# מלא חיים



## hadronic

Hello,

How is מלא חיים pronounced ? It seems I heard it / saw it vocalized as "male khayim", but on a second thought, I think it should be "mele khayim", with a smikhut form of the adjective, like in "_kvad_-tnu`a" for _kaved_, "_kshe_-shmi`a" for _kashe_, etc...

Thx !


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## Drink

My instinct is that you are right, but that many people would be inclined to say "male" when they see "מלא".


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## origumi

Your suggestion sounds correct, yet one can find the other way around in literature (vs. colloquial), see here for example (haven't checked the language quality in this book). I am not sure how grammatical the latter is in "classic" Hebrew, it's absolutely ok in the spoken language. If considering מלא חיים as a shorter form of מלא בחיים, there's no construct state of course.


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## hadronic

In the feminine and plural, what would you more readily say : מלאה חיים or  מלאת חיים ?  t  מלאים חיים or מלאי חיים ?


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> In the feminine and plural, what would you more readily say : מלאה חיים or  מלאת חיים ?  t  מלאים חיים or מלאי חיים ?


מלאי חיים sounds better and yet you can find מלאים חיים.


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## hadronic

So I would guess that the defined form of it would be either:
a. הילדים מלאי החיים
b. הילדים המלאים חיים

Am I correct ?


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## Drink

And would מלאי be מַלְאֵי or מְלֵאֵי? I would have thought it should be מַלְאֵי, but Google finds more hits for מְלֵאֵי.


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## hadronic

I fully agree with you.  מְלֵאֵי shouldn't even be an option. 
Unless, there's a specific rule because of the final א, like in מוצר _mutzar_ / מוצרי חלב _mutz'rei khalav _but מוצא _motza'_ /  מוצאי שבת _motz*a*'ei shabat_.


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## hadronic

Actually, on a second thought, מְלֵאֵ could be an option. The tzere is a long vowel that can stand the shift of stress, unlike kamatz gadol like in חסר khasar / khasrei.  Mal'ei would make sense if it was a segholate noun like "malkhei" (kings of), but male' is not a segholate.


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## Drink

hadronic said:


> Actually, on a second thought, מְלֵאֵ could be an option. The tzere is a long vowel that can stand the shift of stress, unlike kamatz gadol like in חסר khasar / khasrei.  Mal'ei would make sense if it was a segholate noun like "malkhei" (kings of), but male' is not a segholate.



Being segolate has nothing to do with it, since segolates are no different from non-segolates in the plural. מְלָכִים becomes מַלְכֵי, just like מְשָׁלִים becomes מִשְׁלֵי. More importantly, נָמֵל, which has the same mishqal as מָלֵא, has the plural נְמֵלִים, which becomes נִמְלֵי. I'm still not sure how to predict whether the first vowel is patach or chiriq.


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## hadronic

You are perfectly right. Sorry for the confusion.
So my only explanation right now would be because of the finaly א.


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## hadronic

Here is what I found in the לוח השמות השלם by Sha'ul Barkali :

יָרֵא, יְרֵא-, יְרֵאים, יִרְאֵי-...  בביטול הצרה, אבל בשאר הבינוניים *משורשי ל"א* נוהגים בימינו לקיים את הצרה בכל הנטייה:   טָמֵא,  טְמֵא-,  טְמֵאים, טְמֵאֵי- ;  כן:  מְלֵאֵי-, צְמֵאֵי


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## hadronic

hadronic said:


> In the feminine and plural, what would you more readily say : מלאה חיים or  מלאת חיים ?  t  מלאים חיים or מלאי חיים ?



Nobody replied on that , but here what I just read in a novel :
אישה מלאה התנגדות 
 החדר הספון לוחות עץ

As someone alluded previously, those are not smikhut. 
(it's not *מלאת התנגדות or *ספון הלוחות). 
It's "simply" a complement of "matter" if I may say, which I acknowledge has a weird status in Hebrew. 
Those expression are different from החדר גבוה הקירות or הילד כחול העיניים in that there, it's the walls which are tall or the eyes which are blue, as opposed in the former cases, where it's the woman which is full or the room which is paneled. 
So מלא חיים mAle khayim makes now perfect sense. 

Thank you!


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## amikama

hadronic said:


> אישה מלאה התנגדות
> החדר הספון לוחות עץ


Well, I personally would say אישה מלאת התנגדות (or אישה מלאה בהתנגדות) if I wanted to describe the woman.
אישה מלאה התנגדות for me is "a woman is full of resistance(?)". (I wasn't sure how to translate התנגדות in this context.)

החדר הספון לוחות עץ is fine, as is החדר ספון לוחות העץ. It's more or less similar to "the room that is wood-paneled" vs. "the wood-paneled room".


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## hadronic

amikama said:


> Well, I personally would say אישה מלאת התנגדות (or אישה מלאה בהתנגדות) if I wanted to describe the woman.
> אישה מלאה התנגדות for me is "a woman is full of resistance(?)".



That's weird. You're saying that predicatively you can say האישה (היא) מלאה התנגדותה, but attributively, you need to switch to האישה המלאה *ב*התנגדות or האישה מלא*ת* ההתנגדות?


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