Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/379

  since, if the infinitive were used as a, we should rather expect  according to. That the subject of the infinitive is regarded elsewhere also as nominative is again (see above, ) probable, since in such forms as, ,  , &c., the pretonic Qameṣ is retained without exception, whereas on the analogy of  ,  , &c., we should expect , , &c., if the infinitive were regarded as a. Or was the retention of the Qameṣ (assuming the thorough correctness of the Masoretic punctuation) rendered possible even before a following genitive, because that vowel was characteristic of the form? It is at all events certain that owing to the lack of case-endings, a distinction between the genitival and nominatival constructions could not have been consciously made in the case of most infinitives, e.g. in unchangeable forms like, , &c.

3. When both a and an  are connected with the infinitive, the rule is, that the subject should immediately follow the infinitive, and then the object. The latter, in such a case, is necessarily in the accusative, but the subject (as in ) may be either in the genitive or in the nominative. The noun-suffixes again are, of course, to be regarded as genitives, e.g.  (cf., and the examples, , &c., enumerated above, under ), and so also substantives which follow a connective form, , &c.; see above,  and.

On the other hand, the subject appears necessarily to be in the nominative in such cases as  (for the plur.  cf. ), not, as would be expected (see  above), if  were in the genitive; cf. , . And so probably also in other cases, as, , , , ,. The subject is separated from the infinitive by an insertion (and consequently must necessarily be in the nominative; see above), e.g. in.

Rem. Less frequently the object is placed immediately after the infinitive, and then the nominative of the subject, as a subsequent complement, e.g. ;, , , , ,. In the subject follows an infinitive which has a noun-suffix in place of the object.

Cf. Sellin (see above at the head of ), p. 6 ff., and Kahan, p. 11 ff.

1. Like the two infinitives, the participles also occupy a middle place between the noun and the verb. In form they are simple nouns,