Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/14

X the other hand, everything is not immediately to be regarded as a Graecism, which looks like one. The Greek idiom exercised its influence with all the greater force and effect, precisely at those points where Syriac itself exhibited analogous phenomena.

Although, in the composition of this book, I have continually kept an eye upon kindred dialects and languages, I have nevertheless refrained almost wholly from remarks winch touch upon Comparative Grammar. Not a few observations of that character, however, will be found in my "Grammar of the New-Syriac Language" (Leipzig 1868) and my "Mandaean Grammar" (Halle 1876). Here and there, besides, I have tacitly rectified a few things which I had said in those works. The great resemblance of Syriac to Hebrew—and that especially in Syntax—will, I hope, be brought into clearer light than heretofore, by the mere description of the language given in this book. A similar remark may be made with regard to special points of contact in the case of Syriac and Arabic.

I have been obliged to avoid almost entirely any reference to my authorities in the Phonology and the Morphology. I have also refrained from quoting the works of modern scholars. A brief manual cannot well separate between widely-known facts and special stores either of others or of one's own. But yet I do not mean to miss this opportunity of referring to the fact, that I am peculiarly indebted to Prof. G. Hoffmann's essay, contained in ZDMG XXXII, 738 sqq., even as I am farther under deep obligation to tins dear friend of mine, for many an epistolary communication and encouragement, with reference to the present work. Prof. Hoffmann also enabled me to make some use, at least for the Syntax, of his edition of the Julianus-Romance (Leyden 1880) before it was given to the public. Unfortunately it was then too late to permit my utilising that story still more thoroughly. I have farther expressly to declare my adherence to the conception of the roots and, which Prof. August Miiller has set forth in ZDMG XXIII, 698 sqq., and which Prof. Stade coincidently follows in his Heb. Gramm., although I am not blind to the difficulties which cling even to that theory.