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#4Persian by Luke
PersianEnglish

استرالیا کیسه‌داران زیادی زندگی می‌کنند و همچنین گونه های زیادی مختلف جانورانی را که فقط در این مکان زندگی میکنند ‪.‬

Dar Ostorâliyâ kisedârâne ziâdi zendegi mikonand va hamchenin gunehâye ziâdiye mokhtalefe jânvarâni ke faqat dar in mekân zendegi mikonand.

Many marsupials live in Australia, and in addition many different types of animals live only in this place

dar ostorâliyâ kise-dâr-ân-e ziâd-i zende-gi mi-kon-and va hamchenin gune-hâ-ye ziâd-i-e mokhtalef-e jânvar-an-i ke faqat dar in mekân zende-gi mi-kon-and

in australia pocket-possessor-PL.ANIM-EZ much-ADJ alive-NMZ IPFV-do.PRES-3pl and in_addition type-PL-EZ much-ADJ-EZ different-EZ animal-PL.ANIM-RESTR REL only in this place alive-NMZ IPFV-do.PRES-3pl

VOCAB

  • Dar - (prep) in
  • Hamchenin - (adv) in addition, also
  • Faqat - (adv) Only, just
  • Gune - (n) type, kind
  • In - (den) This
  • Ke - relative pronoun
  • Kisedâr - (n) Marsupial
  • Makân - (n, emkân) place
  • Mokhtalef - (adj) different
  • Ostorâliya - (n) Australia
  • Va - (conj) and
  • Zendegi kardan - (v, kon) live (somewhere)
  • Ziâdi - (adj) many

GRAMMAR

SYNTAX:

  • The preferred word order is overwhelmingly SOV.
  • General order is a mix between head-initial and head-final, with it being quite difficult to pick one that’s more dominating. Adjectives generally come after their nouns (see EZÂFE), relative clauses are right branching, prepositions are by far the most common adposition.

NOUNS

  • Nouns have little case marking to speak of besides a direct object-marking clitic, =râ.
  • Nouns can mark for plurality in 3 distinct ways:
    • the suffix -ân, used for animate nouns (not used colloquially)
    • the suffix -hâ, used for inanimate nouns
    • apophony (in Arabic loanwords, plurals given in vocal due to inconsistency)

EZÂFE

Persian nouns often take a curious little suffix called ezâfe (-e after consonants, -ye after vowels) which can be used to link a variety of things, including:

  • nouns with adjectives
  • adjectives with other adjectives
  • possessed items with their possessor

VERBS

Persian verbs have 2 stems: the past and the present. The past is used in, well, past tenses, and also in the formation in the infinitive. The present stem is used in present tenses and many derivations. Though most verbs follow relatively predictable stem alterations, none featured here do. As such, the present stem is given here, with the past tense being found by removing the -an from any given infinitive (this is 100% consistent).

In addition, verbs mark for the subject of a sentence, and with the exception of the third person singular these endings can apply across all tenses, aspects, and moods.

SGPL
1-am-im
2-i-id
3-∅/ad*-and

*-∅ applies in past tenses, -ad applies in present tenses.

Most verbs take the prefix mi- for the imperfective and nothing for the perfect, with 2 exceptions, those being budan “to be” and dâshtan “to have” which take no prefix for the imperfective, and must be differentiated between by their stem alterations.

The general pattern for deriving new verbs is by taking a noun and then placing the verb kardan “to do” afterwards. With these verbs, “kardan” is conjugated in its regular pattern and the noun is simply left alone, but generally unable to have anything between it and the verb.