# Gender and construct form of numerals in Modern Hebrew



## trigel

Why do I see forms like ארבעת/ששת הנשים a lot? Isn't ארבעת the masculine construct form and shouldn't it be ארבע הנשים? If this is an error, then how formal is the correct usage?


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## origumi

This is an error.


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## GeriReshef

Most of the Israelis are doing a  lot of mistakes involving numbers and numerals.
ששת הנשים is a prevailing error which sounds "correct",
שש אנשים is a prevailing error which sounds to most of us incorrect.


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## trigel

How high register is "shesh hanashim" compared to "sheshet hanashim"?


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## GeriReshef

ששת הנשים isn't correct but a lot of people use this form and that is why it sounds "correct".
שש הנשים is the correct option, but would probably sounds a little bit formal.


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## trigel

Why do there seem to be masculine construct numerals modifying feminine nouns in the Bible? For example:
וּשְׁלֹשֶׁת נְשֵׁי-בָנָיו


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## GeriReshef

trigel said:


> Why do there seem to be masculine construct numerals modifying feminine nouns in the Bible? For example:
> וּשְׁלֹשֶׁת נְשֵׁי-בָנָיו


Maybe because they didn't have yet the Academy of Hebrew Language..


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## TalomedIvrit

Does that mean if I want to say "Six women ate dinner", that   שש נשים אכלו is incorrect, and that the two acceptable forms are  שש הנשים אכלו and  ששת נשים אכלו


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## trigel

TalomedIvrit said:


> Does that mean if I want to say "Six women ate dinner", that שש נשים אכלו is incorrect, and that the two acceptable forms are שש הנשים אכלו and ששת נשים אכלו



_Shesh _is the correct feminine for both absolute and construct (construct numbers are only used with definite nouns like so: "sheshet ha-anashim", except 2 which is always _shney/shtey_ when modifying a noun regardless of its definiteness: _shtey (ha)nashim_).

Hence _shesh nashim akhlu _means "six women ate", _shesh hanashim akhlu _is "_the_ six women ate". _Sheshet hanashim_ is an erroneous, but frequent informal variant of this construction.


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## GeriReshef

I checked (with some experts) and thought a little bit about that: you may find today a lot of "errors" in the Bible.
I write "errors" because there were no grammatical rules to the Hebrew in those times.
Today if somebody have sayed ששת הנשים we (=those who know the grammatical rules and are aware to them) would treat it as an error though to most of the native Hebrew speakers it would sound OK.
The modern grammatical rules are derived from the "main stream" of the Bible language.


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