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<font size=4 color="#000080">At 10:38 17-09-07 -0400, Zev Sero stated the
following:<br><br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Ira L. Jacobson
wrote:</blockquote><font size=4 color="#000080"><br>
What follows was NOT written by your faithful servant. Rather, I
took issue with it. So any implication that I wrote that statement
was not quite accurate.<br><br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">At 23:53 16-09-07 -0400, Richard
Wolpoe stated the following:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I concur with Micha's point.
Baruch Shkivanti becasue i have been advocating this peshat in Tallis
Katan for years, i.e. a Tallis OF a Katan.<br><br>
However, an Israelit friend of mine pointed out that
"Tallis" may indeed be masculine. His
Proof? The plural is Talisos [Talitot] and NOT
Taliyot which would correspond to Ta'anis and
Taa'niyos.</blockquote></blockquote><br>
How do you know? A scan at
<a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/searchgh.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/searchgh.htm</a> comes up with no hits for
"talitot", but two hits for "taliyot", which are
actually the same reference, a mishna in Zavim that is quoted in Gemara
Shabbat. It seems that Chazal rarely had occasion to refer to them
in the plural, so we can't be sure what the most common plural was. One
example is not statistically significant.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">But perhaps more to the point,
bayit and zayit are mil`eil, while talit is milra</blockquote><br>
Again, how do you know?</blockquote><font size=4 color="#000080"><br>
That I did indeed write. The answer to your question -- how do I
know this -- is that "talit" follows the pattern of all other
four-letter (or more) singular nouns I know that end in hiriq yod
tav---such as ta`anit, zavit, she-erit, zekhukhit or
raqdanit. I am aware that there are exceptions to the rule for
forming plurals, such as berit and hazit. But we assume that
"talit" is a Hebrew word and it follows the rules of Hebrew
grammar. Even foreign words used in Hebrew follow the rules of
Hebrew grammar.<br><br>
Whereas, on the other hand, bayit and zayit have only three letters
each. They are in the class of shemot mil`eli'im mishorashim
nehshalim, whereas the first group are simply mele`im besiyyum hiriq yod
tav.<br><br>
<br>
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<font face="Verdana" color="#000080"><i>~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=<br>
IRA L. JACOBSON
<br>
</i>=<i>~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~<br>
</font><font face="Verdana">
<a href="mailto:laser@ieee.org" eudora="autourl">mailto:laser@ieee.org</a>
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