Persian grammar

Persian grammar is similar to many other Indo-European languages, especially those in the Indo-Iranian family. Since Middle Persian it has had a relatively simple grammar, having no grammatical gender and few case markings.

Word Order

While Persian has a Subject Object Verb (SOV) word order, it is not strongly left-branching. The main clause precedes a subordinate clause. The interrogative particle "āyā" (آیا), which asks a yes/no question, appears at the beginning of a sentence. Modifiers normally follow the nouns they modify, although they can precede nouns in limited uses. The language uses prepositions, uncommon to many SOV languages. The one case marker, "rā" (را), follows the accusative noun phrase.

Normal sentences are structured subject-preposition-object-verb. If the object is specific, then the order is "(S) (O + "rā") (PP) V". However, Persian can have relatively free word order, often called "scrambling." This is because the parts of speech are generally unambiguous, and prepositions and the accusative marker help disambiguate the case of a given noun phrase. This scrambling characteristic has allowed Persian a high degree of flexibility for versification and rhyming.

Nouns

"Main article: Persian nouns"

Persian nouns have no grammatical gender. Persian nouns mark with an accusative marker only for the specific accusative case; the other oblique cases are marked by prepositions. Possession is expressed by special markers: if the possessor appears in the sentence after the thing possessed, the "ezāfe" may be used; otherwise, alternatively, a pronominal genitive enclitic is employed. Inanimate nouns pluralize with "-hā", while animate nouns generally pluralize with "-ān", although "-hā" is also common. [cite book | title=Persian | year=1997 | last=Mahootian | first=Shahrzad | publisher=Routledge | location=London | id=ISBN 0-415-02311-4 | pages=190 ] Special rules exist for some nouns borrowed from Arabic.

Pronouns

Persian is a null-subject, or "pro"-drop language, so nominal pronouns (eg. "I", "he", "she") are optional. Pronouns generally are the same for all cases. The first-person singular accusative form "mæn rā" "me" can be shortened to "mærā". Pronominal genitive enclitics (see above) are different from the normal pronouns, however.

Compound Verbs

Light verbs such as "kærdæn" "to do, to make" are often used with nouns to form what is called a compound verb, light verb construction, or complex predicate. For example, the word "sohbæt" means "conversation", while "sohbæt kærdæn" means "to speak". One may add a light verb after a noun, adjective, preposition, or prepositional phrase to form a compound verb. Only the light verb (e.g "kærdæn") is conjugated; the word preceding it is not affected. For example:

:"dāræm sohbæt mikonæm" ("I am speaking"):"sohbæt kærde æm" ("I have spoken"):"sohbæt khāhæm kærd" ("I will speak")

As can be seen from the examples, the head word (in this case, "sohbæt") remains unchanged throughout the conjugation, and only the light verb "kærdæn" is conjugated. They may be compared to English verb particle constructions, such as "hand down" (leave as an inheritance) and "set up" (arrange), or German compound verbs, such as "radfahren" (to ride by bicycle) and "zurückgehen" (to go back).

Some other examples of compound verbs with "kærdæn" are:

* "fekr kærdæn", "to think"
* "færāmush kærdæn", "to forget"
* "gærye kærdæn", "to cry"
* "telefon kærdæn", "to call, to telephone"
* "tæmir kærdæn", "to fix"

Auxiliary Verbs

*bāyæd - 'must': Not conjugated
*shāyæd - 'might': Not conjugated
*tævānestæn - 'can': Conjugated
*khāstæn - 'want': Conjugated. Subordinating clause is subjunctive
*khāstæn - 'will': Conjugated. Main verb is tenseless

Prepositions

Prepositions in Persian generally behave similarly to those in English – they precede their object. They include the following:

ee also

* Persian language
* Tajik grammar
* Kurdish grammar

References

External links

* [http://128.187.33.4/persian/courses/PRS506/PVClist.html Persian Verb Conjugator]