II. Apocopated Future.

1. As far as this contracted formation depends upon the sense, it is doubtless to be accounted for from the fact that in expressing prohibition, dissuasion, exhortation, earnest wishing, and the like, for which the apocopated Future is principally employed, the utterance is naturally somewhat abrupt and hurried, and the term employed thrown into its shortest possible form. The effect of this quickened enunciation is obvious. The stress of the voice being expended upon the beginning of a word, the tone is of course retracted (§ 21. 8. b.), long vowels are shortened, and the final syllable being consequently but slightly enounced, it is easily lost altogether in sound; and when once lost in sound, it easily disappears in form. The mode of apocopation is therefore twofold; (1) By shortening the long vowel; (2) By casting away the final letter and vowel. It occurs only in the second and third person, and in a part only of the conjugations. The cases and the manner may be thus specified :— (a) In the regular verbs in Hiphil only, by changing i into e, which is regarded as a somewhat shorter sound, as

(d) In verbs of other classes the following may serve as exam. ples of the mode of apocopation:

2. The force of 1 conversive in retracting the tone has already been adverted to § 21. 8. a; consequently the most frequent instances of apocopated Future are in connection with that particle,

A still more decided effect of Var .וַיְכַל יְכַלָּה ; וַיַּבְבֵּל יִבְדִּיל as

conversive is to be seen when the penult of the apocopated form is a simple syllable. Here the retraction of the tone is accompanied by a still further shortening, as fut. pi, apoc. pin, conv. pi;

3. A like shortening takes place in a Future followed by Maqqeph, as - Is. 6. 8, - Dan. 9. 16, -15 Deut. 18. 4; also occasionally when preceded by a particle emphatically negative or prohibitive, as on 3 it shall not continue, Gen. 4. 12; - thou shalt not put, Ex. 23. 1; turn not away, 1 Kings

in

drink (תִּשְׁתָּה for) אַל־תִּשְׁתְּ ;8 .9 .chastise not, Prov אַל־תּוֹכַח ,20 .2

not, Lev. 10. 9.

III. Vav Conversive Future.

1. Although there are undoubtedly definite and distinct uses in Hebrew of the Preterite as such and of the Future as such, yet it is equally beyond question that in multitudes of cases both these tenses are used aoristically, i. e. without a definite notation of time, which is to be gathered from the context and the scope of the writer. So far from the Preter being exclusively employed to denote time past, perhaps the most frequent historical tense is the Future preceded by what is termed Vav Conversive, i. e. by Vav with subscript Pattah and followed by Dagesh forte in the next letter (1), as 3p. The Dagesh, however, disappears before preformatives with Sheva, as 3, and before the first person the Pattah is lengthened into Kamets, as Sp. The Vav is here termed conversive, because it in a manner turns the Future into a Preterite, as he shall say, * and he did say, Sup I will kill, and I did kill. For the effect of Vav conversive on the vowels of the Future and the place of the tone, see § 21. 8. a.

TT

TT

2. The true theory of this peculiar form and use of the Hebrew Future is a point much disputed among grammarians. On the one hand it is contended that the is a relic of the verb of existence, and that by prefixing it the Future is in reality constituted of two forms of verbs, a principal and a helping verb; so that 5p is equivalent to 3 he was killing, or it was (that) he would kill. But as this even if admitted does not ac. count for all the phenomena, especially for the fact that the Vav always bears the signification of and in such a connection, others

TT

are disposed to regard this particle merely as a copulative, and to explain the pointing from the exigency of the case. Many Futures begin with Sheva under the preformatives, as in Piel and Pual. In others the vowel is only factitious, and in Kal, etc., it is short Hireq, which is not well adapted to follow Vav prefix with Sheva. Here then the punctuation of Vav is governed by the laws of euphony. On this principle it is supposed that the copulative before of the Future goes into 1 merely to facilitate the pronunciation of these two very feeble letters. See Prof. Stuart's Review of Ewald on the Hebrew Tenses, Bibl. Reposit. Jan. 1838.

or

3. In the second and third pers. fem. plur. the of the afforma

תַּשְׁקִין תַּשְׁקֶינָה conversive, as ו often falls away upon prefixing נָה tive .v וַתַּחֲרֶין 19.5

:

Gen. 19. 33, 35, 1 v. 36,77 Ex. 1. 17, ib. If the penult is mixed, generally remains, as, Gen. 24. 61, though omitted in 12 Ex. 1. 19, and some few other cases.

V. Vav Conversive Preterite.

1. The conversive force of 7 holds also in regard to the Preter, although in this case it is prefixed without a vowel simply in its usual conjunctive form. When preceded by a verb in the Future or Imperative it converts the Preter to a Future tense, as 'When a prophet shall arise, and shall give,' &c., Deut. 13. 2, go and say, Is. 6. 9. When the Preter, however, with Vav prefix is preceded by another Preter, the particle in that case is to be considered as merely copulative, the verb retaining its past signification, as he called and said.

