# Conjugation of & prepositions used following the verb להיאבק‎



## talmid

G'Day !

I would like to enquire how the infinitive 
להיאבק
is conjugated, please

Is- I struggle /am struggling -אני מאביק  (mei-aveik) ??
Is- I have struggled            - היאבקתי
And if I struggle                  *with     a difficulty
Do I struggle     מאביק ב-קושי 
               or         עם
               or         נגד

Finally, is - I will stuggle -אתאביק    
or something else, please ?

Thank you


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## Van Gogh

Hi! 

*I struggle / am struggling*: אני נאבק, pronounced: ne-evak *OR* אני מתאבק, pronounced: mit-avek.
*I have struggled*: נאבקתי, pronounced: ne-evakti, *OR* התאבקתי pronounced: hit-avakti.
*I struggle *with     a difficulty*: נאבקתי/התאבקתי בקושי
*עם* and *נגד* are both right, they serve the same purpose as they do in English: Struggle with (נאבק/התאבק עם), and: Struggle against (נאבק/התאבק נגד).

the differnces (between נאבקתי and התאבקתי), derived from the different  conjugation. *מתאבק*: conjugation *התפעל*, and *נאבק*: conjugation *נפעל*.
the two conjugation meanings are quite similar, i think it's mostly because they're both passive, and both express mutual interaction.


notice that *מתאבק *can also be used as noun (struggler).

I hope it helped.


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## Tamar

I think there's a difference in meaning in daily speech;
נאבק - the nif'al conjugation - would be _struggling, _but מתאבק (hitpa'el) would be _wrestling _(and the noun מתאבק would be _wrestler_).


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## origumi

Van Gogh said:


> *I struggle / am struggling*: אני נאבק, pronounced: ne-evak *OR* אני מתאבק, pronounced: mit-abek.
> *I have struggled*: נאבקתי, pronounced: ne-evakti, *OR* התאבקתי pronounced: hit-abakti.


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## Van Gogh

Tamar said:


> I think there's a difference in meaning in daily speech;
> נאבק - the nif'al conjugation - would be _struggling, _but מתאבק (hitpa'el) would be _wrestling _(and the noun מתאבק would be _wrestler_).


right.
slipped my mind.

though נאבק could be used for both _struggling _and _wrestling _(...נאבק בזירה מול),
while מתאבק could only be used for _wrestling. _


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## Van Gogh

origumi, shouldn't dagesh in בג"ד כפ"ת appear only when it's the first letter in the word, or after a vowel?


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## amikama

Van Gogh said:


> origumi, shouldn't dagesh in בג"ד כפ"ת appear only when it's the first letter in the word, or after a vowel _shva nah_?


Yes, but the dagesh in מתאבק is not _dagesh kal_ but _dagesh hazak_. Any verb in the binyanim פיעל פועל התפעל has a dagesh hazak in ע' הפועל (unless it's גרונית).


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## hadronic

Van Gogh said:


> origumi, shouldn't dagesh in בג"ד כפ"ת appear only when it's the first letter in the word, or after a vowel?


 
@Van Gogh : are you native speaker of Hebrew ?
Is that a common mistake (-v- for -b-)?

I mean, this part is quite difficult for foreigners (the fact that "v" becomes "b"), unnatural, and must be forcefully thought over before speaking.
I'm surprised to see that's the same thing for natives... :s


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## eshcar

hadronic said:


> @Van Gogh : are you native speaker of Hebrew ?
> Is that a common mistake (-v- for -b-)?
> 
> I mean, this part is quite difficult for foreigners (the fact that "v" becomes "b"), unnatural, and must be forcefully thought over before speaking.
> I'm surprised to see that's the same thing for natives... :s


 
First of all, congratulations on learning hebrew. It's a beautiful language (I think, at least), and it's always a pleasure to have more people speak it.

As for the problem with b and v, p and f, it must be a pain. If it's any consolation, I have the same problem with liaising in french. How the devil do you know when and when not to liaise? It's maddening.

