Since you only want the ones that are contained in both files, you only need one hash, containing a hash or an array (your choice, really) for each infinitive found. Then go through the hash and output all those that have both parts filled.

#!/usr/bin/perl

my %k; # hash to hold infinitives and their other parts

process( 'thirdperson', 'file1');
process( 'past', 'file2');

for (keys %k){
    if( $k{$_}{thirdperson} and $k{$_}{past} ){
        print "$_\t$k{$_}{thirdperson}\t$k{$_}{past}\n";
    }
}

sub process {
    my $part = shift;
    my $filename = shift;
    open my $fn, '<', $filename or die $!;
    while(<$fn>){
        chomp;
        my($other, $infinitive) = split /\t/;
        $k{$infinitive}{$part} = $other;
    }
    close $fn;
}

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I used a hash of hashes, because I thought that would make what I was doing clearer. Each hash within %k is only printed if it contains values for both keys 'thirdperson' and 'past'. But you could also use a two-element array, as long as you keep track of which form of the verb goes in which numbered element.

Edited to add: The unix command 'join' also does this, printing lines from multiple files that share a common field. Both files have to be sorted first by the field being compared, though.

sort -k2 -o file1 file1
sort -k2 -o file2 file2
join -j 2 -t '       ' file1 file2  # inserted a tab between the quote
+s with Ctrl-V

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In reply to Re: script to merge files by aaron_baugher
in thread script to merge files by marylein

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