2. The prefixing of Vav to the Preterite has usually a marked effect upon the tone, removing it from the penult to the ultimate, as thou hast killed, and thou wilt kill. The reason of this is very probably, as Dr. Nordheimer suggests (Gram. p. 122), to give greater prominence to the affixed pronoun denoting the subject of the verb; but it affects only the sec. pers. masc. sing., and the first pers. sing. ; the first pers. pl. 2 being too weak to receive it. This shifting of the tone, however, is so slight that the foretone (+) remains unaffected, as not. On the contrary with a simple Vav without this power. But in " and "3 verbs the tone very often, and in Kal uniformly, remains on the penult, because it ends in a long vowel, as "7.

α

§ 36. THE PARTICIPLE.

1. The Participle does not, like the verb, represent the action as proceeding from a person, but it represents a person or thing as that to which the action is to be attributed. Its leading idea is that of the personal noun, to which the action belongs. It has its form therefore from the noun, and its essence from the verb, and partakes more or less of the several variations of the verb in its flexion. Unlike the verb, however, it marks not the distinction of time, except in the faintest degree. In its own nature it is properly a short combination of person and finite verb, viz. agens qui agit, and may be used in every connection of the sentence, with or without the article, in apposition with a noun, as

the man the falling connection of the senthe falling one. So those that remained.

= who falls; or, if this sense is implied in the tence, who is fallen, or even by itself, as ris a lover, on the flying one, fugitive, Although there is no definite distinction of time in the participle, yet as the present is the time most naturally associated with the idea of the active part., so is the past with that of the passive, which speaks of what has been experienced. It belongs to the meaning of certain passive participles that they express an attribute well known by experience, and therefore permanent or necessary, as i, primitively feared, desired, but then also terrible, desirable, as an object which is actually or generally feared or desired, must have an intrinsic ground of fear or desire in itself.

2. The Participle is used in the proposition as a simple predicate, representing the action as inherent, continuing, permanent in a person or thing, whereas in the verb the tenses express rather the exercise and developement of the action. It is placed either alone in an unconnected proposition, especially if the condition is of itself evident to the hearer from the circumstances, as I (am) going, i. e. I go at this time as thou seest; or in connection with other propositions to describe a continuing during another action, as they came and Lot (was) sitting, i. e. while Lot sat,

Gen. 19. 1.

3. As to form, the Participles are divided into two classes: (a) Simple formations with a mere strengthening of the vowels of Kal, the one active, technically termed Benoni, or between, i. e. either between the past and the future, or a word between, (participating,) the nature of a noun and a verb; and the other passive,

termed Paul (

acted upon). Their characteristic points are (†) and (.) for the active, as bip or bp, and (-) and (") for the pas sive, as. But in the intransitives the Participle follows the punctuation of the verb, as Pret. bp, Part. ; Pret. 3, Part.

The latter form, however, is rare, being more appropriate to adjectives from the same root, as will be evident from the following examples, the Participles being distinguished by e, and the Adjectives by ō or â; approaching, in near; becoming great,

חָזָק,becoming strong חָזֵק ; distant רָחוֹק,departing רָחֵק ; great גָּדוֹל

strong. The e is occasionally lengthened to i, as sprung from, 2 Chron. 32. 21, p bearing, Zeph. 1. 11. This simple formation appears also in Niph., where the Participle differs from the verb merely by the lengthening of the ă in the last syllable, as Pret. 3, Part. p. In several of the irregular verbs it differs not at all, as

; נוֹרָא .Part נוֹרָא .Pret ; נָקוֹם .Part נָקוֹם .Pret ; נִשְׁמַע .Part נִשְׁמַע .Pret נִגְלָה .Part נִגְלָה .Pret

(b) The Participles of the other conjugations all assume an external formation by means of a prefixed, probably abridged from the pronouns who? what? which is attached to the word very much after the manner of the signs of the person in the Future:

מִתְקַטֵל .Hithp ,מָקְטָל .Hoph ,מַקְטִיל .Hiph ,מְקְטָל .Pu מְקַטֵל .thus Pi

In " and " verbs we find 202, p where e (..), as somewhat longer, has established itself as foretone, while â remains in the Fu

4. The Participle, as partaking of the nature of a noun, is subject to flexion in the same way, as masc. p, fem. p (also Segol. form np), masc. plur. p, fem. plu. nibpp.

CHAPTER V.

Form, Signification, and Inflection of each of the usual Conjugations.

§ 37. KAL.

1. Form.—The characteristic and usual form of Kal is, with Kamets under the first radical, and Pattah under the second. This is the normal form for roots of transitive meaning; if intransitive, the second radical takes either Tseri or Holem, as to be old, to fear. But though these are the ordinary forms, yet they are subject to modifications arising from the nature of the letters of which