Thegrammar of thePersian language is similar to that of many otherIndo-European languages. The language became a moreanalytic language around the time ofMiddle Persian, with fewercases and discardinggrammatical gender. The innovations remain inModern Persian, which is one of the few Indo-European languages to lack grammatical gender, even in pronouns.
While Persian has a standardsubject-object-verb (SOV) word order, it is not stronglyleft-branching. However, because Persian is apro-drop language, the subject of a sentence is often not apparent until the end of the verb, at the end of a sentence.
The main clause precedes a subordinate clause, often using the familiar Indo-European subordinatorke ("which").
The interrogative particleâyâ (آیا), that asks ayes–no question, in written Persian, appears at the beginning of a sentence.Grammatical modifiers, such as adjectives, normally follow the nouns they modify by using theezâfe (اضافه), but they occasionally precede nouns. Persian is one of the few SOV languages to useprepositions. The only case marker in the written language,râ (را) (in the spoken language,ـ روro orـوo), follows a definite direct object noun phrase.
Normal sentences are subject-prepositional phrase-object-verb. If the object is specific, the order is(S) (O +râ) (PP) V. However, Persian can have a relatively free word order, often calledscrambling, because the parts of speech are generally unambiguous, and prepositions and the accusative marker help to disambiguate the case of a given noun phrase. The scrambling characteristic has allowed Persian a high degree of flexibility for versification and rhyming.
In the literary language, no definite article ("the") is used; rather, it is implied by the absence of the indefinite article ("a, an"). However, in the spoken language, the stressed suffixـه-e or-a is often used as a definite article.-e is mostly used in urban areas and-a is mostly used in rural areas. The first one is in newer dialects and the second one is in older dialects. The consonants and vowels changed throughout history.
For plural nouns, the definite plural markerـها-hâ functions as both the plural marker and the definite article.
The indefinite article in both spoken and literary Persian is the number one,یکyek, often shortened toیهye.
Persian nouns and pronouns have no grammatical gender.
All nouns can be made plural by the suffixـها-hâ, which follows a noun and does not change its form. Plural forms are used less often than inEnglish and are not used after numbers orزیادziyâd "many" orبسیار(ی)besyâr(i).ـها-hâ is used only when the noun has no numbers before it and is definite.
In the spoken language, when nouns or pronouns end with a consonant,-hâ is reduced to-â .
In the literary language, animate nouns generally use the suffixـان-ân (or variantsـگان-gân andـیان-yân) for plurals, butـها-hâ is more common in the spoken language.[1]
Nouns adopted from Arabic usually have special plurals, formed with the endingـات-ât or bychanging the vowels. (E.g.کِتابketâb /کُتُبkotob for "book/books".) Arabic nouns can generally take Persian plural endings, but the original form is sometimes more common. The most common plural form depends on the individual word. (Cf. "indexes" vs. "indices" in English for the plural of a word adopted from Latin.)
There are three cases in Persian:nominative (or subject) case,vocative case andaccusative (or object) case. The nominative is the unmarked form of a noun, but the vocative and accusative cases use the suffixesا "â" and "را "râ" (andرو "ro" orـو "o" inTehrani accent, sometimes -a inDari accent), respectively. The other oblique cases are marked by prepositions.
Inanimate subjects do not require plural verb forms, especially in the spoken language:ketâbhâ unjâst ('the books "is" there').
