Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar

However, the sets of binyanim within these groupings do tend to berelated in meaning:1 NIF’AL is often the passive of PA’AL, e.g.Wordpatterns:binyanimandmishkalim steal ~ rinse ~ 2 HUF’AL is the passive of HIF’IL, e.g. explain ~ step up ~ 3 PU’AL is the passive of PI’EL, e.g. hand out ~ share ~ be stolen be rinsed be explained be stepped up be handed out be shared4 For a PA’AL (or NIF’AL) verb denoting ‘something happens’, there isoften a HIF’IL denoting ‘cause something to happen’, e.g. grow ~ be careful ~ magnify warnAnd for an adjective, there is similarly often a HIF’IL denoting ‘causesomething to be . . .’, e.g. low ~ to lower broad ~ to broaden5 For PI’EL verbs denoting ‘doing something to something’, there isoften an intransitive HITPA’EL denoting ‘happening by itself’, e.g. ~ I cooked pudding ~ the pudding cooked43