Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/323

 in the form of an ĭ, attenuated from ă: before a  the prefix takes the vowel of the, e.g. , ,  bŏʿonî, in affliction (sometimes with the syllable subsequently closed, cf. , and the infinitives with  ): before weak consonants it follows the rule given in , e.g.  for. When the prefixes, , , , precede , the and  regularly coalesce in , e.g. , &c., for ; so with suffixes , &c. (once also in the sing. ); also regularly, for , see.

(b) When the prefixes precede the article, the is almost always dropped, and they take its vowel. See further in.

(c) Immediately before the tone-syllable, i.e. before monosyllables and dissyllables with the tone on the penultima (in the fore-tone), they take (undoubtedly a lengthening of an original ă, cf., ), but only in the following cases:

(aa) before infinitives of the above-mentioned forms, as, , , , , , , , except when the infinitive (as a ) is closely connected with another word (especially its subject, ), and consequently, as being in a sort of , loses the principal tone, e.g.  ,  , and so always  , &c. (in such cases as  the ā is protected by the secondary tone; before infinitives of verbs, the  is retained even in close connexion; cf. , );

(bb) before many pronominal forms, e.g. (so also in ; not ),, ,  (in close connexion, however,  ;  ); ; an especially , ,   and , ,  , see ;

(cc) before monosyllables or fore-toned nouns in such combinations as, , , ; , , but always before the principal pause. The instructive example in also shows that the punctuation  is only possible with at least the lesser pause after it; in  the  is twice repeated, even before the small and smallest disjunctives;

(dd) in certain standing expressions, which have become stereotyped almost as adverbs, e.g., , , , but ,. Cf. also, , ,.

(d) With the interrogative they are pointed as in ; in  and before  as in  (before a following relative clause, as in, ; cf. Delitzsch, Jesaia, 4th ed., on ); ? but also, in close connexion, and at a greater distance from the. The in these forms arises from a modification of the original ă, while the  is sharpened in order to maintain the original ǎ of the prefixes.

When (prop. la) is united to, it takes, according to , g, the form  ( ,  , all , and hence the ă in the tone is lengthened to ā) ''for what? why?'' Before the gutturals, , , is used for euphonic reasons (exceptions , , , before ; ,