Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/59

§ 27. An or  falls away before the  of a suffix in cases like  ʿabbītā (or ʿabbittā?; West-Syr. doubtless ʿabītō) "thick (f.)";  "simple (f.)";  "ye despised";  "thou didst curse",  "gavest him power";  "Church";  "net";  "work";  "ye (f.) perished";  "I commanded you";  "didst", and many others. In just the same way a pair of 's coalesce, in words like avhet or avhetht "madest ashamed";  "madest us ashamed" &c. The marking with R. and Q. varies; in effect, in all these cases only hard remains. For ḥe̊δattā "", one writes  straight away, and  "bride" for.

Radical falls away before  in, , : pronounce ḥathā &c., "" &c.

C. A final has early dropped off in the absolute state of Feminines: ā coming from ath, ū from ūth, ī from īth, e. g.  "";  "";  "confession"; in their construct state the  remains:, , ; and so also in the singular cases of  "a certain (f.)", and in many adverbs (§ 155).

D. Unusual is the assimilation found in "wing" from geδpā, as also the falling out in  from hāδĕnā, and in other pronouns (§§ 67 Rem. 1; 68 Rem. 2).

§ 27. and  are sometimes interchangeable. Thus frequently occurs for  "pitch"; and occasionally on the other hand e. g.  is found for  "happy", and  for  "Friday". The East-Syrians have, from remote times, pronounced quite like  (w, u); av accordingly becomes au, uv, ū, e. g.  šūḥā. They also pronounce like, in cases where they leave it unusually soft and do not turn it into p (§ 23 A). Generally this transition is found in "",  "magnates";  "made great", for ,&lrm; ,&lrm; &lrm; (§ 146). Compare "an ant" from  (§ 31).