As shown in (2) above, feminine singular nouns in the Free State carry the suffix -a, e.g. sus-a. Since singular number is not exponed in the masculine gender, I assume that it is in fact never realized: -a expones only gender, rather than both gender and singular number. In other words, singular number is never associated with a phonological representation.

Besides the feature it expones, two other aspects of feminine -a must be discussed here. They are 1) its underlying, phonemic form, and 2) its position in the morpho-syntatic structure.

The issue of the underlying form of the singular feminine suffix is independent of the ensuing account and is mentioned here for the sake of completeness. As already discussed, -a is not the only suffix associated with feminine gender. The other suffixes are: [-it], [-ut], and unstressed [-at] (after historical gutturals) and [-et] (elsewhere). A common feature of all these suffixes ‒ common also to the plural [ot] ‒ is the final [t]. While this feature is not shared by the Free State marker [-a], we saw above that in the Construct State, even this marker includes a final [t], e.g. [sus-at eʦ] ‘wooden mare’. Bat-El (1989) assumes that the underlying representation of [-a] is /-at/. Faust (2013) concludes that /at/ expones gender throughout the language, and the vowels of [it, ut] are “theme vowels”, which replace the underlying /a/.

But if the lexical representation of /at/ includes a feminine /t/, why doesn’t the surface representation? Faust (2014) proposes the autosegmental explanation in (10). The analysis assumes that all phonetically C-final words end in an empty V-slot (Harris & Gussmann 1998). It is further claimed the lexical representation of /at/ does not involve any skeletal support. As a result, /at/ is parasitic on its base for such support. Since the base ends in an empty V-slot, the /a/ can be realized; but the /t/ remains afloat:

In the Construct State, skeletal support for the floating /t/ is provided by the structure (for details, see Faust 2014; in Faust 2013, I assume the same for the rest of the feminine singular exponents, as well as for the plural configuration).

More important in the present context is the second aspect of feminine exponence, namely the morpho-syntactic structure that it corresponds to. As gender is a nominal feature, it is a recurrent claim in DM that it cannot be part of the root (see e.g. Acquaviva 2008). Instead, it must be a feature on some head in the nominal structure. Some studies, e.g. Picallo (1991), argue that gender features reside on a head Gen (11a). This position is criticized in several recent studies. For Lowenstamm (2008) and subsequently Kramer (2015; 2016), gender is a feature on the nominal head n (11b). In contrast, Faust (2011) and Fathi & Lowenstamm (2016) (for Modern Hebrew and French respectively) pursue an analogy between derivational suffixes and gender; these studies argue that since gender in inanimate nouns is not predictable, its position in the structure should reflect this fact. Against the general trend, they claim that gender is a feature carried by a “bound root”, which is merged with the root ((11c); for bound roots, see Lowenstamm 2014). Note that the root in (11c) will end up left-adjoining its head, and the order base-suffix will emerge.7

For reasons that will become clear, the analysis in the present paper is compatible with both (11b) and (11c), while (11a) seems to be more problematic for it. Since (11b) is the most widely-accepted of the two, it will be assumed for the rest of the study. The issue of the representation of gender will be returned to in the concluding discussion.

The masculine plural sus-im in (8b) above exhibits a one-to-one correspondence between features and exponents: masculine gender is unexponed, and plural number is exponed as -im. By analogy, assuming again that /at/ is the exponent only of gender, one expects to find -at-im in the feminine plural, as in Spanish gat-a-s. Instead, one finds the form sus-ot. In this form, -ot behaves like a “portmanteau” morpheme: a single underlying unit of form expressing two distinct features.

Bat-El (1989; 1997) presents an analysis that avoids the portmanteau characterization of -ot. For Bat-El, the suffix -ot denotes only plural number, and is subcategorized for [+gender]. In the terms of the present analysis, this proposal can be expressed as the VI in (12a): the plural feature on num will be realized as -ot if the noun carries a feature [gender], as in (12b).

As in (11c), I assume that the root left-adjoins to its selector n. In (12b), that selector is n. The n head then move up to left-adjoin the num head, as in the masculine plural in (8b) above. The result of these two operations is the order base > n_[gen] > number.

