Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/162

 , e.g. (something) for oneself, cf. , to put out on (oneself) a tunic.

(d) In consequence of a looseness of thought at an early period of the language, comes finally in many cases to represent the  of, e.g. , Niph. to be born;, Niph. to be buried. In cases where is intransitive in meaning, or is not used,  appears also as the passive of  and, e.g. , Piʿēl to honour, Niph. to be honoured (as well as Puʿal ); Piʿēl to conceal, Hiph. to destroy, Niph. passive of either. In such cases may again coincide in meaning with Qal ( Qal and Niph. to be ill) and even take an accusative.

Examples of denominatives are,, (from ; but probably  should here be read); ,  (from ); doubtless also , ,.

The older grammarians were decidedly wrong in representing simply as the  of ; for  has (as the frequent use of its imperat. shows), in no respect the character of the other passives, and in Arabic a special conjugation (ʾinqătălă) corresponds to it with a passive of its own. Moreover, the forms mentioned in point to a differently formed passive of .—The form , , is not to be regarded as a passive of Niphʿal, but with König and Cheyne as a forma mixta, in the sense that the punctuators intended to combine two optional readings, , perf. Niph., and, perf. Puʿal [cf. also Wright,, p. 224]. Although the passive use of Niphʿal was introduced at an early period, and became tolerably common, it is nevertheless quite secondary to the reflexive use.

Rem. 1 The ''infin. absol. is connected in form with the perfect, to which it bears the same relation as  to  in Qal, the ô in the second syllable being obscured from an original â''. Examples are, ;  ; , all in connexion with the perfect.

Examples of the form (in connexion with imperfects) are,  ;  ; once , where, perhaps, the subsequent  has led to the substitution of  for .—Moreover, the form  is not infrequently used also for the infin. absol., e.g., , ,. On the other hand, should simply be read for the wholly abnormal,  (commonly explained as being intended to correspond in sound with the subsequent  but probably a ‘forma mixta’, combining the readings  and ).