Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/105

  (for ) the strengthening of the following consonant by Dageš compensates for the loss of the ; in , if for  (but read , with Cornill), the preceding vowel is lengthened; cf. above, c. On for, see.

Rem. 1. In Aramaic the is much weaker and more liable to change than in Hebrew. In literary Arabic, on the other hand, it is almost always a firm consonant. According to Arabic orthography, serves also to indicatea long a, whereas in Hebrew it very rarely occurs as a mere vowel letter after Qameṣ; as in   for ; ,  for ; but in  the  , is the true reading; cf. .

2. In some cases at the beginning of a word, the, instead of a compound Šeuâ, takes the corresponding full vowel, e.g. for ; cf. , and the analogous cases in, , ,.

3. An is sometimes added at the end of the word to a final û, î, or ô, e.g.  for   (before ),. These examples, however, are not so much instances of ‘Arabic orthography’, as early scribal errors, as in  for ; and in   for. Cf. also  ;  for ;  for ;  for  (enclitic);  for,. On and  see.

4. The is stronger and firmer than the, and never loses its consonantal sound (i.e. quiesces) in the middle of a word except in the cases noted below, in which it is completely elided by syncope. On the other hand, at the end of a word it is always a mere vowel letter, unless expressly marked by as a strong consonant. Yet at times the consonantal sound of at the end of a word is lost, and its place is taken by a simple  or more correctly, with  as an indication of its non-consonantal character, e.g.  for , , &c. (cf., and , ); cf. also for  (from ) in proper names like, &c.—Finally, in very many cases a complete elision of the consonantal  takes place by syncope: (a) when its vowel is thrown back to the place of a preceding  (see above, c, with ), e.g.  for  (the  of the article being syncopated as it almost always is);  for  [but see ],  for ;  for ; perhaps also  for. (b) By contraction of the vowels preceding and following the, e.g. (also written ) from sûsahu (a+u=ô).—A violent suppression of  together with its vowel occurs in  (from ), &c.