All other things being equal, one expects the structure in (12b) to be spelled out as the unattested /sus-at-ot/. Bat-El proposes that this is indeed the underlying sequence, but that the first feminine /t/ is deleted by an OCP rule specific to feminine /t/’s, and the resulting hiatus is resolved by omitting the first vowel. Under this view, presented in (13), /ot/ is not a portmanteau morpheme because it does not realize gender at all (for further elaboration of the proposal, see Bat-El 2009).8

A treatment of -ot as portmanteau can be based on the proposal in Svenonius (2016). It is argued in that paper that within a single spell-out domain, if an exponent is listed which can be used to realize two or more adjacent terminal nodes as in (14a), then that exponent is preferred to two exponents that realize each node separately. Therefore, given the VI’s in (14b), /ot/ will be inserted, rather than /at-im/ (as indicated by the difference in shading).

Like Bat-El’s analysis, the one in (14) assumes an exponent /-ot/ with information about its environment of insertion. This analysis seems preferable because it avoids the opaque derivation and the morpheme-specific phonological rule in (13). It is the one I will adopt here.9

In the last two subsections, I provided an account of the first explanandum, namely “why are feminine and masculine Free State plurals exponed differently?” I assumed with Svenonius (2016) that if the material of two adjacent nodes within one spell-out domain is encapsulated in one VI, rather than more than one, then that VI will apply. It so happens that Modern Hebrew has a VI referring to both [gender] and [plural], mapping this feature bundle to /ot/. Since the terminal nodes carrying the two features are adjacent and in the same domain, the feminine plural will emerge with -ot, rather than with a combination of the gender marker -at and the general plural -im.

Modern Hebrew has two sets of possessive markers, one for a possessed singular and one for a possessed plural:13

The similarity between the singular and plural sets in (18) is considerable. A reasonable analysis will have the plural set employ the same markers as the singular’s, with the additional plural marker -ej- (already familiar from the masculine Construct State). For instance, sus-ej-xem ‘your_(pl) horses’ simply concatenates the base ‘horse’, the plural suffix and the 2MPL possessive pronoun, also apparent in sus-xem ‘your_(pl) horse’.

It is therefore tempting to analyze sus-ej-xem ‘your_(pl) horses’ as analogous to compounds such as sus-ej eʦ ‘wooden horses’: instead of the modifier eʦ, here the modifier is xem. I will indeed make this analogy in my analysis below. Yet the parallelism cannot be complete. The plural marker in (18b) is not always -ej- and the possessive markers are not always identical to those of the singular. The conclusion seems inescapable that the marker /ej/ and the possessive suffixes are morpho-phonologically conditioned with respect to each other. In contrast, there is never any interaction between the plural marker -ej of a compound like sus-ej eʦ and the modifier. Unlike this -ej, morphologically the plural marking of the possessed in (18b) seems to be part of the possessive pronoun, not part of the head noun. In other words, the morphological decomposition is /(sus) + (ej-xem)/ rather than /(sus-ej) + (xem)/.14

The high degree of cohesion between the two affixes of the plural set is further motivated by the independence of this set of the number of some bases. Indeed, the plural affix set is used in the inflexion of several prepositions, such as el ‘toward’, al ‘on’, bilʔad- ‘without’ and taxat ‘under’, even though the prepositions themselves are not plural in any meaningful sense, and their uninflected form does not synchronically carry a plural morpheme (though in some cases, it did carry one historically).

We have seen two pieces of evidence in favor of grouping the -ej- of the possessive complex with the following pronoun, rather than with the preceding noun: i. allomorphic interaction with the pronoun, never with the noun; and ii. the existence of the “plural” set as the inflection of several non-plural prepositions.

But the strongest evidence in favor of the view promoted here comes from the interaction between the feminine and possessive suffixes. As (20) shows, the same two sets appear on the feminine base. If the possessed is singular, the feminine suffix is -at-; if the possessed is plural, the feminine suffix assumes the form -ot-. This is again identical to the Construct State. However, in the N+N construction, the plural number of the non-head is independent of that of the head; with possessive suffixes, in contrast, it seems that the appearance of a plural exponent on the base noun leads to marking the same plural number on a possessive suffix. Indeed, as we saw in the introduction, the plural number of the possessed is marked twice in feminine nouns: once on the base noun and then again as part of the possessive suffix. In the present context, this fact serves first as another illustration of the relative independence of the plural possessive set.

Yet this double marking is only true for feminine nouns. This fact is accounted for in the next section.

