Persian grammar

Word order

While Persian has a standard subject-object-verb (SOV) word order, it is not strongly left-branching. However, because Persian is a pro-drop language, the subject of a sentence is often not apparent until the end of the verb, at the end of a sentence.

Persian in some ways resembles an object-verb-subject (OVS) language, especially for second-language learners. Verb endings can be thought of as a form of pronoun.

The main clause precedes a subordinate clause, often using the familiar Indo-European subordinator ke ("that").

The interrogative particle āyā (آیا), that asks a yes-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 the ezāfe, but they occasionally precede nouns. Persian is one of the few SOV languages to use prepositions. The only case marker in the written language, rā (را) (in the spoken language, ro or o), follows a definite direct object noun phrase.

Normal sentences are subject-preposition-object-verb. If the object is specific, the order is '(S) (O + rā) (PP) V'. However, Persian can have a relatively free word order, often called scrambling, 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.

Articles

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 suffix -e is often used as a definite article.

For plural nouns, the definite plural marker ها hā functions as both the plural marker and the definite article.

The indefinite article in both spoken and literary Persian is the number one, یک yek, often shortened to ye.

Gender

Persian nouns and pronouns have no grammatical gender. Arabic loanwords with the feminine ending ة- reduce to a genderless Persian ه-, which is pronounced -e.

Many borrowed Arabic feminine words retain their Arabic feminine plural form -āt, but Persian descriptive adjectives modifying them have no gender. Arabic adjectives also lose their gender in Persian.

Plural

All nouns can be made plural by the suffix ها-‹hā›, which follows a noun and does not change its form. Plural forms are used less often than in English and are not used after numbers or زیاد ziād 'many' or بسیار(ی) "besyār(ī). -hā 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, -hā is reduced to -ā .

In the literary language, animate nouns generally use the suffix -ān (or variants -gān and -yān) for plurals, but -hā is more common in the spoken language.

Nouns borrowed from Arabic usually have special plurals, formed with the ending -āt or by changing the vowels. 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.

Cases

There are two cases in Persian: nominative (or subject) case and accusative (or object) case. The nominative is the unmarked form of a noun, but when the noun is followed by a rā or suffix -o, it is in the accusative. The other oblique cases are marked by prepositions.

Inanimate subjects do not require plural verb forms, especially in the spoken language: ketābhā unjāst ('the books "is" there').

Subject pronouns

Persian is a null-subject, or pro-drop, language so personal pronouns (e.g. 'I', 'he', 'she') are optional. Pronouns add rā when they are used as the object but otherwise stay the same. The first-person singular accusative form من را man rā 'me' can be shortened to marā or, in the spoken language, mano. Pronominal genitive enclitics (see above) are different from normal pronouns, however.

* rarely used

* uses 3rd person plural verb form

Persian resembles French in that the second person plural pronoun 'shomā' is used as a polite form of address. Persian 'to' is used among intimate friends (the so-called T–V distinction). However, Persian also resembles Hindustani in that the third person plural form, with the pronoun ishun, is used for politeness to refer to one person, especially in the presence of that person:

Possessive determiners

Possession is often expressed by adding suffixes to nouns. The same suffixes are used as object pronouns.

Examples:

When the stem to which they are added ends in a vowel, a y is inserted for ease of pronunciation. However, with the plural marker ها, it is also common to drop the -a/-e stem from the possessive marker. For example, 'my cars' could be translated as either ماشین هایم (māshinhāyam) with the y-stem or ماشین هام (māshinhām). It can be simplified even more to the colloquial spoken form by dropping h, for ease of pronunciation, to ماشینام (māshinām). Sometimes, ها is written attached to the word: ماشینها.

Ezāfe

Another way of expressing possession is by using subject pronouns or a noun phrase with ezāfe.

Object pronouns

The object pronouns are the same as the possessive pronouns but are attached to verbs instead of nouns: 'Yesterday I saw him.'

