Hebrew Basics #3: Verbs, pt. 1 - Basics, פָּעַל & נִפְעַל
I bet you’ve been dying to know about verbs ever since last lesson you learned about sentence structure. Well - Here it comes!
Verbs are arguably the most important part of speech in a spoken language. They convey the core meaning of a sentence and in many cases simply knowing the verb is enough to know the meaning of a sentence. Therefore I found it fitting to teach them at such an early stage of this series - now!
Hebrew verbs are generally made of two components: a root (שֹׁרֶשׁ shóresh) and a stem (בִּנְיָן binyán - literally meaning ‘building’). The root contributes the consonants and the stem contributes the vowels (along with its intrinsic prefixes), both make up the full word. Think about it like this: the verb ‘meet’ has its consonants (m-t) and its vowels (ee), both make up the verb. Of course, in English it works nothing like that, but that is the basic morphology of Hebrew verbs: the verb פָּגַשׁ pagásh ‘he met’ has its conosnants פגשׁ and its vowels םָםַם.
Unlike English, where any word can just be put in the middle of a sentence and suddenly become a verb, all Hebrew verbs have to be comprised of a verb and a root. New roots can be coined from loanwords (this is done quite a lot these days), but it always has to be the root that is coined and inserted into an existing stem.
Each verb can be thought of as a plant of sorts. With a consonant root, a vowel stem, and leaves. The leaves, of course, are the different conjugations applied to it - person, number, tense and more (there are not called leaves though!!! that’s just weird). However unlike an actual plant, different leaves can be applied that change the overall pronunciation (which can be thought of as the shape of the plant)
Roots provide the core meaning to any word in Hebrew. Native roots are almost always comprised of three consonants, with some rare native verbs comprised of four. For example: the root שׁ־מ־ר sh-m-r carries the meaning ‘to keep, to save,’ the root א־כ־ל ‘-k-l carries the meaning ‘to eat’ and the root מ־ל־ח m-l-ch carries the meaning ‘salt.’ Combining them with different verb and noun stems creates different words, whose meanings all relate to the meaning of the original root:
שׁ־מ־ר - to keep, to save: שָׁמַר shamár ‘to save, to keep,’ שִׁמֵּר shimér ‘to conserve,’ שׁוֹמֵר shomér ‘guard’, etc.
א־כ־ל - to eat: אָכַל ‘akhál ‘to eat,’ אִכֵּל ‘ikél ‘to corrode,’ אֹכֶל ‘ókhel ‘food’, etc.
מ־ל־ח - salt: מֶלַח mélach ‘salt,’ מָלוּחַ malúach ‘salty,’ הִמְלִיחַ himlíach ‘to salt (food),’ etc.
Side note: roots can be written in a number of ways. Using hyphens or maqafím (Hebrew hyphens; פ-ע-ל or פ־ע־ל), gersháyim (פע״ל), periods (פ.ע.ל) or even square root signs (√פעל). I prefer hyphens and maqafim.
A term that’ll come up frequently (that I think I just made up) is radical letter (from Latin radix, meaning ‘root’). By saying that I refer to the letter of the root as they’re pronounced in the word. In the root פ־ע־ל p-’-l, פ is the 1st radical, ע the 2nd and ל Is the 3rd radical letter. In the word נִפְעַלְנוּ each letter פ, ע, ל will be referred to as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd radical letter in the word respectively. For each root, they do not appear in a different order no matter how you manipulate them. The root ח־ט־ב ch-t-b (‘to log/cut trees’) is fundamentally different to the root ח־ב־ט ch-b-t (‘to hit’), for example.
Some roots have irregular conjugations, depending on the consonants they have. Each irregular conjugates differently under each stem, and you will learn more about that later on. Other than that, roots are pretty straightforward. Stems are where things get interesting.