To understand what is surprising about the double marking in (20b), let us now consider alternative, but unattested scenarios. In (21a) we see the attested form, with the plural number of the possessed marked both on the noun and on the possessive suffix. In the ungrammatical, but otherwise expected nouns (21b,c), the plural number of the possessed is exponed only on the noun (21b) or only on the suffix (21c), in which case one expects the singular feminine suffix to appear on the noun. Compare this distribution of exponents to the masculine case, in which plural number is exponed only once, as I have been claiming only on the suffix (21d). If double marking were to apply in the masculine, too, then by the application of the plural VI in (16) above we would expect (21e):

The third explanandum in the introduction concerned the double marking in the feminine plural, but not in the masculine plural. The illicit form in (21e) is revealing in this sense.

There is a cross-linguistic tendency against adjacent similar markers, a situation commonly referred to as the morphological Obligatory Contour Principle. Many instances of this phenomenon are documented and discussed at length in Nevins (2012). For instance, Nevins reports that the English possessive /-z/ is commonly realized with epenthesis after a base ending with a [s], e.g. bus’s [bʌs-ɪz], but the same marker is banned from appearing after a plural /-z/, as in parents’ [pærənt-s], *[pærənt-s-ɪz]. This example also illustrates the common repair to this problem, namely haplology, the omission of one of the two similar exponents.

Back to Modern Hebrew, if we inverse our initial question and ask not why there is double marking in the feminine, but why there is no double marking in the masculine, the morphological OCP and haplology are a clear answer: in fact, at spell-out there are two markers in the masculine possessed plural, but one is omitted because the two markers are too similar (indeed, they are identical in this case). This proposal immediately explains the double marking in the feminine possessed plurals (21a): since in this case the exponents are different, there is no OCP violation and no haplology applies.15

If so, provided that at spell-out there are two plural exponents, haplology explains why the masculine form ends up carrying only one. But why are there two plural suffixes to begin with?

In order to answer this question, we must understand the internal structure of possessive suffixes as well as the structure of nouns carrying such a suffix. To begin with the second task, I submit that the structure of N+possessive is analogous to the compound structure: just like the modifier noun modifies the head noun in the compound structure in (22a), the possessive suffix modifies the head noun in (22b). In both cases, n moves to a position above numP. Above, I argued that sequences such as -ej-xem form a cohesive unit; crucially for the present analysis, this view is expressed in (22b) by placing the entirety of this sequence in the modifier position of [spec,nP], rather than distribute it over num and [spec,nP]. Because I have not yet discussed the internal structure of the suffix, the label of the constituent in [spec,nP] is not specified.

The analogy between the compound and possessive structures is not hard to argue for. On the semantic side, the relation between the genitive case assigned in the Construct State and possession is clear. On the morphological side, besides the appearance of the underlying /t/ of /at/ discussed above, there are numerous other cases of head allomorphy triggered in the Construct State, which are also attested when N carries a possessive suffix. Note that the changes in the stems in bold in (23) cannot be attributed to general phonological processes; they are allomorphic facts about these specific nouns, which must be memorized for these specific lexical items:

If the analogy in (22) is correct and the structure of N+possessive is indeed like (22b), then the origin and the distribution of double marking is clear. The [plural] feature on the num head must be spelled out alongside the plural -ej- of the suffix. In the masculine, however, it will be identical to the plural exponent immediately following it, and so it will be omitted (as shown by the barred script and frame in (24a)); in the feminine, because of the portmanteau /-ot/, no haplology occurs (24b).

As mentioned in footnote 14, haplology will apply not just before -xem, but before all other possessive suffixes, because they are all derived from the underlying concatenation of /ej+possessive pronoun/ (or possibly /aj+possessive pronoun/).

The question of double marking is therefore narrowed down to the internal structure of the possessive suffix: why does the plural number of the possessed appear on the possessive suffix at all? I will turn to this question presently. Still, I emphasize that it is a relatively independent question: once one accepts that the -ej- in -ej-xem is in the same constituent as -xem, the double plural marking follows from the need to realize the plural feature on num.

