Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/136

 But Barth (, 1896, p. 7 ff.), following Hupfeld and Stade, has shown that the Hebrew article is to be connected rather with the original Semitic demonstrative hā, cf. Arab. hāḏa, Aram. hādēn, &c. The sharpening of the following consonant is to be explained exactly like the sharpening after consecutive (cf. also cases like, , &c., ), from the close connexion of the ha with the following word, and the sharpening necessarily involved the shortening of the vowel.

The Arabic article is supposed to occur in the Old Testament in  (also , ), sandal-wood (?), and in = (Arab. ǵibs) , , but this explanation can hardly be correct. On the other hand, in the proper name  the first syllable is probably, as suggested by D. H. Müller (see Lexicon, s. v.) and Nöldeke, ''Sitzungsber. der Berl. Akad.'', 1882, p. 1186. , commonly explained as=Arab. al-qaum, the militia, is also quite uncertain.

2. When the prefixes, ,  come before the article, the  is elided, and its vowel is thrown back to the prefix, in the place of the Šewâ (, and ), e.g.  for  (so );  for , , ; also in , read  instead of the impossible. Exceptions to this rule occur almost exclusively in the later Books:, , , , , , , , ; cf., however, ,. Elsewhere, e.g., the Masora requires the elision in the. A distinction in meaning is observed between (,, &c.) and  (, &c.). After the copula (and) elision of the  does not take place, e.g..

3. The words, , , , , always appear after the article with a long vowel (as in ); , , , , ; cf. also (so in the absol. st. in, , but to be read ), with the article always.

The relative pronoun (cf. ) is usually the indeclinable (who, which, &c.), originally a demonstrative pronoun; see further  and. In the later books, especially Eccles. and the late Psalms, also Lam. (4 times), Jon. , Chron. (twice), Ezra (once),—and always in the Canticle (cf. also, , ), is used instead; more rarely  ,  (?); once  before   (elsewhere  before a guttural), before  even  , and according to some (e.g. Qimḥi) also in. [See Lexicon, s. v.]