Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/154

 jussive, yăqtŭl; (c) a double ‘energetic’ mood of the impf., yăqtŭlănnă and yăqtŭlăn, in pause yăqtŭlā, the last form thus corresponding to the Hebrew cohortative.

3. The characteristic of the cohortative form is an ā affixed to the 1st pers. sing. or plur., e.g. from. It occurs in almost all conjugations and classes of the strong and weak verb (except of course in the passives), and this final has the tone wherever the afformatives  and  would have it. As before these endings, so also before the cohortative, the movable vowel of the last syllable of the verbal form becomes Šeewâ, e.g. in Qal, in Piʿel , ; on    (cf. also , , &c.), see ; with the  of these passages, compare the analogous cases , &c., .—On the other hand, an unchangeable vowel in the final syllable is retained as tone-vowel before the , as (e.g.) in Hiph. . In pause (as before û and î), the vowel which became is restored as tone-vowel; thus for the cohortative  the pausal form is  ; cf. ,.

The change of into the obtuse  seems to occur in, unless, with Nestle, we are to assume a conflate reading,  and ; and with the 3rd pers. , in a syllable sharpened by a following Dageš forte conjunct.; cf. similar cases of the change of into the obtuse  in l and in, ,. In, however, —with suffix—is probably intended. An cohort. is also found with the 3rd pers. in (twice);, and again in verse 16 according to the , but in both these cases without any effect on the meaning. Probably another instance occurs in, although there might also, with Qimḥi, be regarded as 2nd masc. For the doubly irregular form   (explained by Olshausen and König as a scribal error, due to a confusion with  in verse 14), read. For  the noun, might be meant, but the Masora has evidently intended an imperfect with the ending ath, instead of , before the suffix, on the analogy of the 3rd sing. fem. perfect, see ; on, see.

The cohortative expresses the direction of the will to an action and thus denotes especially self-encouragement (in the 1st plur. an exhortation to others at the same time), a resolution or a wish, as an optative, &c., see § 108.

4. The general characteristic of the form of the imperfect is rapidity of pronunciation, combined with a tendency to retract