Hebrew verb morphology generator
Instructions
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Use English characters for the root (upper or lower case). Here is a table of
equivalences. Some Hebrew letters use two English letters.
A | B | G | D | H | W | Z |
HH | T | Y | K | L | M | N |
S | E | P or F | C | Q | R |
SH | SS | TT |
א | ב | ג | ד | ה | ו | ז |
ח | ט | י | כ | ל | מ | נ |
ס | ע | פ | צ | ק | ר |
שׁ | שׂ | ת |
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For verbs like לראות that traditionally are considered to have ה as their third
letter, use י instead. Reserve final ה for cases like גבה, which have a true
final ה.
-
Verbs whose first letter is apparently י usually actually start with ו. For
instance, you want ושב instead of ישב.
Sometimes, though, they actually do start with י, as in יטב (found in Hiphil).
-
Some roots use particularly strong or weak forms of letters. For example,
לקח has a weak ל, which elides with the following letter in forms like אֶקַּח.
Here is a table of special versions of letters.
use | to mean | as in |
to get form | instead of |
L- | weak ל | לקח |
אֶקַּח | אֶלְכַּח |
NN | strong נ | זקנ |
זָקַֽנְתִּי | זָקַֽתִּי |
WW | strong ו | מצו |
צִװָּה | צוֹיֵ |
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The program already knows some roots and introduces strong and weak letters.
To prevent this substitution, add ! to any of the root letters.
-
The output marks non-ultimate accents with a zakef katan (as in א֔).
It marks shwa-na (moving shwa) with a rafe over the letter (as in טֿ).
-
The Qal binyan has three varieties. You usually want ordinary Qal. However,
the root כבד follows Qal2, and the root קטן follows Qal3. The
difference has to do with the second vowel in the imperfect.
-
The pausal context is used in Biblical Hebrew on the siluk and ethnakhta tropes, and
occasionally on other tropes.
-
The connected context is used in Biblical Hebrew when the verb is connected by a
makef to the following word.
Send comments and suggestions (and errors!) to
Raphael Finkel <raphael at cs.uky.edu>
The method we use is discussed in
Raphael Finkel and Gregory Stump,
A default inheritance hierarchy for computing Hebrew verb
morphology,
Literary and Linguistic Computing 22,
2, pages 117-136, 2007.