Hebrew has seven verb stems. They’re named by inserting the root פ־ע־ל p-’-l, meaning ‘verb’ or ‘action’ into the most basic conjugation of the stem - 3rd person, masculine, singular, past tense. The stems are:
- פָּעַל pa’ál (also called קַל qal)
- נִפְעַל nif’ál
- הִפְעִיל hif’íl
- הֻפְעַל huf’ál
- פִּעֵל pi’él
- פֻּעַל pu’ál
- הִתְפַּעֵל hitpa’él
The stems are divided in groups of two (and one of three), where each has an active stem and a passive stem.
I’ll be teaching more about each stem in upcoming lessons. This lesson I’ll be concentrating on the first two: פָּעַל pa’ál & נִפְעַל nif’ál. These are the two most basic stems.
פָּעַל is the simplest and most common stem in the language. Verbs of this stem generally have only a basic meaning directly related to the meaning of the root. for example: שָׁמַר shamár ‘to save, to keep,’ אָכַל ‘akhál ‘to eat.’
נִפְעַל is generally considered its passive counterpart. For most פָּעַל active verbs, there is a נִפְעַל passive counterpart: נִשְׁמַר nishmár ‘to be saved, to be kept,’ נֶאֱכַל ne’ekhál ‘to be eaten.’ However, contrary to other passive stems, not all נִפְעַל verbs are passive. For example, the verb סָגַר sagár means ‘to close (a door),’ and its passive counterpart is נִסְגַּר nisgár ‘(for a door) to be closed.’ However, the same verb נִסְגַּר nisgár also means ‘to close,’ as in “the door is closing,” without stating whether someone closed it, or it closed by itself. To put it differently: נִפְעַל has a double role, as a passive verb stem (describing a subject who is being acted upon), and as a stative verb stem (describing a state the subject is in).
שָׂרַף saráf ‘to burn’ - נִשְׂרַף nisráf ‘to be burnt’ or ‘to be burning’
רָאָה ra’á ‘to see’ - נִרְאָה nir’á ‘to be seen’ or ‘to seem’
צָפָה tsafá ‘to watch’ - נִצְפָּה nitspá ‘to be watched’
Another different nuance נִפְעַל has is to describe some sort of process, usually changes in position. For instance, you would use שָׁכַב shakháv to describe someone who is already lying on a bed, whereas you would use נִשְׁכַּב nishkáv to describe someone in the process of lying down onto a bed. Other examples are:
עָמַד ‘amád ‘to stand’ - נֶעֱמַד ne’emád ‘to stand up / be standing up’
שָׁפַךְ shafákh ‘to pour’ - נִשְׁפַּךְ nishpákh ‘to be poured’ or ‘to pour in/out’ (“The water poured out of the bottle.”)
שָׁבַר shavár ‘to break’ - נִשְׁבַּר nishbár ‘to be broken (by someone)’ or ‘to break’ (“My arm broke.”)
Generally, the one aspect in common with all נִפְעַל verbs is that none of them can take direct objects; but that’s about it.
Now let’s talk conjugations!
There are only three tenses–past, present and future–and constructions such as perfect and progressive tenses simply don’t exist.
The most important part to about conjugating Hebrew verbs is knowing their tense. As you know, verbs are always conjugated according to person, number, gender and tense. Within each tense the conjugations share many similarities, however between the tenses the patterns vary considerably.
Past tense conjugations are characterized by suffixes. For each person-gender-number combination a unique suffix is added which encodes information for all three of these. They are as following:
Before I begin explaining, I need to say one more thing. When talking about verb conjugations, syllable stress plays a big role in pronunciation, as you will see in the next paragraphs. Stress in Hebrew words classically falls in one of two places: the ultimate (last) syllable, or the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable. Colloquially, it can fall on other syllables, especially in proper names and loanwords, but this is technically incorrect.
The first three rows are very simple - just add the corresponding suffix to the basic verb form, and that’s it. שָׂרַף > שָׂרַפְתִּי saráf > saráfti (‘burn’),
נִשְׁבַּר > נִשְׁבַּרְתְּ nishbár > nishbárt (‘break’).