Anyway, as for Van Gogh mistake of mitavek as opposed to mitabek, I think that the reason is that it's not a very common word. Ne'evak and all its conjugations are by far the commoner. Native speakers don't usually think about what Binyan the verb is, they just know what it should sound like. In this case, ne'evak and the like are so predominant, and mitabek is so rare that the v "took over', as it were. At first glance I wasn't sure either, and had to stop and think for a moment ("hmmm, binyan hitpa'el, second root consonant... yep, it's b and not v"), simply beacuse I don't think I've ever actually used the word. What can I say, WWF never really caught on here, I guess 

WTF, a bit off-topic, but don't you just love how hebrew works? That even though Talmid conjugation was wrong, he accidentally stumbled onto another verb - להאביק meaning "to pollinate". I just think that it's great how almost every verb you construct in hebrew has meaning, even if it's not the one you intended.


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## OsehAlyah

Tamar said:


> I think there's a difference in meaning in daily speech;
> נאבק - the nif'al conjugation - would be _struggling, _but מתאבק (hitpa'el) would be _wrestling _(and the noun מתאבק would be _wrestler_).


First of all Hag Sameah to everyone. Happy Purim.  

Now on to my questions.  So both of these binyanim produce an -ing like verb? How would I say:
1. I struggle with it every day.
2. I'm struggling with this.

And since someone brought up the pollinate meaning, how would one say "to turn something into powder"?


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## origumi

1 & 2 are אני נאבק (and depending on the context could be מתאמץ, משתדל or other words).

You cannot transform someone into dust/powder (אבק/אבקה) in one word. while להגדיל means to turn someone/something large(r), להאביק does not mean to turn someone/something into powder. It means to make something full of powder, thus to pollinate. No other alternative is more appropriate.

I don't think that the two meaning of root אבק (struggle and powder) are related - looks like an incident that the same three letters are used.

That's the other side of Hebrew's beauty when employing roots in different binyanim - you cannot always predict what the result would be.


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## hadronic

eshcar said:


> I have the same problem with liaising in french. How the devil do you know when and when not to liaise? It's maddening.


 
As everything else, everything is done by ear.
That's why, I would have thought that Israeli's mouths could not produce forms like "hit'avek" without hurting the ears (unless the "v" comes from a a vav..). 



eshcar said:


> At first glance I wasn't sure either, and had to stop and think for a moment ("hmmm, binyan hitpa'el, second root consonant... yep, it's b and not v")


 
That's weird to see that you too have to retro-engineer Hebrew.
In the other way round, is that a possible mistake that someone for example says "levater -> biter" instead of "levater -> viter" (לוותר ויתר, to renounce) , attracted by other more common verbs like  "levakesh -> bikesh", "levaker -> biker" ?


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## eshcar

hadronic said:


> That's weird to see that you too have to retro-engineer Hebrew.
> In the other way round, is that a possible mistake that someone for example says "levater -> biter" instead of "levater -> viter" (לוותר ויתר, to renounce) , attracted by other more common verbs like "levakesh -> bikesh", "levaker -> biker" ?


 
biter? That's just not a mistake that could ever happen, the Vav completely rules out that possibility, it's far too strong. Saying biter inster of viter would be the same as saying piter or miter of ziter. For us, pronouncing Vav as Bet (Bet, not Vet) is no different than pronouncing it as any other letter - they have no closer connection.

Also, the most common mistakes occur when one word derived from a root has such a powerful standing that it affects all other derivatives of that root. Take for example the root ככב. The predominant word constructed from that word is כוכב, a star. This word is pronounced *k*o*ch*av, exactly according to the rules. From the same root we have the verb לככב, "to star". A very common verb, with no grammatical irregularities about it. You probably already know how it SHOULD be pronounced, which is le*ch*a*k*ev. Well, tough luck for it, beacause in 99.999% of cases, the rules are out the window and it's pronounced le*k*a*ch*ev. This is all כוכב handiwork.

And actually, yes, that mistake does hurt my ears. 


There are a hundred more examples I could give, but the bottom line is that people just talk the way they do. Ask a person on the street what binyan he's using, half the time he wouldn't be able to answer you, but 95% of the time he'd be using it right. That's good enough for most.


