Nouns and pronouns in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic

The JPA noun keeps the western system: the determined state is still (mostly) definite, the masculine plural determined ends in ־ַיָּא, and the construct is alive in common phrases (בַּר נַשׁ "a person", בְּנֵי נָשָׁא "people"). Its pronouns show the typical western forms: לוֹן "to them", הָדֵין / הָדָא "this", הֵיךְ "how", גַּרְמֵיהּ "himself". Compare The noun in Biblical Aramaic, Pronouns in Biblical Aramaic and the JBA folder (The noun in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Pronouns in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic).

References: Dalman 1905 (pronouns §§ 16–20, pp. 106–123; nominal inflection §§ 38–41, pp. 188–208); Stevenson 1924 (§§ 3–13, pp. 15–43); Fassberg 1991, A Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments from the Cairo Genizah; Golomb 1985, A Grammar of Targum Neofiti; Sokoloff 2002b. Counts: unpointed tokens in the Guggenheimer Yerushalmi (Sefaria, CC BY), 811 794 tokens, 2026-10-17; they include Hebrew homographs (הוּא, הִיא, אֶת are mostly Hebrew in that count).

Checked 2026-10-18 against the Galilean forms of Dalman 1905 and the PTM (Palestinian Talmud and Midrash) forms of Stevenson 1924, both read from the page images. Dalman prints Galilean forms unpointed, so for him only the consonants are compared; the vowels in this file follow the Guggenheimer edition and Stevenson.

1. States and definiteness

The indefinite article חַד / חֲדָא. Where JBA introduces a new participant with הַהוּא ("a certain"), the Yerushalmi uses the numeral "one": חַד בַּר נַשׁ "a certain man", חֲדָא חֲמָר "a donkey", חַד סִירְקַאי "a Saracen" (y. Bava Metzia 2:5; y. Maaser Sheni 4:6). This is the most visible narrative difference between the two Talmuds.

Aramaic:   חַד בַּר נַשׁ אֲתֵי גַבֵּי רִבִּי עֲקִיבָה
Translit.: ḥaḏ bar naš ʾăṯē ḡabbē ribbī ʿăqīḇā
Gloss:     one son.CST man come.PEAL.PF.3MS at Rabbi Akiva
English:   A certain man came to Rabbi Akiva
Source:    y. Maaser Sheni 4:6 (Guggenheimer edition, Sefaria, CC BY)

2. Endings

Examples: חֲבֵרַיָּא "the colleagues" (חבריא, a frequent subject in the Yerushalmi: "the colleagues asked …"); רַבָּנִין / רַבָּנַן "the rabbis" (both spellings, 277 / 276); מִילִּין "words"; תְּלַת מִילִין קַשְׁיָין "three hard things" (y. Maaser Sheni 4:6).

3. Independent pronouns

Checked 2026-10-18: Dalman 1905 §16.1, p. 106 (Galilean אנא, את, הוא, היא, אנן, אתון, אינון and הינון, f. אינין; no example of a 2 f. pl.); Stevenson 1924 §3, p. 15 (PTM אֲנָא, אַתְּ (אַנְתְּ), הוּא, הִיא, אֲנַן, אַתּוּן, אינון / הינון, אינין / הינין; short נָא, נַן, תּוּן also stand alone).

The pronoun serves as a copula in nominal sentences, after the predicate: תְּלַתֵיהוֹן טָבָא אִינּוּן "all three are good" (y. Maaser Sheni 4:6). Unlike JBA there are no enclitic subject pronouns fused with participles; the pronoun stands as a word: לֵית אַתְּ לָעֵי "you will not (have to) toil", אַתְּ מַיִית "you will die", אֲנָא חָמֵי לֵיהּ "I see him" (y. Kilayim 9:3).

4. Suffixes

On prepositions (most frequent forms; Yerushalmi counts):

לוֹן "to them" (with the vowel of the suffix contracted: lə-hōn > lōn) is the single most reliable mark of JPA against JBA: 731 times in the Yerushalmi, 0 in the Bavli; JBA says לְהוּ (4 024 in the Bavli, 9 in the Yerushalmi). The story formula אֲמַר לוֹן "he said to them" alone occurs hundreds of times.

Checked 2026-10-18: Stevenson 1924 §4, p. 16 (PTM suffixes ־ִי, ־ָךְ, ־ֵיהּ, ־ַהּ; plural ־ַן, ־כוֹן, ־הוֹן and ־וֹן, ־הֵין) and Dalman 1905 §16b, p. 109. The counts are from the Yerushalmi and stay as measured. Second pass 2026-10-18: the preposition forms against Dalman 1905 §47, pp. 225–230 (Galilean examples with suffixes, read from the page images). בְּ־: בי, בך, ביה, בה, בן, בהון (§47.1, p. 225); לְ־: לי, לך, ליה, לה, לן, לכון, and for "to them" both להון and לון (Pes. 31b; p. 225), so לוֹן is Dalman's Galilean form too; מִן: מיני, מינך, מיניה, מינה, מינן, מינכון, מינהון (§47.2, p. 227); גַּב: לגביה (p. 228); קֳדָם: Galilean קמי / קומי from a by-form קמי, with suffixes קמיי, קומיי "before me" and קומוי "before him" (Ber. 3b) beside קומיה (§47.5, p. 230). All consonants agree; Dalman writes "before me" with double yod (קומיי) where the table has קוֹמַי.

