Unnecessary to consider speaker perspective.
Which participle is used for a plural subject of two or more members of mixed or unknown gender ? What about a singular subject of unknown gender ? I guess by default masculine form is used.)

Still, who is meeting/ touching who in the sentence above ? Which is the grammatical subject ?
גבולות is masculine plural noun.


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## Abaye

_East to west kisses/touches borders/limits_. It's poetic therefore can be interpreted in various ways.



> Which participle is used for a plural subject of two or more members of mixed or unknown gender?


Usually masculine, as you wrote.


> What about a singular subject of unknown gender?


Every noun has a grammatical gender in Hebrew.


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## קטן

Abaye said:


> Every noun has a grammatical gender in Hebrew.


But not every noun has exactly one gender.

If the singular subject is the pronoun 'I', is speaker free to choose the present participle ?


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## Drink

קטן said:


> But not every noun has exactly one gender.
> 
> If the singular subject is the pronoun 'I', is speaker free to choose the present participle ?


If the subject is "I", then speaker will know their own gender.


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## Abaye

קטן said:


> But not every noun has exactly one gender.
> 
> If the singular subject is the pronoun 'I', is speaker free to choose the present participle ?


True. As @Drink wrote, those who say אני, הנני, אנוכי, אנו, אנחנו should know their (biological) gender therefore what (grammatical) gender to use. The default gender rule applies here like anywhere else. There are also some nouns that may be either masculine or feminine, historical development. These are exceptions, if your goal is understanding Hebrew, it makes sense to focus on the vast majority of the language.

A rule of thumb says that any language rule has exceptions, including the rule I'm writing now.


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## קטן

OK. At this point in the language biological and grammatical gender may meet and, in a sense, even match.

Imagine a 1st-person-singular speaker (any entity speaking 'I') that is not a living thing, let alone having biological gender. Assume further that speaker can naturally be regarded both, an instance of an appropriate masculine Hebrew noun and feminine noun.

Does speaker have freedom of choice regarding masculine and feminine present participle, or does default rule apply ?


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## Drink

קטן said:


> Does speaker have freedom of choice regarding masculine and feminine present participle, or does default rule apply ?


The speaker doesn't have any freedom of choice in such a situation. Rather, the author has the freedom of choice. The author chooses which word to use to refer to the object, and the author thus also chooses which gender to personify it as.


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## Abaye

The sun שמש (feminine) would say אני *מאירה* ביום (I shine at day)
The moon ירח (masculine) would say אני *מאיר* בלילה (I shine at night)

Although אני "I" has no specific gender, the speaker who says אני has a grammatical one which is inferred to the "I".


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## Drink

I think @קטן was referring to a case such as the moon, which can be called either ירח (masculine) or לבנה (feminine).


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