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## hadronic

eshcar said:


> biter? That's just not a mistake that could ever happen, the Vav completely rules out that possibility, it's far too strong. Saying biter inster of viter would be the same as saying piter or miter of ziter. For us, pronouncing Vav as Bet (Bet, not Vet) is no different than pronouncing it as any other letter - they have no closer connection.


 
You didn't get my point. I took _viter _randomly as an example, but my point is : the phoneme [v] in Hebrew is an ambiguous phoneme. In fact, it's the realization of 2 differents archiphonemes, namely /b/ and /w/.
So at some point, /b/ ב and /w/ ו do collude and have strong connection, as /b/ can be realized as [v] in some contexts, and /w/ is always realized as [v].

So when one hears a verb like _levaXeZ_ (replace the X and Z by any consonant you want), we have no clue whether the [v] is actually /b/ or /w/, that is, whether the past tense should be _biXeZ_ or _viXeZ._
Moreover, [w] is quite rare as root first consonant, that's why one can think that * could take over.

And, I've just checked right now, לבתר ביתר (to dissect) actually does exist... *


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## aruquon

I don't think that I completely understood the situation regarding the ב in מתאבק, is it b or v? I understand that in academically correct Hebrew it must be b, but how do Israelis normally pronounce it? My instinct is that mitavek is much more common than mitabek, but I'm not certain.

By the way there are definitely many examples where bet and vet are phonemically distinct in Israeli Hebrew in violation of the traditional grammatical rules. The obvious example that comes to mind is להתחבר lehitĥaber meaning to connect, in contrast to להתחבר lehitĥaver meaning to make/become friends.


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## eshcar

hadronic said:


> So when one hears a verb like _levaXeZ_ (replace the X and Z by any consonant you want), we have no clue whether the [v] is actually /b/ or /w/, that is, whether the past tense should be _biXeZ_ or _viXeZ._


 
No doubt, no doubt. If you don't know the root of the verb you don't know whether the past tense is biXeZ or viXeZ.

However, if a person hears a verb like _levaXeZ_ that he doesn't know, he'll be strongly inclined to view it as coming from /w/ and not from /b/.
You know, it's Okahm's razor, it's not a zebra, it's a horse. If you hear a word that you don't know and hear a [v] you won't think to yourself "Ah, must be a leniated bet". Nope, you'll have the simple equation in your head "v = vav". The chances of someone creating a past tense form biXeZ out of an unknown levaXeZ are very slim.


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## hadronic

eshcar said:


> The chances of someone creating a past tense form biXeZ out of an unknown levaXeZ are very slim.


 
Ok... But strange ! That's not what I would have expected.
But what about the case of פ p/f, that is an unambiguous phoneme ? Will someone hearing _lefaXeZ_ always generate past tense forms like _piXeZ _(and not _fiXeZ _)? That is, is that person ok here to break the "sound continuity" ( = if I hear X I want to say X) ?


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## hadronic

aruquon said:


> The obvious example that comes to mind is להתחבר lehitĥaber meaning to connect, in contrast to להתחבר lehitĥaver meaning to make/become friends.


 
Very interesting...
I dare ask : _lehitkhaver _is no-where to be found in dictionaries, isn't it ?

Edit : Morfix mentions it (colloquial), so does Even-Shoshan (meaning n°3, בדיבור בהיגוי ב' רפויה).


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## aruquon

hadronic said:


> But what about the case of פ p/f, that is an unambiguous phoneme ? Will someone hearing _lefaXeZ_ always generate past tense forms like _piXeZ _(and not _fiXeZ _)? That is, is that person ok here to break the "sound continuity" ( = if I hear X I want to say X) ?



No, that is not a rule you can rely on 100% of the time in Israeli Hebrew. For example: לפספס lefasfes ("to miss [a target]"), whose past tense is פיספס fisfes. It is a somewhat low-register word (more likely to be spoken than written) but it is more common than להחטיא with the same meaning, at least in the spoken language. I don't think it makes linguistic sense to say that /p/ and /f/ are allophones in Israeli Hebrew, any more than it makes sense to say that /f/ and /v/ are allophones in English based on pairs like knife/knives.


