Gesenius' Hebrew grammar: 17th ed., with numerous corrections and additions, by dr. E. Rödiger. Tr. by T. J. Conant ... With grammatical exercises and a chrestomathy, by the translator.

232

PART III. SYNTAX.

The Arabic, in a similar manner, expresses the idea self by eye soul,
spirit; the Rabbinic by t!:, m1 bone, t. body; the Amharic by Ati
head. Comp. in middle High German min lip, din lip.
4. The one - the other (alter - alter) is expressed by rt or 8'18 repeated, or by trfi< with Mr brother or St friend, and where the feminine
is required, by 1N woman, with inM sister or.1:S friend; both the
masc. andfem. forms are used also with reference to inanimate objects of
the same gender. The same form is used to express one another, as Gen.
xiii. 11, and they separated, TVUn ae ts4. the one from the other, i. e.
from one another; Gen. xi. 3, they said. I'N' ttI. < to one another; Ex.
xxvi. 3,five curtains shall be joined rnni.nrl ti' i' to one another.
5. Some is often expressed by the plural form alone, as ten some days
Dan. viii. 27, W1t. some years Dan. xi. 6, 8; and sometimes by ittt tt.
sunt qui Neh. v. 2-4.
CHAPTER III.
SYNTAX OF THE VERB.
SECT. 123.
USE OF THE TENSES IN GENERAL.
FROM the poverty of the Hebrew language in the means of
expressing the absolute and relative divisions of time (~~ 40 and
48), we might naturally expect some variety in the uses of the
same tense.
We are not to infer from this, however, that there was
scarcely any well-defined and regular use of the two existing
tenses; on the contrary each of them has its distinct sphere, as
already intimated in the first Note on page 103. The Preterite
serves to express what is finished and past, whether it actually
belongs to the past, or properly lies in the present or even in the
future, and is only represented as past, that it may thus appear
as certain as if it had already happened, or that it may stand, as
relatively earlier, in comparison with a subsequent event. The
F-zture [called also Imperfect and Tempus Infectum], on the
contrary, expresses what is unfinished, hence what is continued
and in progress (even in the past), what is coming to pass and