Modern Hebrew verbs
In Hebrew, verbs, which take the form of derived stems, are conjugated to reflect their tense and mood, as well as to agree with their subjects in gender, number, and person. Each verb has an inherent voice, though a verb in one voice typically has counterparts in other voices. This article deals mostly with Modern Hebrew, but to some extent, the information shown here applies to Biblical Hebrew as well.
Verb classification
Roots
Verbs in Hebrew, like nouns, adjectives, and adverbs are formed and declined by altering a three letter stem. Vowels are added between or before these three consonants in a pattern to form a related meaning between different roots. For instance, shamar ' "he kept" and katav ' "he wrote" both add the vowel "a" in between the first and second consonants, and second and third consonants to indicate the past tense "he" form. A similar formation can be found in English strong verbs with write-wrote-written and drive-drove-driven sharing root vowels despite differing consonants and meanings.Hebrew verbs are further divided into strong roots, weak roots, and wholly irregular verbs.
A root that changes the vowel used in a given pattern is a considered a weak stem. These are further divided into guttural, hollow, and repeating roots ; based on exact irregularities. Weak verbs are detailed further below:
Guttural weak roots
Guttural roots contain a guttural consonant. Hey as the third root is usually a hollow root marker due to being a vowel spelling rather than one of any consonant, and is only considered a guttural root in the third position if historically pronounced. Alef root-initially and root-finally takes on a somewhat divergent conjugation similar to that of hollow roots, but is usually identical to other gutturals. Of the three classes of weak roots, guttural roots are the most common.Vowel weak roots
Roots containing a vav or yud anywhere mark a historical vowel. Hey word-finally usually marks a final vowel for the same reason, and shares similar irregularities.Repeating weak roots
Roots containing two of the same letter or a nun in first position are considered repeating roots. Nun before a consonant doubles it or prevents beyt, kaf, and pey from becoming veyt, khaf, and fey in word-medial position. Doubling also consonants changes the quality of the preceding vowel. However doubling a consonant that doesn't change it outright is obsolete in Modern Hebrew, and the irregularities usually affect the vowels.Stems
Hebrew verbs are inflected according to specific patterns, derived stems, called forms or בִּנְיָנִים ; where vowels patterns, prefixes, and suffixes are put into the three-letter roots from which the vast majority of Hebrew words are made.There are seven basic conjugations, as well as some irregular verbs coming from otherwise-obsolete constructions. The traditional demonstration root is, which has the basic meaning of "action" or "doing":
This chart's menorah-like shape is sometimes invoked in teaching the binyanim to help students remember the main ideas about the verb forms: which binyanim are active voice vs. passive voice, and which binyanim are simple, intensive, causative, and reflexive. Note that some binyanim have more meanings than the ones shown here, as well as obsolete and rare ones being left off entirely.
Present
A verb in the present tense agrees with its subject in gender and number, so each verb has four present-tense forms.The present tense does not inflect by person because its use as a present tense is a relatively recent trend, as this form was originally used only as the present participle alone; rather than both the present and present participle.
Earlier forms of the Hebrew language did not have strictly defined past, present, or future tenses, but merely perfective and imperfective aspects, with past, present, or future connotation depending on context. Later the perfective and imperfective aspects were explicitly refashioned as the past and future tenses, respectively; with the present participle also becoming the present tense. This also happened to the Aramaic language around the same time, and later in some varieties of Arabic.
Patterns
Examples
Past
Past Tense
A verb in the past tense agrees with its subject in person, number, and in the second-person and third-person singular, gender. The corresponding subject pronouns are not necessarily used in conjunction.Conjugation in the past tense is done by adding a suffix, to a binyan-specific root, so that <שמר> "guarded" adds <תי-> "I" to become <שמרתי> "I guarded". The root changes whether the suffix begins with a vowel or consonant. The third person masculine singular pronoun does not take a suffix and uses the plain stem; this is also the dictionary form for any given verb.
There also used to be past-tense object suffixes, which came after the subject suffix, but these are obsolete.
Patterns
Examples
The forms כתבתם and כתבתן used to be pronounced as כתַבתֶּם ktavtem and כתַבתֶּן ktavten, but this is rare in Modern Hebrew.Note that the past and present inflections of the third-person singular nif'al were historically pronounced with different vowels in the final syllable—the past/perfect with patach, and the present/participle with kamats gadol. In Modern Hebrew, both of these vowels have merged to, and the two verb forms now are pronounced the same.
