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Root י־ש־ן: sleep & age

Roots Atlas 95 · שֹׁרֶשׁ י ש ן · the sleeping / old root
י ש ן
y · sh · n
everything to do with sleeping and growing old
5 words · 1 root · 2 verb-voices

One root, two faces of the same idea: things that sleep and things that have grown old. The link is intuitive once you see it: what sleeps is dormant, and what stays dormant ages. From לִישֹׁן (to sleep) Hebrew grows יָשָׁן (old), נוֹשָׁן (obsolete), and even לְהִתְיַשֵּׁן (to expire, to lapse). None of these are memorized separately. They are the same three letters seen from different angles. 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
לִישֹׁןlishon
simple active, the plain action
to sleep
Hitpa'el
לְהִתְיַשֵּׁןlehityashen
reflexive / reciprocal, to / on oneself
to get old, to wear out; to expire, to lapse

Only two binyanim are lexicalized here. The pa'al carries the plain physical act (to sleep); the hitpa'el carries the gradual, reflexive process of becoming old, which is exactly why a coupon or a law that lapses uses לְהִתְיַשֵּׁן. The pi'el, hif'il and passive moulds stay empty for this root: that is normal, not every root fills all seven.

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 old: what has aged

יָשָׁן
yashan
old (as opposed to new)
קָטָל
נוֹשָׁן
noshan
very old, obsolete, antiquated
נוֹקָל

② The sleepy: the state of sleep

יַשְׁנוּנִי
yashnuni
sleepy, drowsy
קַטְנוּנִי

Decode it yourself

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