Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/74

Rh without leaving a trace. On the other hand many vowels of this kind are still set down in consonantal character, although they had ceased to be pronounced even in the oldest literary epoch represented by documents (circa 200 A. D.), and are ignored in punctuation. These are:—

(1) ū of the plural in the Perfect and Imperative after consonants: qe̊tal from qe̊tálū;, , ;  "they praised", &c. (but we have the full sound in ge̊lau,  gallīu "revealed", &c).

(2) ī of the suffix of the 1st sing, after consonants, thus: malk "my king" from malkī;  "killed me";,  "revealed me", &c. (but "my kings" ; and also the monosyllables  "in me",  "to me", in which no falling away was possible: So too,  "I wholly", "the whole of me" ["my totality"]).

(3) ī of the suffix of the 3rd sing. m. with the noun:  malkau from malkauhī "his kings", and with the Verb in cases like, , , , no doubt from ge̊lāihī &c.

(4) ī of the 2nd fem. sing. in at from a(n)tī "thou" (f.);  malkḗkh from malkḗkhī (both with e?) ; ; ;, &c.

(5) In the following special cases: in "from quiet" = "suddenly", absolute state of  from šélī (like ); in  "when?" from emmắthai; "yesterday" from ethmā́lē; and the derived word  "the day before yesterday"; lastly in the much maimed form  (or ) "last year".

B. Even in very ancient MSS. the unpronounced 's are often wanting: a similar is more rarely omitted. Conversely, which one was in the habit of so often writing,—apparently without cause,—was in some cases attached parasitically to words ending in a consonant; e. g. there occurs in old manuscripts for  "God" (Construct State);  for  "August";  for  "spirit". Occasionally it is