Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/73

§ 50. = ) even in an open syllable, &c.  ; but only in the prepositional use; for example, otherwise,  "to his eyes".

, "their, my death",  "your eye", &c. form no exception, for in these cases it was only in the last development that the syllable became a closed one. Thus also is explained perhaps the retention of the ai before suffixes, in forms like (from malkaikā),  (from malkainā) "thy, our kings", and in verbal forms like  and  (from ge̊laitā, ge̊lainā) "thou didst reveal", "we revealed". In "is not", from, the diphthong is of more recent origin. On the other hand we have simplification in, "cow", from taure̊thā, and in East-Syrian ,  lēlyā, lelyā, West-Syrian , usually  from laile̊yā "night". So too in, "egg" from baiʿe̊thā, pi. ,.

B. The East-Syrians for the most part write for, and much more rarely. So also in cases where the w is virtually doubled, as in =   "pointed out";   "thou remainest";  =  "windows", &c. Thus too in =  "Lords", and other plurals of that kind; farther in cases like  =  "give ye him to drink";  =  "they overthrew me" (§ 192).

Sometimes on the other hand they write for, e. g.  for  "barefooted", and always in the Imperative  =  "kill him".

The West-Syrians also write an au produced by ā and u coming together,—with the vowel-sign, e. g. malkau "is king", although the separate members are  +. With them indeed would have the sound malkōu.

§ 50. A. Final vowels coming immediately after the original tone-syllable have all fallen away. This happened to ā even before the settlement of the orthography, thus from lánā "to us" ;  from á(n)tā "thou" ;  from qe̊ṭáltā "hast killed", &c. (but malkā "king", &c). Other final vowels too have at quite an early date thus fallen away,