# feminine form of adjectives (צהובה vs. גדולה)



## jdotjdot89

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hadronic said:


> (Note the "irregular" feminine form of צהוב tsahov)



I'm not quite sure what you mean here.  There's nothing irregular about "צהובה"; it's just the feminine form of the adjective to match the feminine noun that it modifies.


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## hadronic

jdotjdot89 said:


> I'm not quite sure what you mean here. There's nothing irregular about "צהובה"; it's just the feminine form of the adjective to match the feminine noun that it modifies.


 
The "regular" feminine form of XaXVX adjectives is XXVXah, (XXX stands for the triliteral root, and V for any vowel), as in :
- gadol / gdolah
- sagur / sgurah
- shaket / shketah
- katan / ktanah
- shavir / shvirah

For some XaXoX adjectives, mainly colors, the feminine scheme is XXuX"ah
(the quote sign stands for dagesh fortis)
- tsahov / ts'hubbah
- adom / adummah
etc...

I say "irregular" but in fact it's not. "gadol" and "tsahov" do not share the same pattern : in "gadol", the "o" is a _holam male_ גָדוֹל, whereas in "tsahov", the "o" is a _holam haser_ צָהֹב. This difference points out that in "tsahov", it's not an original long "o", but a tone-lengthened "u", the ground form being most likely sth like "tsahubb" : 
tsahubb > tsahub (final dagesh drops out) > tsahov (tone-lengthened _u > o, _and postvocalic _b > v_).
From this, the feminine form does not look irregular anymore : tsahubb > ts'hubba (first syllable turns to shva and _-ah _ending added)

NB: These exact same changes can be seen in the word "lev" (heart) :
libb > lib > lev, with tone-lengthened "i" > "e", and postvocalic "b" > "v".
Of course, when a vocalic suffix is added to the word "lev", the original form repops out : "my heart" = libbi, as the reason of the change from "libb" to "lev" is precisely the fact of being a final and toned syllable, which is not the case anymore in "libbi".


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## jdotjdot89

hadronic said:


> The "regular" feminine form of XaXVX adjectives is XXVXah, (XXX stands for the triliteral root, and V for any vowel), as in :
> - gadol / gdolah
> - sagur / sgurah
> - shaket / shketah
> - katan / ktanah
> - shavir / shvirah
> 
> For some XaXoX adjectives, mainly colors, the feminine scheme is XXuX"ah
> (the quote sign stands for dagesh fortis)
> - tsahov / ts'hubbah
> - adom / adummah
> etc...
> 
> I say "irregular" but in fact it's not.



With regard to it not being irregular, we're in agreement.

There are a number of things in your post though by which I'm not quite sure what you mean.  For example:



hadronic said:


> the "o" is a holam male גָדוֹל, whereas in "tsahov", the "o" is a holam haser צָהֹב.  This difference points out that in "tsahov", it's not an original long "o", but a tone-lengthened "u", the ground form being most likely sth like "tsahubb"


The fact that it's חולם חסר doesn't really matter, you could just as well write it צהוב.  The same with גדול.  I'm not really quite sure what you mean here, especially with regard to the "long o" or "tone-lengthened u".  Could you use IPA to make it clearer?



hadronic said:


> tsahubb > tsahub (final dagesh drops out)


I also am not sure what "final dagesh" you're talking about.  Dageshim at the end of a word are extremely rare, to the point where Modern Hebrew uses פ at the end of words to signify [p] in foreign borrowings rather than ף which pretty much always means [f].  (example: מוזיקה פופ) Also, in this case, it's not really a dagesh dropping out but rather the ב in צהוב takes a דגש חזק.



hadronic said:


> Of course, when a vocalic suffix is added to the word "lev", the original form repops out


I also don't quite know what you mean here, especially by "original form".


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> in "gadol", the "o" is a _holam male_ גָדוֹל, whereas in "tsahov", the "o" is a _holam haser_ צָהֹב.


Both גָדוֹל and גָדֹל appear in the Bible.



jdotjdot89 said:


> There are a number of things in your post though by which I'm not quite sure what you mean.


Hadronic discusses the development of pre-Biblical Hebrew, apparently in Proto-Hebrew/Canaanite times or even earlier.

A usual example is dov-dubim and tof-tupim vs. khof-khofim: in Arabic "dov" is "dub", which may demonstrate the historic pronounciation and explain the change between singular and plural.


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## jdotjdot89

origumi said:


> Hadronic discusses the development of pre-Biblical Hebrew, apparently in Proto-Hebrew/Canaanite times or even earlier.
> 
> A usual example is dov-dubim and tof-tupim vs. khof-khofim: in Arabic "dov" is "dub", which may demonstrate the historic pronounciation and explain the change between singular and plural.



Thank you for the clarification.  I am familiar with that; I just didn't realize what Hadronic meant.

For anyone interested in that topic, though not related to dageshim, the singular/plural pairs שוק/שווקים and שור/שוורים are very interesting.


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## hadronic

origumi said:


> Both גָדוֹל and גָדֹל appear in the Bible.