Persian is anull-subject or pro-drop language, so personal pronouns (e.g. 'I', 'he', 'she') are optional. Pronouns addrâ when they are used as the object but otherwise stay the same. The first-person singular accusative formمن راman râ 'me' can be shortened tomarâ or, in the spoken language,mano. Pronominal genitive enclitics (see above) are different from normal pronouns, however.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | manمَن | mâما |
| 2nd | tōتو | şomâشُما |
| 3rd | ūاو (human) ânآن (non-human), veyوِى* (human only, literary) | ânhâآنها (non-human/human), işânایشان (human only and formal) |
* rarely used
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | manمَن | mâما |
| 2nd | toتو | šomâشُما |
| 3rd | uاو işânایشان* (honorary) | ânhâ/ânânآنها/آنان (normal), işânایشان (honorary) |
* uses 3rd personplural verb form
Persian resemblesRomance languages likeFrench in that the second person plural pronounšomâ is used as a polite form of address. Persianto is used among intimate friends (the so-calledT–V distinction).[2]
Possession is often expressed by adding suffixes to nouns; the same suffixes can also be used as object pronouns. For the third person these are gender-neutral (unlike in English); for example,کتابشketâbaš could mean 'his book' or 'her book'.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | -amـَم | -emânـِمان |
| 2nd | -atـَت | -etânـِتان |
| 3rd | -ašـَش | -ešânـِشان |
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | -amـَم | -emunـِمون |
| 2nd | -etـِت | -etunـِتون |
| 3rd | -ešـِش | -ešunـِشون |
Examples:
When the stem to which they are added ends in a vowel, ay is inserted for ease of pronunciation. However, with the plural marker ـها-hâ, it is also common in Iranian dialects to drop the-a-/-e- stem from the possessive marker. For example, 'my cars' could be translated as eitherماشینهایمmâšinhâyam with the-y- orماشینهامmâšinhâm. It can be simplified even more to the colloquial spoken form by droppingh, for ease of pronunciation, toماشینامmâšinâm. Sometimes,ها-hâ is written attached to the word:ماشینهاmâšinhâ.
Another way of expressing possession is by using subject pronouns or a noun phrase withezâfe. Although in the third person this implies a change of person. These can also never be used as a possessive or direct object within a clause in which the same is the subject of the verb.
Object pronouns are the same as subject pronouns (followed by the postposition راrâ), but objects can also be marked with the possessive determiners described above, which get attached to the verbs instead of nouns and don't need the postposition; consider the example "Yesterday I saw him" shown below.
| Transliteration | Persian | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| diruzu râ didam | دیروز او را دیدَم | Postposition راrâ needed when using a subject pronoun as an object pronoun. |
| diruz didamaš | دیروز دیدَمَش | No postposition needed; possessive determiner attached to the verb. |
The demonstrative pronouns areاین (in, this) andآن (ân, that) respectively. Their plural forms can beاینها (inhâ, these) andآنها (ânhâ, those) for inanimate nouns, orاینان (inân, these) andآنان (ânân, those) for animate nouns. Note thatآن andآنها are also used as third-person subject pronouns.
Demonstratives can also be combined with the indefinite pronounsیکی (yeki, one) andیکیها (yekihâ, ones) to give:این یکی (in yeki, this one),آن یکی (ân yeki, that one),این یکیها (in yekihâ, these ones) andآن یکیها (ân yekihâ, those ones).
Adjectives typically follow the nouns they modify, using theezâfe construct. However, adjectives can precede nouns in compounded derivational forms such asxoš-baxt (literally 'good-luck') 'lucky', andbad-kâr (literally 'bad-deed') 'wicked'. Adjectives can come in any different orders after a noun and in this case adjectives that come at the end have more emphasis.[citation needed]Comparative forms ('more ...') make use of the suffix-tar (تَر), and thesuperlative form ('the most ...') uses the suffix-tarin (تَرین).
Comparatives used attributively follow the nouns they modify, but superlatives precede their nouns.
