Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

Maurice wrote:

> But as for the nun ending, Gesenius-Kautsch at 47m discusses this
> ending by
> saying;
>  >> Instead of the plural forms in shurek.... there are,
> especially in the
> older books, more than 300 fuller endings with the _nun paragocicum_,
> always bearing the tone ......<snip>  <<

I would add that according to most reconstructions that I've seen the nun
ending historically belongs to the imperfect proper, not the jussive or the
so-called vav-consecutive forms. There does seem to be some confusion of
forms in BH, but generally speaking the nun (including assimilated forms
with suffixes) indicates an imperfect.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics