precise language

[cellio]

The torah (Deut 21:18-21) talks about the case of the ben soreir umoreh, the "stubborn and rebellious son". This is a capital offense; the rabbis were not eager to carry out death sentences, so they read this pretty closely looking for restrictions, which they found.

One of the lines of reasoning derives from the declaration the parents (both of them) must make about how he does not listen to "koleinu", our voice. It says voice, not voices, and this leads to questions about whether the parents used the same phrasing, the same diction, the same pitch, and so on. If the torah meant "kolloteinu" it would have said so, the rabbis reason.

This got me wondering a bit about language. You generally make a singular noun possessive by appending the right suffix (maybe with vowel tweaks), like "-nu" for "our". "Av" = father, "avinu" = our father, "avot" = fathers, "avoteinu" = our fathers. However, it doesn't work quite the same for masculine-form [1] nouns; "shir" = song, "shirim" = songs, "shireinu" = our... song? songs? There is no "shirimeinu" or "shirimnu" or the like; you don't see that construct. (Or so I have been taught, and it matches my experience. If you know otherwise please tell me.) What this seems to say is that for a masculine-form noun, the number in the possessive case is not absolutely, grammatically unambiguous.

Which leads me to wonder: was the ben soreir umoreh saved, in part, by a feminine noun? :-)

[1] I'm saying "masculine-form" rather than "masculine" because I used the "av" example, which I chose for familiarity. "Av" is masculine, but it follows the grammatical forms of feminine nouns.

Comments

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

"Shirenu", singular, and "Shirenu", plural, are pronounced the same way in modern Hebrew, but are spelled differently (the plural has a yud that the singular doesn't) and were probably pronounced differently in Biblical times (longer vowel in the plural).

[cellio]

Thank you! I got that part orally (from someone who told me they're the same word, but he speaks more than he writes), so I didn't pick up on the spelling difference. I'm glad there isn't an ambiguity after all; that seems like it would be a real hassle.

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

Since these possessive nouns are a shortened construct state(סמיכות) , the מ falls away, just as it does in construct state. It seems as I think about it that it is because we are only thinking of an 'our' sense. There will be a clear vowel difference between for example, "b'ni", my son and "b'nai", my sons. 'His' will be clear in both written form, by the extra yud, and spoken (b'no vs b'nav), as will many other pronouns. However, it seems that the -nu ending will not distinguish in spoken Hebrew. But I could be wrong & there could be counter-examples.

[cellio]

Thanks for the information! I hadn't realized that this ending is special that way.