Verbs

A verb word can be conjugated by adding prefixes to the beginning, by adding suffixes to the end, or by altering the vowels in its middle, according to various factors. English also makes extensive use of auxiliary verbs such as have, am, will, could, should, might, etc. which unlike a regular verb don't describe an action in their own right, but instead serve to introduce the main verb of the sentence and add an additional factor to it such as a particular aspect or a particular mood. The factors that we conjugate a verb for or add an auxiliary verb for are:

1. Aspect
2. Tense (past, present or future)
3. Number (singular, dual or plural)
4. Person (1st, 2nd or 3rd)
5. Gender of the person or people performing the action
6. Mood (statement of fact, conditional, hypothetical, commanding, etc.)
7. Voice (active or passive)
8. Forms (also known as derived stems or binyanim, 10 common ones in Arabic, 7 in Hebrew, plus some rare ones)

Additionally, some verbs are inherently strong verbs and some are weak verbs, and the conjugation rules for strong verbs are entirely different to the rules for weak verbs. In English, a strong verb like run has an irregular past tense form, ran, rather than runed or runned. Weak verbs take an -ed ending but strong verbs have their vowels altered instead. This is directly tied to the historical development of the language. The behaviour of the strong verbs as well as the verbs themselves are derived from oldest ancestor language, Proto-Indo-European (PIE). Adding a dental (d or t) type of suffix to the weak verbs, which were developed later, such as the -ed suffix in English and other suffixes such as -te in German, this idea was an innovation that started in Proto-Germanic. Arabic and Hebrew also classify verbs into strong verbs and weak verbs (also known as hollow roots) with different conjugation patterns, but the reasons for classifying them as such are different. In English most verbs are weak, but in Arabic and Hebrew most verbs are strong verbs.

Aspect and tense are closely related. Tense gives us a single point or a direction in time when the action occurs relative to some fixed reference point (typically "now").

Algorithm for Conjugating a Verb

1. Tense / Aspect	Person	Gender	Number	Add to the Front
   				Arabic	Hebrew
   Past Perfect	⟹			Nothing
   Present or Future Imperfect ◌َ / ◌ְ	1st	⟹	Non-Plural (singular)	أَ ʼa	אֲ ʼa
   			Plural	نَـ na	נְ nĕ
   	2nd	⟹		تَـ ta	תְּ tĕ
   	3rd	Feminine תְּ	Non-Plural (singular or dual)
   			Plural	يَـ ya
   		Masculine יְ / يَـ	⟹		יְ yĕ

   • There are no verb conjugations specifically for 1st person dual.
   • Hebrew doesn't have dual number verbs (use the plural form instead).
   • Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic from the same period and later redefines the perfect aspect patterns as past tense and the imperfect patterns as future tense and also adds a third set of patterns for the present tense.

2. Tense / Aspect	Person	Number	Gender	Add To / Modify the Ending
   				Arabic	Hebrew
   Present or Future Imperfect	1st	⟹		◌ُ u	Nothing
   	⟹	Singular	⟹
   	2nd (exception) ن	Singular	Feminine	يْنَ◌ِ ina	י③ִ②ְ ĕCi
   	2nd or 3rd ن	Dual نِ	⟹	اْنِ◌َ ani	N/A
   		Plural نَ	Masculine	وْنَ◌ُ una	וּ③②ְ ĕCu
   			Feminine	نَ na	נָה‎ na

3. Tense	Add to the Front
   Past or Present	Nothing
   Future	‏سَـ sa (near future) سَوْفَ‎ sawfa (separate word, more distant future)

1. As in, "I walk", or, "She walks", versus the continuous or progressive, "I am walking", "She is walking".