1. The first stem is the parent stem qal, so called because of its lightness, for it has neither a dagesh nor any added letter as its identifying sign. For all the other stems—both the parent stems and their derivatives—each has a distinct sign, whether a dagesh, or the addition of one or two letters together with a dagesh, as you will see in the table of stems, God willing.

2. And the essential function of this qal stem is to indicate one who performs an action upon another. In the Ashkenazic tongue: di tetige gatung. That is to say, most of the verbs in this stem are transitive verbs. And we may say that for this reason the language assigned to every verb three root letters: two of them are required for the action itself—for no verb consists of fewer than two letters—and the third letter indicates the one to whom the action is directed. Therefore, verbs of the class with a quiescent middle letter are indeed intransitive verbs, since they have only two active letters, such as qam, shav, sar, rats, ram. And thus most complete verbs are transitive, though a few are found that are intransitive, such as halakh, yashav, ‘amad, shakhan, yashen, shakhav, saḥaq, ka‘as, bakhah. And there are signs by which these may be recognized: namely, that neither the passive form nor the nif‘al stem applies to them; likewise, none of the words that indicate a direct object can follow them, such as et, oto, oti, otkha, and the like. Nor do they combine with pronominal suffixes, such as yeshiveni, ‘amadeni, ‘amadahu, and similar forms. Yet the truth is that in all these signs there are exceptions to the rule.

Therefore I shall give a sign by which one may easily distinguish them, and it is this: for every verb before which the word mah (“what”) can properly be placed is a transitive verb, such as mah shamar, mah akhal, mah shatah, and the like. But with intransitive verbs it is not appropriate to say mah, for it is not possible to say mah yashav, mah ‘amad, mah yashen, mah bakhah.

3. And know that there are roots which are sometimes transitive and sometimes intransitive. For example: “hafakh libbam lisno ‘ammo” (Psalms 105:25) is transitive, for its meaning is that the Holy One, blessed be He, turned their heart. But “ve-ish Yisrael hafakh” (Judges 20:41) is intransitive. Likewise, “asher ḥalaq Elohekha la-‘ammim” (Deuteronomy 4:19) is transitive, whereas “ḥalaq libbam” (Hosea 7) is intransitive — and there are others besides these.