The fourth row, 2nd person plural, marked with a 1, works similarly, yet there are some notable differences. The stress moves to the last syllable (the suffix), instead of staying on the 2nd radical letter, as with other conjugations. As a consequence, the 1st radical letter in the פָּעַל stem gets reduced to a shva (the null vowel point): שָׂרַף > שְׂרָפְתֶּם saráf > sraftém. As with the copula you learned last lesson, informally it is pronounced as if it was like the first three rows:
שָׂרַף > שָׂרַפְתֶּם saráf > saráftem.
The double pronunciation situation going on with these (in the formal pronunciation) is because some clusters are easily producible while others aren’t. When the first letter can be easily clustered it is pronounced with a null vowel, when it isn’t it is pronounced with an /e/ (rarely as /a/). For example:
שָׁמַר > שְׁמַרְתֶּם shamár > shmartém; but מָרַח < מְרַחְתֶּם marách > merachtém (‘smear, lather’), and עָרַך > עֲרַכְתֶּם ‘arákh > ‘arakhtém (‘set (a table); edit’).
The last two rows are a bit more complicated. Instead of being pronounced with the stress still on the 2nd radical letter, it also moves to the suffix. However, here it is the 2nd radical that gets reduced to a shva. שָׂרַף > שָׂרְפָה saráf > sarfá, נִשְׁבַּר > נִשְׁבְּרוּ nishbár > nishberá. Consonant clusters of more than 2 consonants aren’t possible, so the shva in the נִפְעַל conjugation is pronounced as a /e/ instead of as no vowel.
You might’ve noticed the last rows, marked with a 2, have that pesky double pronunciation going on. This is because פ־ע־ל p-’-l is an irregular root.
As I’ve said earlier, roots are irregular depending on their letters. In פ־ע־ל, the ע is the irregular. It is part of the guttural letters, called so because they’re classically pronounced deep in the throat (guttur in Latin). These letters are א, ה, ח, ר, ע, contracted as הָאָ״ח רַ״ע / רֵ״עַ (ha’ách ra’ ‘the brother is bad’ or ha’ách réa’ ‘hooray, a friend’). Three of these letters–א, ע, ה–cannot take a null shva (שְׁוָא נַח), simply because it is hard to pronounce. (The other two can, but also give rise to some problems in other instances.) Therefore they are usually pronounced with a dummy vowel inserted, depending on the surrounding vowels. This dummy vowel is usually notated as a tnu’á hatufá (סֱ סֲ סֳ) - hence the complicated origin I didn’t explain in the 1st lesson!
The right pronunciation, not marked with the 2, is the general case. The left one is the specific pronunciation with the gutturals.
While the past tense is characterized by suffixes, the future tense is characterized by prefixes, sometimes combined with suffixes. These prefixes are always one of four letters:
א, י, ת, נ - contracted as אֵיתָ״ן eytán. It is fairly simple, and goes as following:
The variation between /o/ and /a/ is weird and really only depends on the verb. The only way to know which it is is to memorize: it’s תֹּאכַל tokhal (‘she will eat’) and תִּפְתַּח tiftach (‘she will open’), but תִּשְׁבֹּר tishbor (‘she will break’) and תִּשְׂרֹף tisrof (‘she will burn’).
As you can see, the characteristic נ prefix of the נִפְעַל stem is gone in the future conjugations. This is because it underwent full assimilation into the following consonant (effectively it melted into the following consonant):
יִנְשָׁבֵר > יִשְׁשָׁבֵר > יִשָּׁבֵר yinshavér > yisshavér > yishavér. The dagesh in the 1st radical letter signifies that assimilation, as will be explained in a future lesson. An important consequence of this is that any בג״ד כפ״ת letters in the 1st radical position are pronounced hard, in all future נִפְעַל conjugations.
