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Hebrew verb paradigms originated by adding affixes to catav

Affixes are meaningful, though etymological meaning often blurred with time. Speakers of other languages, used to different etymological relations, might not recognize semantics of paradigms.

Paal is actually catEv, not catav. Strong syntactical accent of verbs, juxtaposed on the morphological accent, elongated catAv – catA:v – catEv. In 1-2s past tense, the stop (dagesh kal) reduced tzere to patah, catEv.ti* - catAv.ti.

Replacing [ae] with [a] in 3ms past tense could emulate 1-2s PT or 3ms of other paradigms. The reduction in 3ms PT could occur because of the phonetically attached pronoun which reduced the air allocated to tzere, catEv – hu-catav. Purposeful differentiation from the verbs of condition, gadel, is another for tzere – patah shift.

The reductions c’tavtem and cat’vu show that both vowels in paal are long, since only long vowels are reduced to schwa.

Niphal appeared by prefixing the paal, catev* – ncatev – nactav (metathesis in the first syllable; cf. drachma – darcemonim) (tzere reduced to patah in the heavy accented syllable, na-ctav) – nectav – nictav (the Masoretes recorded short unaccented [e] as hirek).

Alternatively to metathesis, catev* – ncatev – necetev (epenthesis; two seghols) – n’c’tev – nictav.

Choice of nun for the niphal prefix is deliberate. Nun relates feminine (2fp PT, 2-3fp FT, 2-3fp nouns), thus passive.[1]

The form ncatev rather than nictav is seen in the future tense, tncatev – tincatev – ticatev.

Hiphil appeared similarly to niphal by prefixing consonantal hey to paal. When hey eroded in long [a], the resulting diphthong caused accent shift, catEv* – hcatEv – h’c’tEv – aIctiv (unaccented tzere turned hirek) – ictIv (unaccented naked word-initial vowel is lost, and the accent shifts).

Alternatively, hcatEv – h’c’tev. Hey became [a], actEv. Naked word-initial vowel was accented to avoid reduction, Actev. Unaccented tzere turned hirek, Activ. The Masoretes recorded the formal pronunciation with consonantal hey similar to niphal, but preserved the established hirek, hictiv.

Unusual penultimate accent of the 3fs past tense recalls the stress shift.

Choice of hey for hiphil prefix stems from the directional connotation of hey. Likewise, hiphil means, to direct someone to do something.

The prefix of hitpael is hh – ht. Semantics of hitpael is closely related to hiphil. Causative hiphil redirects the action with hey prefix. Two redirects (hh prefix) formulate bi-directional or reflexive action, characteristic of hitpael.

Hitpael shows that paal is actually pael, labesh – hitlabesh.

Correlation of hitpael and piel in gemination is coincidental. Gemination in hitpael is post-tonic, hitlAbbesh. Accent shift hitlabEsh – hitlAbbesh recalls the accent shit in hiphil.

Piel is an emphatic stem. Many piel verbs appear non-emphatic, but etymologically they express commands. Syntactically, commands are distinguished by forceful pronunciation of the accented syllables. To add force, speakers pause before the accented syllable; that is clear in Milspeak, catAv – caa.tAv! The first consonant of heavily stressed syllable after a stop is pronounced explosively, thus dagesh hazak in the second root letter.

Super-stressed second vowel elongated, ca.tA:v! – ca.tEv!

In normal speech, as opposed to purposely commanding pronunciation, speakers allocate less air, and the unaccented vowel blurs, ca.tEv! – c’.tEv! (compare Russian command пошел! with simply emphatic п’шел!) When piel verbs lost their command pronunciation, the second vowel became less accented, and more air was left for the first vowel. The vocal schwa became very distinct, and the Masoretes recorded it as hirek (diber), though the sound was closer to [ae] which produced patah in the future tense, t’dabEr.

Many roots exist only in piel or only in paal because semantically some roots lend themselves for emphatic use, while other do not. Talk! command is natural, while Write! command is unusual. Similar semantic difference accounts for the fact that some roots produce verbs, others – adjectives, but relatively few roots have both actively used verbs and adjectives; no one consequently claims that verbs and adjectives are essentially the same thing and the roots form verbs or adjectives randomly. The existence of some roots in both piel and paal forms shows that the forms are not randomly interchangeable.

Imperatives first appeared in what are now conjugative forms, catav* - catOv! – c’tov! – bc’tov – bic’tov. Emphatic command pronunciation elongated the second vowel. To differentiate from piel, the second vowel was elongated to holam. Weaker emphasis than in piel did not require a stop before the second (accented) syllable, and produces no gemination (dagesh hazak).

Imperatives later lost the emphatic stress on the second syllable, c’tOv! – catov.

Jussive shows the elongation similar to imperative in ayn”waw’iod verbs: u/i of future tense into o/e of jussive.

Cohortative adds participle na to command to soften it. Cohortative was used to command females. Specifically feminine commands survived as 2-3fp future tense, tictovna.