Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/229



The in these verbs, as in verbs, is treated in some cases as a consonant, i.e. as a guttural, in others as having no consonantal value (as a quiescent or vowel letter), viz.:

1. In those forms which terminate with the, the final syllable always has the regular vowels, if long, e.g. , , , , i.e. the simply quiesces in the long vowel, without the latter suffering any change whatever. It is just possible that after the altogether heterogeneous vowel û the may originally have preserved a certain consonantal value. On the other band, if the final quiesces in a preceding ă (as in the perfect, imperfect, and, in the , and in  and ) this ă is necessarily lengthened to ā, by , as standing in an open syllable; e.g. , , &c.

The and  invariably have ā in the final syllable, on the analogy of verbs tertiae gutturalis; cf., however, .—In the imperfect Hithpaʿēl ā occurs in the final syllable not only (according to ) in the principal pause, or immediately before it , or with the lesser disjunctives , but even out of pause with Merekha, , and even before  in.

2. When stands at the end of a syllable before an afformative beginning with a consonant, it likewise quiesces with the preceding vowel; thus in the  (and , see below) quiescing with ă it regularly becomes Qumeṣ ( for , &c.); but in the  of all the other active and reflexive conjugations, so far as they occur, it is preceded by S̥̥ere (, &c.), and in the  and  by , ,.

(a) The of these forms of the imperfect and imperative might be considered as a modification, and at the same time a lengthening of an original ă (see ). In the same way the ē of the forms in Piʿēl, Hithpaʿēl, and  might be traced to an original ĭ (as in other cases the ē and î in the final syllable of the 3rd sing. muse. perfect of these conjugations), although this ĭ may have only been attenuated from an original ă. According to another, and probably the correct explanation, however, both the and the  are due to the analogy of verbs   in consequence of the close relation between the two classes, cf. .—No form of this kind occurs in ; in the only the 2nd masc. sing. , lengthened according to rule.

(b) Before suffixes attached by a connecting vowel (e.g. ) the retains its consonantal value; so before  and, e.g.  ;   (cf. ), not , &c., since these suffixes, by , are likewise attached to the verb-form by a connecting vowel in the form of .—As  with suffix notice  ;  with suffix  ;  .—The doubly anomalous form   (for  or ) is perhaps a forma mixta combining the readings  and.