The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

COOK The Language of Onqelos and Jonathan 151
/za-bearing forms. (In the Late Aramaic period, the ha- prefix spreads
to all dialects.)
Pronominal suffixes on nouns and verbs also present a mixed
picture. The masc. sing, suffix on masc. pi. nouns is as follows:
Qumran Palmyrene Syriac Onq/Jon
-why -why/-yh -why -why
The fern. sing, suffix on singular nouns presents a somewhat different
picture:
Qumran Palmyrene Syriac Onq/Jon
-h' -h -ah -ah
Only in Qumran Aramaic is the final vowel written. The defective
orthography of Palmyrene leaves us in the dark about whether the
final vowel was pronounced or not. Both Syriac and Onqelos and
Jonathan have vocalized texts. The vocalization does not go back to the
Middle Aramaic period, however, so purely on the basis of the consonantal
texts one might be able to argue for a final long vowel on those
dialects before vocalization on the basis of later pronunciation was
added. In Onqelos and Jonathan's case, however, the consonantal
orthography often does preserve a long vowel, so it seems likely that
if the vocalization here matched that of Qumran Aramaic, it would
have been preserved. The next category—fem. sing, suffixes on pi.
nouns—is a good example of the preservation of long vowels in
Onqelos and Jonathan:
Qumran Palmyrene Syriac Onq/Jon
-yh' -yh -eh -aha
Aside from the different realization of the diphthong, here Onqelos
and Jonathan coincide with Qumran Aramaic rather than with Syriac
or Palmyrene.
The inflection of the imperfect presents a different set of problems.
Aramaic once had a double series of the imperfect: one indicative, and
one precative. The latter series in some dialects had the preformative
in /-, as we see in the Tell Fekherye inscription. In the other dialects,
the preformative was y-, but the precatives continued to be distinguishable
by other marks: the 3rd masc. pi. ending in -M, not -un\ the
2nd fem. sing, in -f, not -fn; the variation between the ending yodh
(precative) and he (indicative) in the 3rd masc./fem. sing, in finalweak
verbs, the absence of the energic nun on precative forms with