Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/99

 , read  (or ); and for  , read. In  is not an instance of compensation (see, end).

The harder sound of the six letters, indicated by a, is to be regarded, according to the general analogy of languages, as their older and original pronunciation, from which the softer sound was weakened ( and § 13). The original hard sound is maintained when the letter is initial, and after a consonant, but when it immediately follows a vowel or Šewā mobile it is softened and aspirated by their influence, e.g., , , lekhōl. Hence the  take

(1) at the beginning of words: (a) without exception when the preceding word ends with a vowelless consonant, e.g. (therefore),  ʿēṣ perî (fruit-tree); (b) at the beginning of a section, e.g. , or at the beginning of a sentence, or even of a minor division of a sentence after a distinctive accent , although the preceding word may end with a vowel. The distinctive accent in such a case prevents the vowel from influencing the following tenuis, e.g., (but  ).

Rem. 1. The vowel letters, , , , as such, naturally do not close a syllable. In close connexion they are therefore followed by the aspirated, e.g. , &c. On the other hand, syllables are closed by the consonantal and  (except  ;  ;  ), and by  with ; hence e.g. there is  in  and always after, since the Qerê perpetuum of this word (§ 17) assumes the reading.

2. In a number of cases is inserted, although a vowel precedes in close connexion. This almost always occurs with the prefixes and  in the combinations, ,  (i.e. when a  with Šewâ precedes the same or a kindred aspirate) and  (see Baer, L. Psalmorum, 1880, p. 92,

on ); cf. e.g., , , ; is uncertain; , , and  according to David Qimḥi do not take Dageš, nor , , and  according to the , p. 30. Sometimes the  letters, even with a full vowel, take  before aspirant (and even before  in  ); cf. the instances mentioned above,  (mostly tenues before ). In all these cases the object is to prevent too great an accumulation of aspirates. The LXX, on the other hand, almost always represent the  and