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Root ע־ל־ה: going up

Roots Atlas 10 · שֹׁרֶשׁ ע ל ה · the ascending root
ע ל ה
' · l · h
everything to do with going up
11 words · 1 root · 2 verb-voices

Three consonants carry one direction: up. Pour them into a verb mould and you rise or you lift; pour them into a noun mould and you get the ascent, the staircase, the leaf reaching for light, the lift that carries you up. The same letters even mean "to cost" (the price goes up) and "excellent" (a cut above). And one of these words may be the one you are living: עֲלִיָּה, aliyah, the going-up to Israel. None of the words below are memorized separately. They are the same three letters pointing the same way. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.

The verb across the binyanim (voices)

The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.

Pa'al
לַעֲלוֹתla'alot
simple active, the plain action
to go up, to rise, to ascend; to immigrate to Israel; to cost
Hif'il
לְהַעֲלוֹתleha'alot
causative, make someone do it
to raise, to lift, to bring up (cause to rise); to upload a file

This is a ל"ה (final-heh) root, so the infinitives end in -ot rather than the textbook -o. The whole family turns on one contrast: pa'al לַעֲלוֹת is intransitive (I go up), while the causative hif'il לְהַעֲלוֹת makes something else go up (I raise it, I upload it). The passive partners nif'al, pu'al and huf'al exist in the system but are not the everyday lexicalized forms for this root.

Words born from the root

Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.

① The act of rising: the upward motion itself

עֲלִיָּה
aliya
ascent, rise; immigration to Israel (aliyah)
קְטִילָה
מַעֲלָה
ma'ala
degree (temperature, geometry); step, stage; advantage, virtue
מַקְטָלָה

② The thing that goes up: concrete objects

עָלֶה
ale
leaf (what climbs toward the light)
קָטֶל
מַעֲלִית
ma'alit
elevator, lift
מַקְטִילָה
תְּעָלָה
te'ala
channel, canal, ditch (the water rises and runs)
תְּקָלָה

③ The direction: pointing up

מַעְלָה
ma'la
upwards, above
לְמַעְלָה
lema'la
upwards, up (with the directional לְ-)

④ The abstract: high up in quality or price

מְעֻלֶּה
me'ule
excellent, superb (raised above the rest)
מְקֻטָּל
עֲלוּת
alut
cost, expense (what the price rises to)
קְטוּל

Decode it yourself

Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.