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How Persian packages meaning
Persian grammar at a glance
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Common questions about Persian
What is the Persian ezafe?
The ezafe (اضافه) is an unstressed vowel -e (-ye after vowels) that links a noun to whatever modifies it: کتابِ خوب (kitāb-e khub, 'good book' = 'book-of-good'), کتابِ من (kitāb-e man, 'my book' = 'book-of-me'). It chains nouns to adjectives, nouns to nouns, and possessors to possessed. Without the ezafe, words sit next to each other unrelated.
What does را do in Persian?
را (rā) is a particle that follows a direct object when that object is specific or definite. 'کتاب خواندم' (I read a book) takes no rā; 'کتاب را خواندم' (I read the book) requires it. This is differential object marking — only specific/definite direct objects get marked. Indefinite or generic objects appear bare. Spanish 'a' before personal direct objects works similarly.
Is Persian SOV like Hindi?
Persian is SOV — subject before object before verb. 'من کتاب را میخوانم' = 'I book ACC read' = 'I read the book'. Hindi is also SOV. But Persian uses prepositions (به 'to', از 'from', در 'in') while Hindi uses postpositions. Persian is mixed-headed: verb-final at the clause but noun phrases are head-initial. Hindi is uniformly head-final.
Does Persian have grammatical gender?
No. Persian has no grammatical gender — neither nouns nor pronouns mark gender. The pronoun او means 'he', 'she', or 'they' (singular) depending on context. Adjectives and verbs don't change for gender. This is unusual for an Indo-European language; most kept gender. Modern Persian lost it through historical change.
Why do Persian verbs come at the end but prepositions before nouns?
Persian is mixed-headed. In the clause, the head (verb) sits at the end, so it's head-final at the clause level. But within noun phrases, modifiers follow the head via the ezafe, so it's head-initial there. Prepositions, as one type of head, also precede their complement. Persian inherited a mostly head-initial Indo-European structure but innovated SOV clause order, leaving a typologically rare hybrid.
Sources for Persian
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Mahootian, Shahrzad. 1997. Persian (Descriptive Grammars). London: Routledge.
- Yousef, Saeed. 2018. Persian: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge.
- Lazard, Gilbert. 1992. A Grammar of Contemporary Persian. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers.
- Windfuhr, Gernot L. 1979. Persian Grammar: History and State of its Study. The Hague: Mouton.