First, consider the label of the possessive suffix. It is impossible here to do justice to the literature on possessive constructions. Roehrs (2013) is one reference where structures similar to the ones in this paper are proposed and the relevant references mentioned.16 In that paper, as in much of the syntactic literature, possessive constructions involve PossP. Such a choice seems unwarranted in the present case. If N+possessive is analogous to N+N, the possessive meaning can emerge in the former as in the latter, i.e. by the mere juxtaposition of two nominal structures. If so, the label of the possessive suffix is a DP, just like the label of the modifier noun in sus eʦ. And if it is indeed a DP, then it must contain the usual nominal layers, i.e. at least numP and nP. This view immediately identifies the source of the exponent -ej- in this structure: as elsewhere, it is the realization of a [plural] feature on the num head. Moving on to the possessor -xem, it is now clear that it cannot be expressing the head noun of the embedded structure, because the -ej- in -ej-xem refers to the plural of the possessed, not of the possessor -xem. But if neither -ej nor -xem express the head noun of the structure of the suffixed possessive pronouns, what does head it?

Goldenberg (1995) analyzes possessive inflection in Semitic as involving a co-indexed null pronoun. A form like sus-i ‘my horse’ is regarded as sus_i-X_i-i, with X standing for a silent element which carries inflection. Under this view, sus-i is the co-indexed juxtaposition of sus_i ‘horse’ and X_i-i ‘(one which is) of me’. Goldenberg does not specify how the mechanism of co-indexation works.

Below I adopt Goldenberg’s view of this construction and adapt it to the analysis developed here. I submit that possessor exponents such as -i and -xem are situated in the [spec, nP] position of the modifying DP, which is headed by a null n. In other words, the root selected by n is unexponed; I therefore refer to it as pro. To express Goldenberg’s notion of co-indexation, I will assume that because pro is a structural entity without its own reference, this reference will be inherited from the head noun. Accordingly, its number features will be inherited from those of the head noun through an agreement process, such as feature percolation. This agreement is marked in (25) by the superscript ^α. As is regular in all compound forms, the head noun moves to left-adjoin num in both the matrix and the embedded structures (in both n₁ and n₂).17

Consistent with the structures in the previous section, the structure of a plural feminine noun is the same as in (25), except that a [gender] feature appears on n₁.

The linear order of morpho-syntactic information in (25) is /sus-PL-pro-PL-xem/. Since the pronoun is null, and the two [plural] exponents are non-final, spell-out will insert two adjacent identical exponents: /sus-ej-ej-xem/. Haplology will then apply, and the first /ej/ will be omitted to yield the attested sus-ej-xem. In contrast, if (25) had a [gender] feature on n₁, its linearization would be /sus-GEN-PL-pro-PL-xem/. Accordingly, the first [plural] feature would be spelled out together with the [gender] feature by the portmanteau VI /-ot/, giving sus-ot-ej-xem. This sequence does not violate the morphological OCP, and so all exponents are realized.

To summarize, I have argued that the asymmetric double marking in the N+possessive construction ‒ the third explanandum of this paper ‒ is the result of the application of spell-out to the structure of possessive pronouns. This structure agrees with the head noun and therefore includes a plural feature denoting the plural number of that noun. Spell-out results in haplology in the masculine nouns, but not in feminine nouns.

It must be emphasized that the haplology in this case is phonological. It does not erase the first of two identical features ‒ or we would expect it to hold in the feminine structure, too. Instead, like the English case mentioned above, it is the omission of one of two phonemically similar exponents. Despite appearances, the fact that the two exponents denote the same plural reference is therefore unimportant. This aspect of the account will be crucial in the analysis of new duals in the next section.

To understand and contextualize what I call “new” duals, it is first necessary to present the duals of the standard language. Historically, Hebrew had a suffix -ájim denoting dual number. However, the systematic morphological distinction between plural and dual references was largely lost already in Biblical Hebrew. Dealing with standard Modern Hebrew, Ritter (1995) classifies the items carrying -ájim into three groups. The largest group contains items that are pluralized only by -ájim, never by -im or -ot (26a–d). While most of these items denote entities that naturally paired, this is not true of all of them (26d), nor is it true that all such entities carry -ájim (e.g. gab-a, gab-ot ‘eyebrows’). In none of these cases does the plural form necessarily denote ‘exactly two’. The second group contains nouns denoting inherently bipartite entities. These nouns are usually pluralia tantum (26e, f). The third group is composed of nouns whose paradigms contrast plural and dual forms (26g, h). Only on such nominal bases, which principally denote duration, does the -ájim suffix denote ‘exactly two’.18 All of the items in (26) trigger plural agreement, a fact I will return to below.

The suffix -ájim in (26) appears to be attached to the singular stem. This fact is especially noticeable in the few feminine nouns that carry a dual suffix, such as ʃaʔ-at-ájim ‘two hours’: it is not *ʃaʔ-ot-ájim. So much for the duals inherited from earlier stages of the language or modeled on these stages by the Hebrew Language Academy.

