This step contains all the paradigms you will need to memorize for the participle and perfect forms as they pertain to stems.
Participles in the seven stems
You will recall from Lesson 4 that a participle is a verb at its base. For this reason, participles can appear in all seven stems. Here is what masculine singular participles look like in the seven stems, using different commonly used words for each stem. (Note: The qal participle endings you already learned for feminine and plural forms [וֹת ,–ים ,–ת–] remain the same for all stems.)
ms participles
active & passive
| qal / niphal |
יוֹשֵׁב |
נִשְׁאָר |
sitting / remaining |
| qal passive |
|
כָּתוּב |
written |
| piel / pual |
מְבַקֵּשׁ |
מְבֹרָךְ |
requesting / blessed |
| hiphil / hophal |
מֵבִיא |
מֻשְׁלָךְ |
bringing / thrown |
| hithpael |
מִתְהַלֵּךְ |
|
walking about |
Note two things. First, the extra “qal passive” line doesn’t fit within the idea of seven stems. As you learned in Lesson 4, this is an exceptional form unique to participles. Second, you should notice that all participles outside the qal and niphal include a מ prefix. This is also something unique to participles. Hence, when you find a מ attached to the front of a verb, you are very likely dealing with a participle.
Participles in the songs we've learned
You will recall that מָצָא is a verb meaning “find.” The niphal of this verb, then, would give the passive sense—“be found.” What would that mean as a participle? One might say, “being found,” but simpler English would render it “present.”
נִמְצָא מְאֹד — “very present”
Perfect form in the seven stems
Now let’s examine examples of the seven stems in the perfect form. Once again, we have utilized commonly used words—this time, choosing the same root for each active-passive pair to make it easy to compare.
3ms perfect form
active & passive
| qal / niphal |
מָצָא |
נִמְצָא |
he found / was found |
| piel / pual |
כִּפֵּר |
כֻּפַּר |
he atoned / was atoned for |
| hiphil / hophal |
הֵבִיא |
הוּבָא |
he brought / was brought |
| hithpael |
הִתְהַלֶּךְ |
|
he walked about |
In the next few steps, we’re going to look at the perfect form for each stem in more detail, noting both how they function and what they look like. But there will be no more paradigms for you to memorize as the information above will prove to be enough to identify and parse most perfect form verbs—no matter the stem. The paradigms on the steps to come are presented simply to familiarize you with how the forms are fleshed out, and to serve as a reference.
Form ambiguity
Those with a keen eye will notice that the niphal participle ms form is exactly the same as the niphal perfect 3ms. The same actually goes for hollow verbs in the qal stem (eg. “בָּא” can be either a perfect or a participle). However, this is only the case for the masculine singular form. When plural and/or feminine, the ending gives it away whether the word is a perfect or a participle.
In most cases where we find this ambiguity of form, attention to the context will indicate whether the perfect or a participle was intended. For example, the niphal participle in the song above could also be a perfect with respect to its form. However, the presence of the word מְאֹד indicates that a verbal adjective is what the author intended (i.e. “very present” and not “he really was found”).