Adjectives

Adjectives typically follow the nouns they modify, using the ezāfe construct. However, adjectives can precede nouns in compounded derivational forms such as khosh-bakht (literally 'good-luck') 'lucky', and bad-kār (literally 'bad-deed') 'wicked'. Comparative forms ('more ...') make use of the suffix -tar (تَر), and the superlative 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 preposition از (az):

Verbs

Normal verbs can be formed using the following pattern:

NEG - DUR or SUBJ/IMPER - root - PAST - PERSON - OBJ

* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (e.g. raft رفت , not *raftad رفتد)

* In the past tense, the past stem alone is used without any ending (raft رفت, not *rafte رفته)

Tenses

Here are the most common tenses:

Infinitive

The infinitive ending is formed with ن- (-an): خوردن (khordan) 'to eat'. The basic stem of the verb is formed by deleting this ending: خورد (khord).

Past

The past 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 خوردن (khordan) would become خورد (khord), 'he/she/it ate'.

Imperfect

The imperfect tense is made by taking the past tense as described above and prefixing it with 'می' (mi-), thus ميخوردم (mikhordam) 'I was eating', 'I used to eat'. This tense can also have a conditional meaning: 'I would eat', 'I would have eaten'.

Perfect

The perfect tense is formed by taking the stem of the verb, adding ه (e) to the end and then adding the different persons of the present tense of 'to be'. So خوردن (khordan) in the perfect first person singular would be خورده ام (khorde am) 'I have eaten' and the 3rd person singular would become خورده است (khorde ast). However, in the spoken form, ast is omitted, making خورده (khorde) 's/he has eaten'.

Pluperfect

The pluperfect tense formed by taking the stem of the perfect, e.g. خورده (khorde), adding بود (bud), and finally adding the personal endings: 'خورده بودم' (khorde budam), 'I had eaten'. In the third person singular, بود bud is added (with no ending).

Future

The future tense is formed by taking the present tense form of 'خواستن' (khāstan), to want, and conjugating it to the correct person; this verb in third person singular is 'خواهد' (khāhad). Next, it is put in front of the shortened infinitive of the verb, e.g. خورد (khord), thus خواهد خورد (khāhad khord) 'he/she/it will eat'. For compound verbs, such as تمیز کردن (tamiz kardan) 'to clean', خواهد goes in between both words, and کردن is reduced to its stem, thus تمیز خواهد کرد (tamiz khāhad kard) 'he/she/it will clean'. In the negative, 'خواهد' receives ن. na- to make نخاهد خورد nakhāhad khord 'he will not eat'. The future tense is generally avoided in colloquial Persian.

Present

The present tense is formed by taking the present stem of the verb, adding the prefix 'می' (mi-), 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 خوردن (khordan) 'to eat' for example, is خور (khor), so the present first person singular would be می خورم (mikhoram) 'I eat, am eating, do eat'. The third person singular ending is د- (-ad). The negative -ن is pronounced ne before mī, but in all other tenses, it is pronounced na. Frequently the present tense is used together with an adverb (for example: فردا fardā 'tomorrow') instead of the future tense described above.

Present subjunctive

The present subjunctive is made by changing the prefix mi- of the present tense to be- or bo- (before a verb with the vowel o): بخورم bokhoram 'I may eat', 'let me eat', بنويسم benevisam 'I may write', 'let me write'.

Compound verbs

Light verbs such as کردن (kardan) '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 گفتگو (goftegu) means 'conversation', while گفتگو کردن (goftegu 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 with kardan:

Auxiliary verbs

Simplified spoken verbs

In the spoken language, certain commonly used verbs are pronounced in a shortened form:

Prepositions

Prepositions in Persian generally behave like in English and precede their object. They come in two kinds: the basic prepositions such as dar 'in', which are placed directly before the noun or pronoun without an ezāfe, and a more numerous class, made from nouns or adverbs joined to the following noun by an ezāfe (-e or -ye). They include the following: