Reflexivity: The Cases of the Niphal and Hithpael

The verbal stems in Biblical Hebrew are morphologically distinct and tend to be semantically distinct as well. One stem, the qal, is morphologically and semantically basic. It has no formal augments and expresses “the largest possible array of semantic values.”1 The qal is unmarked in both form and function.2 In contrast, the other stems are derived. Each is identifiable by one or more characteristic affix. Further, “[i]t is well-known that such formal basic-derived relationships typically correlate with similar semantic relationships: The formally derived (or marked) words are generally also semantically derived in that they have some additional meaning element that is lacking in the formally basic (or unmarked) word.”3 Apart from any irregular semantic change inherent in the derivational