Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- verbs starting with yod or nun

I said in the last lesson that there were five possibilities for a verb that had an alef first in future tense and seemed to have only two root letters, and one was a peh yod verb. The other is a peh  nun verb. 

 

Some verbs in these classes drop the first letter in future, and some don’t.  I don’t know of a general rule for you to go by for which roots do and which don’t.  Of course, if you can see that the verb has all three root letters, that’s easy to look up.  Some of the ones that drop the first letter are high-frequency; memorize them and you’ll cut down on your  dictionary time.

 

Here’s a very common peh yod verb, for births.  The qal (simple) binyan form means to give birth to, although the past tense can also mean to sire.  The present tense and past tenses are normal so I’ll leave those out.

 

Future/aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֵלֵד	נֵלֵד	First
תֵּלֵד	תֵּלְדוּ	Second/masculine
תֵּלְדִי	תֵּלַדְנָה	Second/feminine
יֵלֵד	יֵלְדוּ	Third/masculine
תֵּלֵד	תֵּלַדְנָה	Third/feminine

 

So right away you see that the alef has to be the prefix, and since there’s no vav cholem, you suspect that it’s not a peh alef verb. 

 

eHere’s a fairly common peh nun verb in the future.  It means “to fall.”  Look at the difference.

 

Future/aorist

Singular	Plural	Person/gender
אֶפּוֹל	נִיפּוֹל	First
תִּיפּוֹל	תִּיפְּלוּ	Second/masculine
תִּיפְּלִי	תִּיפּוֹלְנָה	Second/feminine
יִיפּוֹל	תִּיפְּלוּ	Third/masculine
תִּיפּוֹל	תִּיפוֹלְנָה	Third/feminine

 

That vav cholem in the first person, and the yod after the prefix in the others, is the dead giveaway of a peh nun verb. 

 

And what if they aren’t there and it’s written chaser?  Your choices are these.

 

First, peh yod and peh nun are a small subset of all of the Hebrew verbs, but some of them are very high frequency.  Examples are yod dalet ayin, “to know,” and nun tav nun, “to give.”  You ought to memorize those and that, as I said, will cut down on your dictionary time.

 

Second, if you didn’t memorize it, look under yod in the dictionary first, and then under nun.  That will slow you down the least.

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights  Reserved