Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/77

§§ 54. 55. Thus from  "head";  "says";  "eats";  "I say";  "wolf', from,  "a well" (also written  ), and so forth.

On the other hand the becomes ā in  "small cattle", through the influence of the neighbouring gutturals from ;  "battlements" from ;  "a certain thorny shrub" from ; and similarly  "bosom" from  for original.

In the end of the word we have from naʾ. In other cases is retained here according to the analogy of corresponding forms ending in other gutturals, e. g.  "unclean" ;  "polluted";  "consoled", &c.

§ 54. and  as final radicals, especially when they close the syllable, transform an ĕ into an ă; thus,  "knows" (compared with  "sits");  "sacrificed", compared with ;  "arose", for ne̊veh;  "leads", for neδabber;  "we made known";  "you arose";  "a bird";  "you led", &c. .

In rare cases the transformation of an into a, before these final consonants, has been retained from very remote times, as for instance in  "opens"; compare on the other hand  "slaughters", &c. . In certain cases they have the effect even of transforming a following e (or o?) into a (v. ).—On the exchange of a and e in words which have middle gutturals v..

On the shading off of an a into e through the influence of a sibilant, v. ; and of a u into o, effected by a guttural v.,. In like manner the gutturals, as well as other consonants, particularly emphatic ones, must have brought about a special shading of the vowels in still other instances, without the writing giving much indication of such delicate turns.

§ 55. We find these, for instance, in the blending of Participles and Adjectives with the Subject-Pronouns: e. g.   from qāṭlīn a(n)tōn;  from ;  " ", from ;  from , &c. Blendings with appear in still other situations, e. g.  dahvat "thou art gold";