Mark 8 : 12

The Greek aorist participle ἀναστενάξας ('having sighed deeply') is rendered by the Vulgate present participle ingemiscens and by the Syriac finite verb ܘܐܬܬܢܚ ('and he groaned'), an Ethpaʿʿal form coordinated with the following verb; Syriac thus prefers paratactic coordination where Greek subordinates by participle.

Greek λέγει (historic present) and Syriac ܘܐܡܪ (coordinated finite verb) introduce direct speech; the Vulgate ait followed by colon punctuation marks the same transition, the colon (idx 4) functioning as the discourse boundary.

All three attest the verb 'seeks' (ζητεῖ / ܒܥܝܐ / quærit), but the word order differs: Greek and Latin place the verb after the object 'sign' (Latin signum quærit), whereas Syriac fronts the verb ܒܥܝܐ before its object ܐܬܐ.

Greek εἰ functions here as a Hebraism marking an emphatic oath-negation ('[surely] no sign shall be given'); the Vulgate woodenly calques this with conditional si, whereas the Syriac ܕܠܐ supplies the explicit negative ('that not'), making the suppressed apodosis of the Semitic oath formula overt.

The Peshitta adds the resumptive dative pronoun ܠܗ ('to it'), anticipating the following ܠܫܪܒܬܐ ܗܕܐ; this proleptic pronoun is a characteristic Syriac construction with no counterpart in the Greek or Latin.