 
There are two things :
- the script conventions vary a lot, within the Bible itself, and some haser are written male or vice versa without reason.
- גָדֹל does exist, and its feminine counterpart is גְדֻלָּה.



origumi said:


> Hadronic discusses the development of pre-Biblical Hebrew, apparently in Proto-Hebrew/Canaanite times or even earlier.


These rules do not necessarily describe an earlier stage of Hebrew, nor do they address issues disconnected with reality that would interest only a few number of crazy linguistologs.
They act more as a convenient way to describe _actual _(and even, _modern_) Hebrew morphophonemics and phonotactical phenomena, that are a (very) protruding characteristic of that language.
(That it also be a description of pre-Biblical Hebrew is also quite sure, but it's not the point).

When one sees examples like sus / susi / susim / susei vs. melekh / malki / melakhim / malkhei, gadol / gdola vs. tsahov / ts'huba, ekshor vs. agur, makir vs. mevin, one necessarily looks for some global theory that would explain all the different forms and apparent irregularities.
It's actually way more satisfactory to think of Hebrew as a regular grammatical system, hidden under a tier of regular and systematic phonetical laws.


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## hadronic

jdotjdot89 said:


> With regard to it not being irregular, we're in agreement.


 
I don't understand if you get my point ?

On a _synchronic_ point of view, "tsehuba" is irregular. The (synchronic) regular feminine of tsahov would have been "tsehova" (just as English "childs" instead of "children"). "Synchronic" means : considering the language in its current stage, _nothing_ can tell you whether the feminine form of a given "qatol" adjective will be after "qtola" or "qtulla". The only clue you have is that 99.9% of those are after "qtola"....

On the other hand, on a _diachronic _point of view, "tsehuba" is regular.
(for the reasons I exposed earlier).

Let me shed some more light on my explanations about "naturally long o" vs. "tone-long o" (or "tone-lengthened o") :
In Hebrew, there were initially short and long vowels. Long vowels were "â", "î" and "û", short vowels were "a", "i" and "u", besides a certain number of diphtongs like "aw" and "ay". Several changes happened to this simple vocalic system (that is still the one found in Arabic) :
- some "â" (but not all of them) turned into "ô"
- "aw" turned into "ô"
- "ay" turned into "ê" ("ey")
- "i" split into "i" and "è" (seghol) [under more complex circumstances I won't expose here]
- "u" split into "u" and "o" (qamats katan) [ idem]
- some "a" turned into "è" (seghol) also [idem]
- short vowels on the tone (word accent) became long : short "i" became "ê" (tsere), short "u" became "ô" (holam HASER), and short "a" became "â" (qamats).
- short vowels in open syllables far from the tone turned into shva's (shva na and the three hatuph a, e, o)

That gave birth to the following system :
Naturally long & diphtongs: â î ê û ô = אָ אִי אֵי אוּ אוֹ
Tone-lengthened short : â ê ô = אָ אֵ אֺ
Short : a i/e u/o = אַ אִ/אֶ אֻ/אָ
Ultra-short: ° a e o = ְ ֲ ֱ ֳ 

Note that in this new system, there are two types of qamats gadol (without talking about the qatan), that the Massoretes did not find useful to distinguish, but that are functionnally very different : the naturally (originally) long "a", and the tone-long (originally short) "a". The first one, being a true long, can never turn into shva.
Ex: lamdân / lamdânîm / lamdânei (with a true long "a"), but olâm / olâmîm / ol°mei (with a tone-long "a").
רמה/רמת râmâh / râmat (with a true long "a") , but שנה/שנת shânâh / sh°nat (with a tone-long "a").


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## Abu Rashid

origumi,



> A usual example is dov-dubim and tof-tupim vs. khof-khofim: in Arabic "dov" is "dub", which may demonstrate the historic pronounciation and explain the change between singular and plural.



So what you're saying there is that the historical Hebrew pronunciation was more than likely with a 'b' rather than a 'v'?

I suspected this is the case since many words which came into European languages (like names) well over 2000 years ago tend to use a 'b' when modern Hebrew uses a 'v'. For example Avraham/Abraham, Devorah/Deborah, Ya'akov/Jacob (all of which exist in Arabic with a 'b' as well).


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## hadronic

Don't forget we also have the other way round : Tsippora -> Seforah.

In fact, it's due to a transmission through Greek, language in which the "v" sound was lacking and was replaced by "b" (regardless of this "b" being pronounced as "v" in Greek itself since early Middle-Ages).


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> גָדֹל does exist, and its feminine counterpart is גְדֻלָּה.


The two feminine forms I met in the Bible are גְּדוֹלָה and גְּדֹלָה. Can you show where גְּדֻלָּה appears as an adjective?




Abu Rashid said:


> I suspected this is the case since many words which came into European languages (like names) well over 2000 years ago tend to use a 'b' when modern Hebrew uses a 'v'. For example Avraham/Abraham, Devorah/Deborah, Ya'akov/Jacob (all of which exist in Arabic with a 'b' as well).