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## eshcar

hadronic said:


> Ok... But strange ! That's not what I would have expected.
> But what about the case of פ p/f, that is an unambiguous phoneme ? Will someone hearing _lefaXeZ_ always generate past tense forms like _piXeZ _(and not _fiXeZ _)? That is, is that person ok here to break the "sound continuity" ( = if I hear X I want to say X) ?


 
It's not so much a matter of sound continuity as it is a matter of choice - I hear a [v] sound, so I have 2 options. either a consonantal vav or a leniated bet. So in order to create a past tense like biXeZ you have 2 obstacles before you - first, you have to decide that the v comes from leniated bet (which you are less likely to do without context) and secondly, and this is where sound continuity comes into play, if you have decided the first root consonant is bet, you have to resist your inclination towards "if I hear X I want to say X".
And this is a strong inclination, as you can see from examples such as *levaksh - vikashti* and *lefanek - finakti - finukim* (the latter is especially common). 

with lefaXeZ the only obstacle is the cound continuity, because, as you say, it's unambiguous. If your hear lefaXez, you know that it's written like this XXלפ, where as with levaXeZ it can be both XXלו and XXלב.

The rule of [P] and * in the beginning of the word is much stronger than the sound continuity for people who speak proper hebrew, so they are most likely to create the past form piXeZ. People with a lower register of hebrew are more likely to create the form fiXeZ (as shown by the example above).*


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## talmid

030310   0206

Hi !

Most interesting !

Thanks to everyone


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## hadronic

origumi said:


> You cannot transform someone into dust/powder (אבק/אבקה) in one word. while להגדיל means to turn someone/something large(r), להאביק does not mean to turn someone/something into powder. It means to make something full of powder, thus to pollinate. No other alternative is more appropriate.


 
What about אבקק _ivkek _?


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## origumi

hadronic said:


> What about אבקק _ivkek _?


I am not familiar with this word in Modern Hebrew. In the Bible it's a form of root בקק - to destory, empty, remove (e.g. בוקה ומבולקה Nahum 2:11,  הבוק תיבוק הארץ והבוז תיבוז Isaiah 24:4, הנה השם בוקק הארץ ובולקה Isaiah 24:1, הגפן בוקק ישראל Hosea 10:1).

Is בקק a secondary root based on אבק (or vice versa)? I don't know. Are "destroy, empty" of בקק practically the same as "make into dust" of אבק? I don't know.

The root-pair בקק and בלק are lost in Modern Hebrew - what a shame.


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## hadronic

Even-Shoshan (for what it's worth) doesn't make any link between בקק and אבק.
On the contrary, it stems אבקק from אבק. This process of doubling the third consonant to create a quadriliteral root is a very common process in Hebrew ערבב, נשפף ...

In any case, Hebrew dictionaries are very upsetting. Nowhere it's said that those words/root (אבקק, בלק,בקק ...) are lost or are from seldom use in MH. Even-Shoshan just mentions that אבקק is "ח", that is, חדש, but for the rest, go figure....


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## talmid

010410   0430

Hi !

Thanks to everyone for the extremely interesting responses 

Best wishes


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## utopia

In MH you have a seperate set of verbal constructions usually based on the heavy BINYANIM: PI-EL, PU-AL and HITPA-EL.

Instead of having a dagesh as a rule, they lack it usually, and they act in accordance with the original word from which the root was extracted:

אפר - AFAR - ash(es) would thus be in PI-EL: IFER (to remove the ash off a cigarette) and not IPER (which is to apply makeup).

the same is with HAVER (a friend): the same root in HITPA-EL to connect and to make friends, but in colloquial Hebrew it's articulated differently: LEHITHABER - to connect, and LEHITHAVER - to make friends.

The problem is that the ACDEMY doesn't recognise this bi-set of constructions, and they want to apply biblical rules to the language.

Eventually they will have to recognise this. Goldenberg - one of the greatest semitists wrote about it.

There's a disagreement in the academia circles wheather this phenomenon created new BINYANIM.


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