From Appendix A of the Etymological Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (EDBH), pages 293-294:
Letter interchange: phonetic cognates
Readers of Hebrew long ago recognized that various roots are related to one another. Often this relationship is established by identifying interchanging consonants and creating what might be called Phonetic Cognates••• In grammatical terms these are called homorganic consonants•••
Hirsch develops the analysis of homorganic consonants further by identifying five categories of consonants, each representing a different order of intensity of action (see, for example, Gn 1:11, 2:5, 3:6, 7:1). /comment: Hirsch wrote in the nineteenth century. Many linguists today use the same categories Hirsch used, Guttural, Palatal, Dental, Labial, and Sibilant. These categories are based on the part of the vocal organ (throat, palate, teeth, and lips, and blowing/hissing) is used to make the sound.
The Cognate Meaning, then, is the concept or similarity among the words. Understanding these conceptual interactions is how one begins to expand one’s mind, one’s thought processes, to see where some of the differences in Hebrew vs. Greek thinking apply. See Post #3, Hebrew Thought.
A brief sharing of ברא, from p.31 of EDBH, the first example listed on p.294 above:
As discussed before, you see the word, its definitions, its uses, its family of Gradational Variants, its Cognate Meaning, and its Phonetic Cognates. You see the short definition of each of the phonetic cognates, and you see how it is mind-expanding to seek the common denominator among the cognates (Hirsch has done most of the work for us, but it is a great dementia-preventing exercise to read through the cognates to see how the words are associated).
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created (h1254. בָּרָא ḇârâ’) the heavens and the earth.
Thus, to create is to actualize something that was previously constrained within the mind, whether the mind of God, or the mind of man. And the first cognate listed is p.206 פרח to blossom; to grow. A blossom is something that emerges from the constraints of the bud. You see how the process works.
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