Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/71

 II. ''Second Class. I- and E-sounds.''

4. The long is frequently even in the consonantal writing indicated by  (a fully written  ); but a naturally long  can be also written defectively, e.g.  , plur. ;, plur. . Whether a defectively written is long may be best known from the origin of the form; often also from the nature of the syllable, or as in. from the attached to it.

5. The (always written defectively) is especially frequent in sharpened syllables  and in toneless closed syllables ; cf. however in a closed tone-syllable, and even, with a helping Segôl, for. It has arisen very frequently by attenuation from, as in from original ,  (ground-form ), or else it is the original , which in the tone-syllable had become , as in   from  (ground-form ). It is sometimes a simple helping vowel, as in,.

The earlier grammarians call every written fully, ; every one written defectively, ,—a misleading distinction, so far as quantity is concerned.

6. The longest  (more rarely defective, e.g.  for  ; at the end of a word also ) is as a rule contracted from  , , e.g.  , Arab. and Syriac.

7. The without Yôdh mostly represents the tone-long, which, like the tone-long  (see ), is very rarely retained except  and before the tone-syllable, and is always lengthened from an original. It stands in an open syllable with or before the tone, e.g. (ground-form ),  (Arab. ) , or with Metheg (see , ) in the secondary tone-syllable, e.g. ,. On the other hand in a closed syllable it is almost always with the tone, as,.

Exceptions: (a) is sometimes retained in a toneless closed syllable, in monosyllabic words before Maqqeph, e.g. , as well as in the examples of  mentioned in  (on the quantity cf.  3 end); (b) in a toneless open final syllable, Ṣere likewise occurs in examples of the , as  ; cf. .

8. The Segôl of the I(E)-class is most frequently an modified from original, either replacing a tone-long  which has lost the tone, e.g.