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Grammatical Overview: Noun Properties
In Hebrew a noun is called "shem etzem" (Χ©ΧΦ΅Χ Χ’ΦΆΧ¦ΦΆΧ), meaing the "essence or substance of a name." Like English a noun is a name (nomen) given to a person, place, or thing. Nouns have the following properties: 1) gender, 2) number, 3) person, 4) case, and 5) state:
- Gender
Gender is a property that indicates the sex of the referrent (masculine or feminine). In Hebrew, however, the correlation between the gender of a noun and its referrent is generally accidental. For example, the word Torah in Hebrew is feminine, but that does not imply anything about the nature of the Torah itself. Unlike Greek, there is no "neuter" gender in Hebrew.
- Number
Number is the property that indicates whether one or more than one object is referenced when using the word. Hebrew has singular nouns (one object), plural nouns (more than one object), and dual nouns (a pair of objects). For plural nouns, there are regular plurals, irregular plurals, dual plurals, and plurals functioning as singular nouns.
- Person
Person refers to the relationship between the noun and the speaker. A noun can be in the first person (I, John, am here), second person (Oh, John!), or third person (John is here). Normally these distinctions apply to the study of pronouns, but they are implicit in the grammar of the noun as well.
- Case
Case indicates the grammatical function of the noun in a sentence. The noun can be a subject of a sentence (Hebrew is fun), an object in a sentence (John loves Hebrew), or in a possessive relationship with an object (John's Hebrew book). For possessives, Hebrew uses a "construct state" where one of two (or more) Hebrew nouns appear as a chain in a sentence (more later).
- State
In Hebrew, the state of a noun may be either "absolute" or "construct." The absolute form of a noun is simply its standard lexical form, that is, the normal form of the noun (whether it is masculine, feminine, plural, dual, and so on), whereas the "construct state" concerns the spelling of the noun when it is used in a construct chain, that is, when it expresses a grammatically possessive relationship to one or more other nouns to which it is joined. Typically I will abbreviate the absolute state of a noun using "abs," and the construct state using "constr."
In general Hebrew uses endings (sufformatives) to indicate these various properties of nouns. By learning the root of the noun and its endings, you will begin to understand the way nouns function in Hebrew sentences.
Hebrew Flashcard Example:
When first learning a Hebrew noun, I recommend writing out a flashcard with the gender, singular form, plural form, and the construct forms on the front, with the definition on the back. You might also want to include a sentence (or Bible verse) that uses the noun in your definition. For example:
Buying a Hebrew Lexicon / Dictionary: At this point in your studies, you should buy either a good Hebrew-English dictionary or use a Biblical Hebrew word frequency list. I recommend the Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary for beginners.
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