From: farhad@cwi.nl (Farhad Arbab)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: Re: Why Tashdid?
Date: 27 Jan 93 12:07:16 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam

In article <1993Jan25.152334.5732@fmg.bt.co.uk>, ghbr@fmg.bt.co.uk (Hossein Bagherzadeh Rafsanjani) writes:

|> Farhad Arbab suggests that "nakhostin" is used for the "prime".  But

True.

|>                                                                  But
|> it appears that the use of "-in" ending is common in other ordinals
|> too (dovvomin, sevvomin).  The difference seems to be only in the
|> words order: dovvomin pelleh = pelleh-ye dovvom.  

NOT TRUE!

|> 
|> Yes!  pelleh, tappeh and bachcheh (auch!) are other exampels of the
|> use of tashdeed in Farsi - even though some of them may have also been
|> used without tashdeed (tapeh).

Yes, thank you.  There are also the adjectives "darrandeh/darandeh,
parrandeh/parandeh, borrandeh/borandeh, zarrin/zarin, etc." and,
of course the noun "farr" etc.

|> 
|> -hossein

To clarify the "NOT TRUE!" above, I quote from my previous post:

	          ...                                   The suffix "in"
	in Persian turns nouns into adjectives: "nokhost" is a noun, but
	"nokhostin" is an adjective.  From the ordinal numbers "nokhost,
	dovvom, sevvom, chAhArom, etc." we get "nokhostin, dovvomin,
	sevvomin, chAhAromin, etc." [which are adjectives, not nouns
	anymore].

Once more, the ordinal numbers in Persian are "nokhost, dovvom,
sevvom, chAhArom, etc."  They are nouns (as you would expect).
The words "nokhostin, dovvomin, sevvomin, chAhAromin, etc." are
NOT ordinal numbers, and are NOT synonyms for ordinal numbers
either.  They are ADJECTIVES derived from their corresponding
ordinal numbers by adding the suffix "in" to them (which is a
general rule for deriving adjectives from nouns in Persian).

Although one may be tempted to casually consider "nokhost bachcheh, dovvom
pelleh, chAhArom tappeh, etc." to be equivalents to "nokhostin bachcheh,
dovvomin pelleh, chAhAromin tappeh, etc." SEMANTICALLY and GRAMMATICALLY
they are NOT!  The pairs in the first sequence, each consists of TWO
NOUNS, whereas each pair in the second sequence is an ADJECTIVE
and a NOUN.

Now for "dovvomin pelleh" vs. "pelleh-ye dovvom": THEY ARE NOT THE SAME
EITHER.  The first is an adjective-noun pair, as I mentioned above.
The second is indeed an alternative (more frequently used in today's
Persian) form of "dovvom pelleh" which is a pair of nouns.  In Persian
grammar "dovvom pelleh" and "pelleh-ye dovvom" are called "mozAf and
mozAfon-elayh" (a noun modifier for another noun) whereas "dovvomin
pelleh" is "sefat and mosoof" (adjective and noun). [Purists: excuse the
use of the more familiar Arabic terms to describe Persian grammar!]

In both types of constructs ("mozAf and mozAfon-elayh" as well as
"sefat and mosoof") it is grammatically allowed in Persian to reverse
the order of the modifier and the modified.  When the modifier comes
first, the construct is simply the two words only.  For example, "Abi
AsemAn, dovvomin pelleh, zanjeer halgheh, boland tappeh, rangin sofreh,
etc."  But when the modified comes first, it is necessary to add an
"eh" suffix to it (which depending on the last letter of the modified
word, it may have to be pronounced as "ye").  For example, "AsemAn-eh
Abi, pelleh-ye dovvom, halgheh-ye zanjeer, tappeh-ye boland, sofreh-ye
rangin, etc." are the exact equivalents of the previous sequence
(some of which are "mozAf and mozAfon-elayh" and others are
"sefat and mosoof").

I hope this bit of Persian grammar helps.


Cheers,

Farhad Arbab
Interactive Systems
Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science
Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Email: farhad@cwi.nl                    Fax:   +31 20 592-4199
Phone: +31 20 592-4056                  Telex: 12571 mactr nl
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian,talk.politics.mideast