Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/234

 5. Finally, a strongly-marked peculiarity of verbs is the rejection of the ending  in forming the  and the. This shortening c curs in all the conjugations, and sometimes also involves further changes in the vocalization (see o, y, bb, gg). Similarly, in some conjugations a shortened imperative (cf. ) is formed by apocope of the final (see cc, gg).

6. The ordinary form of the with the ending  serves in verbs  to express the cohortative also ; cf. ,, , &c. With a final there occur only: in,  ,  (with the  retained, see below, u) ; and in    (with , therefore in lesser pause).

I. On Qal.

1. The older form of the of the 3rd ''sing. perf., mentioned above, under i (cf. ), is preserved in (before )  (cf.  ) ; likewise in   (before ) ;  ; and in   (before ) .—The 2nd sing. fem.'' is also written ; thus in the textus receptus, and always in Baer’s editions (since 1872), as in most other verbs;  and  ;  , , &c. (so  from ). In the 3rd ''pers. plur.'' the tone, instead of keeping its usual place (, &c.), is retracted in, , both on account of the and also in rhythmical antithesis to the preceding ; also in   (according to Delitzsch for the sake of the assonance with ); and in  .—On the tone of the  see.

2. The ''infin. absol.'' frequently has (probably a survival of the older orthography) for, e.g.  ;  , &c., ;  ;  ,  (cf. ), &c., beside. The form  (beside  in the same verse) appears to have been chosen on account of its similarity in sound to ; so in   and,  (unless it is a substantive, oaths) and ; cf. also .—Conversely, instead of the   such forms are occasionally found as  or, cf. ; ; , , also   (cf. ), and even with the suffix  the very remarkable form. —The feminine form (for ), analogous to nouns like  (cf. ), is strange, but  as infin.  is quite inexplicable.—The forms  and   are perhaps to be regarded with Barth, , , as infinitives absolute of the  of  (see above, ), not of .—The 2nd ''sing. masc. imperative'' occurs in the principal pause in  and ; but