I must admit, Dave, that that's not how I see the 'hole':Basic G-stem Emphatic D-stem Causative H-stemactive qal pi'el hiph'ilpassive qal passive pu'al hoph'alreflexive/middle niph'al (? hithpa'al) hithpa'el hishtaph'elAs I see it the question is whether here was an original hithpa'al as a qal reflexive, perhaps replaced into the hithpa'el as the qal passive was by the niph'al. But the connection between the H-stem causatives and SH-stem in oher Semitic languages is supposed to be strong. So perhaps the pre-NWS system had a shaph'ala for a hiph'il.
That fits much better with the Arabic system:Basic G-stem Emphatic D-stem Reciprocating Causative H-stemactive fa'ala fa''ala fâ'ala 'af'alapassive fu'ila fu''ila fû'ila 'uf'ilareflexive/middle infa'ala / ifta'ala tafa''ala tafâ'ala istaf'alaIn fact the N-stem can probably be better seen as a separate agent-less passive pattern that replaced the qal passive at some point than specifically tied to the qal.
BTW, we are speaking of the pre-history of Hebrew here - athough the qal passive seems to be well attested in the Biblical text, the hishtaph'el was obviously no longer a productive stem by Biblical Hebrew times.
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