Well, seeing as no one knows how to get Hebrew encoding to work...
I have a few other little comments to make about Hebrew's triconsonantal system.
Alongside the seven major binyanim discussed earlier (roughly corresponding to active, intensive, causative, reflexive, passive, passive of intensive, and passive of causative) and the "new major binyan" hitpu`al (the passive of reflexive), there are also a dozen-odd "minor binyanim", which only contain a few verbs apiece. Some of them seem very interesting, though, in my opinion.
There is a sizeable collection of so-called "minor binyanim",
which only contain a small set of roots. Many of these are
retentions of older binyanim that are no longer productive,
while some are innovations (like hitpu`al) and others are
dialectical, like nitpa`el. Several of these binyanim are
classified as a variant of a major binyan, while others are
simple considered meyuchad "special".
These minor binyanim include:
* Po`el
* Hitpo`el
* Po`al
* Pi`lel
* Pu`lal
* Pe`al`al
* Pilpel
* Polpal
* Hitpalpel
* Tif`el
* Tuf`al
* Shif`el
* Hishtaf`el
* Pa`el
* Pu`le`
* Nitpa`el
* Hitpu`al
* Myuchedim
Note that some of these take the place of other binyanim. For example, Pa`el is essentially a "replacement" for pa`al (in that no verb with a pa`el form has a pa`al form), but is distinct in that it has distinct rules for what it actually means. The definitions of pa`al and pa`el are quite distinct.
Po`el is a marker of "malicious intent". Note verbs like
meloshen "to slander" (from L-SH-N "tongue") or
me`oyen "to give the evil eye" (from `-Y-N "eye").
Hitpo`el is its reflexive form, and Po`al is its passive form.
Pi`lel (with a doubling of the final consonant) marks an accidental or temporary condition:
ri`nen "refresh",
`imlel "sadden".
Pu`lal is its passive form.
Pe`al`al (formed by redoubling the final two consonants) marks several actions done in rapid succession. It likely came from a verb actually being repeated, and then fusing into one:
secharchar "palpitate" (from S-CH-R "run about"),
chatzotzar "blow a trumpet" (from CH-TZ-R "trumpet" - the first /r/ was lost, but left its mark by changing the previous /a/ to /o/). Other places instead prefer to classify these as five-consonant roots (ie, S-CH-R-CH-R or CH-TZ-R-TZ-R).
Pilpel is formed by doubling a biconsonantal root (or is a distinct quadraconsonantal root - your choice). It also represents repeated actions, and often is based in onomatopoeia:
metzaltzel "ring",
metziftzef "chirp",
mevalbel "confuse, scramble".
Polpal is its passive, and Hitpalpel is its reflexive.
Tif`el is an ancient binyan, one which one was functional but nowadays has all but disappeared. I'm not 100% sure of what its function is, but I think it may have something to do with increasing valency:
tirgel "teach to walk, lead" ( < R-G-L "foot"),
tichareh "contend with" ( < CH-R-H "be hot").
Shif`el, also an ancient binyan, was likely the predecessor of modern-day hif`il (the causative), as the original /S/ weakened to /h/. A very small set of verbs retained the /S/ for some reason, however:
shilhev "inflame, impassion" ( < L-H-B "blaze")
Hishtaf`el is its reflexive form. Or causative. Or something. It's related to shif`el, though.
Pa`el marks a stative verb:
yashen "sleep",
gadel "grow",
rochev "ride" (Rochev is an iffy one - it's like pa`el in all forms but the present). This is actually a relatively large minor binyan, containing many dozens of roots.
Pu`le` (formed by taking the medial consonant to the end) is a very rare passive binyan. I'm not sure of its exact function.
chushfesh "be peeled off" ( < CH-SH-P "peel, scale").
Nitpa`el is a dialectical form. Where Israeli Hebrew uses hitpu`al to form the passive of reflexive (formed by combining the reflexive pattern hitpa`el with the vowels of the passive pu`al), Mishnaic Hebrew accomplished the same by merging together the passive binyan nif`al with the reflexive hitpa`el.
And finally the myuchedim", a special class of verbs that technically don't belong into any binyan at all, but are typically listed as pa`al because there's no better place to put them. These include
yachol "be able to",
tzarich "need",
muchrach "must", as well as a few non-grammatical roots.
Nagish "approach" is also a meyuchad verb, because if you look at its conjugation, it's both an active and a passive verb at the same time. Don't ask me how that works. I don't get it either, but it's true