Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/70

 a consonant, as,  (vulgar Arab. , ). In a closed syllable, however, it can only stand when this has the tone,, ; whereas in an open syllable it is especially frequent before the tone, e.g. , ,. Where the tone is moved forward or weakened (as happens most commonly in what is called the construct state of nouns, cf. ) the original short  is retained in a closed syllable, while in an open syllable it becomes  :, constr. state ;,  ; ,. For examples of the retention, in the secondary tone-syllable, of lengthened from, see.

In some terminations of the verb ( in the 2nd sing. masc. perf., in the 2nd pl. fem. of the imperat., as well as in the 3rd and 2nd pl. fem. of the imperf.), in  (masc.) and in the suffixes  and, the final  can stand even without a vowel letter. A is, however, in these cases (except with ) frequently added as a vowel letter.

On for  see below,.

2., or short ă, stands in Hebrew almost exclusively in a closed syllable with or without the tone. In places where it now appears to stand in an open syllable the syllable was originally closed, and a helping vowel has been inserted after the second radical merely to make the pronunciation easier, e.g.  (ground-form ),  (Arab. ), see, and with regard to two cases of a different kind, ,. Otherwise in an open syllable has almost without exception passed into ā, see above,.

On the very frequent attenuation of ă to ĭ, cf. below,. On the rare, and only apparent union of Pathaḥ with, see , end. On ă as a helping-vowel,, and.

3. Segôl (, []) by origin belongs sometimes to the second, but most frequently to the first vowel class. It belongs to the first class when it is a modification of (as the Germ. Bad, pl. Bäder; Eng. man, pl. men), either in a toneless syllable, e.g.  (for ), or with the tone, e.g.  from ʾarṣ,  Arab. qărn, Arab. qămḥ. This is often retained even in the strongest tone-syllable, at the end of a sentence or of an important clause (in ), as,  (mlkh, sdq). As a rule, however, in such cases the which underlies the  is lengthened into, e.g. ,. A apparently lengthened from, but in reality traceable to an original , stands in pausal forms, as  (ground-form ),  , &c. On the cases where a (originally consonantal) follows this Segôl, see, and.