# נשבר, שבר, שיבר, שובר



## evilwarlock

I'm trying to discover what the differences between verb types are, and I'm using נשבר, שבר, שיבר, שובר as examples. I know נשבר and שובר are each intransitive (meaning he was broken?), while שיבר and שבר are transitive(meaning he broke something?). If I could get some clarification, elaboration and information about errors I've already made (if any) that would answer my question.


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## amikama

I'm a bit confused. "Transitive" means the verb can take a direct object, "intransitive" means it can't. Is it what you meant?
The distinction between "broke" and "was broken" is what is called "active voice" and "passive voice".


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## evilwarlock

I understand that part. My confusion is the difference in meaning between שיבר and שבר and also between נשבר and שובר.


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## bazq

שבר - שיבר   /shavar/ is the active voice (as in "he broke the vase"), and /shiber/ is the intensive voice (relevant to some roots, but nowadays it's mostly active voice as well) as in "He shattered the vase". break-shatter = shavar-shiber.

שובר - נשבר  /shover/ is again the active voice, it's the present tense form of shavar. /nishbar/ is the passive voice, as in "the vase was broken/got broken/broke" (though these three forms are distinguished in English they are all covered by /nishbar/ in Hebrew).


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## evilwarlock

Okay, that clears it up for me, although with שובר I was referring to: 

שֻׁבַּר • ‎(shubár) ‎(_pu'al construction_)

(intransitive) (He/it) shattered, was shattered (broken violently),
which I now understand also has a slightly different meaning than שיבר. Is שֻׁבַּר always spelled this way, or can it also be spelled שובר.


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## amikama

evilwarlock said:


> Is שֻׁבַּר always spelled this way, or can it also be spelled שובר.


With nikkud it's spelled שֻׁבַּר, without nikkud - שובר.


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## evilwarlock

Okay


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## hadronic

שובר shubar is the passive of שיבר shiber. 
But keep in mind that it's the very rare form, that's why everybody read "shover" in its stead (present form of שבר shavar), which is much more common.


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## evilwarlock

I'll keep in mind the rarity of the use of that verb. Can I expect that for all pu'al verbs, or is it hit and miss?


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## Drink

I think most pu'al verbs are relatively rare. Often the participle form of pu'al (mefu'al) is much more common than the verb itself and searching around online does show that משובר (meshubar) has a good amount of use.


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## hadronic

Pure verbal passive is generally rare. People usually resort to "generic third person plural" for the same meaning.
לב העיר שופץ --> שיפצו את לב העיר.


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## amikama

Drink said:


> searching around online does show that משובר (meshubar) has a good amount of use.


Note that משובר has other meanings (e.g. mi-shover).
משובר = meshubar is extremely rare.


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## Drink

amikama said:


> Note that משובר has other meanings (e.g. mi-shover).
> משובר = meshubar is extremely rare.



I guess you're right. But that still applies to other words.


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## evilwarlock

I do see a lot of adjectives such as מבושל, which although their not verbs it seems to me they must have been derived from the pu'al verb forms.


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## hadronic

I guess the people in Google are having a lot of fun with Hebrew ....


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## Drink

evilwarlock said:


> I do see a lot of adjectives such as מבושל, which although their not verbs it seems to me they must have been derived from the pu'al verb forms.



That's exactly what I was referring to.


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