140 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
ance of xl (not) in the two lines above cited
(for the antitheses to the two lines that precede
depend on it) rather strongly indicates that it
there received the stress in each line.
But there are other combinations of words
that are frequently makkephed in the Massoretic
text ; for example, constructs and genitives.
Again the question arises : were such combina-
tions regularly read with a single stress? if not,
has the MT always preserved a correct tradition
of the intention of the original writer? We are
thus faced with another group of uncertainties.
These can perhaps be reduced by observing that
in MT there is a far greater tendency to makkeph
construct and genitive if the construct case is
free from prefixed inseparable particles such as
prepositions or the copula ; so, e.g., in Lamenta-
tions iv. 9 we find brH-yllH with, but brh yllHm
without makkeph.
The Massoretic punctuation rests partly on
an ancient tradition, partly on an exegetical
theory, partly on an accommodation of the text
to a recent mode of reading it. It is valuable,
therefore, to have such principles as that the
negative particles are normally, and construct
cases often, toneless, supported by Assyrian
analogy.
In the Zeitschrift fir Assyriologie for 1895
(pp. 11 ff.) Zimmern published an interesting
Assyrian inscription, a poem as it appeared to be,