Reconstruction talk:Proto-Semitic/šamāy-

What's the evidence that it was a feminine? Our entries only give the gender for Amharic (masculine), Hebrew (masculine), Syriac (usually masculine) and Arabic (usually feminine). So basically in all of them it can be masculine and while in Arabic the feminine is predominant, it may have been reinforced analogy; 1.) because -ā’ is a feminine ending, and 2.) because of the counterpart أَرْض (ʔarḍ). So the Arabic evidence is weak and the rest points to the masculine. Of course, I don't know about the other languages. 2.203.201.61 21:42, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

@Fay Freak Apparently you added the gender, [1] --Z 17:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

No evidence from the descendants is needed, I have not checked them. The grammar fixes the gender: -āy is one of the feminine endings, like -at and -t. It’s not an Arabic analogy. Geʿez has both genders, but in Ethiopia they are, to say it simply, arbitrary with the gender, and especially one should stay away from deriving gender from Amharic. The others, Hebrew, Ugaritic, Akkadian, OSA are pluralia tantum. The ending of these does not point to a masculine either, as the -īn ending can also go with feminines, like for Arabic سَنَة (sana). In fact this سَنَة (sana) is a very fitting example, because it shows how easily they could use the ending -ūn, -īn for a feminine *šamāy- – the same way as for *šant- f (“year”). Furthermore it is the same ending as in the Arabic feminine forms of characteristic adjectives. See Marijn van Putten: The feminine endings *-ay and *-āy in Semitic and Berber. Fay Freak (talk) 18:57, 13 August 2019 (UTC)