Very few dual nouns have been coined since Modern Hebrew has acquired a substantial community of native speakers. Today, group I is completely closed: there are no new items whose plurals are formed exclusively with -ajim. A few new items have joined group II (27a): although a corresponding, semantically-related unsuffixed form may exist, these new nouns with -ajim are pluralia tantum nouns with lexicalized meanings.

Beyond these items, dual morphology is only marginally productive today: new dual formations appear mostly in a playful register, with -ájim functioning more like a paucative marker, similar to English ‘a couple’ (27b). These can be classified on a par with group III, since their number marking is compositionally added to the meaning of the base: asor-ajim can only mean ‘a couple of decades’. Surprisingly, all new duals in (27) behave uniformly unlike old duals in that they take the feminine plural base (with -ot-). As in the case of possessive suffixes, this behavior is asymmetric: new masculine duals take the singular base.

The productive suffixation of -ajim to the plural base cannot have come about by applying a rule inherited from the standard language, where this suffix appears on the singular base. It can therefore only be regarded as reflecting a natural linguistic phenomenon (as opposed to some arbitrary generalization or the result of intervention from language-regulating institutions).19 Interestingly, this aspect of new duals has never been motivated or explained. As we will now see, it can be analyzed much in the same vein as the double marking in N+possessive suffix.

Let us begin the analysis by examining the new dual formations in the context of agreement. As mentioned, the dual suffix triggers plural agreement on agreeing categories (in MH adjectives, verbs, demonstratives), as illustrated for adjectives in (28). Two additional aspects of the inflection in (28) are important to our analysis. First, dual number is never inflectional: it never appears on any agreeing category. Second, the gender of the original noun is preserved in the agreement: feminine new duals not only include a feminine plural marker, they also trigger feminine plural agreement.

Ritter (1995) provides a structure for the old duals of group III which involves the num head carrying the features [dual] and [plural]. The former is exponed by -áj-, the latter unsurprisingly by -im, and together they are realized [áim]. Because of the triggering of plural agreement and the consistent appearance of -im in the dual suffix, I will adopt Ritter’s (1995) view of the complexity of the suffix áj-im. However, I do not agree with the placement of the [dual] feature in num: if [dual] and [plural] were able to co-exist on num, one would expect dual agreement in adjectives and verbs in this case. Yet as we saw there is agreement only in gender and sg/pl number. Moreover, if group III nouns are dual by virtue of carrying a [dual] feature on num, and that dual feature is realized by -aj-, then why is [plural] present on num at all? 20,21

Another reason to reject this view, at least for new duals, is that it cannot derive the realizational facts. Consider the sequence of features n_[gender] > num_{{dual,plural}}. If /aj/ and /im/ expone [dual] and [plural] respectively on the num head, the feature [gender] is predicted to be exponed separately from the feature [plural] as /at/, and we expect *susatáim. Alternatively, the [gender] and [plural] features can be exponed jointly as /ot/, in which case we do not expect /im/ to be inserted and wrongly predict *susotaj.

Another option is to view -aj- as a realization of the nominal head in the context of [plural], as represented in (29a). The masculine form is correctly predicted to be susájim. However, this view also predicts wrongly for the feminine form susotájim, which is expected to be *sus-aj-ot (29b). In addition, -aj- in (29) heads the noun. Heads are expected to impose their gender features. Whatever the gender feature of -aj- (it would probably be masculine, since it takes the suffix -im), agreement in gender is always with the base noun. If -aj- were the head of the noun, one would expect the same agreement in both masculine and feminine bases.

If so, -aj- cannot correspond to a [dual] feature either on num or on n. But how can an exponent end up suffixed to a noun without realizing either of these and without heading that noun? Incidentally, this was exactly the case in possessive suffixes. These suffixes were positioned under a DP in [spec, nP], just like modifiers in compounds. I submit that this is the position of dual -aj-, too. As I will now show, this proposal can derive the attested patterns.

Unlike possessor suffixes, which were headed by pro, in the new dual construction -aj- is the head of its own structure. In other words, as presented in (30), -aj- is a root which stands at the base of a nominal DP structure, situated under [spec, nP].