The word 'than' is expressed by the prepositionاز (az):
سگ
sag-e
من
man
از
az
گربهٔ
gorbe-ye
تو
to
کوچکتر
kučektar
است
ast
سگ من از گربهٔ تو کوچکتر است
sag-e man az gorbe-ye to kučektar ast
'my dog is smaller than your cat'
Normal verbs can be formed using the following pattern:
NEG – DUR or SUBJ/IMPER – root – PAST – PERSON – OBJ
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | ـَم -am | ـیم -im |
| 2nd | ـی -i | ـید -id |
| 3rd | ـَد -ad* | ـَند -and |
* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (e.g. رفتraft, not رفتد*raftad)
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | ـَم -am | ـیم -im |
| 2nd | ـی -i | ـید/ـین -id/-in |
| 3rd | ـه -e* | ـَن -an |
* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (رفتraft, not رفته*rafte)
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | ـَم -am | ـِمان -emân |
| 2nd | ـَت -at | ـِتان -etân |
| 3rd | ـَش -aš | ـِشان -ešân |
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | ـَم -am | ـِمون -emun |
| 2nd | ـِت -et | ـِتون -etun |
| 3rd | ـِش -eš | ـِشون -ešun |
Here are the most commontenses:
Theinfinitive ending is formed with ـَن (-an): خوردنxordan 'to eat'. The basic stem of the verb is formed by deleting this ending: خوردxord.
Thepast tense is formed by deleting the infinitive ending and adding the personal endings to the stem. In the third person singular, however, there is no personal ending so خوردنxordan would become خوردxord, 'he/she/it ate'.
Theimperfect tense is made by taking the past tense as described above and prefixing it with میmî-, thus میخوردمmîxordam 'I was eating', 'I used to eat'. This tense can also have a conditional meaning: 'I would eat', 'I would have eaten'.
Theperfect tense is formed by taking the stem of the verb, adding ـهe to the end and then adding the different persons of the present tense of 'to be'. So خوردنxordan in the perfect first person singular would be خوردهامxordeam 'I have eaten' and the 3rd person singular would become خورده استxorde ast. However, in the spoken form,ast is omitted, making خوردهxorde 's/he has eaten".
Thepluperfect tense is formed by taking the stem of the perfect, e.g. خوردهxorde, adding بودbud, and finally adding the personal endings: خورده بودمxorde budam 'I had eaten'. In the third person singular, بودbud is added (with no ending).
Thefuture tense is formed by taking the present tense form of خواستنxâstan 'to want', and conjugating it to the correct person; this verb in third person singular is خواهدxâhad. Next, it is put in front of the shortened infinitive of the verb, e.g. خوردxord, thus خواهد خوردxâhad xord 'he/she/it will eat'. For compound verbs, such as تمیز کردنtamiz kardan 'to clean', خواهدxâhad goes in between both words, and کردنkardan is reduced to its stem, thus تمیز خواهد کردtamiz xâhad kard 'he/she/it will clean'. In the negative, خواهدxâhad receives نـna- to make نخواهد خوردnaxâhad xord 'he will not eat'. The future tense is generally avoided in colloquial Persian.
Thepresent tense is formed by taking the present stem of the verb, adding the prefix میmî-, and conjugating it. The present stem is often not predictable from the infinitive and so is to be learnt separately. The present stem of the verb خوردنxordan 'to eat' for example, is خورxor, so the present first person singular would be میخورمmîxoram 'I eat, am eating, do eat'. The third person singular ending is ـد-ad. The negative نـ is pronouncedne- beforemî-, but in all other tenses, it is pronouncedna-. Frequently the present tense is used together with an adverb (for example: فرداfardâ 'tomorrow') instead of the future tense described above.
The present subjunctive is made by changing the prefixmî- of the present tense to بـbe- orbo- (before a verb with the vowelo):بخورمboxoram 'I may eat, let me eat',بنويسمbenevisam 'I may write', 'let me write'.
Light verbs such as کردنkardan 'to do, to make' are often used with nouns to form what is called acompound verb,light verb construction, orcomplex predicate. For example, the word گفتگوgoftegu means 'conversation', while گفتگو کردنgoftegu kardan 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.kardan) is conjugated; the word preceding it is not affected:
Other examples of compound verbs withkardan:
In the spoken language, certain commonly used verbs are pronounced in a shortened form:
Prepositions in Persian generally behave like in English and precede their object. They come in two kinds: the basic prepositions such asdar 'in', which are placed directly before the noun or pronoun without anezâfe, and a more numerous class, made from nouns or adverbs joined to the following noun by anezâfe (-e or-ye). They include the following:
