Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/164

 the  of the active (Piʿ̄l). The of the first syllable is, however, with one exception (see m), always attenuated to ĭ in the. In the second syllable, ă has been retained in the majority of cases, so that the conjugation should more correctly be called Piʿal; but very frequently this ă also is attenuated to ĭ, which is then regularly lengthened to ē, under the influence of the tone. Cf. in Aram. ; but in Biblical Aramaic almost always. On the three cases in which ă before a final or  has passed into, see below, l.—Hence, for the ''3rd sing. masc. perfect, there arise forms like, , ; , , &c.—Before afformatives beginning with a consonant, however, ă'' is always retained, thus , , , &c. In the infinitives (, obscured from qaṭṭâl; ),  ,  , and   the original ă of the first syllable reappears throughout. The vocal of the preformatives is weakened from a short vowel; cf. the Arabic imperfect yŭqăttĭl, participle mŭqăttĭl.

The  is distinguished by the obscure vowel ŭ, or very rarely ŏ, in the first syllable, and ŏ (in pause ā) always in the second. In Arabic, also, the passives are formed throughout with ŭ in the first syllable. The inflexion of both these conjugations is analogous to that of.

Rem. 1. The preformative, which in the remaining conjugations also is the prefix of the participle, is probably connected with the interrogative or indefinite (cf. § 37) pronoun (fem. i.e. neuter, ); cf. .

2. The Dageš forte, which according to the above is characteristic of the whole of and, is often omitted (independently of verbs middle guttural, ) when the middle radical has  under it (cf. ), e.g.  for  ;   (but in the  always  , &c.), and so always in. The vocal character of the under the litera dagessanda is sometimes in such cases (according to ) expressly emphasized by its taking the form of a, as in  , with  owing to the influence of the preceding u, cf. for, &c.; ,. In the and  the  under the preformatives ( under  in the 1st sing. imperfect) serves at the same time as a characteristic of both conjugations ( f.).

3. According to the convincing suggestion of Böttcher (, . and § 1022), many supposed perfects of are in reality