On nouns: 3 m. sg. ־ֵיהּ (בְּרֵיהּ "his son", דִּינֵיהּ "his sentence"); 3 m. pl. ־הוֹן (תְּלַתֵיהוֹן "the three of them"); 1 sg. ־ִי / ־אִי (בְּחֶילְמַאי "in my dream", y. Maaser Sheni 4:6); 3 m. sg. on plural nouns ־וֹי (תַּלְמִידוֹי "his disciples", אַפּוֹי "his face"; y. Bava Metzia 2:5; y. Maaser Sheni 4:6) — against BA/targum ־וֹהִי.

Possessives: דִּידִי "mine" (24), דִּידָךְ (29), דִּידֵיהּ (30), דִּידָן (19), דִּידְהוֹן (3). (Dalman 1905 §18.4, p. 118: the independent possessive is ד־ + יד "hand" + suffix, Galilean דידי, דידך, דידיה, דידן, דידכון, דידהון; the rarer דיל־ (דילי) also occurs; Anhang I.6, p. 397.)

Reflexive: גַּרְמֵיהּ "himself" (lit. "his bone"; 60 in the Yerushalmi, 1 in the Bavli), against JBA נַפְשֵׁיהּ. (Dalman 1905 §16.12–13, pp. 115–116: גרם with suffixes serves for "self" and as the reflexive, Galilean גרמיה; נפש with suffixes is rarer, נפשיה.)

5. Demonstratives

Checked 2026-10-18: Dalman 1905 §17, pp. 111–112, and Stevenson 1924 §5, p. 18. Corrected: הָהֵן (spelled ההן) is a near demonstrative "this", a contracted form of הָדֵין, in both grammars, not a far one; Stevenson lists the PTM adjectives הָדֵין, הָהֵין, הָהֵן, הָן and the pronouns דֵּין, דְּנָא, דָּא, אִלֵּין. For "those" Stevenson gives הָיינוּן and אינון. Stevenson §5.10, p. 19: in PTM the demonstrative almost always precedes its noun.

Uses:

• הָדָא אָמְרָה "this says" = "this implies (that) …" — the Yerushalmi's standard conclusion formula (compare JBA שְׁמַע מִינַּהּ). Much of the count of הָדָא comes from it and from מִן הָדָא "from this (we learn)".
• הָדֵין עָלְמָא "this world": כָּל הָדֵין עָלְמָא "all this world" (y. Bava Metzia 2:5).
• בְּהָדָא "in this, with this": הֲוָה עֲסִיק בְּהָדָא כִיתְנָא "he was occupied with this flax (trade)" (y. Bava Metzia 2:5) — the demonstrative used where we would say "the".
• ההוא גַבְרָא "that man" (y. Berakhot 2:8) as a self-reference: גְּזַר דִּינֵיהּ דְּהַהוּא גַבְרָא מִיחְתָּם "the sentence of that man (= yours) is sealed".

Adverbs: הָכָא "here" (812; often "here in the Land of Israel"), תַּמָּן "there" (1 667; often "there in Babylonia"), הָכֵין "so" (260). (Dalman 1905, Anhang II.2–3, p. 398: Galilean כא, כה, הכא "here"; תמן "there"; הכי, אכין, הכין "so".)

6. Interrogatives

Checked 2026-10-18: Dalman 1905 §19, pp. 119–120 (Galilean מאן, מה, מהו, לְמָה, כמה). Second pass 2026-10-18: Dalman treats the other three as adverbs; his comparative table (Anhang II, pp. 397–398) gives Galilean אן, הן "where?" (§15.1aε, p. 97: הן from אן, with ה for א), איך, היך "how?" (same place: היך for איך), and for "when?" Galilean and Jerusalem-targum אימת against Onkelos אימתי. Corrected: the row for "when?" was אֵימָתַי, the Onkelos (and Mishnaic Hebrew) form; the Galilean Aramaic word is אֵימַת (Guggenheimer points אֵימַת 25 times; counted 2026-10-18). The count 142 for אימתי stays as measured, but most of those tokens are in Hebrew passages.

7. Numerals

As elsewhere: חַד / חֲדָא, תְּרֵין / תַּרְתֵּין, תְּלָתָה / תְּלַת … The Yerushalmi keeps the final n (תְּרֵין "two", תַּרְתֵּין), against JBA תְּרֵי. Collective "the three of them": תְּלַתֵיהוֹן (y. Maaser Sheni 4:6). Large numbers in stories: תְּלַת מְאוֹן צוֹמִין "three hundred fasts" (y. Kilayim 9:3), with the plural מְאוֹן of מְאָה.

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