Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/282

 defective writing is especially frequent in the 3rd masc. sing., which in  is almost always changed to , e.g. , ,. On, only three times , cf. .

2. Unusual forms (but for the most part probably only scribal errors) are—Sing. 2nd pers. fem (after , which has become stereotyped as an interjection, and is therefore unchangeable; cf. Delitzsch on the passage);  (cf. Syr. ) , and 7 in , ,  ( in ).—In   (so  in ) occurs with an infin. ending in , the  being therefore treated as a plural ending; similarly, the plural suffix is sometimes found with the feminine ending  (, , , , , as well as in  , and ), with the ending îth (, reading ), and even with the ordinary feminine ending ath; , , , .—Wholly abnormal is , , evidently a case of dittography of the following : read.

3rd masc., ;  , , ;  (a purely Aramaic form) .—3rd fem..

Plur. The strange ''2nd pers. masc. (with î'', so Qimḥi; cf. Norzi), is probably a mixed form combining  and ;.

3rd masc. ;.

3. The termination (also with the dual, e.g., ), like  and , occurs with the noun (as with the verb, ) almost exclusively in the later poets [viz. with a substantive in the singular,, , , , ; with a dual or plural, , , , , , , , , , , , ; after prepositions, see , o, notes], and cannot, therefore, by itself be taken as an indication of archaic language. On the other hand there can be no doubt that these are revivals of really old forms. That they are consciously and artificially used is shown by the evidently intentional accumulation of them, e.g. in, and , and also by the fact observed by Diehl (see the heading of this section) that in Ex 15 they occur only as verbal suffixes, in Dt 32 only as noun suffixes.

3. It is clear and beyond doubt that the in these suffixes with the plural noun belongs, in reality, to the ending of the  of the masculine plural. Yet the consciousness of this fact became so completely lost as to admit of the striking peculiarity (or rather inaccuracy) of appending those suffix-forms which include the plural ending, even to the feminine plural in (, , &c.), so that in reality the result is a double indication of the plural.

Such is the rule: the singular suffix, however (see b), also occurs with the ending (probably through the influence of Aramaic), e.g.   (unless it be sing. for, as, according to Qimḥi in his Lexicon,   is for );   (treated on the analogy of an infin. );