Parts of Speech

From Roots to Language

Over the past seven lessons, you have built a real foundation. You know the twenty-two consonants. You understand the vowel system that brings them to life. You have met the dagesh and its effect on pronunciation. You have explored where and how sounds are physically produced. And in our last lesson, you discovered the root system — the three-consonant core from which Hebrew builds entire families of words.

Now comes the natural next question: what do those roots actually become? When a Hebrew speaker opens their mouth to form a sentence, how do roots turn into the nouns, verbs, and connecting words that carry meaning from one person to another?

Many readers are already comfortable with these grammatical terms in English. Many are not — and that is perfectly fine. Grammar was not everyone’s favorite subject in school, and Hebrew grammar introduces a few concepts that English simply does not have. So before we dive in, let us start with a quick reference chart that explains what each part of speech actually is, in plain language.

With that map in hand, let us look at how Hebrew handles each of these differently from English.

Hebrew vs. English: A Different Logic

English sentences normally follow a pattern you learned so early that you probably never think about it: Subject - Verb - Object. “Abraham built an altar.” The person comes first, then what they did, then what they did it to.

Hebrew flips this. The default word order in Biblical Hebrew is Verb - Subject - Object. The same sentence in Hebrew would read, roughly, “Built Abraham an altar.” The action comes first. The actor follows.

This is not just a quirk of grammar. It reflects something about how Hebrew thinks. In English, we foreground the person — who is doing this? In Hebrew, the action leads. What is happening? The verb is the engine of the Hebrew sentence, and everything else arranges itself around that engine.

There is another difference that runs even deeper. In English, verbs are relatively simple containers: you conjugate for tense (walk, walked, will walk) and sometimes for person (I walk, she walks). But the verb itself does not tell you much beyond the basic action and when it happened.

Hebrew verbs carry far more information inside themselves. A single Hebrew verb form can tell you who is doing the action (first person, second person, third person), what gender they are (masculine or feminine), how many of them there are (singular or plural), and what kind of action it is (simple, intensive, causative). English needs a whole clause to say what Hebrew packs into one word.

Let us look at each part of speech in turn.

Nouns (שֵׁמוֹת, Shemot)

Hebrew nouns are formed from roots — you already know how this works from Lesson 6. The root ק-ד-שׁ (Q-D-Sh, “holy”) produces the noun קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holiness”). The root מ-ל-כ (M-L-K, “king”) produces מֶלֶךְ (melekh, “king”) and מַלְכוּת (malkhut, “kingdom”). Vowel patterns and prefixes shape which kind of noun emerges from a given root.

What makes Hebrew nouns distinctive is that they carry gender and number as built-in features.

Gender

Every Hebrew noun is either masculine or feminine. There is no neuter. Most feminine nouns end in ה ָ (-ah) or ת (-t), which gives you a helpful clue:

• מֶלֶךְ (melekh) — king (masculine)
• מַלְכָּה (malkah) — queen (feminine, note the -ah ending)
• תּוֹרָה (torah) — instruction, law (feminine)

Gender matters because adjectives and verbs must agree with the noun they describe or act upon. If the noun is feminine, the adjective must take a feminine form. If the noun is plural, the adjective must be plural. This agreement system runs through every Hebrew sentence.

Number

Hebrew has three numbers: singular, plural, and — unusually — dual. The dual form is used for things that naturally come in pairs:

• יָד (yad) — hand (singular)
• יָדַיִם (yadayim) — two hands (dual)
• יָדוֹת (yadot) — hands in general (plural, used for more than two or in abstract senses)

Masculine plurals typically end in ים- (-im): מְלָכִים (melakhim, “kings”). Feminine plurals typically end in וֹת- (-ot): מַלְכוֹת (malkhot, “queens”). These endings become easy to recognize with a little practice.

The Construct State (סְמִיכוּת, Smikhut)

One of the most elegant features of Hebrew is how it expresses “X of Y” relationships. English uses the word “of”: “the word of God,” “the house of bread.” Hebrew simply places the two nouns next to each other in what is called the construct state. The first noun shortens its form slightly, and the two words become a single unit of meaning.

