# לשחרר



## Ali Smith

שלום!

I know the root letters of le-shakharer are ח ר ר (it's obviously cognate with the Arabic ح ر ر). What is the purpose of the ש in the beginning? What stem is this?

Thank you!


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## Drink

A little background: In some older Semitic languages, including Akkadian, the causative stem (what in Hebrew is the "hif'il" and in Arabic is the form IV أفعل) was characterized by the "sh-" prefix rather than the Hebrew "ה" or Arabic "أ".

This form of creating the causative meaning was then borrowed by Aramaic speakers to create the "shaf'el" binyan in Aramaic. Then Hebrew borrowed this concept from Aramaic, but patterned them as 4-letter pi'el verbs rather than equating them with the hif'il. So essentially the addition of the ש root letter creates a four-letter root with a causative meaning.

Some examples:
- שחרר to free
- שעבד to enslave
- שחזר to return
- שכנע to persuade


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## Ali Smith

Thank you so much, Drink! What about לשדרג, which my dictionary translates as "monter en grade (to promote)"?


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## Drink

Yep, that's also one.


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## Ali Smith

Thanks! It's derived from דרג dereg (échelon = rung), I think. It makes sense because when you promote someone, you move him or her up a rung.
We should make a list of such verbs.


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## Drink

Yes, exactly.

Probably most 4-letter roots that start with ש are examples of this (except for "reduplicative" ones like שעשע or שלשל).


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## Abaye

> בעברית החדשה חזרו להשתמש בבניין שפעל, לפעמים כחלופה לבניין הפעיל (שכנע, שכפל) ולפעמים כתחליף לקידומת הלועזית re- (שעתק, שכתב, שחזר). יש מחלוקת אם אפשר לקרוא ל"שפעל" בניין בעברית הישראלית, או שמדובר בשורש של ארבעה עיצורים השייך לבניין פיעל.


בניינים בעברית – ויקיפדיה


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## Ali Smith

Thanks! Why does the past tense of שִׁחְרֵר have a חיריק in the first syllable? I thought the rule was that a חיריק in a closed syllable ending in a guttural always changes to a סגול.

מַמְזֵר שֶׁנָּשָׂא שִׁפְחָה, הַוָּלָד עָבֶד; שִׁחְרְרוֹ, נִמְצָא הַבֵּן בֶּן חוֹרִין.
(משנה, מסכת קידושין – פרק ג, משנה יג)


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## Drink

Clearly not always.


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## Abaye

Ali Smith said:


> Thanks! Why does the past tense of שִׁחְרֵר have a חיריק in the first syllable? I thought the rule was that a חיריק in a closed syllable ending in a guttural always changes to a סגול.


This is how 4-letter roots work (or binyan-triplets of שפעל/מפעל/תפעל, if you prefer these names), from biblical Hebrew till modern. E.g. שִׁחְזוּר, תִּחְכּוּם, מִחְזוּר.

ADDED: I cannot think of a 4-letter root whose second letter is ח that doesn't belong to the שפעל/מפעל/תפעל type, either old or new, so don't know how such one would sound. CORRECTION: see צִחְצוּחַ, כִּחְכּוּחַ etc., but is there such root which is neither שפעל/מפעל/תפעל nor 2-letter duplication? This may tell us what the "genuine" sound is.

ADDED2: by "binyan-triplet" I mean pi`el - pu`al - hitpa`el, referring to the claim that שפעל etc. are class-a binyans and not merely 3-letter roots prepended by ש (also מ/ת is modern Hebrew). This is off-topic yet a short explanation seemed necessary.


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