Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/28

 oblique cases of the personal pronoun, as well as all the possessive pronouns and the pronominal object of the verb, are denoted by forms appended directly to the governing word (suffixes); (f) the almost complete absence of compounds both in the noun (with the exception of many proper names) and in the verb; (g) great simplicity in the expression of syntactical relations, e.g. the small number of particles, and the prevalence of simple co-ordination of clauses without periodic structure. Classical Arabic and Syriac, however, form a not unimportant exception as regards the last-mentioned point.

4. From a lexicographical point of view also the vocabulary of the Semites differs essentially from that of the Indo-Germanic languages, although there is apparently more agreement here than in the grammar. A considerable number of Semitic roots and stems agree in sound with synonyms in the Indo-Germanic family. But apart from expressions actually borrowed (see below, under ), the real similarity may be reduced to imitative words (onomatopoetica), and to those in which one and the same idea is represented by similar sounds in consequence of a formative instinct common to the most varied families of language. Neither of these proves any historic or generic relation, for which an agreement in grammatical structure would also be necessary.

Comp. Friedr. Delitzsch,, Lpz. 1873;, Magdeb. 1876 f.; McCurdy,, Andover, U. S. A., 1881. The phonetic relations have been thoroughly investigated by H. Möller in, Teil i, , Copenhagen and Lpz. 1907, a work which has evoked considerable criticism.

As onomatopoetic words, or as stem-sounds of a similar character, we may compare, e.g., , , Skt. , Eng., Fr. , Germ. ; (cf., ) , , Germ. ,, Eng. ; , , , Pers. , Ital. , Fr., Eng. , , Germ. ;, Germ. , &c.; Reuss,, Braunschw. 1881, p. 38, draws attention moreover to the Semitic equivalents for, , , , , , , , , , , , , , &c. An example of a somewhat different kind is, , , , in the sense of the German , , ; in Hebrew (whence , properly ),   , , , Arab. ; Pers. , ; Skt. (with), Gk. ,, , and harder , Lat. , , ; with the corresponding sibilant Skt. , Gk. ,, = , Goth. , Germ. , ; but many of these instances are doubtful.

Essentially different from this internal connexion is the occurrence of the same words in different languages, where one language has borrowed directly from the other. Such loan-words are&mdash;