Page:Compendious Syriac Grammar.djvu/51

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§§ 20. 21.
— 13 —

system are found also in other uses: thus, for instance, we may meet with an upper point lending emphasis to the word in a summons, a command, an interrogation. Such a point is not distinguishable in all cases, so far as appearance goes, from the points treated of in § 6 sq.


II. PHONOLOGY

1. CONSONANTS.

GENERAL STATEMENT.

Beginning of the syllable. § 20. Every word and every syllable commences with a consonant. That no word can begin with a vowel sound is expressed clearly in Semitic writing by ܐ‎ [preceding such sound], e. g. ܐܴܬܷܐāthē, or rather ʾāthē "comes"; ܐܾܘܪܚܳܐʾurḥā "a way"; ܐܻܝܕܳܐʾīδā "hand," &c. In cases like ܝܺܕܰܥ‎ "knew", the word is spoken as if it stood ܐܻܝܕܰܥʾīδaʿ, and so it is even written at times (§ 40 C).

No Syriac word begins originally with a double consonant. Yet such a consonant seems to have been produced by the falling away of a very short vowel in ܫܬܴ݁ܐ‎, ܫܬܻ݁ܝܢštā, štīn (as well as ܐܷܫܬܴ݁ܐ‎, ܐܷܫܬ݁ܝܢ‎) "six", "sixty" (in East-Syriac also, ܫܬܻ݁ܬܴܝܳܐ‎ "the sixth"; cf. the forms for sixteen § 148 B); in the later pronunciation still oftener, and even in other cases, as perhaps in ܟܣܷܐksē from ke̊sē "covered".

Doubling. § 21. The West-Syrians appear to have lost long ago the original doubling of a consonant; the East-Syrians seem generally to have retained it: the former, for example, pronounce עַמָּא "people", ܥܱܡܳܐʿamō, the latter ܥܲܡܵܐʿammā. Nearly every consonant then is to be held as doubled, which is preceded by a short vowel and followed by any vowel, thus ܩܱܛܶܠ‎ "murdered", ܢܷܣܱܒ‎ "takes" are pronounced qaṭṭel, nessav.

The absence of doubling may be relied on only when a softened consonant continues soft, e. g. ܐܷܬ݂ܳܐʾethā "came", not ʾeththā, for this softening, or assibilation, is inadmissible in a doubled letter; while on the contrary the hard sound in such a consonant after a vowel is a sure