It is an inherent feature of the adjectives ‘many’ (‘much’) and ‘few’ that they qualify nominal concepts implying ‘plurality’ so that the individuality of the units of which the entities underlying the specific nominal concepts are composed is clearly conspicuous: ‘Many (or: few) men (or: people)’, designating the plurality of the concept ‘man’; ‘much money’, designating the plurality of the concept' coin' (or: ‘bank-note’); ‘a (great) many clergy’, designating the plurality of the concept ‘clergyman’; etc. Such a semantic type, in which the epithets ‘many (much)’, ‘few’ are used, exists beside a semantic type of a related sense, as exemplified by the following instances: ‘a large mass (or: number, or: group) (of men, people, soldiers, etc.)’; ‘a small amount (of money)’; etc.

Aramaic possesses, besides the ordinary (active) participles, certain additional forms of a similar meaning, mainly appearing in substantival use and commonly called nomina agentis. As far as the so-called derived stems of the verb are concerned, these nomina agentis are formed from the participle of each verbal stem through the addition of the ending-ān. In the basic stem of the verb, the ordinary participle of which has the form qātil (qātel), the nomen agentis appears as qātōl.