Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/191

, ,  (on , , see ); ; infinitive with a prefix , ,  ;. Sometimes, however, is found as well, e.g.   ;   (before a suffix, , ,  ); cf. ,, , , , , always in close connexion with the following word. With a firmly closed syllable after cf. ;  f. (on, cf. );  , ;  , &c.;   , but also.

is altogether anomalous, and only a few authorities give (Hiphʿil), adopted by Moore in Haupt’s Bible. According to Qimḥi, Olshausen, and others, the Masora intended a with syncope of the preformative after the  interrogative =, or (according to Olshausen) with the omission of the  interrogative. But since the Hiphʿil and of  nowhere occur, it is difficult to believe that such was the intention of the Masora. We should expect the,. But the under the, falling between the tone and counter-tone, was naturally less emphasized than in , without the  interrogative. Consequently it was weakened, not to simple, but to , in order to represent the sound of the (likewise pronounced as å) at least in a shortened form. The of the  interrogative is explained, in any case, from  (cf. the similar pointing of the article, e.g. in, ). For the accusative after, instead of the usual , affords sufficient evidence.

Also in the other forms of the the guttural not infrequently influences the vowel, causing a change of ĭ (on this ĭ cf. ) into, e.g. , ; , ; ,  (on this irregular  cf. ), especially when the second radical is also a guttural, e.g.  , ; cf. ; ; cf. also in verbs, , , (compared with , ) and  .— occurs in , , and probably also in  .—As a pausal form for  (cf. the plur. ) we find in   (cf. the imperf. ) with the ŏ repeated in the form of a. For other examples of this kind, see and.

2. The pronunciation (mentioned above, No. 2) of the imperfects in ă with under the preformative in a firmly closed syllable (e.g., ) regularly gives way to the soft combination in verbs which are at the same time , e.g. ,  &c. (but cf. &c., ,  ed. Mant., ). Even in the strong verb is found along with. Cf. also ;   (so Ben-Asher; but Ben-Naphtali ); , and so always in the  of  with suffixes, , &c.—  is to be explained from the endeavour to avoid too great an accumulation of short sounds by the insertion of a long vowel, but it is a question whether we should not simply read  with Haupt in his Bible, Proverbs, p. 34, 1. 44 ff.; cf. the analogous instances under, and