Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/286



Masculine nouns from the simple stem may, as regards their form and the vowel changes connected with it, be divided into four classes. A synopsis of them is given on pp., , and they are further explained below. Two general remarks may be premised:

(a) That all feminines without a distinctive termination are treated like these masculine nouns, e.g.  , like   , except that in the  they usually take the termination ; thus ,   (and so always before , see ).

(b) That in the plural of the first three classes a changeable vowel is always retained even before the light suffixes as a lengthened pretonic vowel, whenever it also stands before the plural ending. All suffixes, except, , , , are called. Cf. .

Explanations of the Paradigms (see pp., ).

1. Paradigm I comprises the large class of nouns (–). In the first three examples, from a strong stem, the ground-forms,, , have been developed by the adoption of a helping  to  (with ă modified to è),  (ĭ lengthened to ē),  (ŭ lengthened to ō). The next three examples, instead of the helping, have a helping , on account of the middle (d, f) or final guttural (e). In all these cases the coincides exactly with the. The singular suffixes are added to the ground-form; but in c and f an ŏ takes the place of the original ŭ, and in d and f the guttural requires a repetition of the ă and ŏ in the form of a ; before a following  this  passes into a simple helping vowel (ă, ŏ), according to ; hence, &c.

In the plural an a-sound almost always appears before the tone-bearing affix (on the analogy of forms with original a in the