Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/110

 especially common in an open syllable before the tone (pretonic vowel), e.g., , ,.

Short vowels in open syllables occur:

(a) In apparently dissyllabic words formed by means of a helping vowel from monosyllables, as, , , from , , ; cf. also the ending of the dual. But see.

(b) In the verbal suffix of the 1st pers. sing. , e.g. (Arab. ). The uncommon form, however (, cf. ), proves that the tone-bearing  produces a sharpening of the following sonant, and thus virtually stands in a closed syllable, even when the Nun is not expressly written with. In cases like   is retained in the counter-tone after the  has become quiescent.

(c) Sometimes before the toneless, e.g. ; only, however, in the constr. state, since the toneless suffix does not affect the character of the form (especially when rapidly pronounced in close connexion); otherwise it is.

In all these cases the short vowel is also supported by the tone, either the principal tone of the word, or (as in h) by the secondary tone in the constr. st., or by the counter-tone with, as in above, ; cf. the effect of the on the short vowel in classical prosody.

(d) In the combinations, , , e.g. , ,. In all these cases the syllable was at first really closed, and it was only when the guttural took a that it became in consequence open (but cf. e.g.  and ). The same vowel sequence arises wherever a preposition, , , or copulative is prefixed to an initial syllable which has a , since the former then takes the vowel