The most beautiful example may be one you already know:

בֵּית לֶחֶם (Beit Lechem) — Bethlehem

This is two nouns in construct: בַּיִת (bayit, “house”) shortened to בֵּית (beit), followed by לֶחֶם (lechem, “bread”). House of Bread. Bethlehem. The birthplace of Jesus is, in Hebrew, the House of Bread — and Jesus would later call himself the Bread of Life (John 6:35). The root-level wordplay runs across testaments.

Other construct phrases you may recognize:

• בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (benei Yisra’el) — children of Israel (literally “sons of Israel”)
• דְּבַר יְהוָה (devar YHWH) — the word of the Lord
• אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל (erets Yisra’el) — the land of Israel

Verbs (פְּעָלִים, Pe’alim)

If nouns are the skeleton of a Hebrew sentence, verbs are its beating heart. The Hebrew verb system is extraordinarily powerful — and extraordinarily different from English.

Here is the key idea: Hebrew verbs are built from roots (you knew that), but they are also built through stems called בִּנְיָנִים (binyanim, literally “buildings”). There are seven major stems, and each one takes the same root and changes the type of action. One stem makes the action simple. Another makes it intensive. Another makes it causative (causing someone else to do the action). Another makes it passive.

We will devote many future lessons to the binyanim — they deserve that much attention. For now, what matters is this: a Hebrew verb tells you far more than an English verb does.

Let us take the root כ-ת-ב (K-T-V), which means “write,” and see how it changes:

• כָּתַב (katav) — he wrote (third person, masculine, singular, past)
• כָּתְבָה (katevah) — she wrote (third person, feminine, singular, past)
• כָּתַבְתָּ (katavta) — you wrote (second person, masculine, singular, past)
• כָּתַבְתִּי (katavti) — I wrote (first person, singular, past)
• יִכְתֹּב (yikhtov) — he will write (third person, masculine, singular, future)
• כּוֹתֵב (kotev) — writing / one who writes (active participle)

Notice what is happening. The root consonants K-T-V remain constant. But the vowels and the endings shift to encode person, gender, number, and tense — all in a single word. Where English says “she wrote,” Hebrew says katevah and the “she” is built right into the verb form. Where English says “I will write,” Hebrew has a single word with a prefix and vowel pattern that conveys the same information.

This is why Hebrew can say so much in so few words. And it is why the Old Testament in Hebrew is considerably shorter than most English translations.

Adjectives, Prepositions, and Particles

Adjectives

Hebrew adjectives work much like English adjectives — they describe nouns — but with one important rule: adjectives follow the noun they describe and must agree in gender and number.

• מֶלֶךְ גָּדוֹל (melekh gadol) — a great king (masculine singular)
• מַלְכָּה גְּדוֹלָה (malkah gedolah) — a great queen (feminine singular)
• מְלָכִים גְּדוֹלִים (melakhim gedolim) — great kings (masculine plural)

In English, the adjective “great” never changes form. In Hebrew, גָּדוֹל becomes גְּדוֹלָה, then גְּדוֹלִים, matching the noun it describes. This agreement system is one of the things that makes Hebrew feel so tightly woven.

The Definite Article (הַ, Ha-)

Hebrew has no word for “a” or “an.” A noun standing alone is automatically indefinite. To make it definite (“the”), Hebrew attaches the prefix הַ (ha-) directly to the noun:

• מֶלֶךְ (melekh) — a king
• הַמֶּלֶךְ (hammelekh) — the king

When an adjective describes a definite noun, the adjective also takes הַ:

• הַמֶּלֶךְ הַגָּדוֹל (hammelekh haggadol) — the great king

Common Prepositions

Three of the most common Hebrew prepositions are single letters that attach directly to the word that follows:

• בְּ (be-) — in, with, by
• לְ (le-) — to, for
• מִן (min-) — from (often shortened to מִ or מֵ)

You have already seen these at work if you have been reading Hebrew words in previous lessons. They are tiny but constant, appearing in nearly every verse of the Bible.

The Vav — Hebrew’s Swiss Army Knife

No part of speech in Hebrew is more versatile — or more fascinating — than the letter וָו (vav). This single letter does at least three completely different jobs.

Vav as “And” (וְ, Ve-)

In its simplest role, vav serves as the conjunction “and.” It attaches as a prefix to whatever word follows:

• שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ (shamayim va’arets) — heaven and earth

This is the most common word in the entire Hebrew Bible. The vav conjunction appears tens of thousands of times. Hebrew narrative strings clauses together with “and… and… and…” in a way that feels relentless in English but creates a rolling, rhythmic momentum in Hebrew.

