Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/63

§§ 36—38. manuscripts, e. g. for  "food";  for  "eats";  for  "face". On the other hand, even when a manifestly superfluous letter, is yet placed in words where it should not have appeared at all,—as in for  "to take";  for   "ye enter";  for  "report";  for  "stand" (pl.);  for  "delay"; ,  and even  for  or (West-S.)  "pity", &c.; or it stands in the wrong place, like  for  "uncleanness";  for  "question";   or  "demanded" (part.) &c.; or it is doubled instead of being written once, as in  for  "comforts", and the like. The superfluous is a good deal in favour in certain causative forms, particularly in short ones, e. g.  =  "gives life";  "injures".

§ 36. In certain cases a vowel-less, followed by an , blends with that letter into a hard doubled and generally written  (pointed , , , , which all express the same sound, § 26): in older days it was often signified by a single. Thus, regularly, in the reflexive of Aphel, for ethʾaqṭal;  "was established"  v. § 177 D &c. Thus, besides, in "was held"  for ethʾe̊ḥeδ, and occasionally in similar forms (§ 174 C). A single is almost always written for, if another  precedes by way of prefix, e. g. , , instead of ,.

§ 37. Even before the orthography was elaborated, a followed by another  in the same root became  ( "rib", from ;  "doubled", from, and many others): In like manner, with the West-Syrians, a  coming immediately before  becomes  and is treated like it in every respect. Thus "remembered",—pronounce, from ;  "recollection",—pronounce ;  metheheδ for , &c. This change, which becomes noticeable even in the fourth century, and is occasionally indicated also in writing (, for,  "to be in heat"), has however remained unknown to the East-Syrians.

§ 38., which as an initial letter had, even in ancient times, often