Past Participle
Present participles are the same as present tense forms, as the Modern Hebrew present tense comes from a present participle form. Not all past participles shown here correspond to an existent adjective or one congruent to the verb's meaning; the ones shown here are just examples.Past participles are formed according to the tables shown below. The past participle is also commonly used as an adjective, and is inflected for number and gender. The passive and reflexive binyans hitpa'el, nif'al, pu'al, and huf'al lack passive participles.
Pa'al verbs that have a nif'al form corresponding to its passive voice use the pa'al participle and nif'al present to indicate different states of completion.
The pa'al past participle indicates an action is completely done:
Patterns
Examples
Future tense/ Imperative
Future tense
A verb in the future tense inflects for person, number, and gender; which is expressed by adding prefixes to stems shown below. The second-person singular masculine and third-person singular feminine forms are identical for all verbs in the future tense. Historically, there have been separate feminine forms for the second and third person plural. These are still occasionally used today ; however, in everyday speech, most use the historically masculine plural for both genders.Strong future Tense
Weak future tense
As in the past tense, personal pronouns are not strictly necessary in the future tense, as the verb forms are sufficient to identify the subject, but they are frequently used.Imperative
All imperatives are only used in affirmative commands, and in predominantly formal contexts. Negative commands use the particle followed by the corresponding future-tense form; as לא and a future tense negates the declaration not the command. The passive binyanim pu'al and huf'al do not have imperatives.In informal speech, the future tense is commonly used for affirmative commands, to avoid the implication of being demanding. So, for example, can mean either "you will open" or "would you open". In Hebrew, as in English, the more formal way to avoid the implication of commanding is to use the word "please" with the imperative.
Strong imperatives
Weak imperatives
The infinitive can also be used as a "general imperative" when addressing nobody in particular ; so "" means "please do not open".There also once were cohortative forms for the first person, and jussive forms for the imperative third person, but this is now obsolete.
Infinitive
Infinitives in Modern Hebrew are formed by adding the prefix -ל, meaning "to, for". Older forms of Hebrew did not always add the prefix, and instead changed the vowels accordingly; but this is largely obsolete in modern usage. The passive binyans pu'al and huf'al do not have infinitives.| Stem | Pattern | Example | Meaning |
| Stem | Prefixed/ Nonprefixed | Prefixed/ Non-prefixed | Meaning |
| Pa'al | li12o3/ 1a2o3 | לבדוק\ בדוק livdok/ badok | to check |
| Pi'el | le1a2e3/ 1a2e3 | לסיים\ סיים lesayem/ sayem | to finish |
| Hif'il | leha12i3/ ha12i3 | להרגיש\ הרגיש lehargish/ hargish | to feel |
| Hitpa'el | lehit1a2e3/ hit1a2e3 | להתכוון\ התכוון lehitkaven/ hitkaven | to mean, intend |
| Nif'al | lehi1a2e3/ hi1a2e3 | להיבדק\ היבדק lehibadek/ hibadek | to be checked |
Action noun
Action nouns or gerunds are nouns derived from a verb's action and so they inflect for number. In Hebrew, gerunds are formed using a specific pattern shown in the table below. Hebrew gerunds cannot be used as adjectives, unlike in English. The passive binyans pu'al and huf'al lack gerunds.Not all gerunds shown here correspond to an attested noun or a noun with a meaning congruent to that of the verb. Those displayed here are formed regularly.
| Stem | Pattern | Example | Meaning |
| Pa'al | 12i3a/ 12i3ot | כתיבה\ כתיבות ktiva/ ktivot | writing |
| Pi'el | 1i2u3/ 1i2u3im | ביקור\ ביקורים bikur/ bikurim | visit |
| Hif'il | ha12a3a/ ha12a3ot | השלמה\ השלמות hashlama/ haslamot | completion |
| Hitpa'el | hit1a23ut/ hit1a23uyot | התעקשות\ התעקשויות hit'akshut/ hit'akshuyot | insistence |
| Nif'al | hi1a23ut/ hi1a23uyot | היפרדות\ היפרדויות hipardut/ hiparduyot | separation |