The irregular conjugations are marked with an asterisk in both tables. These have double pronunciations for the same reason as in the past conjugations: the word-final stress causes the 2nd radical letter to be reduced, and because the root פ־ע־ל p-’-l has a guttural 2nd letter (ע), it cannot be pronounced with the reduced shva and gets a reduced /a/ instead. Again: the right pronunciation is the general case, while the left is specific to gutturals.
2nd and 3rd person feminine plural conjugations, as you can see, are put in parentheses. This is because, as you remember from last lesson about copulae, these days the feminine and masculine conjugations have merged into the masculine form. It would be very rare these days to see a 2nd or 3rd person female plural verb conjugated as תִּפְעַלְנָה / תִּפָּעֶלְנָה instead of יִפְעַלוּ / יִפָּעֲלוּ. This is true for all verbs, so I’m not going to say this after teaching each stem’s conjugations.
Before I move on I need to make one remark about the obviously missing tense - present tense. The present tense in Hebrew works differently to the two others, so I found it more suitable to introduce it after I finish past and future for all stems/
OK so that was quite a bit for one lesson - but it doesn’t mean you don’t need to exercise what you’ve just learned!
For the next ten lessons, I’ll leave out the verb and you need to fill it out according to the root and tense given. Each subject will have its pronoun in parentheses (if it isn’t a pronoun anyway), so you can practice those too. On we go!
1. הַכֶּלֶב [הוּא] ___ הַרְבֵּה בָּשָׂר.
(past, א־כ־ל)
2. אֲחוֹתִי [הִיא] ___ מֵהַלִּמּוּדִים.
(past, פ־ר־שׁ)
3. הֵם ___ אֵת הָעֵץ.
(future, שׂ־ר־פ)
4. רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה רַבִּין [הוּא] ___ לְטוֹבַת הַשָּׁלוֹם.
(past, פ־ע־ל)
5. אֲנִי ___ עַצִים רַבִּים.
(future, ח־ט־ב)
6. אַתָּה ___ לֹא נָכוֹן.
(past, ח־שׁ־ב)
7. הָחֲתוּלוֹת [הֵן] ___ הַרְבֵּה עִם הַשָּׁנִים.
(future, ג־ד־ל)
8. אֲתֶּן ___ אֵת הַשֻּׁלְחַן.
(past, שׁ־ב־ר)
9. אַתְּ ___ אוֹתוֹ מְאֹד.
(past, א־ה־ב)
10. אֲנַחְנוּ ___ שָׁם.
(past, י־שׁ־ב)
1. אָכַל. hakélev akhál harbé basár.
“The dog ate a lot of meat.”
2. פָּרְשָׁה. achotí parshá mehalimudím.
“My sister dropped out of school.”
3. יִשְׂרְפוּ. hem yisrefú et ha’etsím.
“They will burn the tree / wood.”
4. פָּעַל. rósh hamemshalá Rabín pa’ál letovát hashalóm.
“Prime Minister Rabin acted towards peace.”
5. אַחֲטֹב / אַחְטֹב. aní achtóv / achatóv etsím rabím,
“I will log / cut down many trees.”
6. חָשַׁבְתָּ. atá chashávta lo nakhón.
“You were thinking wrong,”
7. תִּגְדַלְנָה / יִגְדְּלוּ. hachatulót tigdálna / yigdelú harbé ‘im hashaním.
“The cats will grow up a lot as years go by.”
8. שְׁבָרְתֶּן. atén shvartén et hashulchán.
“You broke the table.”
9. אָהַבְתְּ. at ahávt otó me’ód.
“You liked him a lot.”
10. יָשַׁבְנוּ. anáchnu yashávnu sham.
“We sat / were sitting there.”
That’s it for this lesson!
Talk about dense information.
Next lessons I’ll be explaining the conjugations of the other two verb stem groups (הִפְעִיל&הֻפְעַל, פִּעֵל&פֻּעֵל&הִתְפַּעֵל), then the elusive present tense. They won’t be as information dense, hopefully, since I already explained a lot of the basics this lesson.
