One body gesture sits under this whole family: turning to face something. Turn toward a person and you address them; turn a space empty and you clear it out; the spot where two walls turn is a corner; the moment a story turns is a turning point. Even פָּנִים, the face, is just the side you turn forward. Every word below is the same three letters caught mid-rotation, verified against pealim, niqqud included.
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.
Notice the family logic: pa'al is you turning yourself; pi'el is you turning a place empty; hif'il is you turning someone toward a destination. No nif'al or hitpa'el is lexicalized here, which is normal: a root rarely fills all seven binyanim.
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.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.