This is a hollow root: its middle letter ו is a vowel-carrier, so the three consonants are felt more than seen. One idea runs through all of it: coming back. Come back in space (return), come back in time (again), send something back (reply, feedback), or come back to yourself morally (repentance). The most loaded word in the family, teshuva, is at once an answer, a solution, and the turning-back of the soul. Every word here is 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.
Because the root is hollow (middle ו), the vowel inside the verb does the heavy lifting: lashuv with a long u for coming back yourself, lehashiv with an i for sending something back. The pa'al is intransitive (you return), the hif'il is causative-transitive (you return a thing or a reply). The other binyanim are not lexicalized for this 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.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.