The Sixth Principle: On the elucidation of the class of roots quiescent in the first letter, aleph and yod, such as amar and yashav.

1. The Pattern Qal It appears in full form up through the future tense; and in the future tense the root aleph becomes quiescent, as in yomar, tomar, nomar. But in first-person singular, the aleph is dropped and a quiescent vav comes in its place, as in omar el Eloah; this is so that two alephs should not come together, that is, to avoid saying a’omar. And when yomar, tomar, nomar come with the conversive vav, the pataḥ returns to a segol and the stress shifts to the penultimate, as in va-yomer, va-tomer, va-nomer. And when they come again without it, they return to their original rule with a pataḥ and final stress, as in yomar, tomar; except for va-ya‘an Iyov va-yomer and similar cases, all of which are penultimately stressed.

2. And know that all the other patterns come according to the manner of the strong roots, and the aleph does not become quiescent in them; only that the vowels change in some of them because of the aleph, which is guttural. And likewise with the other guttural letters aleph, ḥet, he, ‘ayin, the hiriq of the nun of Nif‘al and of the he of Hif‘il changes to segol (and the letter following the nun or the he takes a ḥataf-segol), as in ne’ekhal, he’ekhil, as will be explained in the chapter on poetry, in the thirteenth poem. And there are also roots whose first letter is aleph that come in full form even in the pattern Qal, such as from asaf and asar, where one says e’esof and e’esor. The reason is that since these are not used frequently, they were not strict about them.

3. The Classes of Roots Quiescent in the First Letter Yod such as yashav.

The Pattern Qal It comes in full form up through the infinitive, the infinitive included, when it is joined to verbal forms, as in yarad, yaradnu, yashuv, eshav. But when it is not joined to verbal forms, it appears with the loss of the yod and with the addition of a final tav, as in shevet, redet, da‘at, and similar forms; and this occurs even without the prefixed letters b-k-l-m, as I wrote above.

4. The Imperative It too appears with the loss of the yod, as in shev, shevu, and so on. (In the first edition: and with the addition of a final he, shevah; and in pause with a tsere, redah; and when joined by maqqef or adjacent to a short word, with a segol and penultimate stress, as in lekh na.) There is no difference between this imperative and the imperative of roots deficient in the first letter nun; therefore be careful not to confuse them. But the e-i-t-n letters distinguish between the two classes: for in roots deficient in the first letter nun, the e-i-t-n letters are vocalized with a hiriq and a dagesh follows, as in yigash, tigash, and so on; whereas in this class they take a tsere, which is a full vowel indicating the quiescent yod that is not written, as in eshav, yeshav, and so on. And there are cases where the yod is written with a tsere, as in eilekh sholel (Micah 1:8), [ha-smol ve-eimanah (Genesis 13:9)], and similar cases are few.

5. And for the most part, when the yod is written, the e-i-t-n letters take a hiriq and the middle root letter has a pataḥ, as in einaq, yinaq; e’irash, yirash; eitav, yitav; eishan, yishan. And there are cases that come with a dagesh in place of the quiescent yod, as from yatsaq: atsokh ruḥi ‘al zar‘ekha; and from yatsar: be-terem etzorkha. And they called these “roots deficient in the first letter yod” and not “roots quiescent in the first letter yod”, for in the future tense they proceed according to the manner of roots deficient in the first letter nun, as I explained regarding roots deficient in the first letter nun. And although I have searched throughout all my books of grammar to find a reason for this, I did not find one.

6. And to me the reason appears to be this: because the letters tsadi and samekh are close to one another in point of articulation and pronunciation, especially when the tsadi is not dageshed, so much so that many people do not distinguish between them, and especially all the people of France. For if we were to say from yatsav, yatsaq, and yatsag: etsav, etsaq, tetsag, according to the rule of roots quiescent in the first letter yod, it would sound as though it were esav, yesag, tesag. Therefore the tsere was dageshed in order to strengthen its pronunciation. And this is a great rule in grammar: when a dagesh comes in place of a missing letter, that word is called one of the deficient roots; but when one of the full vowels comes in its place, that word is called one of the quiescent roots.

7. The Pattern Nif‘al The Past Throughout, the nun appears with a quiescent vav as a ḥolam in place of the root yod, as in noda‘, noda‘at, noda‘ti, and so on. Likewise in the participle: noda‘, noda‘im, and so on. But in the rest of the pattern the vav is mobile, and all its vocalization is like that of the strong roots, as from yada‘: hoda‘. And the e-i-t-n forms are oda‘, yoda‘. And the aleph is always with a hiriq, contrary to the usual rule, for its normal vowel is generally segol; yet this form never comes with a segol, and I do not know the reason for this. And the yod was changed to a vav because the dagesh is perceived more clearly in a vav than in a yod.

8. The Pattern Hif‘il — The Past Throughout, the he appears with a ḥolam in place of the root yod, as in hoshiv, hoshavta, and so on. And likewise throughout the entire pattern, the prefixed letters at the beginning take a ḥolam: in the participle moshiv, in the infinitive and the imperative hoshiv, and in the future oshiv, yoshiv, toshiv. Except in the passive, where the mem is always with a shuruq or a kubuts in every passive form, whether of strong roots or of those not strong (as in mufqad, mushav). And a few cases are found where the mem has a ḥataf-qamats, as in shesh mashzar (Exodus 26:1), zoveaḥ mashḥit (Malachi 1:14). And the vocalization of the middle root letter in this entire pattern is the same as in the strong roots.

9. Nevertheless, know that those future forms which I wrote about in the pattern Qal, in which the e-i-t-n letters sometimes take hiriq with the root yod written, likewise for the most part occur in this pattern as well with the yod written, but with a tsere before it. Thus from yatav it is said va-le-Avram heitiv ba‘avurah (Genesis 12:16); from yanaq: ve-tinaq lakh et ha-yeled (Exodus 2:7); from yaman: im ha-smol ve-eimanah (Genesis 13:9); and from yalal: espedah ve-eililah (Micah 1:8).

10. And the Participle: the mem has a tsere in all forms, as in metiv, metivim, metivah. But not so in roots quiescent in the middle letter, where only the singular has a tsere and the rest have a sheva, as in mevin, mevinim, and so on. And likewise the imperative, the infinitive, and the e-i-t-n forms have a quiescent yod after the tsere.

11. The Pattern Pu‘al The he appears with shuruq, as in va-Yosef hurad; and likewise with roots quiescent in the middle letter, as in huqam; and with doubled roots, as in hutav. In all three, the he has shuruq, and there is no difference between them in vocalization. However, in the other persons of the past tense there is a difference between the doubled roots and the roots quiescent in the first letter yod and those quiescent in the middle letter vav.

And this difference lies in the dagesh, as will be explained in this treatise, in the Twelfth Principle, section eight.

12. The Pattern Hitpa‘el This entire pattern appears in full form, as from yalad: va-yityaldu (Numbers 1:18), and from ya‘ats: va-yitya‘atsu (Psalms 83:4). And sometimes the yod is changed into a mobile vav, as from yada‘: be-hitvada‘ Yosef (Genesis 45:1), and from yada: ve-hitvada ‘alav (Leviticus 16:21).