Vav as a Vowel Marker

As you learned in earlier lessons, vav can also serve as a vowel letter (mater lectionis), representing the sounds “o” or “u” within a word. In this role, it is not a conjunction at all — it is part of the word’s pronunciation.

The Vav Consecutive (וַיְּ / וְ)

Here is where things get remarkable. In Biblical Hebrew narrative, a vav attached to a verb can actually reverse the verb’s tense. This is called the vav consecutive (or vav conversive), and it is one of the most distinctive features of Biblical Hebrew.

When vav is attached to an imperfect (future-tense) verb, it flips it into a past-tense narrative form. This is how the Bible tells stories:

וַיֹּאמֶר (vayyomer) — “and he said” (literally: vav + “he will say,” but the vav flips it to past narrative)

Open Genesis to almost any chapter and you will see this pattern on nearly every line. “And God said… and there was… and God saw… and God called…” That chain of vayyomer… vayehi… vayyar… vayyiqra is the vav consecutive at work, driving the narrative forward one action at a time.

This is uniquely Hebrew. No other biblical language does this. It creates a storytelling style that feels like one continuous, unfolding action — each event flowing into the next, connected by that small but mighty letter.

If the phrase “and it came to pass” just crossed your mind, you are exactly right. That familiar refrain from the Book of Mormon — wayehi (וַיְהִי) — is the vav consecutive in action. It is a Hebraism: a distinctly Hebrew grammatical structure preserved in the English translation. Critics once mocked the Book of Mormon for using “and it came to pass” so frequently, but anyone who reads the Hebrew Bible recognizes it immediately. It is how Hebrew tells stories. Its presence in the Book of Mormon is not awkward — it is authentic.

Putting It Together: Genesis 1:1

We have covered a great deal of ground across seven lessons. Let us bring it all together by looking at the most famous verse in the Bible — word by word.

בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ

Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” — or so the familiar translation reads. But look carefully at the Hebrew.

Let us parse each element:

In seven words, Genesis 1:1 uses nearly every concept we have studied: a preposition (be-), a noun formed from a root (reshit), a verb in the default Hebrew position (before its subject), a noun with a plural form (Elohim), the definite article (ha-), a direct object marker (et), and the conjunction vav (ve-). Everything from Lessons 1 through 8 converges in a single verse.

Seven words. That number is not accidental. The creation account unfolds over seven days — six days of creative work and a seventh day of rest and completion. In Hebrew thought, the number seven (שֶׁבַע, sheva) is the number of completeness, wholeness, and covenant. The Hebrew word for oath — שְׁבוּעָה (shevu’ah) — comes from the same root. To swear a covenant is literally “to seven oneself.” The very structure of the Bible’s opening sentence mirrors the structure of creation itself: seven units forming a complete whole, each one essential, nothing wasted, nothing missing.

This is the Bible’s opening line — a masterpiece of Hebrew economy. Shalom in literary form.

What Comes Next

You now have a bird’s-eye view of how Hebrew organizes its words and sentences. You know that verbs lead, that nouns carry gender and number, that adjectives agree with what they describe, that tiny prepositions attach directly to their objects, and that the letter vav holds the entire narrative together.

That is a lot of ground to cover in one lesson — and remember, this was a roadmap, not a final exam. In the lessons ahead, we will slow down and walk through each of these topics step by step:

• Nouns — gender, number, and how to recognize masculine and feminine forms
• The definite article — how הַ works and what changes when it attaches
• Construct chains — the “of” relationship that Hebrew builds without a word for “of”
• Pronouns and suffixes — how “his,” “her,” and “my” attach directly to words
• Adjectives — agreement, placement, and how Hebrew describes
• Verbs — tense, person, gender, and number packed into a single word
• The binyanim — the seven verb stems that are the engine room of Hebrew, where the language truly reveals its genius

Each of these deserves — and will receive — dedicated attention. Some will be covered in a single lesson; others, like verbs and the binyanim, will span multiple lessons as we build understanding layer by layer. There is no rush. For now, you have the map. You know the territory. And you have already seen every one of these concepts at work in Genesis 1:1.

The roots are planted. The branches are growing. We will take them one at a time.