The structure in (30) depicts -áj- as analogous to a modifier noun, rather than to a derivational or an inflectional suffix. In other words, -áj- in sus-áj-im ‘a couple of horses’ is analogous to eʦ in sus eʦ ‘wooden horse’. If this analogy is correct ‒ that is, if -áj- is indeed a noun ‒ then a reason for it being exceptionlessly accompanied by -im can now be provided: -áj- is not only a noun, it is a pluralia tantum. Just like any other pluralia tantum noun, e.g. nisuʔ-im ‘marriage’, it can never appear without a plural suffix, here -im.22 In addition, since this analysis does not situate a [dual] feature on num, it does not suffer from the formal incompatibility of [dual] and [plural] in Ritter’s analysis of group III. Instead, the dual meaning of -ájim is of a lexical nature, like that of derivational suffixes: -áj- simply means ‘a couple’. It does not carry any formal dual feature any more than the root √COUPLE does in English. Accordingly, another advantage of this view is that the absence of [dual] agreement in MH becomes irrelevant ‒ there is never any formal feature [dual] to agree with.

Yet even if there was such a feature on -áj-, note that the present account predicts its irrelevance for any type of agreement. Indeed, the positioning of -áj- as a modifier explains the lack of number or gender agreement, because modifiers are not expected to trigger agreement. As a modifier, -aj- cannot impose its gender or number features on any target any more than another pluralia tantum like nisuʔ-im is expected to do so in modifier position. Indeed, a compound like joʔéʦ-et nisuʔ-im ‘(female) marriage counselor’ is feminine singular because its head joʔéʦ-et ‘counselor-F’ is feminine singular; the masculine gender and plural number of the modifier nisuʔ-im are irrelevant for agreement.

Finally, this proposal makes correct predictions with respect to exponence. As we saw, it is a fact of the language (rather than a claim here) that all dual nouns productively trigger plural agreement. If the structure in (30) is correct, this agreement cannot be triggered by the feature realized as -im, because this feature is found on the num head of the modifier. Indeed, if sus is the head noun in (30), number agreement should be triggered by a feature on the higher num head (num₁ in (30)). I propose therefore that this matrix num head carries a feature [plural], as presented in (30). In (31), the column labeled “features” provides the predicted linear order of features to be spelled out in the masculine and feminine cases. In the “spell out” column we see that this linearization provides the correct result for the feminine noun (31b): the suffix /-ot/ realizes both [gender] and the adjacent [plural] (in bold), and is then followed by /-aj-im/. In the spell-out of the masculine noun, /-ej/ is linearized before /-aj-im/ (31a). But we know that the surface form only has [áim]. In other words, exactly like in the possessive case, the expected -ej- does not make it to the surface form.

The reason for the omission of /-ej-/ can now be understood easily. Just like the first -ej- in the possessed plural masculine noun in (22a) above, the -ej- in (31a) precedes a very similar /Vj/ marker (both are in bold in (31a)). I submit that as in the /-ej-ej/ case, haplology applies and the masculine plural is omitted. As I have stressed at the end of section 4.1.2, the haplology is phonological, and therefore independent of the meaning of the suffixes. The fact that -áj- does not mark plural is therefore irrelevant for the application of haplology.23

An additional advantage of the OCP-based analysis concerns the ungrammaticality of the Construct State of new duals (also shared by the compositional old duals of group III). While the new dual dak-ot-áj-im ‘two minutes’ is perfectly acceptable, such nouns cannot appear in the Construct State: some other construction must be used to express ‘two minutes of X’. This ungrammaticality is in fact predicted by the present view. Under the generalizations made in this paper, the form will have to be /dak-ot-ej-ej X/, again with an OCP violation. Since the syntactic construction is different from that of N+dual, one may assume that the solution is different: rather than haplological deletion, here the OCP violation leads to ineffability, much like the cases discussed in Bat-El (2009), mentioned here in ft. 15.

The fourth explanandum can now be returned to: why is there double plural marking in new dual feminine nouns, but not in masculine nouns? In the case of duals, the exponent for plural number of the base noun (the first [pl] in (31)) is inserted only once. But in the masculine dual, it is exponed as -ej-, and so gives rise to an OCP violation with the dual marker -áj-. This results in the haplological deletion of this plural exponent. In contrast, the feminine dual structure involves a plural exponent -ot-, which does not create an OCP problem before -áj-.

To conclude, the patterns of realization are correctly predicted based on the assumption that -ájim is a modifier noun. The analysis also predicts the insignificance of -ájim for agreement, the compatibility of -áj- and -im in the dual and the absence of compositional Construct State duals.24