The precise number of separate words here is difficult to determine. Tal proposes three separate homographs: a calque of Biblical Hebrew הלא, i.e., a compound of ˀn "if" + lyt (and indeed it appears as a variant of אם לית in later texts), a rhetorical interrogative composed of the interrogative heh with lyt, and a presentative, i.e., hˀ + lyt, but they are all quite close in meaning and usage. Note, for example, the uncertainty of Ben Ḥayyim, תיבת מרקה p. 90 n. א45