The shift of b-g-d-k-p-t to be pronounced aspirated is very old, earlier than the Bible (1500-500 BC?), earlier than Aramaic in its Biblical form (500 BC?). I am not sure if it's dated to the time before the Canaanite languages evolved from "Proto-Aramaic-Canaanite" (2000 BC?) or to a later parallel process in both branches. In any case it seems to have been completed no later than 1500 BC.

I assume that Hebrew names were adopted by Europeans only after Jesus' time and more likely after Christianity gained popularity - 300 AD and later. I also assume that Hebrew names were adopted by Arabs not much earlier (on sometime later) than Muhammad's time - 600 AD and later.

Therefore the phenomenon you refer to (Avraham -> Abraham, Yefet -> Japeth) needs some other explanation. Maybe (1) the aspirated Hebrew consonants resulted in sounds that had no equivalent in the borrowing languages (Greek? Latin?), (2) were fairly similar to the non-aspirated sounds, thus (3) the most natural approximation was the non-aspirated sound. In modern Israeli Hebrew b-k-p sound very different when aspirated (b-v, k-kh, p-f), g-d-t sound identical whether aspirated or not. Apparently this wasn't the case in the periods we discuss.


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## Abu Rashid

origumi,

thanks for your response,



> I assume that Hebrew names were adopted by Europeans only after Jesus' time and more likely after Christianity gained popularity - 300 AD and later.




The first Greek translation of the Tanakh was about 250 B.C.E




> I also assume that Hebrew names were adopted by Arabs not much earlier (on sometime later) than Muhammad's time - 600 AD and later.




The first Arab Christians were actually much earlier, probably about 1st. or 2nd. century. However, many of these names I would consider to be 'proto-semitic names' if we can use such a term (which probably wouldn't be accurate even if we could), Deborah for instance, although not a name exists in Arabic (for wasp), and the other names are for prophets who predate the formation of the Jewish people, so their language would be no more Israelite than it would Ismaelite, no?




> Maybe (1) the aspirated Hebrew consonants resulted in sounds that had no equivalent in the borrowing languages (Greek? Latin?), (2) were fairly similar to the non-aspirated sounds, thus (3) the most natural approximation was the non-aspirated sound.




Perhaps. But even in some dialects of Hebrew today, isn't the 'b' exclusively used instead of 'v'? I often read 'tiberian pronunciation', not sure what it is though.


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## hadronic

origumi said:


> The two feminine forms I met in the Bible are גְּדוֹלָה and גְּדֹלָה. Can you show where גְּדֻלָּה appears as an adjective?


 
I admit it may not appear (as an adjective).
Nonetheless, גדול (mishkal קָטוֹל) comes from a secondary lengthening of an original קָטֺל adjective, and as such, is _expected _to form its feminine after קְטֻלָּה, yet not attested.


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## Ali Smith

Is it true that in modern Hebrew גדולה is only pronounced gedola on formal occasions? I think gdola is always used in informal speech. Similarly, you always hear people pronounce שמע (listen!) as shma unless they’re being very formal, in which case they’ll say shema. Am I correct?


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## Drink

Ali Smith said:


> Is it true that in modern Hebrew גדולה is only pronounced gedola on formal occasions? I think gdola is always used in informal speech. Similarly, you always hear people pronounce שמע (listen!) as shma unless they’re being very formal, in which case they’ll say shema. Am I correct?



The general rule (a rule describing Modern Hebrew in practice, not a rule you'll find in traditional grammar) is that if the first letter of the word is one of ילמנר or the second letter is one of אהע, then you pronounce the shva, otherwise you don't.


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## Abaye

Ali Smith said:


> Is it true that in modern Hebrew גדולה is only pronounced gedola on formal occasions?


I don't think so. Regardless of formal rules, pronouncing שווא נע depends a lot, and specifically in a word like גדולה, on personal preference and the occasion. For example, you may hear someone saying "gdola" and if you'd ask her/him to speak slowly and clearly she/he'll say "gedola"... and vice versa. Modern Hebrew is undecissive about שווא נע, I guess it's one of the exciting situations where we see a grammatical phenomenon being crystallizing.

And by the way, it's not necessarily "gdola" vs. "gedola", you may hear various vowel lengthes there, starting with zero vowel and ending with full "e" (but never "ey" as the long "e" tzeyre is realized in certain cases).


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## Ali Smith

Thank you!
So, if שמע (listen!) can be pronounced both shma and shema, can the plural of שומר be pronounced both shomrim and shomerim?


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## Drink

Ali Smith said:


> Thank you!
> So, if שמע (listen!) can be pronounced both shma and shema, can the plural of שומר be pronounced both shomrim and shomerim?



That's probably much rarer.


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## Ali Smith

Thanks. I didn’t know it was much rarer. But it’s interesting that although שמע (listen!) can be pronounced either shma or shema, שמעתם is never pronounced shematem. Any idea why?


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## Drink

Ali Smith said:


> Thanks. I didn’t know it was much rarer. But it’s interesting that although שמע (listen!) can be pronounced either shma or shema, שמעתם is never pronounced shematem. Any idea why?



I don't think that's true. They can both equally be pronounced both ways. Though the unpronounced shva is by far more common.

And note again, that colloquially, it's shamá'tem rather than sh(e)ma'tém.


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