Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/127

 to be hot. Cf. Aram. , expanded from (conjugation Paʿēl, corresponding to the Hebrew ). In Latin there is a similar expansion of fid, scid, tud, jug into findo, scindo, tundo, jungo. At the end of words the commonest expansion is by means of and, e.g. ,  (from ),  ; cf. § 85, xi.

Rem. on (b). Forms such as, , , were long regarded as compounds, though the explanation of them all was uncertain. Many words of this class, which earlier scholars attempted to explain from Hebrew sources, have since proved to be loan-words, and consequently need no longer be taken into account.

4. A special class of formations, distinct from the fully developed stems of three or four consonants, are (a) the Interjections (§ 105), which, as being direct imitations of natural sounds, are independent of the ordinary formative laws; (b) the Pronouns. Whether these are to be regarded as the mutilated remains of early developed stems, or as relics of a period of language when the formation of stems followed different laws, must remain undecided. At all events, the many peculiarities of their formation require special treatment (.). On the other hand, most of the particles (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions) seem to have arisen in Hebrew from fully developed stems, although in many instances, in consequence of extreme shortening, the underlying stem is no longer recognizable (see .).

P. Dörwald, ‘Die Formenbildungsgesetze des Hebr.’ (Hilfsbuch für Lehrer des Hebr.), Berlin, 1897, is recommended for occasional reference.

1. The formation of the parts of speech from the stems (derivation), and their inflexion, are effected in two ways: (a) internally by changes in the stem itself, particularly in its vowels: (b) externally by the addition of formative syllables before or after it. The expression of grammatical relations (e.g. the comparative degree and some case-relations in Hebrew) periphrastically by means of separate words belongs, not to etymology, but to syntax.

The external method (b) of formation, by affixing formative syllables, which occurs e.g. in Egyptian, appears on the whole to be the more ancient. Yet other families of language, and particularly the Semitic, at a very early period had recourse also to the internal method, and during their youthful vigour widely developed their power of forming derivatives. But the continuous decay of this power in the later periods of language made syntactical circumlocution more and more necessary. The same process may be seen also e.g. in Greek (including modern Greek), and in Latin with its Romance offshoots.