Editing Hebrew language (section)

===Morphology===
Like all Semitic languages, the Hebrew language exhibits a pattern of stems consisting typically of "[[triliteral]]", or 3-consonant [[Triliteral|consonantal roots]], from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways: e.g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, lengthening vowels and/or adding prefixes, suffixes or [[infix]]es. 4-consonant roots also exist and became more frequent in the modern language due to a process of coining verbs from nouns that are themselves constructed from 3-consonant verbs. Some triliteral roots lose one of their consonants in most forms and are called "Nakhim" (Resting).

Hebrew uses a number of [[Prefixes in Hebrew|one-letter prefixes]] that are added to words for various purposes. These are called inseparable prepositions or "Letters of Use" ({{langx|he|אותיות השימוש|Otiyot HaShimush|links=no}}). Such items include: the definite [[article (grammar)|article]] ''ha-'' ({{IPA|/ha/}}) (=&nbsp;"the"); [[preposition]]s ''be-'' ({{IPA|/be/}}) (=&nbsp;"in"), ''le-'' ({{IPA|/le/}}) (=&nbsp;"to"; a shortened version of the preposition ''el''), ''mi-'' ({{IPA|/mi/}}) (=&nbsp;"from"; a shortened version of the preposition ''min''); [[Grammatical conjunction|conjunctions]] ''ve-'' ({{IPA|/ve/}}) (=&nbsp;"and"), ''she-'' ({{IPA|/ʃe/}}) (=&nbsp;"that"; a shortened version of the Biblical conjunction ''asher''), ''ke-'' ({{IPA|/ke/}}) (=&nbsp;"as", "like"; a shortened version of the conjunction ''kmo'').
[[File:עברית handwritten form.jpg|thumb|The Hebrew word for "Hebrew" ({{lang|he|rtl=yes|עברית}}) in its [[Cursive Hebrew|cursive form]]]]
The vowel accompanying each of these letters may differ from those listed above, depending on the first letter or vowel following it. The rules governing these changes are hardly observed in colloquial speech as most speakers tend to employ the regular form. However, they may be heard in more formal circumstances. For example, if a preposition is put before a word that begins with a moving [[Shva]], then the preposition takes the vowel {{IPA|/i/}} (and the initial consonant may be weakened): colloquial ''be-kfar'' (=&nbsp;"in a village") corresponds to the more formal ''bi-khfar''.

The definite article may be inserted between a preposition or a conjunction and the word it refers to, creating composite words like ''mé-ha-kfar'' (=&nbsp;"from the village"). The latter also demonstrates the change in the vowel of ''mi-''. With ''be'', ''le'' and ''ke'', the definite article is assimilated into the prefix, which then becomes ''ba'', ''la'' or ''ka''. Thus *''be-ha-matos'' becomes ''ba-matos'' (=&nbsp;"in the plane"). This does not happen to ''mé'' (the form of "min" or "mi-" used before the letter "he"), therefore ''mé-ha-matos'' is a valid form, which means "from the airplane".

:''* indicates that the given example is grammatically [[standard language|non-standard]]''.