Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/85

§§ 67—69.

§ 67. (a) For what is nearer; "this": masc., —fem. : Plural (m. and f.).

Rem. A rarer secondary form from is.

We get with. For comes a  before, thus  hāδāi (hōδōi).

(b) For what is more distant; "that": masc. ; fem. ; Plural masc., fem..

''Rem. 1.'', "', '" must not be too closely associated with  "", merely because of a causal similarity of sound. The forms for "this" are compounded out of den, de̊nā, dē, illēn with hā ; those for "that", out of the personal pronouns hū, hī, hennōn, hennēn with hā.

''Rem. 2. Only in very old writings there appear in isolated instances the farther forms  "",  "", and  "" (a fem. form corresponding to the last is not known); the three forms given may be pronounced something like hālōkh, hālēkh; hānōkh''. Very rarely indeed there appears also = * "', '".

§ 68. "who?". ,, , "what?".

With, : , and fem. "who?, who is?". "what is?". Rarely for.

"which?" or "what?" m.; "which?" f.; Pl. "which?".

''Rem. 1., , , have sprung from mā + den, de̊nā; , ,  from the interrogative ai with de̊nā, dā, illēn''.

''Rem. 2.'', &c. is often improperly held as a demonstrative, because, like other interrogatives, it stands as correlative to the relative.

§ 69. The relative pronoun is, , which has a very wide range of use. The older form dī still shows itself in the Separate possessive pronoun, formed through its composition with the preposition