Next, a screwy thing about hitpael. The spelling can change if certain letters
are at the start of the root.
Hebrew can’t stand to put certain
sounds together in a certain order. So
it can be hard to identify the root of a verb that you are pretty sure is in
the hitpael. If the second letter
of the entire verb is shin, sin, tsade or zayin, and the third
letter is tav, tav, tet, or dalet, you are looking at a
verb in hitpael and the root is peh shin, peh sin, peh
tsade, or peh zayin.
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Zamen, “invite” will be hizdamen,
|
הזדמן
|
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Tsar, “trouble” will be hitstaer,
meaning “regret” and the t sound will be supplied by a tet
|
הצטער
|
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Shamer, “guard” will be hishtamer
|
השתמר
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Now,
if there are certain sounds Hebrew insists on changing, what about dalet,
tet and tav?
No
worries. There is always a shva under
the tav of the hitpael and in this case it will be a slightly
audible shva. Hebrew can tolerate
a dalet after a tav so it doesn’t change the order.
As
for the tav-tet and tav-tav combination, if you are looking at a
text with vowels, you will find a dagesh in the tet or tav
and then the other two root letters.
There’s one in Leviticus 14:4, mittaher, to become tahor.
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